5th grader sends anti-bullying message through t-shirts

Possessing courage of conviction that belies his age, 10-year-old Nathan Cieslak illustrates that you are never too young to take a stand. Motivated by a mission to stop bullying, Cieslak recently launched a T-shirt campaign to raise awareness of a problem touching communities nationwide.

"I wanted to get word out to everyone that bullying is not cool," Cieslak explained. "I thought T-shirts get the word out better."

The black and white T-shirts feature a hand with a pointing finger and a slogan that reads, "Only You Can Prevent Bullying." The logo, created by Cieslak, and the slogan generate a powerful message, which according to Cieslak's mother, April, has evoked an amazing response from the community.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Uganda bans play with homosexual themes

Performances of a play about the struggles of a young, gay Ugandan businessman have been banned by the National Theatre of Uganda.

The River and The Mountain, written by the British playwright Beau Hopkins, is a sympathetic portrayal of a corporate businessman coming to terms with his sexual identity in a climate of oppressive homophobia.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

India considering bill against sexual harassment of domestic workers

Should the bill be passed by Parliament, for India’s 4 million women domestic workers, considered to be most vulnerable to sexual harassment, this would a major victory in their struggle for legal recognition as ‘employees’.

Underlining the importance of including domestic workers in the bill, Christy Mary, the national executive coordinator for the National Domestic Workers Movement, told Firstpost: “Firstly, there is no law in India to protect domestic workers. Very few states have included domestic workers under the Minimum Wages Act. And the central government is not a position to pass legislation exclusively for them. Domestic workers are extremely vulnerable to all kinds of abuses. And because of absence of a law, the police also don’t take them seriously. The inclusion of domestic workers will be a boost for them and it will encourage them to report cases. It is a surety for them to protect them from abuse.”

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Yemen seeks help for child bride

Nojoud Ali Al-Ahdal is the most famous Yemeni child bride and the first ever that revolted against the law and Yemeni tradition when approached a court in Sana’a demanding to be divorced from her 33 years old husband when she was only 9 years old.

Nojoud won the Glamour Magazine prize along with Condoleezza Rice to be the woman of the year in 2008.

A book about her life and her story was published by a French publication house in 2008. The publisher bought Nojoud a house in al-Hasaba neighborhood Sana’a from her share of the book sales. He also pays her a US$ 1000 a month to her father’s account as Nojoud is under age and cannot have her own account.

This money is supposed to be spent for her living along with her family. However recently her father got married to a third wife that keeps making troubles to Nojoud and her brothers and sisters.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Former Basketball Coach takes on Youth Violence

When new South Bend Community Schools Superintendent Carole Schmidt called a Town Hall meeting to address concerns in the district, Phelps meticulously went over his personal game plan. As usual, it relied heavily on instinct and adrenalin.

"There are about 200 people there and I get up and ask, 'OK, how can we put a team together of community assets to resolve this issue of youth violence, with education being the foundation?' '' Phelps recalled. "She says, 'The community has to come together.'''

Phelps, 71 going on 40, suddenly felt a familiar pang coaches who live for challenges never lose.

"I jump and say, 'I'll coach it!''' Phelps said. "I had no idea I was going to do that. Not sure what made me.''

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Egyptian Pandemic: Sexual Harassment of women

Campaigners in Egypt say the problem of sexual harassment is reaching epidemic proportions, with a rise in such incidents over the past three months. For many Egyptian women, sexual harassment - which sometimes turns into violent mob-style attacks - is a daily fact of life, reports the BBC's Bethany Bell in Cairo.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Area teens shocked by statistics form program to help confront HIV/AIDS

They took a look at the statistics: Those at highest risk for HIV infection are between the ages of 13 and 23. And then the group of teens looked around and realized: those numbers represented themselves.

The teens recently started a new forum called Prevent and Prevail to initiate open conversations about sex, HIV and AIDS.

Frustrated with the constrained atmosphere in school health classes, the teens said they decided it was time to take action. They piloted the forum this month with a small group of people at the Jim Toy Community Center at 319 Braun Court, in Ann Arbor.

The teens are all a part of Dedicated to Make a Change, a nonprofit youth organization in Ypsilanti that promotes social responsibility, justice and diversity through action. Among them are Nils Wilcoxen, 16; Allison Melcher, 16; and Cleo Ku, 15 — all students at the Early College Alliance at Eastern Michigan University.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Local Resteraunts donate profits to charities

If you think an über-twee neighborhood bar that serves beer from the local microbrewery and donates all proceeds to charity sounds like something straight out of the hipster utopia in TV's "Portlandia," you wouldn't exactly be wrong.

The ballroom of Portland's Oregon Public House - a soon-to-open nonprofit pub that will, indeed, serve local beer and seasonal, locally sourced food, pay employees fair wages, and donate all its profit to charities - was recently rented out to film a wedding scene in the IFC show.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Prosecutors recieve insight from ex-gang member

In what may be a first in the nation, San Francisco prosecutors negotiating plea deals for nonviolent felons are conferring with an in-house social worker who emerged from his own checkered past.

Aroche, a 34-year-old former Mission District gang member, was hired in February by District Attorney George Gascón as an "alternative sentencing planner" - a point man on tough love.

If Aroche's background is unique, so is his role. Traditionally, prosecutors focus on punishment, but Aroche seeks to give offenders what they need to live productively, whether drug treatment, education or housing.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Clothing Shop to be renamed after protests

AHMADABAD, INDIA—The owner of the “Hitler” clothing shop in western India says he will remove the sign and rename his store after hearing people’s complaints.

Rajesh Shah said Tuesday he had chosen the name in memory of his grandfather, a strict disciplinarian whom the family referred to as “Hitler.”

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Women are key to Native American Civil Rights

It was a conference on the complexities of American Indian civil rights, but it carried a timeless admonition that civil rights are human rights as expressed in a principled way of life, a message often conveyed by women, “The earth is our mother,” said Henrietta Mann, Cheyenne, “and we are still trying to live in harmony with one another.”

She was the opening speaker at the third annual Pathways to Respecting American Indian Civil Rights conference August 8 – 9 in Denver, Colorado, sponsored primarily by local colleges and government agencies and drawing more than 30 presenters and speakers. Many of whom shared first-hand experience with the issues being discussed.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org

Burma backs off of direct media censorship

Journalists will still be required to submit their work after publication, however, and are expected to comply with a vague set of “guidelines”. The censors have also warned editors that they could be prosecuted under criminal libel laws.

The announcement, posted on the Ministry of Information website and taking effect immediately, comes after a vigorous anti-censorship campaign by young Burmese journalists, who marched through the cities of Rangoon and Mandalay wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Stop Killing the Press”.

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To learn more about the Annual International Social Uprising Resistance and Grassroots Encouragement (S.U.R.G.E.!) Film Festival please visit: www.WeSurge.org