Move to Ban Violent Video Games in Crime-ridden Venezuela

Venezuela plans law to ban violent videogames

26 Aug 2009
Source: Reuters

CARACAS, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers are moving to outlaw the sale of violent videogames and toys in an attempt to fight rampant crime in the country.

A bill to ban sales of violent games passed its first hurdle in the National Assembly on Tuesday evening, the legislative chamber said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

Dozens of people are murdered every week in the capital Caracas, one of Latin America's most dangerous cities, sometimes for as little as a pair of shoes or a mobile phone.

Opponents of President Hugo Chavez say 100,000 people have been murdered since he assumed office in February 1999. The government says its opponents and Venezuela's private media exaggerate the problem.

Police release crime statistics irregularly and officials frequently say they do not know how many homicides have taken place.

To become law, the bill must pass a second vote in the National Assembly and be signed by Chavez. The National Assembly has not set a date for a second vote.

Some countries ban violent videogames and many restrict their sale to children. Although few studies have shown that such games cause aggressive tendencies, they have often been the subject of controversy. (Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; Writing by Robert Campbell; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26262990.htm

Big-city squatters organize themselves: Abandon panhandling for self-sustaining work

 

PARAGUAY: Indigenous Squatter Communities Organise Self-Help By Natalia Ruiz Díaz Cerro Poty soup kitchen. Credit:Natalia Ruiz Díaz/IPS ASUNCIÓN, Aug 2 (IPS) - Indigenous families living in a squatter settlement on the outskirts of the Paraguayan capital are organising themselves, and now have a community soup kitchen and are producing and selling handicrafts. They don't want to return to panhandling on the streets of Asunción, so far from their home villages. In the last few decades, the number of poor indigenous people on the streets of Greater Asunción has increased, as the exodus of native families from rural areas has grown. "Anteve rosêva'ekue la cállepe, semaforope rojerure moneda mitâkuéra ha mba'e. Ko'âga tres meses la ndorojuvei la cállepe" ("We used to go out on the street and ask for money, with our children, at the stoplights. But we haven't gone out to beg on the streets in three months"), Petrona Ruiz, one of the women running the Cerro Poty soup kitchen, told IPS in Guaraní, an official language in Paraguay along with Spanish. The settlement of Cerro Poty, where the families live in makeshift dwellings, is located at the foot of Lambaré hill on the outskirts of Asunción, near both the Paraguay river and the city dump. The neighbourhood was created in the late 1990s by Guaraní families from the eastern province of Canendiyú. Today it is home to 28 native families from central, southern and southeastern Paraguay. The expansion of large-scale soy farming is one of the causes of the growing migration to Greater Asunción, which has a population of around 1.7 million. "We went to see what was happening in Canendiyú and found that indigenous and campesino (peasant) families are abandoning their land, suffocated by the encroachment of soy crops and the use of toxic agrochemicals," Claudio Rolón, with the National Secretariat on Children and Adolescents (SNNA) unit for attention to indigenous children and adolescents, told IPS. Canendiyú is one of the country's leading soy-producing provinces, along with Alto Paraná and Caaguazú in the east and Itapúa in the south. Soy production has climbed 191 percent since the 1995-1996 harvest. And while output rose 49 percent at a national level between 2003 and 2006, it grew 80 percent in Canendiyú. Soy cultivation began to expand in this land-locked South American country in the mid-1960s and boomed in the late 1990s with the introduction of genetically modified soy. Paraguay is now the world's fifth-largest soy producer. In 2007, soy accounted for 38 percent of the country's total agricultural output, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. After centre-left President Fernando Lugo took office in August 2008, the SNNA launched a programme to provide assistance to indigenous squatter settlements in Greater Asunción, with the aim of keeping children and teenagers off the streets. Cerro Poty, with a population of 135 people, 68 percent of whom are under 17, is one of the settlements targeted by the programme. Of the 92 children and adolescents in the community, 81 were out with their mothers panhandling or scavenging for recyclable waste products on the street. The first step taken by the programme was to organise a soup kitchen, which also provides free milk to all children under five. In addition, cultural, social organising and income-generating activities got underway. "We organised ourselves in committees of women, craftspeople, school support and community members, to help each other out," community leader Silverio Gómez explained to IPS. Mothers work in the soup kitchen and help take care of the community garden along with a group of children and young people. Others are involved in producing woodcarvings and other handicrafts, to generate income for the community. "We are receiving training and are paid for the work we do," said Gómez. Cerro Poty is now one of a network of cultural centres that supports the work of craftspeople, promoted by the Secretariat of Culture. Tools and equipment were obtained with assistance from the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture. "The aim is to support the work of craftspeople, building on the woodcarving talent and skills of the Guaraní," said SNNA communications director Adriana Closs. They carve animals in balsa wood, and craftswomen are also learning to make jewelry and receiving training in fabric-making. The products are showcased and sold in the shops set up for that purpose by the programme. "The community is recovering its craft-making skills, and now we are taking the next step: helping them sell their products," said Closs. A web site was created to show and sell their products at both the national and international levels, while providing information about the community. The experience at Cerro Poty is being replicated in other squatter settlements around the capital, which range from a few months to over a decade old and are home to a total of 3,500 people. According to the census office's 2008 survey of indigenous households, there are 108,300 members of 20 different indigenous groups in Paraguay, representing two percent of the population. Besides tiny white, black and Asian minorities, the rest of the population of Paraguay is of mixed Spanish and Guaraní descent. And although 90 percent of the population speaks both Guaraní and Spanish, indigenous people suffer inequality on every front: health, education, employment and access to basic services like running water and electricity. Six out of 10 indigenous people in Paraguay live in poverty. Rolón said the work in the squatter communities takes into consideration the traditional organisational structures of each particular ethnic group. First, a dialogue is established between the SNNA and the community, "recognising the identity of each community and its leaders and people." In Cerro Poty, lunch at the soup kitchen is ready, far from the city's stoplights and streets. (END/2009)

