Inspiring message from Dadi Janki from the Brahma Kumaris, World Spiritual University.

Dear Friends,

Om shanti. Each of us has different specialities. We have to see only the goodness in everyone. When we interact with others with love and honesty, their virtues naturally emerge. If there is any ill feeling in my heart, then it will erode my own self-respect. To make judgments about others is a sign of ego in me. Instead, I should work on my own inner cleanliness and notice whether any weakness remains within me. If I allow myself to see any weaknesses in another, it will become my own weakness, and then how can I be of service?

Remember that ‘past is past,’ and finish whatever defects and weaknesses still remain within you. Thoughts of the past should never enter your thoughts, or be used in your words or deeds. When you look at everyone with love, the present will be good and the future will be even better. Check yourself, and see the goodness in everyone.

With love,

Dadi Janki

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In India, there is a model for healthcare that goes against all economic logic. People pay what they can to have their sight restored. If they can’t pay, they still get the gift of sight. No bank was prepared to back Dr Govindappa Venkattaswamy, yet today the results of his service are felt in 30 countries across the globe.

I pay R7 to have an eye test. I can come two more times in the next three months and I will not be charged. I first do a glaucoma test, then I am tested for vision, and then examined for uveitis, an eye disease I suffered in my youth. I am given a clean bill of health.

The hospital is spanking clean. Every day it sees 1,200 patients and the doctors perform over 200 operations. But this is only the beginning of an amazing story. It is part of a network of eye hospitals that has seen 32 million patients over 36 years and performed more than 4 million eye surgeries, most of them ultra-subsidised or free.

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Twenty five years ago there was a fierce contestation of power between the democratic movement and a brutal regime run by the finger wagging “Groot Crocodil.” It will be good to debate what we were prepared to give our lives for then? What we have achieved? And what rights we struggled for then still have to fight for today?

The last 25 years: From a wagging finger to a show of hands | Daily Maverick

It’s been a quarter of a century since South Africa’s last whites-only general election. CHRIS GIBBONS examines what’s changed and what hasn’t.

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Emma Mashinini; a leader that represents the true human spirit of our progressive labour movement and the democracy we fought for. Her story should be compulsory reading for all public, private and civil society leaders. They need to be reminded what we fought for and what were the values that underpinned our freedom.

Emma Mashinini Launches Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life at Constitution Hill

The launch of Emma Mashinini’s Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life in Johannesburg last week was a moving tribute to South African women workers, particularly during the apartheid era but also in the present.

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