Wednesday, April 04, 2007
10-20 % of adolescents have mental health problems
Neuropsichiatric problem is the most common illness (right after cardiovascular) at the European nations, and mental health issues are affecting one in every four European citizens (at least once in a lifetime). And, according to Erio Ziglio (head of WHO's European Regional OfficeHead of Investment for Health and Development"), around ONE MILLION youth in Europe suffer from some sort of mental ills.Suicide is the main cause of death among young adults (overwhelmed only by traffic accident), from 15 to 35! And 9 of the 10 list countries with higher suicide rate are in Europe!!!
Rank Country Suicides per 100,000 inhabitants per year: 1 Lithuania 42.0 2 Russia 37.4 3 Belarus 35.0 4 Latvia 34.3 5 Estonia 33.2 6 Hungary 32.1 7 Slovenia 30.9 8 Ukraine 29.4 9 Kazakhstan 28.7 10 Finland 24.3 What can be done?
Good question!
I vote for real measures that make us, as European citizens (and world citizen) to stop concerning and start acting. Peseschkian would say we should start changing ourselves first. Frankl would say mankind should revive its sense of meaning. But what we really need is to give attention to our youth population, hear their thoughts and help them improve their self-steam, making them aware of their manifold potentials and helping them make their limitations a target of improvement, because we should see:
Man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom (Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 161).
Labels: Bahá'u'lláh, Europe, Frankl, meaning, Peseschkian, self-esteem, self-knowledge, suicide, WHO, world unity
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Saddam: from Dictator to Martyr (1 of 4) - from Iraq to the world
You have probably noticed some things that recently happened in the world… Democrats won the intercalary elections (USA), in part, due to the presidential agenda in Iraq. Tony Blair lost the leadership of his party (UK), in part, due to his implication in Iraq. Zapatero (Spain) won the presidency of the government, against what the sounding said, due to bombings said to be connected to terrorist activities resulting the invasion of Iraq. Iraq leads the world panorama! For or against the military invasion of Iraq (began in March 2003), any neutral observer can verify that peace was not only unattained, as its vision doesn’t seem to be in the Iraqi population’s horizon. For or against death penalty, on the words of those who did it, the world lost one of the most terrible dictators ever: Saddam Hussein. Born in 1937, in Tiqrit, son of unknown father, Saddam, with only 21 years old was demonstrating his incapability to tolerance, killing his brother-in-law, from whom he diverged “politically”. Like other character who arrived to power, Saddam started from the bottom. After an absence of four years, he returned to his country, in 1963, to participate in the coup d’état which would lead him to power, in 1968, through the Revolutionary Command Counsil under the leadership of his cousin al-Bakr, from whom we would take the presidency in 1979, beginning a new period of conflicts in the zone. Saddam is held today, by the eyes of the ample majority of the people, as the main responsible of the Kurdish genocide (1988), that totalized five thousand deaths – like the Armenian genocide by the government of the Young Turkish, during the I World War; of the Jewish and Gipsy communities, at II World War, under the leadership of Hitler; of the Tutsis, in Rwanda, by Akayesu, who personally supervised the extermination; the genocide of the Bosnian population, in a total of eight thousand dead, under the power of Milosevic; the cultural genocide of the Bahá'ís in Iran, since the Islamic Revolution; the genocide perpetrated by the Janjaweed militias in the Darfur since, at least 2004, and that, due the absence of condemnation by the International Community spread, some months ago, to Chad. Today, the world is interlinked and it is worthless to close our eyes. Yesterday, Iraq wouldn’t influence global panorama, today the earth assumes itself as one country. Sam Cyrous (published in Psicologia Actual, Portugal, January 2006). Labels: battle-war, death, Europe, leadership, values, violence, world unity
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Fifteen years later...
Today… Today is the anniversary of my departure from the Americas, the continent of the “new world”, with no certitude of the return, on the printed feeling of the returning dreams. 5.500 days that are multiplied into centuries when I think of my friends, left behind, of my lost childhood, of the fun of being a junior-citizen. 5.500 days divided in mere seconds, invested in my adolescence and youth, in the present and in my profession. If I were there, how would it be? Each of life’s decisions takes us towards the following decision, in a meaningful opportunity, gaining autonomy, with more human plenitude. I would not have the friends I have now (I’d have others) or even work where I work now (perhaps I’d have another profession)… But, despite all, I would be me! Today, despite the difficulties a foreigner feels, I feel not like a citizen of this or that country, but of Europe. Here I have found a continent that assumes itself as an organic entity, searching for meaning, not knowing how to grow, not knowing what to do… Today’s Europe is no longer the one oscillating between conservatism and excessive liberalism: it is the Europe of the cultural and social renewal: the Europe of integration; the Europe of Union! From Europe, I absorb the pillars of Western knowledge, from Europe I take the linguistic plurality, with Europe I find the future in unity in diversity. But also there, in the Americas, I’ve found the idealistic dream of progress and expansion, we can find innovation, we find the capability to reflect and create; there, we also have pluralism and integrationalisms: the functional and real, not the theoretical one. Thus, at the same time I feel an European citizen, I feel an American citizen (and even, an Asiatic citizen). We learn half-dozen tongues in a life time, we can pass through a dozen countries, meet half hundred people from the countries of the world and, certainly, we are not who we were before our previous decisions, or fifteen years before! Mankind walks, in large but firm steps, towards that position in which, surely, no more we pride ourselves for being citizens of this or that nation, of this or that continent, but in having our role in this garden whose beauty comes from its multi-colority, in this garden that is but one country called Earth!15.500 days later, thank you to all my friends that have helped me to strive this path towards plenitude, as a citizen of Earth!  Labels: Americas, Europe, travel, world citizenship

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