Results List
-
Telling the Story About South Africa's Rural Poor
The transition from apartheid to the new South Africa is rightfully viewed as one of the major advances in human history toward equality and democracy. But as I have written here before, many problems still exist: the South African government became an object of ridicule,…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Nurses: The Critical Link in Improving Health Care for the Underserved
Jennifer Wilson, Bermuda’s Nurse of the Year for 2008, spends her days driving the Azmobile from one island school to another. She coordinates an island-wide asthma education programme for Open Airways, an Atlantic-supported organisation that has helped cut hospital admissions for asthma sufferers by nearly…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Same Sex Marriage: Culture, Law and Advocacy on Three Continents
Achieving full legal equality for gay men and lesbians has never been easy, in any part of the world. Yet in an increasingly globalised media, legal and economic environment, what happens in one country can provide valuable lessons for another. We get an unusual opportunity…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Health Care for America Now: A New Campaign to Win Quality, Affordable Health Coverage for All in the U.S.
The public relations spin doctors for the U.S. health insurance industry, who are probably busy at work concocting the script for a TV commercial or Internet ad to sink comprehensive health care reform in 2009, ought to think again. You may remember the fictitious couple,…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Philanthropy and Government: Striking the Right Balance
Now that both major parties in the U.S. have presumptive nominees for the Presidency, it seems like a good time to share some thoughts on the relationships between philanthropy and government – relationships that Atlantic has considerable experience with in each of the countries in…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Detainee Rights: A Step Forward in the U.S., Back in the UK
Last week was a dramatic one, on both sides of the Atlantic, in the battle to preserve fundamental human rights against the recent disturbing tendencies of two of the world’s leading democracies to invoke fear of terrorism to claim extraordinary and excessive powers. In the…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Another Letter from South Africa: A Young Man’s Journey Out of Poverty Lifts Others Along the Way
Themba Mngomezulu stood on a hillside on his family’s land, in Ingwavuma, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, not far from the border of Swaziland, and told us his story. Not far away, his grandmother sat on a straw mat on the floor of her one-room…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Xenophobic Violence in South Africa: Rays of Hope in Terrible Times
Johannesburg, South Africa When I arrived here on Monday after eighteen hours in transit, I was greeted by the horrific image on the front page of that morning’s Star, of a refugee hunted down by a mob and burned alive, in a grim imitation of…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
Advocacy – Often the Most Direct Route to Social Change
Supporting advocates who work to persuade members of the U.S. Congress of the necessity of allocating more federal money for children’s health programmes… Backing public interest lawyers whose arguments convince the U.S. Supreme Court that capital punishment for youth is unconstitutional…. Convincing lawmakers to…
Author: Gara LaMarche
-
As We Enter 2008, a Look Back Shows Policy Gains for Atlantic Grantees
The end of one year and the start of the next is a traditional time for looking both back and forward, and a good time to check in with readers of this column – an unusual experiment in philanthropy that we started in July, a…
Author: Gara LaMarche