‘The film One Word of Truth is like a prophecy of what is happening in Syria,’ said Syrian writer and blogger Wassim Al-Adel, speaking at a Greencoat film show in the UK Initiatives of Change centre in London, on 8 May. The film was introduced by its producer Patrick Colquhoun from Anglo-Nordic Productions and was followed by a testimonial by Al-Adel, who explained how the film’s message had helped him overcome his despair at the current situation in Syria.

Helping young prisoners choose a different future.

The period of division on the Korean Peninsula, resultant from the Korean War in the Fifties, is nothing more than a parenthesis in a long history, according to Matthew Jackson, an authority on the culture and history of Korea, when he recently addressed addressed a Greencoat Forum.

Rob Corcorcan, founder of Hope in the Cities USA and national director of Initiatives of Change USA, reflected on trust when he addressed a Greencoat Forum on the theme of ‘Trustbuilding: an American perspective’.

The world has become expert in creating wilful blindness, asserted author and businesswoman Margaret Heffernan when she spoke in London, 12 July, on the theme of her latest book, Wilful Blindness, why we ignore the obvious at our peril (Simon & Schuster, 2011). Wilful blindness is a legal term, she explained, which holds that if there is information individuals could know and should know, but manage not to know, the individuals are nonetheless responsible. She was speaking just as News International was engulfed in a phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of its flagship UK paper News of the World.

A well-known British Muslim scholar has said that frustration with injustice is one of the root causes of extremism. Ahtsham Ali, Muslim advisor for Her Majesty’s Prison Service and President of the Islamic Society of Britain, says: ‘We need to channel this frustration into proper legal society-changing mechanisms.’ He was addressing a Greencoat Forum on ‘Beyond extremism’ in the London IofC centre on 21 June.

Bob Doherty, head of the business school at Liverpool Hope University, told how social enterprises are transforming the lives of farmers in developing countries, when he addressed a Greencoat Forum on ‘the role of social entrepreneurship in tackling poverty’ on 17 May. He was speaking in IofC’s London centre alongside Gavin McGillivray, head of the Private Sector Department at the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), and Tania Ellis, a specialist in social business trends and author of The New Pioneers.

‘There is no doubt that Gandhi was the greatest man of the 20th century,’ said author and journalist Graham Turner, speaking in London about Mahatma Gandhi. Turner was addressing a Greencoat Forum in the London centre of Initiatives of Change on 19 April, on the theme of his new book, Catching up with Gandhi. The book takes a fresh look at the life of the Indian freedom fighter, and has been published by Penguin Books in India.

A Palestinian film director says ‘there is no turning back’ on the revolutions towards democracy in the Arab world. Dr Imad Karam, the co-director of FLTfilms, gave his insights into the uprisings in the Arab World, when he addressed a Greencoat Forum in the London IofC centre on 15 March. The forum followed his recent journeys to Egypt and Sudan. FLTfilms is the production company of Initiatives of Change, and Karam’s PhD research had been on the impact of the media on the identity of Arab youth. Séverine Chavanne reports.

Back in London after a three-month visit to Kenya, Dr Alan Channer, Director of the movie An African Answer, presented a screening of the film in the London centre of Initiatives of Change on 1 March. He and colleagues had shot the documentary film in Kenya in 2008, following post-election violence there. Séverine Chavanne sends this report.