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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Pets and women's shelters (PAWS)

Pets and Women’s Shelters (PAWS)™ Program Provides On-Site Housing for Pets, Giving Victims More Reason to Leave Abusive Homes.

Visit For Paws Hospice to learn more about human-animal bond and what you can do to protect companion animals in your community.


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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The American Humane Association's new PAWS™ program links the dual problems of violence against women and children with animal abuse and violence. PAWS is the first national initiative to promote on-site housing of pets at women’s shelters and to acknowledge the human-animal bond, which can be crucial to recovery after a crisis.

The Pets and Women’s Shelters Program (PAWS)™ was created in 2008 by Allie Phillips, director of public policy for American Humane, who frequently witnessed the pain victims go through when they are forced to stay in abusive situations because they fear for their pets’ safety.

Phillips explained, “In the mid-1990s as an assistant prosecutor, my misdemeanor criminal trial docket included many domestic violence cases. Most of those cases never proceeded to trial or resulted in guilty pleas because the victims often failed to appear in court due to fear of retaliation by their batterers. One frequent concern I heard was ‘If I testify or if I do not go back to him, he will kill my pet.’ In nationally training on the Link tor the past four years, and realizing the concerns that family violence shelters might have in housing pets on-site, I decided to do something about it. This has been my passion for years and I’m proud that American Humane supported my vision.”

Between 71 and 85 percent of women entering domestic violence shelters reported that a partner had threatened, injured or killed the family pet, according to a study done in 1997. And more often than not, because of few options for safely housing pets from abusive homes, victims feel they have little choice but to stay and subject themselves, their children and their pets to further violence.

To help quickly spread the program throughout the nation, American Humane has published a Pets and Women’s Shelters (PAWS) Program manual to help shelters assess their needs and provide step-by-step instructions for implementing the program. The ultimate goal of PAWS is to enable more domestic violence victims to leave abusive households without leaving their pets behind and at risk.

In another study done in 2007 in 12 Link-based research studies, results indicated that between 18 and 48 percent of women reported concerns regarding their pets’ safety, and had either delayed leaving abusive homes or remained in abusive homes out of fear of leaving their pets behind.

The PAWS Program acknowledges the unfortunate link between human violence and animal cruelty. But it also recognizes the healing bond pets can provide to people who have endured trauma. American Humane encourages all domestic and family violence shelters across the country to take the necessary steps toward implementing the PAWS Program at their facilities.

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10:11 PM

Friday, October 10, 2008

Veggie Revolution: Ecotourism can buffer the effects of poverty

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3:35 PM

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Whose neighborhood

Gang injunctions; solution or political theatre
The city of San Francisco is known all over the world for its natural beauty, gourmet restaurants, and booming nightlife. When people think about San Francisco, they don’t often think about gang violence. But that’s just what’s been plaguing the city’s mission district for many years.

On this edition, Making Contact intern Joaquin Palomino spoke to former gang members, and other mission residents, about gang injunctions, a controversial legal strategy that’s divided the community. Some call it a solution, but many believe it’s an ineffective measure that does more damage than good.

Greener Magazine

Featuring::


Renee Quinonez, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (H.O.M.E.Y.) executive director; Renee Saucedo, La Raza Centro Legal community activist and lawyer; Dennis Herrera, San Francisco City Attorney; Nancy Hernandez, H.O.M.E.Y. youth mentor; Francisco, Mission resident and artist; Ruben Palomares, Conscious Youth Media Collective student; Mike Trigger, H.O.M.E.Y. artist.

Executive Producer/Host: Tena Rubio
Contributing Intern Producer: Joaquin Palomino
Producer: Andrew Stelzer
Associate Producer: Puck Lo
Interns: Samson Reiny and Elena Botkin-Levy
Executive Director: Lisa Rudman

This program was produced as part of National Radio Project’s internship program. Go to our homepage and click on “Get Involved” to learn more about it.

For more information::
Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth
1337 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-861-1600
http://www.homeysf.org/

La Raza Centro Legal
474 Valencia Street, Suite 295
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-575-3500
http://www.lrcl.org/

PODER
474 Valencia Street #125
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-431-4210
http://www.podersf.org/

Conscious Youth Media Crew
1337 Mission Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-250-5552
cymc2000@yahoo.com
http://www.consciousyouthmediacrew.org/

Homeboy Industries
130 West Bruno Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
323-526-1257
info@homeboy-industries.org
http://www.homeboy-industries.org/

Music:

Lady Tragik: Release my Pain
Native Guns: Hammer
People Under the Stairs: San Francisco Knights

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12:27 PM

Monday, February 18, 2008

A case for Darwinism, the garden mind

Michael Pollan talks about his garden zen and the moment he became aware of corn's plan for world domination.



Greener Magazine

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1:51 PM

Monday, January 07, 2008

The hidden war

A noticeable lack of unembedded reporting on the Iraq war has lead to a corresponding lack of information about the realities of this war. What truths go unreported? Will the Bush administration attack Iran? What will the increased militarization in Pakistan mean for the Middle East? How will the United States government and the people respond?

Victims of US air strike, Balad, March 2006.On this edition, independent journalists David Barsamian and Dahr Jamail tackle Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and our relationship to each of these countries. Hear their provocative conversation
Greener Magazine


An hour-long version of this program is available here.

Featuring::

David Barsamian and Dahr Jamail, book authors and independent journalists.

