LULAC

LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) is the largest latino civil rights and advocacy group in the United States. The group is 81 years and going strong. LULAC works to improve opportunities for hispanic americans from every region looking for freedom and an honest way of life.

Its priorities are: civic participation, civil rights, economic emporwement, education, health, housing, immigration, public service and technology.

Nowadays they are very concern about the Arizona law, so LULAC have united to fight this anti-immigrant law in a campaign created and name United Arizona, in order to support latins and all the immigrants affected.

Sources:

Images: LULAC available at: www.elcentrooftopeka.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/lulac.jpg

Jenness, Lizette. (2010) National Latino Organizations Launch United Arizona Campaign. Available at: http://lulac.org/news/pr/National_Latino_Organizations_Launch_United_Arizona_Campaign/

Course Feedback:

The activity I found the most interesting of the course was doing the academic research because this help us to understand and develope a well research which could be a good skill for the future. It was not easy but I think there was enough support from the professor.

The next interesting activity was making the presentation because this let us understand truly the role of the professor, but I found this harder than the first one and I think there is still a lot of work to do.

The activity with the blog was the one I found the least interesting, but still I learned how to give my opinion through this kind of media and it could be helpful in the future.

Thank you so mucho for everything

The blogs I like the most:

Diego Arroyave Restrepo: http://diegoalejo20.blogspot.com

Damian Cardona Montoya: http://damian-oyc.blogspot.com

And I have made comments on Catalina del Rio's blog

Rabit Proof Fence

Stolen Generations was one of the issues that used to affect aboriginal population in Australia. This consist in the taken of young aboriginals from their families and forced to assimilate into an other culture, this was done by the settlers of Australia.

Rabbit Proof Fence is a movie which shows this situation through its main actress three little aboriginal girls. The movie reflects a dark period in Australia history and although it is not happening anymore nowadays, it is an important issue in the matter that Aboriginal population look forward to the Prime Minister say sorry for the past atrocities.

Finally, it is possible to say so, that this a good movie, no just for its plot but also for the performance of its actors. I recommend it widely.

From this it is possible to answer the question: "From your point of view it is useful to say sorry after years of wrong policies towards a minority? Why, what else is needed?"

According to the movie I could say it is useful. I have read and aboriginal peopel demand for an apology from the Prime Minister related to the stolen generations issue, so this means after they get this apology, they will feel as they are taken into account and that they are an important part of society. But of course, just an apology, it is not enough, this must be followed of actions, not related to stolen generations becauses this is not an issue anymore, but it could be to issues like education, housing, health which are really important in order to grant aboriginal rights.

Sources:

Images: Rabbit Proof Fence available at: http://matineeidle.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/rabbit_proff_fence_ver5.jpg

Link of one winner blog

Link: Ushandi.com

Trade Unions in Europe

Trade Union membership in Europe have been declined, just 8 of the 27 states member states of the European Union count with more than half of population members of a trade union. The EU's four most populated states all have modest levels of unionisation.

It is possible to conclude that three of every four people empoloyed in the EU are not members of a trade union, so in every EU country trade union membership is either static or continues to decline.

Some trade unions organisations are: ETUC, UNI, ICTFU, among others.

Sources:

Images:

Trade Union available at: www.cartoonstock.com/newcartoons/cartonist/mba/lowres/mban1261.jpg

Europe map available at: http://ec.europa.eu/publications/booklets/others/01/images/map_europe.gif

Trade Unions across Europe (2010) Retrieved on May 22/2010: www.feede.com/tradeunions.html

E-commerce from an Islamic perspective and Arab Banking System

Among the basic believes and concepts of Islam, it is possible to find that the fundamental teaching of this religion are from four main sources: the Quaran and the Sunnah, intellect and concensus of religious scientist. The first one encourage man to be involve of all sorts of productive work and it is in this concept where e-commerce plays its role.

It is possible to say that Islam according to its sources of teaching, accept the conduct of E-commerce as a new way or technology to facilitate economic transactions. But it is important to notice that it does not matter that e-commerce does not involve face to face business, it should follow the basic ethical value of Islam: truthfulness, sincerity and honesty.

In this way, e-commerce from Islam has been characterized by its legality and legitimacy, which has brought many advantages such as a new way of business that reduce costs of transaction and another example is the fact that the Islamic countries are less affected by the actual financial crisis.

