Issue 28
Winter 2007/8
Previous
Next
Next
Previous
Current Affairs
Friday 2nd. November 2007
The Current Affairs Group received an interesting, and information packed, talk on “Ageing”, from Alex Bird the Chief Officer of Age Concern, North Yorkshire.
After a brief background cv. she outlined the history of Age Concern from its inception in 1940 as the “Old People’s Welfare Committee” to 1944 when “National” was prefixed, and finally in 1971 when it became known by its present title of “Age Concern”, and ceased its direct connection with Government and became a registered charity.
Alex explained that each Age Concern unit was autonomous under a national umbrella organisation: the three most local units being Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough.
She then went on to explain in more detail the workings of Age Concern and all the various projects it supports e.g. “Home Secretary Service”, “Listening Ear Telephone Befriending Service” and “WOW 50 – Walk Out Well 50”, to name only a few.
She talked about the co-
Alex spoke with obvious passion, backed by a wealth of detailed information, about the work of Age Concern and succeeded in convincing her audience that ageing need not be a lonely, frightening or painful process. Help and advice of a multitude of kinds is at hand and readily available, free of charge, for those who need it. You only have to ask is the message – so if you have any concerns about getting older just speak to Age Concern; I believe that you will not find the organisation wanting.
The local address is:-
Friday, January 6th
Barbara Barnes, a Harrogate U3A member, gave an interesting and informative talk to the Current Affairs Group entitled “Human Rights in the 21st. Century”.
Barbara has worked as a volunteer for over 30 years with Amnesty International, and so brought a wealth of personal experience to the subject. Amnesty is the largest human rights organisation in the world with 2.2M members in 150 countries – 267,000 in the UK.
Barbara prefaced her talk with a basic timetable of recorded human rights related legislation and thought. This dated from the King of Babylon in the 18th. Century BC, through the Greeks and Romans to Magna Carta, Tom Paine’s “Rights of Man” and the UN’s “Declaration of Human Rights”.
Amnesty International was started in 1961 by a single individual, a British Lawyer, Peter Benenson, originally to support prisoners of conscience and “innocent bystanders”.
Amnesty now sees its main functions as:-
(1) To collect facts – verified and cross checked.
(2) To get information out to the wider public.
(3) To take action.
(4) To raise pressure on offending Governments and agencies.
(5) To raise awareness of abuses worldwide.
(6) To raise funds to enable it to continue the fight for human rights.
After a very wide ranging review of the present day situation, including the paradox that despite the efficacy of Amnesty’s actions there appears to be more mass contraventions of human rights than ever, Barbara opened the meeting to the members.
The meeting ended on this lively debate with many members contributing interesting ideas and opinions. Despite some present day gloom Barbara finished on an optimistic note, as there is a much better awareness of human rights now in the 21st. Century. Also mass communication has made it more difficult for regimes such as in Burma and Zimbabwe to conceal their abuses of human rights.
Amnesty still depends upon the efforts of individuals.
R Coatman