Music: "Fly Away" Omar Faruk Tekbilek, "Long Wait" Omar Faruk Tekbilek

Senior Producer/Host: Tena Rubio
Associate Producer: Puck Lo
Interns: Samson Reiny, Joaquin Palomino and Elena Botkin-Levy

This show was produced by Elena Botkin-Levy as part of Making Contact’s internship program.

For more information::

David Barsamian
Targeting Iran with Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian, Nahid Mozaffari
City Lights, Booksellers and Publishers
415-362-1901
www.citylights.com

Dahr Jamail
Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
Haymarket Books
773-583-7884
info@haymarketbooks.org
www.haymarketbooks.org

Dahr Jamail’s Mideast Dispatches
mail@dahrjamailiraq.com
www.dahr.org

David Barsamian
Alternative Radio
P.O. Box 551
Boulder, Colorado 80306
800-444-1977 (voice)
info@alternativeradio.org
www.alternativeradio.org

"The Growing Iraqi Refugee Crisis," audio program
Making Contact
www.radioproject.org/archive/2007/4007.html

"The Iran Agenda," audio program
Making Contact
www.radioproject.org/archive/2007/3907.html

Reporters without Borders
Southern Railway Building
1500 K Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
202-256-5613
lucie.morillon@rsf.org
www.rsf.org

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8:42 AM

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Kiva, sounds like hope

Kiva, Loans that change lives. The microloan groundswell that began just 2 years ago is making a difference one loan at a time to small business and individuals worldwide again this year with record numbers of small lenders like you and your neighbor investing as little as $25 at a time.



Kishwer Azam's family business is just one of many helped by these peer to peer loans. Over the months to come we'll report back regularly on how the micro loan has fullfilled its purpose and the experiences of those involved.

From 7 P.M. EST Christmas evening it took less than 45 minutes for the Azam family's loan to be granted from lenders in British Columbia to Columbia, Maryland.

Kishwer's story

I have one son and live with my family in Multan, a medium-sized city in Pakistan. My son is too young to attend school. My husband operates a fruit business that he would like to expand. He is requesting a loan of $250 for this purpose. He intends to buy seasonal fruits in bulk with your loan. We hope we will able to give our child a sound economic future.

Greener Magazine

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7:50 PM

Friday, December 14, 2007

War hurts... more than just lives

War hurts, we've looked at the environmental impact of war many times before this and it's notable that the U.S. Army now mandates a response to the impact of warfare operations on the environment through the U.S. Army Environmental Command, USAEC initiative, but elsewhere war goes on, other countries other conflicts and the record over the years has been dismal, the effects, catostrophic. From the destruction of Dresden during WW II to "Agent Orange" deforestation in Vietnam, the results of man's institutionalized homocide is often equally an act of ecocide.

Modern warfare tactics, as seen in Vietnam, the Rwandan and Congolese civil wars, and the current war in Iraq, have greatly increased the world’s capacity to destroy our natural landscape and produce devastating environmental effects on the planet, according to Sarah DeWeerdt, author of "War and the Environment," January/February 2008 issue of World Watch.

Wartime destruction of the natural landscape is nothing new; however the scope of destruction seen in more recent conflicts is unprecedented. "For one thing, there is the sheer firepower of current weapons technology, especially its shock-and-awe deployment by modern superpowers. The involvement of guerrilla groups in many recent wars draws that firepower toward the natural ecosystems-often circumscribed and endangered ones-where those groups take cover," writes DeWeerdt.

The deliberate destruction of the environment as a military strategy,known as "ecocide” is exemplified by the U.S. response to guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. In an effort to deprive the communist Viet Cong guerrillas of the dense cover they found in the hardwood forests and mangroves that fringed the Mekong Delta, the U.S. military sprayed 79 million liters of herbicides and defoliants (including Agent Orange)over about one-seventh of the land area of southern Vietnam. By some estimates, half of the mangroves and 14 percent of hardwood forests in southern Vietnam were destroyed during Operation Trail Dust, threatening
biodiversity and severely altering vegetation.

Less deliberate, but still devastating, were the environmental effects that stemmed from the mass migration of refugees during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Nearly 2 million Hutus fled Rwanda over the course of just a few weeks to refugee camps in Tanzania and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, making it the most massive population movement in history. Approximately 720,000 of these refugees settled in refugee camps on the fringes of Virunga National Park, the first United Nations World Heritage site declared endangered due to an armed conflict. The refugees stripped an estimated 35 square kilometers of forest for
firewood and shelter-building materials. The dense forests also suffered as a result of the wide paths clear-cut by the Rwandan and Congolese armies traveling through the park to reduce the threat of ambush by rebel groups.

The long term ecological effects of the current war in Iraq remain to be seen. Looking to the effects of the recent Gulf War as a guide, scientists point to the physical damage of the desert, particularly the millimeter-thin layer of microorganisms that forms a crust on the topsoil, protecting it from erosion. Analysis of the area affected by the Gulf War has already shown an increase in sandstorms and dune formation in the region and one study suggests that desert crusts might take thousands of years to fully recover from the movement of heavy vehicles.

"Warfare is likely to have the most severe, longest-lasting effects on protected areas that harbor endangered species, and slow-to-recover ecosystems such as deserts. Even in the most fragile environments, sometimes nature-and people-can surprise us," writes DeWeerdt. "But turn and look in another direction and you are likely to see warfare's enduring scars."

Greener Magazine

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6:28 PM