Jazz, while known for being born into the arms of African American culture, is a musical movement that represents the integration of other styles and cultures. It was born in the late 19th century and developed in the early 20th century in one of the most xenophobic and racist eras in America.
For this reason, jazz shows values ​​such as tolerance, unity, peace, mutual understanding, integration and intercultural dialogue.

In this article we are going to talk about an aspect of jazz music, perhaps not very well known. It is about the important relationship that existed between this music and marijuana.
The history of marijuana is closely related to the history of music, as well as many other arts.
They used euphemisms to refer to this substance. Cab Halloway was one of the first with the song titled "Refer man". Most of the public would have no idea what he was talking about. "Reefer", "gauge", "jive" and "weed" were some of the slang words jazz greats used when singing about cannabis. This terms would become some of the popular slang still in use today.

Not only were jazz musicians smoking it, but everybody knew that it gave them a leg up. When you got high on cannabis, the music slowed down a little bit and you can flow improvisationally.
Fats Wallace, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and many referent and great jazz musicians were speaking on the plant because the plant was something that was a way of helping them find their groove, mind and to create some of the most classic music that was ever created .
Jazz music was the new music of the 20th century and Louis Armstrong is its parent. He is the most important seminal figure in the development of jazz and it is known that Louis started smoking weed early on and smoked it every day of his live.

Cannabis began to be persecuted and prohibited because its use was mainly related to two racial groups: Black people and Mexicans. With false scientific reports, propaganda and racism, the government turned public opinion against this substance. Marijuana was made illegal partially because of the jazz scene. It was trying to prevent people from going to jazz clubs because it put black people and white people together, in particular black men and white women.

Then, this movement, culture and way to live and create the music, spreaded to other movements like the beat generation, the hippie movement... Later the relationship between music and marijuana persisted through Reggae music or HipHop. Nowadays, the issue of the weed goes mainstream because there a lot efforts to legalize it and make business but the racial disparity continue until today.

By Fernando Iturria

Did you know that Halloween is not from America but originally from Irland? If you want to find the origin you have to go back a lot of thousand years to the Celtics. For them 31st of October was end of the year. Their year was separated into summer which was seen as the “Day” and winter, the “Night”. Hence the night of 31st was the beginning of the period of the “Night”. The festival “samhain” -which means “summer's end“ in Gaelic - marked the transition from summer to winter.
The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31st, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops.
People believed that on this Day the souls of death people were allowed to come back. People were scared on the one hand and reverent on the other.
To pretend from ghosts and calm the dead souls people put on big fires and destroyed their houses. In front of their house they put carved turnips with lights inside. Here we have the origin of our creepy pumpkins today. As well the Celtics put on costumes to scare the ghosts. They thought if they dressed like wild animals with scary facial expressions, the spirits would think they were also dead and not harm them… In addition to that they brought sacrifices to calm the ghosts down. Trick-or-treating has its origin exactly from this. People were putting out treats and food to placate spirits who roamed the streets at Samhain.
In 9th century after Christ Europe was Christianised. But the Irish didn’t want to give away all of their traditions.
The pope created on first of November the day of “all hallows“.  Hence the evening before was called “all hallows evening”  -> “all hallows eve” -> Halloween
In 19th century Irish people immigrated to America and brought the tradition to America. During the years the traditions changed. For example the tradition of carving a turnip turned into carving a pumpkin in America…
Black and orange are typically associated with Halloween. Orange is a symbol of strength and endurance and, along with brown and gold, stands for the harvest and autumn. Black is typically a symbol of death and darkness and acts as a reminder that Halloween once was a festival that marked the boundaries between life and death.
Countries which celebrate most are USA, Canada, Germany, England, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, and Austria. In Greece nobody celebrates Halloween.
Today Halloween is the second highest grossing commercial holiday after Christmas… unbelievable…
                                                                                                         by Charlotte S.

                                                                                             Article of Jule and Charlotte

Worldwide girls are discriminated and don’t have as good chances as boys have. Girls face double discrimination because of their age and gender.
In our European reality we talk about lower salary for women in jobs but in other countries, especially developing countries but not only, girls or women are not even allowed to go to school. There are 62 million girls who should be in school but are not.
We think in our century this is not up-to-date anymore, nowadays women are entitled to have equal rights, that for we as women have to fight for our rights not only in our country but also in other countries which are some steps back in terms of gender equality.
As well we have to spread the spirit of gender equality in these countries in order to get women aware of what they actually can reach and to create a will in their mind to change something. We have to insist in helping women reaching more power than they already have.
 
The Sustainable Development Goals are 17 Goals set by the United Nations in order to transform our world. It is Goal number 5 of the 17 Development Goals which is about gender equality in order to empower all women and girls. Furthermore it is about providing girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes. With this in mind, the theme for this year’s international day of the girl is “Girl’s Progress = Goals Progress: What counts for girls”. While we can applaud the ambition and potential of the Sustainable Development Goals for girls and recognize how girls’ progress is good not only for girls, but also for families, communities and society at large, we must also take this opportunity to make clear that there is still a lot that needs to change.
Much more can and needs to be done to lower inequalities for girls so it is really important to have an international day of the girl not only to make people reflect about this topic but also to spread the importance of the empowerment of girls all over the world.
 