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47934

 

Using rooftops to green, freshen urban environments

MEXICO: Green Therapy on the Rooftops
By Verónica Díaz Favela*

Employees and patients alike enjoy the green roof at the Belisario Domínguez Hospital. Credit:Verónica Díaz Favela/IPS

MEXICO CITY, Aug 1 (IPS/IFEJ) - In the last two years a Mexico City hospital, kindergarten and municipal government office building have experimented with plant-covered rooftops. Today, workers and visitors are enjoying the benefits.

Eight months ago, the first "nature roof" was created at the Belisario Domínguez Hospital in the working-class neighbourhood of Iztapalapa, Mexico City's most densely populated district, home to 1.8 million people.

The green roof of this three-storey hospital is divided in two: the larger part is over a portion of the first storey, the smaller is over the third.

"Having direct or visual contact with a green area helps a great deal in the patients' recovery. In Japan, nearly every hospital has a 'nature' terrace," Tania Müller, head of the project, said in an interview.

According to the hospital's director, Osvaldo González La Riviere, "the workers enjoy the space. Initially, the smokers used it, but we have been able to regulate that. Some patients found out about the rooftop garden and now they ask to go for a stroll there, with the help of family members."

Installation of such a roof requires waterproof treatment that prevents roots from taking hold in the building material, as well as a polyethylene layer to prevent runoff. A geotextile product is added to prevent fine particulates from the underlayer from reaching the roof itself.

And finally, the underlayer is put in place, a mix of volcanic stone material, lighter than soil, and organic material to feed the plants, which are then planted on top. The plants need no watering.

One section of the hospital's green roof is alongside the gynaecology/obstetric ward. For women who have just given birth, "it is more pleasing to look out the window at a natural setting than to see a vending cart or a truck spitting out fumes," said Evangelina Sandoval, the deputy medical director.

Also, "working with patients and constantly facing illness and death produces stress. Now, instead of leaving by their usual route, many workers use the emergency exits in order to pass through the rooftop garden," she said. The hospital employs about 1,000 people.

