Change Agents 1/7/21: Human Rights Abuses Toward Roma People

Producer/Host: Steve Wessler

-Roma people are subject to violence from Romanian police
-Roma students are discriminated against in their education
-Roma advocates have won significant gains both in the European Court of Human Rights and in the Romanian Legislature

Guests:
Marion Mandache directed a Roma human right organization (Romani Chriss) in Bucharest, Romania. He now lives in Massachusetts and soon will be a lawyer in the USA

Magna Matache also directed Romani Chriss. She now works at the Harvard University Roma Project

About the host:
Steve Wessler will soon will be starting his 28th year of working on human right issues. He founded the Civil Rights Unit in the Maine Attorney’s Office in 1992 and led the Unit for 7 years. In 1999 he left the formal practice of law and founded the Center for the Prevention of Hate. The Center worked in Maine and across the USA. He and his colleagues worked to reduce bias and harassment in schools, in communities, in health care organization through workshops and conflict resolution. The Center closed in 2011 and Steve began a consulting on human rights issues. For the next 5 years much of his work was in Europe, developing and implementing training curricular for police, working in communities to reduce the risk of hate crimes, conflict resolution between police and youth. He has worked in over 20 countries. In late 2016 he began to work more in Maine, with a focus on reducing anti-immigrant bias. He continues to work in schools to reduce bias and harassment. Wessler teaches courses on human rights issues at the College of the Atlantic, the University of Maine at Augusta and at the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in northern Virginia.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 1/7/21: New Year’s Digital Tune Up 3

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

New Year, time to sweep out the old – or, when we are talking about or computers, time to be sure we are preserving the old we want to keep, and updating the rest! Here are three very basis questions we can all ask ourselves as we start the New Year. They may seem very basic, and that’s because they are but polls indicate that well over half of personal computer users in this country don’t ask these questions, let alone try to answer them. Just in case, here they are.

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Healthy Options 1/6/21

Host/Producer: Rhonda Feiman
Co-producer: Petra Hall

Healthy Options host Rhonda Feiman shares techniques that have been used for centuries to help people stay healthy and resilient. Experience easily learned movements and breathing techniques that can enhance the health of our nervous systems, and calm our minds- skills especially useful for these stressful times.

Key Discussion Points:

How can simple breathing techniques enhance our health and well-being?
What is Qi Gong? What is WuJi?
Why is movement such an important technique to calm our nervous system?
What do we mean when we speak of meridians?
What is a body scan? How can we practice this for ourselves and why is this beneficial?
Presenter: Rhonda Feiman, L.Ac., is a practitioner of Qi Gong and an instructor of Tai Chi Chuan in the Yang Family tradition and the host of Healthy Options on WERU radio.

About the host:
Rhonda Feiman is a nationally-certified, licensed acupuncturist practicing in Belfast, Maine since 1993. She primarily practices Toyohari Japanese acupuncture, using gentle and powerful non-insertion needle techniques, and also utilizes Chinese acupuncture and herbology. In addition, Rhonda is a practitioner of Qi Gong and an instructor of Tai Chi Chuan in the Yang Family tradition.

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