Young representative of a largely “invisible” group of children James Voykovich made his presence felt at a children’s rights seminar in Wellington, Australia.
Voykovich, a six-year-old from Auckland, has Down syndrome and represents one of 90,000 disabled children in New Zealand today presented a representative of the Children’s Commissioner, Dr Janis Carroll-Lind, with a copy of ‘Start Strong’, a draft Plan of Action designed to make life better for him and other disabled children.
IHC Director of Advocacy Trish Grant said, “A total of 10% of children in New Zealand have disabilities, but they still seem to be largely invisible to policy makers. Of these children, 25% of them live in benefit-dependant households and 523 children with a disability are under the care of Child Youth and Family. Families are put under increasing pressure; they aren’t connecting with other families in their communities and their children are denied the effective early support that they need.”
The Start Strong seminar is the third in a series – two in Wellington and one in Auckland –this year organised by IHC to focus on these issues and find a way to tackle them. Today, representatives from the Health, Education and Social Development ministries and non-government agencies came together with parents, disability and parents’ organisations for the launch of the draft Plan of Action.
PETA Press Release – “Baby Seal Covered in ‘Blood’ for Protest”
Animal Rights Organisation PETA will put residents of Sudbury, Canada face to face with their cruelty of the Annual Seal Slaughter on Monday at 12 noon.
PETA plans to make a statement to the Canadian residents by staging a protest using signs reading “Stop The Seal Slaughter”, footage of the annual massacre and a “baby seal” (clearly under the circumstances, not a real one) writhing in blood to illustrate the actions of the locals every year.
"The seal slaughter is a bloody stain on Canada's reputation, and we're asking all Canadians to demand that it be stopped," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Canadians deserve to know what the government is doing in their name."
The demonstration is the latest salvo in PETA's campaign to end Canada's annual commercial seal slaughter. Of the nearly 300,000 harp seals that were expected to be killed this year, most of which are babies, nearly three quarters were spared in part because the price of seal fur has drastically fallen due to the international outrage over the subject since the European Union and U.S. have banned seal products and various world leaders have spoken out against the massacre.
OXFAM Press Release – “Dame Helen Mirren makes sparkling donation to Oxfam”
Dame Helen Mirren donated the famous silver jacket she wore in her 1984 film 2010: The Year We Made Contact to Oxfam today in order to help raise money towards the charity’s West Africa Food Crisis Response.
All funds that are raised from the sale of the jacket will be going directly towards helping the 10 million people who have been affected by the food crisis in the countries of West Africa, including Niger, Chad and Mali. Over the past few months, Western Africa has had severe lack of food, which has meant a widespread malnourishment epidemic, to which Oxfam is helping by providing various responses including agricultural tools, livestock and irrigation systems.
“I didn’t think when we were making 2010: The Year We Make Contact that in 2010 it would be possible for 10 million people to go hungry because of lack of action by the international community,” said Helen Mirren, “but in West Africa this year people were forced to eat leaves and berries in order to survive.”
The jacket was worn by the Dame while she played a Russian Astronaut in the film based on the Arthur C Clarke novel 2010: Odyssey 2, which was nominated for 5 Academy Awards in 1985 including Best Costume Design. The space-age style jacket is still embroidered with the badges of the NCA and the USA flag and a large embroidered “2010” on the back. Fans wishing to take part in the lottery for the jacket are asked to put down a £10 bid, and the lottery will run from Monday November 8th to Monday December 1st with the winner being drawn two weeks after closing.
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