Hi everyone, Although this is a long (and somewhat fragmented) message, I think it will interest a number of members. Best wishes, Stefanie Rixecker ECOFEM Coordinator ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Thu, 31 May 2001 16:37:46 +0100 From: Jasmin Enayati <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: City Life in June To: "STEFANIE S. RIXECKER" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send reply to: Jasmin Enayati <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: UNED-UK City Life in June The UN General Assembly meets in Special Session this month to review progress on the 1996 Istanbul City Summit and debate new action to deal with the rapid pace of urbanization and the growth in urban poverty and homelessness worldwide. www.lifeonline.org - a multi-media initiative - provides information to audiences around the world about the impact of globalization on the poverty and social development agenda of the Habitat Istanbul+5 meeting in June 2001, as well as the upcoming 10-year review of the 1992 Earth Summit. The tv programmes in TVE's "City Life" series in June include: The triumph of the women shackdwellers of Khayalitsha, in Cape Town, South Africa, who've joined forces to build their own homes; A studio debate on the prospects for the UN review in Barcelona's capital of the Spanish region of Catalonia which provides a blueprint for urban regeneration worldwide; The tragedy facing Palestinian refugee families in Gaza and Lebanon left stranded and stateless by the renewed outbreak of violence in the Middle East; How poverty and discrimination against women in Nepal lead to endemic malnutrition blighting the future of rural and urban generations to come. 'City Life' is broadcast every week on BBC World at the following times (GMT): Thursdays @ 21:30; Fridays @ 08:30, 11:30, 14:30; Saturdays @ 01:30. Further broadcasts in other countries - particularly developing countries - are in discussion. We are grateful for any further promotion that you can give to the broadcast of the series. Programmes can also be watched online at www.lifeonline.org - you'll also find a report on "Urban Governance" produced by Panos; introductory briefing sheets on key international processes produced by UNED Forum; and radio features by Women's Feature Service and InterWorld Radio. May 30 June 1. My Mother Built This House. Victoria Mxenge was the first of the housing projects founded by the South African Homeless People's Federation in the 1990s in Khayalitsha, a huge sprawling township outside Cape Town. A small oasis in a seemingly infinite sea of squatter settlements, the project has several streets of neat houses, a creche, an office built from old, brightly painted shipping containers and a small shop selling basic essentials. Behind it, and beyond the railway line that carries commuters into the city, the endless shacks stretch out to the distant horizon - and the distinctive outlines of Table Mountain. Over 70,000 very poor women belong to the Homeless People's Federation, which was founded to transform the suffering of shack dwellers in South Africa and provide them with the opportunities and choices they'd been denied under apartheid. In this episode of City Life, director Toni Strasburg films the stories of five members of the Federation who've worked to build up enough capital to build their own homes. Friday 1st June @ 08:30 and Saturday 2nd June @ 01:30 N.B The number of transmissions has been reduced, due to a change in the BBC schedule, but this programme will be repeated at a later date. June 7-9. The Barcelona Blueprint Once the industrial heart of the region of Catalonia in Spain, Barcelona could have become just another burnt-out, rust-belt European city that had failed to find a role in the modern, globalized world. But what set Barcelona apart from other European cities was a visionary local government which decided on radical redevelopment of the city in the run-up to the 1992 Olympics a redevelopment that involved all the city's population. The result Barcelona today is a model 21st century city, combining historic buildings with modern architecture in a fusion that has helped make it one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. Filmed in Barcelona, this week's Life coincides with the Special Session of the UN General Assembly in New York held to review progress on the Habitat Agenda, the agreements governments around the world signed up to five years ago at the 1996 UN City Summit in Istanbul. The programme starts with a short tour of the citys seafront and docks with Barcelona's Chief Architect Josep Acebillo and UK architect and urban planner Richard Rogers, before moving on to a studio debate chaired by BBC journalist Steve Bradshaw. Architect Acebillo is joined by Kalpana Sharma, Deputy Editor of the Hindu newspaper in India, Gary Lawrence, former urban planner of the city of Seattle, and Michael Parkes, Director of Habitats Office in Europe who debate what the UN's review will achieve. Thursday 7th June @ 21:30; Friday 8th June @ 08:30, 11:30, 14:30; Saturday 9th June @ 01:30. June 14-16 Gaza Under Siege Gaza Under Siege. One of the most densely populated places on earth, the Gaza Strip is home to a million Palestinians and is a virtual prison. Just 43 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, most