The Summer edition of Australian Options is out now. ‘Discussions for Social Justice and political change’ with articles on the ACOSS Report on poverty in Australia, growth issues and alternatives, the Middle East and more.
The father of killed ISIS hostage Haruna Yukawa said ‘If I am ever reunited with him, I just want to give him a big hug’ (read here).
Life is all that holds us on this small planet.
Today’s Pro Bono News cartoon. Illustrating that ‘Peak welfare Not for Profits ACOSS and State and Territory Councils of Social Service have issued a collective New Years Resolution for the Federal Government to stop devastating funding cuts to community organisations across Australia’. Read more of the post here.
Regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Mitch Fifield said:
“None of us are served – Governments, providers, participants, potential participants, carers – none of us are served by anything other than a clear-eyed realism in relation to the Scheme.”
As posted on the Pro Bono Australia website ‘The “Stressful” State of the Disability Sector – Report’
Here is this fortnight’s NFP-Kneebone cartoon for Pro Bono Australia news.
This is an illustration for one of the new Forest and Wildlife Discovery Trail signs, at the Free The Bears Tat Kuang Si Bear Rescue centre, near Luang Prabang, Laos. This sign will explain the role of umbrella species:
‘Just as umbrellas protect people underneath them from rain, umbrella species keep their Lao forest wildlife friends safe from extinction. Poach or kill umbrella species and the balance of the whole forest is upset, but keep them safe and everyone’s a winner!’
Here is a link to an earlier sign drawn up for the Free The Bears trail.
One of the featured Australian Options articles, ‘Too Big to Gaol‘, by Evan Jones, considers the Australian financial system.
For perhaps the first time, young people could be worse off than their parents. Read the post on the Pro Bono website here. This is my fortnightly NFP Kneebone cartoon for the website.
If you are homeless, don’t hold your breath. Governments don’t, they keep talking, and promising and shelving – see this post on the Not For Profits Pro Bono news website. Here is today’s fortnightly NFP Kneebone cartoon on the same website.
One of the Municipal Association of Victoria’s annual conferences is its national two day The Future of Communities: Power to the People conference. I was there as cartoonist, listening and trying to get as much of the sessions into cartoons as I could. The cartoon above does sum up my impression of the conference. At first it didn’t have the ‘Woohoo!’ Without it the the cartoon seemed to say ‘Oh oh, what have we done?’; that wasn’t what I saw. Adding the ‘Woohoo!’ DOES express what the 250 upbeat and enthusiastic conference participants and presenters showed over the two days. It was a great experience!
The event was facilitated by the quite amazing Peter Kenyon, director of The Bank of Ideas. The complete set of cartoons can be found on their Facebook page. Here are a few of the cartoons…