Communities Without Boundaries International, Inc. has been invited to participate at the Making Democracy Real Conference from January 10-14 being held in India’s Asia Plateau, Panchgani. This is the third such conference being conducted by the Initiatives of Change (IoC). Understanding that often oppression is followed by struggle. After struggle, victory. After victory, disappointment or even disillusionment. In recent years, too many countries have experienced this sequence of toil, thrill, and tears. Current happenings in the world underline the need for continuing the process of dialogue and reflection and to trigger, if possible, new strategies and a new determination to act.

It is with great pleasure and pride that Communities Without Boundaries International announce the first ever Youth Without Boundaries member of the year, Chathura Dissanayake from Sri Lanka. Chathura is the first YWB to receive this award in recognition of his tireless work to build a library for the Am-Mayadunne School in Ampara, an area in the South East of Sri Lanka and is home to the Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim communities.
Over the past 18 months, Chathura worked tirelessly with the staff from Communities Without Boundaries International, the schools’ principal, staff and parents, all of who contributed towards the success of this project. At the end of October 2013, Chathura’s project had successfully renovated an existing a 20-foot by 20-foot room into a library, furnishing it with books, book shelves, desks and chairs. While Chathura has been able to furnish the library with books and test guides for grades 5 and 12 who will be taking their public exams (scholarship and O’Level), the library still lacks books for the other grades. Chathura hopes to donate two computers and additional books to transform this library into a true information center, where knowledge is readily available to community members who seek it.

In giving honour to whom honour is due, the African University of Science and Technology, AUST; Abuja in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Institution, NMI; the South African High Commission in Nigeria and the Communities Without Boundaries International, CWBI, on Wednesday, July 18, joined other progressives around the world to honour one of Africa’s greatest legend, Dr Nelson Rolihlahia Mandela as he turned 94.

The epoch-making event, which commenced at the AUST campus, with a student documentary viewing and awareness drive on the life and struggle of Dr. Mandela also took guests and stakeholders to Chika community, a suburb in Abuja and climaxed with a cocktail at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

Addressing the audience at the AUST campus during the documentary viewing session, the South African minister for transportation, Comrade Ben Martins, described Dr. Mandela as a very inspiring, astute and a great fighter of justice not only in South Africa but throughout the length and breadth of the entire world.

He narrated his ordeal with Mandela and other freedom fighters at Robbin Island, during their incarceration and fight for independence maintaining that if they had allowed the existing conditions then to weigh them down, the struggle for the independence of the sovereign state of South Africa would have been put in jeopardy.

Martin Luther King, III, the eldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reverend Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network (NAN), are holding on to the dream. Fifty-years-after Dr. King delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963, they have mounted the same steps at the Lincoln Memorial. Joined by a cross-sector of speakers ranging from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to the family of Trayvon Martin.

There has been an alliance of prominent advocates of labor, health, housing, education, media, and civil and human rights, the purpose of the march was not just to celebrate the historic 1963 March on Washington,but to galvanize the American people around the compelling issues of today including questions in the criminal justice system in the national spotlight, from Stop and Frisk police tactics in New York, to Stand Your Ground laws in Florida, as well as, women’s issues, immigration, workers’ rights, LGBT equality, among others. Congressman John Lewis, the only one of the six leaders of the March on Washington of 1963 that is still alive stood with Martin Luther King III, Rev. Al Sharpton and thousands of others at the historic event.

Tens of thousands of marchers converged on Washington, D.C., on Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have adream" speech and to urge action on jobs, voting rights and gun violence.