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Barbara Becker
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Barbara Becker is principal and founder of EqualShot, a strategic planning & communications firm based in New York, and a part-time faculty member at Columbia University's masters program in strategic communications.

Barbara's twenty-year communications career in the nonprofit sector has spanned a broad range of organizations including the United Nations, Human Rights First, StoryCorps, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. She has worked in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America on human rights, education, environment, microfinance and women's empowerment.

At home on the Lower East Side of NYC, she writes the blog Beyond Siri.

Blog Entries by Barbara Becker

The Swastika in Our Neighborhood

569 Comments | Posted February 8, 2012 | 2/8/12

Across the nation, anti-Semitic bias cases have been capturing news headlines. Last month, two men from Farmington, New Mexico were sentenced to time in federal prison for branding a swastika on the arm of a Navajo man who suffers from mental disabilities. Swastikas were found graffitied on storefronts...

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The Anti-Stuff Holiday Gift: My Son Reacts

3 Comments | Posted December 22, 2011 | 12/22/11

It was a very risky idea, given how much he wanted Beats headphones ($200 headphones for a kid?) and a Wii. But this past week I gave my tween-age son his holiday present, choosing to surprise him with the gift of an experience over a thing.

Here's what came out...

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How Not to Keep Up With the Joneses

Posted December 2, 2011 | 12/2/11

2011-12-02-HabitatHouse.jpg


How can we instill in our children an appreciation for what they already have -- especially when the people around them seem to have just about everything? Here's one family's holiday tip...

This fall, my two children moved from a warm...

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Disrobing for Art at the New Museum's Carsten Höller Show

Posted November 17, 2011 | 11/17/11

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Giant Psycho Tank, 1999 © Attilio Maranzano

This week I participated in museum-sanctioned nakedness and submerged myself in a one-of-a-kind exhibit dubbed the Giant Psycho Tank -- a sensory deprivation pool of heavily salinated, skin temperature water.

If you've spent any time in...

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Near Forgotten MLK Comic Gains Fans in the Middle East

Posted January 18, 2011 | 1/18/11

In 1958 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the real-life superhero of a comic book that inspired disenfranchised American youth to take action against segregation. Today, the comic is finding a new audience in the Middle East.

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When...

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Opportunity for Justice in Africa's Last Colony

Posted April 14, 2010 | 4/14/10

In time of mounting pressure, UN reviews peacekeeping mandate in Western Sahara

In the coming days the United Nations Security Council is set to review the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

In an era when human rights monitoring is a standard feature...

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A Hunger for Justice: The Perilous Journey of a Modern Day Gandhi

Posted December 3, 2009 | 12/3/09

Say the words "hunger strike" and many will recall images of an emaciated Mahatma Gandhi enduring several famous fasts to protest British rule of India.

But most Americans are currently unaware of an ailing human rights campaigner from Western Sahara now in the third week of a risky hunger...

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