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AJWS Blog

The AJWS community has a lot to say about what's happening in the world. Read our insights about the struggle for justice and human rights around the globe — and meet the activists on the frontlines of the fight to build a better world.

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“We formed our union to have a collective voice”: Reflections from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Takuinja Ruzibuka of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s South Kivu province rises before dawn to cook, get her eight children ready and work on the family’s vegetable plot for a few hours. Only then does she trek down to the Zola Zola tin mine near Nzibira, where she has been a twangaise (stone breaker) for 19 years. The mine sits on land given in a government concession to multinational corporation BANRO.

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Nepal Can Recover, But Only If We Change What Is Happening

Originally published in The Huffington Post.   I lived in a tent in Nepal as a refugee from Bhutan in the 1990s. And so it broke my heart this month, when I traveled to Nepal in the wake of the recent earthquake and witnessed Nepalese families living in a sea of plastic tents, much like …

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On the Ground in Nepal: 4th Update from AJWS Staff

AJWS’s Director of Disaster Response & International Operations, Samantha Wolthuis, and Associate Director of Risk Management and Administrative Services, Aaron Acharya, traveled to Nepal last week to lead AJWS’s response to the earthquake. This is the fourth on-the-ground update from Samantha and Aaron. Read their first, second, and third updates. Yesterday, we headed east to the Kavrepalanchok district, …

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Nursery school students help repair the world

Our President Ruth Messinger met with some adorable, charitable four-year-old students at the JCC Manhattan’s Nursery School this morning to thank them for their generous contribution to our Nepal Earthquake Emergency Relief Fund. The students organized a bake sale last week after learning about the devastating Nepal earthquake, raising more than $1,000 for our Nepal Fund! The students …

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