Written 3/12/2020, published today While many agencies across the nation are working on initiatives to address addiction and support individuals affected by addiction, one organization is taking a unique approach. Advocates for Human Potential (AHP) is a consulting firm in Massachusetts that specializes in behavioral health in order to support vulnerable and disenfranchised populations. The…
Homeless in a pandemic: How do you distance yourself when there’s no place to go?
Jerry (foreground) came to Boston from Puerto Rico six years ago because there is more help to be had in Boston, although “not so much,” he admits. Photo By Luis Edgardo Cotto. One of the populations most vulnerable to the coronavirus is that of the homeless living in Boston, a city with over 2,000 cases…
Councilor asks Boston to name racism ‘a public health crisis’
Ricardo Arroyo addresses the Boston City Council. Photo by Jordan Frias Concerned about racism and inequity in Boston, freshman city councilor Ricardo Arroyo is calling for an independent office to assess how city officials can play a role in reducing racism and its impacts on communities of color.Arroyo, the chairman of the council’s Committee on…
Prisoner abuse sparks lawsuit against Souza-Baranowski prison
At a Suffolk Superior Court hearing on Feb. 10 on allegations of abuse against incarcerated individuals at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, criminal defense lawyers and the Department of Corrections painted starkly different pictures of the conditions at the maximum security prison. Judge Beverly Cannone scheduled an evidentiary hearing for Thursday, citing additional affidavits…
Won’t be Silent Anymore: Poor People’s Campaign Comes to Massachusetts
Over 300 people gathered in Greenfield, Massachusetts last week for a rally with The Poor People’s Campaign: A Call for Moral Revival.” While in the church that held the rally, it was easy to forget that we’re living in a country with a cruel racist as president, where people sleep on the streets, as billionaires…
Refugees sleeping rough on outskirts of EU
Usually, seeing homeless people is no reason for joy. But in Budapest it is – last year, head of state Viktor Orbán and his right-wing national government passed a law criminalising homeless people for sleeping rough. They are given three warnings and then imprisoned. Thankfully, the law is not enforced everywhere. The criminalisation of homeless…
A voice for the children of Gaza
Yousef Aljamal. According to UNICEF, Israel is the first and only country in the world to establish a juvenile military court. Each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12, are tried and imprisoned by the court. Human rights organizations report that these children are beaten, tortured and placed in solitary confinement in…
Panama celebrates its black Christ, part of protest against colonialism and slavery
Panama’s ‘Festival del Cristo Negro’, the festival of the ‘Black Christ’, is an important religious holiday for local Catholics. It honours a dark, life-sized wooden statue of Jesus, ‘Cristo Negro’ – also known as ‘El Nazaraeno’, or ‘The Nazarene’. Throughout the year, pilgrims come to pay homage to this statue of Christ carrying a cross, in its…
For Some in Kashmir Marriage Equates to Sexual Slavery
In Kashmir there are thousands of young women who were sold in their teens by their parents to older men, and now living lives governed by restrictions which many equate to imprisonment. Photo by Stella Paul/IPS Haseena Akhtar was only 13 when an agent told her parents that they could earn a good amount of…
The hidden costs of fast fashion
Photo by Yevgenia Belorusets In recent years, thanks to the global market, garment production has, to a great extent, moved from Asia to the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe. Liceulice discussed the realities of the working conditions in these countries, and Serbia in particular, with Bojana Tamindzija and Stefan Aleksic from the Serbian branch of…