“The Most Serious Health And Social Problem In Our Society”,   by  Marion Rackard

recent new report by the Healthcare and Audit commission in the UK assessing the impact that Government policy has had on: narrowing health inequalities, improving sexual and mental health; and reducing smoking, obesity and alcohol misuse shows that public health programmes have made significant progress in the area of improvement of overall life expectancy and reducing mortality from the big killers. However, the report finds that no progress has been made on the area of obesity and alcohol related harm and that if trends continue obesity and alcohol will have an increasingly profound effect on public health and service delivery in the coming years. The report predicts that the steep rises in the number of people who are overweight or suffering from alcohol related illness could reduce the impact on mortality rates of recent improvements in heart disease and cancer.

Working for peace is no longer optional. We are placed in concentric circles - our personal relations, our local relationships, regional and national situations, the events outside our boundaries: all these elements are interrelated and interdependent.

The anxieties which we all know in our own circle and on a national level will acquire a different dimension once we realize that our first duty is to provide a livable Africa for our children. Peace can only be realized by a personal commitment of every person, every day, every week and every month anew. The Damietta Peace Initiative counts on the support and cooperation of all who endorse its aims.