of its residents are refugees who've lived in camps since 1948. Since the Palestinian uprising the second Intifada - began in September 2000, none of Gaza's 40,000 day labourers have been able to cross the border to Israel. The checkpoint is also closed to all goods and medical supplies coming in from Israel and the West Bank. Local Gazans bear the brunt of Israel's determination to quash the uprising. Over 500 Palestinian children under the age of 15 have been killed by Israel's Defence soldiers. Their crime? Throwing stones at checkpoints near Israeli settlements. This Life episode films with Reyidh and Sabah and their children - just one refugee family trying to cope. Reyidh hasn't been able to work for nine months, and is now US$3,000 in debt. Already poor, the family has reached breaking point, with Sabah wondering how long life can go on with no solution in sight. Raji Soranj, a human rights lawyer, asks why the United Nations shies away from its responsibilities and fails to criticise Israels aggression and the denial of the Palestinians rights rights laid down in UN resolutions, but ignored by Israel, and it seems, by the rest of the international community. Thursday 14th June @ 21:30; Friday 15th June @ 08:30, 11:30, 14:30; Saturday 16th June @ 01:30. June 21-23 Waiting to Go The second of this two-part series exploring the lives of Palestinian refugees, this Life programme is set in Lebanon, where unofficially - there are 250,000 Palestinian refugees. Barred from working, they also have limited access to medical care and higher education. Many have been in Lebanon for 53 years. A Palestinian doctor working in the PLO-funded Haifa hospital in Burg el Barajneh refugee camp, Beirut, earns US$200 a month, and is glad of the work: shes forbidden work in any Lebanese hospital. Elsewhere young Palestinians dont value education because they see their parents in menial, part-time jobs regardless of their qualifications. For refugees living in south Lebanon, a degree qualifies a person to pick oranges, at a salary of US$6.30 a day. South Lebanons refugees are even prohibited from rebuilding their houses. Those who can get out of Lebanon go to Europe, Canada, USA but they never give up the hope of returning to their villages in Palestine. Adding insult to injury a recent law enacted in Lebanon prohibits Palestinians from owning property though people from any other recognised state can. But Palestinians don't have a state: they are, officially, stateless. Thursday 21st June @ 21:30; Friday 22nd June @ 08:30, 11:30, 14:30; Saturday 23rd June @ 01:30. June 28-30 A Fistful of Rice A Fistful of Rice. Nine out of every 10 children in Nepal suffers some form of malnutrition. Paradoxically, it's because malnutrition is so widespread that it's also invisible, unnoticed. This is particularly true of protein energy malnutrition, or PEM as it's known - a condition officially defined as being short for age, and underweight for age, but which, in reality, is a devastating intergenerational cycle of lost potential, both physical and mental. Undersize young mothers give birth to low birth weight babies who develop into small children who start bearing children when they are just out of childhood themselves, and on and on. This Life episode visits Gayatri, a community mobilizer in Achham, a remote rural region in western Nepal. Just 20 years old, Gayatri is eight months pregnant with her second child. Her job is to help other mothers to identify children who are not developing properly, to analyse the reasons why, and work on solutions together. For some this has been successful, for others - trapped by the caste system and the struggle for mere survival knowing that their child has PEM is as far as they can go. Doing something about it is beyond their control. A Fistful of Rice unravels the complex causes and effects of Protein Energy Malnutrition through the stories of people in Nepal who live with it on a daily basis migrant workers trapped at the bottom of the cash economy in Kathmandu and subsistence farmers in the remote western hill village of Gohilapani. Thursday 28th June @ 21:30; Friday 29th June @ 08:30, 11:30, 14:30; Saturday 30th June @ 01:30. 'Life' is produced by TVE with support from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat); the Department for International Development UK (DFID); the Rockefeller Foundation; The Ford Foundation; Unicef; the Micronutrient Initiative; Health and Sustainable Development, the World Health Organization; and the United Nations Department for Public Information. For further information please contact: Jasmin Enayati Project Co-ordinator UNED Forum 3 Whitehall Court London SW1A 2EL, UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7839 7171 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7930 5893 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web www.unedforum.org and www.earthsummit2002.org CHECK www.lifeonline.org - a multi-media initiative on the impact of globalisation on Urban Environments ------- End of forwarded message ------- ************************************ Dr. Stefanie S. Rixecker, Senior Lecturer Environmental Management & Design Division Lincoln University, Canterbury PO Box 84 Aotearoa New Zealand E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: 64-03-325-3841 ************************************