Another important fact I would like to talk about is the Arab Banking System. I like this video because it shows how religion is related to arabs daily life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUHNfoldhyU&feature=related

Sources: Zainul, Norazlina et al. 2004. "E-commerce from an Islamic prspective". Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 3 (2004): 280-293

Biography of Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. He became one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 1900's. Gandhi helped free the indian people from British rule through nonviolent resistance, and is honored by indians as the father of the Indian Nation.

The indian people called Gandhiji "Mahatma", meaning Great Soul. At the age of 13 Gandhi married Kasturba, a girl the same age. Their parents arranged their marriage. The Gandhis had four children. Gandhi studied law in London and returned to India in 1891 to practice. In 1893 he took on a one-year contract to do legal work in South Africa.

At the time the British controlled South Africa. When he attemped to claim his rights as a British subject he was abused, and soon saw that all indians sufured similar treatment. Gandhi stayed in South Africa for 21 years working to secure rights for Indian people.

He developed at method of action based upon the principles of courage, nonviolence and truth called Satyagraha. Using the principles of this, he led the campaign for Indian independence from Britain. India was granted independence in 1947.

On January 30, 1948, at the age of 78 a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse who opposed Gandhi's program of tolerance for all creeds and religion assassinated him.

Source: Biography of Mahatma Gandhi, from website:

www.indianchild.com/mahatma_gandhi.htm

China's one child policy

It's true the fact that there a lot of people in China, but since 1979 when the "One child policy" was implemented another bigger problems started from its aplication.

This policy hasn´t been fair since its beginning, people from the rural areas were the most affected, a lot of pregnant women without permission were forced to practice abortion.

Other critics of the policy maintain it has led in some case to the killing of female infants because of the traditional preference for boys.

As a result a female infanticide has been increased because of these traditional preferences, even some practices has been implemented acording to this preference for boys, in rural areas families who first child was a girl are able to have a second child.

In conclusion, women and mainly girls get a very unfair treatment in China, an example of this would be that mothers let their sons to access to the health centers before that their daughters, in consequence a imbalance in China´s male and female population has been created.

Sources:

• China steps up "one child policy", from website:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/941511.stm


• Case study: Female Infanticide, from website: www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

Comparative Chart

Sources: Lee, Jangho, Thomas W. Roehl, & Soonkyoo Choe. 2000. What makes management Style Similar and Distinct Across Borders? Growth, Experience and Culture in Korean and Japanese Firms. Journal of International Business Studies, 31(4): 631-52

Migrants & Expatriates

Short meanings define a migrant as someone who moves from one region to another by chance, instint or plan. On the other hand, the word expatriate comes from the Latin ex meaning "out of", and patria meaning country. An expatriate is someone who has chosen to live in a country other than the one in which he or she legally resides. And there is where is the main difference in the part where it says: who has chosen to.

An expatriate is different than an immigrant in that most expatriates do not plan on residing in their new country permanently, and if they do, they plan on retaining their native citizenship for practical purposes. Immigrants by constrast, usually plan on residing permanently in a new country and acquiring permanent citizenship there.

In many cases expatriates are more critized than migrants. Despite both represent a negative force in the country where they are residing, expatriates has chosen to do ti, so that indicates a reduction in their sense of patriotism; while migrants had to do ti for many facts that made them made that decision.

Sources:

• Migrant, from website: www.answers.com/topic/migrant
  
• What is an Expatriate?, from website: www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-expatriate.htm

Culture & Organisational Culture

A. Culture: this term refers to the uses and customs of a community. Each nation has its own way of being and thinking, wheter recognized or not. An example of this is the Western culture and the Mayan culture that have coexisted for a long time together, sharing many aspects (governments, schools). No matter if one is older or more universal than the other, all have the same right to exist although the differences between these are obvious (behaviour, dress, way of spending money, having fun). All these aspects are important because they make one different from the other one.



B. Organisational Culture: as in the definition of culture, each company has its own organizational culture. This term is established in every company and are the attitudes, values and behaviours shared by the members of an organization. The workers' performance dependes on the organizational culture developed inside the company.

In conclusion, both meanings refer to the same, the human behaviour in a specified environment, the main difference, among others, would be the ancient of each term, because the first one it has been in the history from a long time ago, and the last one, we could say, it is a brand new term directly related to business, in the same way, the last one could be more flexible and an organisational culture could try to be changed in order to get a better performance in a company, but a culture of any society is quite hard, if it´s not impossible, to be changed.

Sources:

• Bartle, Phil. The meaning of culture, from website: www.scn.org/cmp/modules/per-culm.htm
• Mayan Culture, from website: www.enjoyguatemala.com/culture.htm
• Sallenave, Jean-Paul (2004). La gerencia integral. Grupo Editorial Norma