Lying awake in the early hours I chanced on a BBC World Service broadcast about the phenomenal investment India is making in science education. In contrast to the West, where the number of young people taking up science is dwindling dramatically year on year, India is now graduating 2 million science graduates per year. And that figure is rising. India intends to be the science powerhouse of the twenty-first century. It is well on its way to achieving that goal. Some students from a secondary school in New Delhi (could it have been St. Columba's?) were interviewed. They were forthright in their conviction that science education was their pathway to success. Interestingly, not all were motivated by the job security prospect. One young man, clearly passionate about science, said that he intended to be an Indian Nobel prize winner.

In stark contrast, but curiously in rather strange agreement, was the follow-up interview with a washerwoman on the streets of New Delhi. She was equally clear that investment in education was the way forward for her family. For those who are used to free education, the lengths to which this woman would go to educate her children were self-sacrificial to an extraordinary degrees. "I go without food", she said, "to pay for my son's education in a private school". Yesterday, I spoke of the martyrdom of the teacher in Afghanistan for the cause of girls' education. Here, indeed, is a life-long martyrdom of a different kind. And the cause is the same, education.

This morning I took time out at my favourite local coffee shop, the West Coast Coffee on Dublin's Camden Street, just a few meters down from the pub where Bill Clinton drank a pint during the summer of hope following the Good Friday Agreement. Almost ten years on we are still fitfully making progress towards the goal of establishing power-sharing structures in Northern Ireland supported by the community.

As I often do on these occasions, I purchased the London Independent, a newspaper that, in my view, is one of the most articulate and courageous on social justice issues, despite belonging to the O'Reilly stable. Today's issue had two stories that caught my eye, one an inspirational account of movement towards a truth and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland, the other, a chillng account of the martyrdom of a teacher in Afghanistan who dared to teach girls. One wonders where we are headed as human beings when we appear to be capable of the most heinous actions in the name of religious belief. What kind of world is being born and what kind of beast makes its way to Bethlehem this Christmas?

The story of the martyred teacher is not new. A few months ago a woman who organised education opportunities for women in one of the Afghanistan provinces was also martyred. In the West, we take the right to education for granted. Since the 1950s we have experienced ever-widening access to education. Women, in particular, have benefitted significantly from new education opportunities. Often excluded, girls now have equal access to schooling. Indeed, girls often out-perform boys in academic achievement.

And, yet, as we know, there are still approximately 100 million children and young people to whom access to education does not exist. In many instances, this lack of access is due to the absence of infrastructure, teachers and a functioning education system. Often, too, it is caused by war and social upheaval. But the most heinous and downright immoral exclusion of people from education consists in the denial of the right to education itself. This appears to be the case in contemporary Afghanistan, and, presumably, elsewhere also. This denial borders on being a crime against humanity.

Read the story in the London Independent

Finally, I have been able to complete an update of the website. It is not as thorough or as comprehensive as I would like but I am happy that is moving in the right direction. What is needed are more stories and direct reports from the field. I am convinced that the personal stories have a unique power all their own. Tomorrow, in Derry, the BBC documentary on Richard Moore, the man who was blinded by a rubber bullet on Bloody Sunday and is now the CEO of Children in Crossfire (www.childrenincrossfire.org), is being launched at a private function in the city. It will be attended by Mark Durkan of the SDLP and also by Bishop Edward Daly of white handkerchief fame. I had hoped to attend but the journey is just too difficult at this time of the year. Those of you who have access to BBC 1 television will be able to view the documentary on December 4th on BBC One Northern Ireland.

Richard Moore is an extraordinary man. I met him a few weeks ago in the company of Don Mullan, the author of the ground-breaking book on Bloody Sunday. Don is a graduate of Iona College in the USA. He is keenly interested in the Christian Brothers and in the work of Edmund Rice people. Richard came across as a very powerful presence. One of the most striking elements in his story is his forgiveness of the soldier who blinded him on that day. They have since met on a number of occasions. The meeting between the British officer in question and Richard is one of the more poignant moments in the film.

Richard now works with Children in Crossfire. This organisation is celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2007. It now has an outreach far beyond Northern Ireland. There are tentative steps being taken for a link between Edmund Rice International and Children in Crossfire. We are all working for the most vulnerable in our society.

Over the last week I have added the site's first page in Spanish for the Edmund Rice community in Latin America. Eduardo McArdle and others have been very helpful in getting this addition to the site up and running. I hope that it will prompt others to send in material. It is also good to send images related to the material. If at all possible, avoid downloading images from the web. They are usually copyrighted and this causes inevitable difficulties. If you are using a digital camera to take photographs, it is a good idea to shoot your images at the highest resolution that your camer allows. It is easier to downsize the images in the post-production processing to the resolution that works best for the web.

Anyway, it is good to see Latin Ameria now on the site.