Climate justice, Independent Living Movement Ireland, volunteering and orphanages, Direct Provision, the housing crisis and much more
You can read or download Focus 104 below. The editorial team would like to thank all our contributors: In this issue we have
WILLIAM HEDERMAN on the states attempt to import hydraulically fracked gas from outside the country despite widespread public opposition to fracking here, and why he got involved with the campaign Futureproof Clare.
In fact, an LNG terminal would be
more harmful to the climate than
a coal-burning power station. That’s
why we dubbed Shannon LNG
“Ireland’s biggest and most urgent
environment a threat”.
SARAH FITZGERALD writes a struggle for disabled people’s rights in Ireland
One of the biggest human rights challenges facing Ireland
is that of disabled people and building a genuinely
inclusive society that respects people’s right to control
their lives, to be empowered to lead the lives they
want to live, to control any supports they want to live
as equals in Ireland.
When disabled people talk of independent living,
they are talking about rights that all disabled people
take for granted: choice, control, freedom.
BELLA MICHALOPOULOU on her first school strike for climate justice
I remember always watching different
protests on TV and never thinking much
of them, but actually being there and
doing it is a whole different experience
and perspective.
SANDRA BYRNE on the impact of volunteering at orphanages
Over the years many kind and wellintentioned
people have volunteered in
orphanages. They have done so to help some
of the world’s most vulnerable children.
However increasingly it is being recognised
that volunteering in orphanages may cause
more harm than good and there is now a
global movement working to end the practice.
ROBERT JOHNSTONE on ‘The Asylum Archive’ by Vukašin Nedeljkovic
To be Irish is to be thought of as warm, welcoming and
hospitable. That’s the yarn we thread ourselves. But it is a
blanket that does not stretch to warm those born outside the
bounds of our cotton. We are weavers caught in the pull of
our own loom. The threads we sew have stitched to our skin,
so that to pull at our blanket, is to be in danger of unravelling
ourselves.
RODRIGO SOUZA on what is going on in Brazil
In January 2019, Brazilians and non-Brazilians in
Ireland and around the world were shocked with the
election of the country’s new president Jair Bolsonaro.
It shows a change in ordinary citizens’ thinking – there
is a rise of support for reactionary politics, hate speech
and threats against minorities.
TOMÁS LYNCH from Dublin Central Housing Action
Into this mix has stepped Dublin Central Housing Action, a
self-organized grassroots group of tenants directly affected by the
housing crisis. DCHA was founded after the occupation of the Bolt
Hostel, a vacant DCC building that was run as a homeless hostel for
several weeks in 2015. From a weekly peer-to-peer tenants support
group, and a community dinner for those affected by the crisis, this
organization has built the capacity to mobilize big numbers of people to stop evictions.
DEEPTHI SURESH reviews three documentaries
Deschryver has not been a fan of white do-gooders who
come to Africa and take pictures. In her words “like we are
animals in a zoo”. In fact one of the remarkable strengths
of “City of Joy” is that the story is not told through the perspective
of Eve Ensler. The focus rightly stays on Mukwege
and Deschryver and the women at the centre.The landscape
is breathtakingly beautiful and aerial shots of thick forests
and green fields let the audience take noticeof the stark
contrast of the stories that are told by the very women of
this land.
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