All over the world there still exist a lot of inequalities for women especially when it comes to education. Girls do not have the same possibilities to enter primary school as boys.
There are still 31 million girls of primary school age out of school. Of these 17 million are expected never to enter school. There are 4 million fewer boys than girls out of school. Slow education progress for children today will have lifelong effects: Almost a quarter of young women aged 15 - 24 today (116 million) in developing countries have never completed primary school and so lack skills for work. Young women make up 58% of those not completing primary school. Furthermore two thirds of the analphabets in the world are female.
Education is the key to make a long-lasting change because it brings a lot of advantages in many different domains.
Educated women are more likely to find work. To earn their own money is an important step towards independence. It is important that women are independent from their husbands to be able to build their own life.
Furthermore education keeps hunger away. Mothers’ education improves children’s nutrition. Malnutrition is the underlying cause of more than a third of global child deaths. Educated mothers are more likely to ensure that their children receive the best nutrients to help them prevent or fight off ill health, know more about appropriate health and hygiene practices, and have more power in the home to make sure children’s nutrition needs are met.
Education of girls can also prevent child marriages. Child marriage usually means the end for girl’s education, vocation and her right to make life choices. Research confirms that girls who marry in childhood are at greater risk for intimate partner violence than girls of the same age who marry later. 39,000 girls are married before they turn 18, and this needs to change.
Education is a basic human right and it should be available for every single person for both boys and girls! Education will also help to inform young girls about the rights they have so they get to know about the inequalities and can stand up for their rights. No-one should accept the current situation!
 
Maybe you have heard about the brave young girl Malala Yousafzai. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. In 2014, she was nominated again and won, becoming the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Malala is a Children’s and Women’s Rights Activist who was born in Pakistan. As a child, she became an advocate for girls' education, which resulted in the Taliban issuing a death threat against her. On October 9, 2012, a gunman shot Malala when she was traveling home from school. She survived, and has continued to speak out on the importance of education.
as you can see Malala is a really tough brave young women who stands up for her rights and with this she is a role model for a lot of young girls suffering from inequality!
 
Malala used every media she could reach to talk about the inequality the Taliban brought to her home town. She held speeches, became a blogger for BBC using a fake identity and she also talked on the radio. Furthermore she just continued going to school even if the Taliban has forbidden this in her hometown. That’s why the Taliban started looking for her in order to kill her.
If you want to learn more about this impressing girl Malala Yousafzai, you can not only read her book called “I am Malala” but you can also watch the movie “He named me Malala”!
 

The view on migration varies from generation to generation, country to country, society to society and from social class to social class. Every individual has its opinion and the International Organization of Migration collected these in their report “How the world views migration” which was published this October.

The survey asked whether or not the immigration level should kept at its present level, be increased or decreased. It found out that Europe has the most negative attitude towards immigration with 52% wanting to decrease immigration compared to 34% globally. However, it is important to mention that these figures vary extremely depending on the country. For instance, France, Poland and some Balkan countries wish to have the same migration level as before. Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Scandinavian countries would even like to increase their immigration. The countries where the biggest part of the population wanted to decrease immigration were Greece and Russia followed by Great Britain.

On 10th December, we celebrate Human Rights Day. Most of us, take human rights for granted. Most of the time, we do not even think about it and we live our lives without being aware of our privilege. Others, go to prison or die while fighting for them. Let’s have a look at what they are fighting for.

Human rights are addressed to every human being on earth. His nationality, sex, ethnic origin, skin color, religion or any kind of status does not matter. Usually, these rights are protected through laws and international treaties. They force governments to respect and promote the human rights of individuals and groups.

When it comes to avoiding environmental protection rules, many businesses become either creative or corrupt. Especially forestry and the water sector are concerned by corruption, both very important for a balanced environment. The thing is that it does not only happen on small scale but also on top managing levels.
Environmental safeguards are easily avoided with corruption and while it is very hazardous on an environmental scale, it has a terrible impact on societies, too, because resources and habitats disappear due to corruption and therefore, ecosystems are ruined.  

Let us have a look at the impact of corruption on forestry and the water sector.

That was my first reaction when I learned about modern slavery and my involvement. So I calculated how many slaves work for me, my very own Slavery Footprint. The survey asked about my eating habits, my clothes, my gadgets and more. The survey took only 10 minutes even though I refined the results (with the bar on the left side). It revealed the ugly, naked truth: I had 32 slaves working for me. Somewhere, spread over the globe, there were 32 people - men, women, children – peeling my shrimps, digging coltan for my smartphone, harvesting cotton for my clothes. 

On Monday the 16th November, the world celebrates International Day of Tolerance. However, intolerance is still a widespread phenomenon and it is our task to change that. Here are 5 things we have to take into account when fighting intolerance:

• Fighting intolerance with law
  

When minorities are discriminated or become victim of hate crimes, it is the task of the government to punish the culprit, may it be individuals, organizations or State officials. If people cannot rely and don’t have access to court, the only solution they see is self-justice.