About Us
- Written by Agneza Trpkovski
The idea for the House of Good News on the Web arose inside me many years ago, maybe even decades, but it seems that only now all the pieces necessary for it have fallen into place. For years now we are being swamped with bad news (at least that is what most media editors pick from the daily basket) – you switch on your TV or radio, open a newspaper, and they are filled with negativism, as if there is nothing at all that is positive in this wonderful wide world, as if a cloud of darkness has overwhelmed the light.
Of course that is not the case. Instead of news about people being killed in disasters and accidents, murder, robbery and other mayhem, wouldn’t it be better to watch and read about babies being born, children who are good, talented and successful, stories about so called ‘ordinary people’, their lives, passions and hopes, undiscovered talents, their messages to the youth and those who make decisions about their fates.
This e-newspaper will be informative in character, but even more importantly educative and desirous or showing everything that is good in people, by highlighting positive examples encouraging others to do good, to be humane, to be modest and to find happiness in little things, because what is small for us could mean a lot to someone else. The House of Good News will aim to provide recommendations and advice from people experienced in various fields, including healthy living and food, for example how to plant and care for various crops and other plants, including video footage, how to provide assistance in emergency situations. We will report on many wonderful places and people in Serbia and other countries, including interesting interviews, and hidden gems of history, science and the ‘chivalrous’ department of sports, encouraging society’s efforts to develop and invest in so-called ‘minor’ sports, which need assistance.
We will point particular attention at projects and institutions aiming to increase employment, highlighting examples of ideas that have been realised with the help of self-employment stimulus funds, successful small and medium-sized enterprises, and the activities and efforts of people with special needs to make their lives and their constant struggles an incentive to other people with similar needs never to surrender, but always to give their best.
The House of Good News is a project which I see as a tool for people to loosen up and awaken their good sides and emplace them as a moral bulwark against all evils and that which surrounds us, becoming a part of which we must seek to avoid at all costs. Let us direct our thoughts and our messages at everyone close to us, starting from our next-door neighbours, by means of wonderful self-organised actions which would particularly involve young people we would thereby attract away from our streets and their temptations and towards, for example, the worlds of sport, cultivating plants, the small scale economy, etc, stimulating the development of talent and helping them to find their own way forward.
Let us allow communal reaping of the harvest to come back, let us at least help our neighbours, if they need assistance, those in need, let us build someone else’s new home together, so people have a roof over their heads, let us help the sick and the elderly with a kind word and some attention, which for some people are often quite enough in themselves; so they know they are not alone in this world.
In order to realise these normal and everyday things the House of Good News aims to initiate numerous actions and call on all people of good will to co-operate so that together we might create a better, more moral and more honourable world and people, a better life for all of us and for our Planet. Because only what we give to others is really ours – that is our motto, a slogan that is known so well, but applied not so much.
The House of Good News will regularly cover topics such as sports, health, science, agriculture, organic food production, ethno tourism, children and school, young people and their interests, culture, including a rubric entitled Bridges endavouring to link up similar projects locally, regionally, or throughout the world.
The House of Good News is interested in co-operating with all people of good will and with a desire to show their talents, with a message saying let us do something for ourselves and for each other here and now, instead of waiting for the state and for institutions to act, but using our own ideas, examples and messages to encourage the establishment to get things done now, wherever needed. One of our important goals is the adoption of a law stipulating than more than one-half of all news broadcast or printed in the media should have a positive content. We also invite commercial enterprises to become friends of our project so we can join forces and help those who need help.
The House of Good News will appear in Serbian Cyrillic and also Latin scripts for Serbia and the region, and then also in English and Russian versions, hopefully some day in other languages, when our volunteer staff is joined by other people of good will , including translators, and companies willing to help our good new travel to the farthest reaches of the planet.
Respectfully,
Agneza Trpkovski
founder and chief editor