The green area covers 1,000 square metres - one-tenth the total roof area of the hospital. The roof was transformed from a barren concrete wasteland to a lush place that attracts bees, butterflies and birds - a stark contrast to the dense traffic and the concrete structures surrounding it.

Three native species from the Valley of Mexico were planted there. "All are sedums (leaf succulents), of the Crassulaceae family," explained Müller, director of urban, park and bikeway reforestation for Mexico City.

The heat from "a normal rooftop can reach 80 degrees Celsius, contributing to the 'heat-island effect' (the increase in temperature in urban areas with few green spaces and lots of pavement), especially in a city as urbanised as this one," she said.

Thanks to the vegetation, the roof's temperature is maintained at 25 degrees Celsius, creating a microclimate that returns moisture to the environment and retains dust and particulate matter that could otherwise harm people's lungs, Müller added.

Furthermore, it won't be necessary to re-waterproof the roof for 80 years.

That is why the Secretariat (Ministry) of Health gave the Mexico City government the green light to create green roofs for its 28 hospitals.

All of this "is viable, but we need resources," said Müller. With the global economic crisis, "everywhere budgets have had to be adjusted, and that is what we are evaluating."

Planting a rooftop can cost 95 dollars per square metre, whether in Mexico, Europe or the United States.

But the positive results are obvious. Take the Centre for Child Development (CENDI), which provides services for 400 children of the city's subway train workers, and is located in Mexico City's historic central district.

"Fifty percent of the city's chickens are concentrated in the surrounding blocks, which causes heavy soil and air pollution. In addition, there is traffic and a high crime rate," said CENDI director Nadia Tapia.

Even so, this kindergarten has generated many of the cutting-edge programmes that are ultimately implemented nationwide. In keeping with this trend, in mid-2008, the city government inaugurated a green rooftop - 1,190 square metres - on this two-storey building.

Since then, once the children reach the age of two they are introduced to the roof garden. Those ages three to six practice gardening skills in a small plot, where they make compost, and grow tomatoes, potatoes, parsley, chamomile and cactus.

"The children relax, explore and are more calm and cooperative when they reach the teaching area, increasing their capacity to learn," said CENDI paediatric expert Araceli Becerra.

These children, explained the director, come from low-income families. "Seventy-five percent live in very small apartments, and because of crime concerns, they don't have access to parks."

When they visit the rooftop, "they get excited and they want to touch and observe everything," teacher Rosa Muñoz said in an interview for this article.

According to Müller, the green roofs are an "alternative for sustainable urban development, especially in a city like this, where even if we wanted to create a ground-level park, there is no room to do so."

In the cities of Latin America, the average for green areas overall is 3.5 square metres per person. The World Health Organisation recommends nine to 12 square metres per person.

"In Mexico City, we would have nine million more square metres of green space if we put one green square metre on every roof," said Alberto Fabela, who is in charge of the rooftop at the Secretariat of Urban Development and Housing (SEDUVI).

Since April 2008, the SEDUVI six-storey public building has set aside 900 square metres of its roof for green space. The technique employed here is hydroponics - growing plants suspended in water.

So far, it has produced 21,000 ornamental plants, donated to the districts of Coyoacán and Azcapotzalco, where they adorn gardens and median areas along boulevards.

Geraniums, marigolds, kalanchoe, petunias are grown, "all strong and resistant to stress from the streets: cars, noise, smog, people," said Fabela.

The plants are produced with the help of the 800 SEDUVI employees, who have the option of dedicating one hour of their workweek to maintaining, sowing or transplanting the flowers.

"We teach them to remove wilted leaves and to plant seeds. Obviously, it is a kind of therapy. We give them one hour, but the time passes quickly. The most receptive are the young people, 18 to 25, and elderly women," Fabela added.

The Mexico city government hopes that the more than 8,000 square metres of green roofs created so far in public buildings will serve as an example for the private sector.

For now, the city plans to ask businesses requesting construction permits to dedicate 10 to 20 percent of their rooftops to green space - in exchange for tax benefits.

*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by Inter Press Service (IPS) and the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org). (END/2009)

 

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47929