Merry Christmas from 4Basra and thank you so much to everyone who has helped and supported us this year.
In the past six weeks or so, with the help of Nicholas Wood, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, the guys at Media Lens, and thanks to donations from a number of doctors in the UK and Ireland and a [...]...
The situation in Iraq has been worsening over the past few months.
A colleague of one of the doctors working in the children’s hospital in Basra was recently found dead in a rubbish dump, her body cut into pieces.
One important ward of the chilren’s hospital will close if my colleague in Vienna cannot help, and I hope [...]...
Action! via 4basra November 6th, 2006 at 14:03
BBC Films are currently in Dublin filming The Baker Street Irregulars, a Sherlock Holmes mystery for BBC One and Children’s BBC.
The exterior of the building which houses the 4Basra office (which was perhaps a sitting room or dining room once upon a time) is being used in the film.
However, the crew have also hung blinds [...]...
Consumer tastes are notoriously fickle, changing at an ever-faster pace.
Nonetheless, contributions from the ubiquitous ‘Red’ campaign – Motorola mobile phones, The Independent newspaper, Ipods, credit cards, etc. – recently topped $10 million.
As yesterday’s Sunday Times reported, Ali Hewson’s Edun ethical fashion range is another recent example.
Closer to home, Oxfam Ireland launched The Cake Sale: a [...]...
Having lunch with some relatives recently, my uncle mentioned he was thinking of doing some voluntary work.
He runs a successful small business and there is no doubt that some of his skills and experienced would be valuable to a charity or NGO of some sort.
My advice was that he should look into the idea and [...]...
Journalist John Humphrys reported from Basra this week for the influential BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Listen to the ‘Reconstruction and Corruption’ report as he speaks to the Director of one of the city’s hospitals and describes the conditions there....
This afternoon I had a telephone interview with Paul O’Hara of Ashoka Ireland.
Although I have not made the shortlist for the Ashoka Ireland fellowship, it was a pleasure to describe the short history of the 4Basra project and enlighten Paul as to the direction I hope it will take.
The interview was by no means a [...]...
Vienna via 4basra October 14th, 2006 at 17:37
The trip to Vienna went well. The New Internationalist magazine might be interested in a small article about the organisation. Follow-up calls will tell whether anyone else will publish a piece about the organisation.
My hotel lacked a wi-fi connection, and I neglected to take any photos with my camera phone. One or two others taken with a digital [...]...
Up until now it has been a challenge to find a designer who had the time, and more importantly had the artistic vision and imagination to come up with a logo for 4Basra.
That is not to say that other ideas and the time spent on them were not appreciated, I hasten to add: it’s just [...]...
Both people sharing the office with me are also working in media-related roles: one helps to manage the website of a UK national newspaper.
Earlier on today, I found this website of one of another media-related company very close by the office. There is also a PR company down the road.
For my part, I have recently been [...]...