Little Children

January 20th, 2015

The great boxer (he is so much more than a boxer) Muhammad Ali once said: “Children make you want to start life over.” Thoughts about life and death and family and children ran through my head as I walked in the Jewish Cemetery on Orange Street today. From this large open space, I could see […]

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Room To Breathe: Greening Our Cities and Towns

January 14th, 2015

I had an interesting conversation with a young Jamaican woman I know recently. She is currently visiting the island from Canada with her eight-year-old son. It was instructive, she said, to view Jamaica through her young son’s eyes. He expressed his thoughts on arriving in Kingston with a refreshing bluntness, as children often do. While […]

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#GoVolunteerJA: Cultivating Compassion and “Generation Change”

December 8th, 2014

The cavernous space at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston last Friday morning was humming. But not with the energy of chatting and socializing; this was serious, powerful, focused energy. I sensed it as I stepped in the door. It was the second annual National Volunteer Symposium 2014, with the Jamaica National (JN) Foundation, Cuso […]

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Brushing Off the Chalk: UNICEF Looks at Education Innovation

September 30th, 2014

There we were, sitting in a lecture room at the University of the West Indies, brushing off our shoulders and laughing self-consciously. What were we up to? Well, Marvin Hall, founder of Halls of Learning, had just instructed us to get into the spirit of his presentation by “brushing off the chalk.” The audience (mostly […]

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