by Maria H. Lewytzkyj
- USA -

Every day in Sonoma County, Michelle Sanchez gets around in her wheelchair at Grosman Apartments in Santa Rosa, California. As a teenager, she hid her increasing equilibrium problems from her peers. Once she was even pulled over as she drove home after a shopper observed Michelle staggering inside a grocery store. Through tears of embarrassment, she explained to the officer that she had a neurological disorder and was not intoxicated.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Handmade Nation: The Rise of D.I.Y., Art, Craft, and Design is about one my favorite things (do it yourself) and profiles some of my favorite artists and crafters (Jill Bliss, Nikki McClure, and Debbie Stoller of Bust magazine). I bought my ticket to the special, sold-out San Francisco Film Society screening the morning tickets went on sale, arrived to the event early, and waited in a long line with other excited fans. Post-screening I was so inspired that I wished I could have crafted on the train ride home, but alas, my handbag lacked the necessary supplies.

by Patricia DeGennaro
- USA -

This year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 60th birthday. President Obama will take his first European trip since the presidential campaign to meet NATO’s twenty-six members. While there, he’ll have to pinch every last pressure point to induce the other members to “step up to the plate” in Afghanistan.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

As many as a third of California’s teachers may retire over the next decade leaving California with a shortage of approximately 100,000 teachers. While budget cuts limiting opportunities for new teachers are compelling enough reasons to choose different professions, it is well understood by most prospective teachers that teaching, while honorable and at times rewarding, is a stressful, unappreciated, and undervalued career choice.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
- Germany -

Tilda Swinton is one of the most talented and captivating artists in current international cinema. She’s also in high demand. Tilda recently finished shooting a Jim Jarmusch film in Spain with Jim Murray and Gael García Bernal. She is also planning a collaboration with Marilyn Manson who wants to direct a film on the life of writer Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, and is working on the creation of a foundation dedicated to the introduction of cinema to children, which already has support from the World Cinema Foundation. In August of last year, she successfully organized a small film festival called “Ballerina Ballroom – Cinema of Dreams,” which took place in Nairn, Scotland. And at the end of this year, she will play a mother who does not identify with her maternal role in a film directed by Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay.

by Nusrat Ara
- Indian-administered Kashmir -

“Keep Guns Outside, Please.” The brightly-colored sign on the gates of She Hope Disability Centre is a reminder of Kashmir’s ongoing conflict.

Sami Wani, the young manager, smiles when asked about the instruction. "We have a military camp nearby. They would often drop by for friendly visits, obviously with arms and ammunition. The patients, especially children and women, would get scared"

Did he get the desired result? “They stopped coming,” he laughs.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

In an age of ever-busier schedules, escalating costs and dwindling funding for public education, the image of the full-time college student, loafing in libraries and flipping through volumes of political theory in campus cafés, is less a plan than a distant dream for many of California’s young people. Lucky young intellectuals can still be spotted in droves on the Berkeley and Stanford campuses, sporting fashionable clothes or long, flowing hair and modern hippie attire, but most of the state’s less privileged will never live those idyllic four years of limbo between adolescence and adult life.

That’s because many young people are thrown into the water before they learn to swim. It might be easier to look the other way, but it’s our responsibility as a state to make sure that they have a chance to make their way to a satisfying life.

by Marin
- USA -

As I rode my scooter to an epic line of folks who had clearly been waiting for several hours to buy discount theater tickets, I was approached by a gentleman who led me to the front of the line so that I could purchase tickets immediately. I was once again struck by what I now know as “gimp-privilege,” or simply, “GP”. After all, I was the only person who was truly prepared for such a line - I had come with my own comfortable seating!

by Mary Grimley Mason
- USA -

When do the children of a mother with a disability discover that the outside world sees her as different or odd? Nair says her daughters hadn’t noticed her disability until her youngest, at eight, saw a boy with crutches and began to ask questions. Her daughter’s curiosity made Nair realize it was time to talk to both girls about her disability and help them relate to other people’s reactions to her.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

It’s clear that school budgets are woefully inadequate and underfunded. But, will simply throwing money at a system that is flawed, broken, and unequal successfully nurture the academic achievement of under-performing students? The great state of California has the third highest student teacher ratio in the country and the dubious distinction of coming in dead last in total school staff - principals, teachers, guidance counselors, and librarians. Lack of adequate resources is exacerbated by grave inequalities in many school districts throughout the state. Often under-performing schools suffer from a lack of qualified teachers, textbooks, access to a curriculum that prepares students for college, and safe school environments.

by Jenna Mulhall-Brereton
- USA -

Elsa Gómez Mamani sits on the ruins of a stone wall on a cold but sunny morning in a field high on the Andean altiplano. We are in southern Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Elsa wears the traditional full skirts and bowler hat of the Aymara culture, and tells me in halting Spanish about her experience with poverty and entrepreneurship.

by Rosemary Okello
- Kenya -

In the face of escalating of sexual violence in Kenya, women with disabilities are more vulnerable than ever. A recent study by the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-K) - a women’s rights advocacy organization that works for gender equality through legal aid - reveals that disabled women are up to three times more likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse than their non-disabled counterparts.

by Suad Hamada
- Bahrain -

Adhari was at one time a legendary site that attracted many tourists to the tiny desert island of Bahrain. Named for a beautiful girl whose tears flowed endlessly because she could not marry her love, the myth of the once-great spring represents ancient Bahrainis’ spiritual connection to the land.

Besides their devotion to God, our ancestors loved nature and cared for the environment, worshipping water as a symbol of their existence. Old Bahrainis worshiped Enki, the God of Freshwater for their sustainable water supply. As a sign of their devotion, they built three temples on the site of the Um Al Sojoor spring in a village called Barbar around 3000 BC.

But modern-day Bahrainis can no longer rely on Enki, and may have even forgotten Adhari’s myth - her tears dried up decades ago, along with other wells and springs, leaving Bahrainis largely dependent on desalinated water that is mixed with high-salinity groundwater. The demise of the Adhari spring is a sad reflection of Bahrain’s unchecked development – it is now little more than a swimming pool in the middle of an amusement park.