Civil Society Magazine

December 2, 2011

From the Zine: Tips from Peace-Worker Jasmin Nordien

Arseh Sevom -- Arseh Sevom spoke with South African activist Jasmin Nordien about her experiences working in civil society organizations in South Africa. In a post published in the Civil Society Zine, we focus on her experiences throughout the 1990s, when she worked with the Network of Independent Monitors (NIM) reporting on state violence and supporting individuals and grassroots organizations. Jasmin shares some of the lessons she learned about the importance of creating networked organizations, the differences between leadership and management, and the need for clarity of purpose. Jasmin tells us, “...I no longer wanted to monitor the society I did not want to live in. I wanted to build the kind of society that my children and grandchildren would group up in.”
November 29, 2011

New Civil Society Zine Up and Ready!

In the second issue of Arseh Sevom's Civil Society Magazine, called David and Goliath, we asked contributors to tell us what comes after all the unity, after the giant is slain, after the monster is gone? What comes next? It was clearly a difficult question; one without a simple answer. The story of David and Goliath is a story of the (perceived) weak against the powerful, of prevailing against the odds, of bravery and leadership. However modern day Goliaths aren't so easy to dispel with one little pebble.While we may not have definitively answered the question, "What comes next," the articles in this Zine share ideas about human rights, the Arab Anger, Islamicization, leadership, and women's rights. These all make important contributions to our search for ways forward, while engaging a variety of voices from a range of experiences and locations.