Mike has worked with MRA/IofC since he was 19. He trained in publishing with MRA in the late 1960s, and qualified in typography and print design at the London College of Printing in 1970. He served for three years in India, 1971-74, on the production of the newsweekly magazine Himmat, and has since visited India nine times, reporting stories of industrial development. He and Jan were married in 1981 and they spent a year with MRA in the USA, 1984-85. In 1987 Mike became one of the founding editors of For A Change magazine where he was Managing Editor and then Associate Editor. He is a member of the Oxford Group's productions committee, in charge of overseeing publications and films. He is the author of a booklet, 'The Sound of Silence--how to find inspiration in the age of information', written for the websurfing generation. He and Jan have two children, Chloe (b. 1982) and Nicholas (b. 1987) and they live in Wimbledon.

Michael Smith visits a community in rural Jamaica where a remarkable partnership has generated
jobs, dignity and development.

Dr Roddy Evans, with a background in the Protestant Ascendancy, and Jim Lynn, a Roman Catholic born and brought up on the Falls Road, speak about some of the behind-the-scenes ‘miracles’ which played a part in the peace process.

The Falklands War, 25 years ago, faced Major Chris Keeble with the sternest test of his military career. It led to a turning point in the war, and an unexpected outcome. Michael Smith recalls his story.

God's Politician is probably the best light introduction to the life of William Wilberforce, says Mike Smith. In 174 pages, Lean tells the moving and gripping story of Wilberforce's 20-year campaign in the British parliament to abolish the slave trade. Its abolition, 200 years ago this March, was a turning point in the affairs of the world.

Keith Neal, faculty member of a Moral Foundations for Democracy training programme in Sierra Leone, tells a London audience a remarkable story of rebuilding trust in a war-torn country.

Michael Smith takes part in a conference that brings together business professionals, farmers and journalists seeking ethics at work.

Margaret Jackson was in on the birth of European unity. She talks to Michael Smith.

The Indian industrial empire that is producing social capital as well as profits.

Zimbabwean small scale farmers are benefiting from 'born again' sweet potato plants, developed by Zimbabwean scientists, that have had a damaging virus removed.

Corruption is bad for business and bad for health, says Suresh Vazirani, Managing Director of an award-winning hi-tech company

Mumbai businessman Rajendra Gandhi has made recycling a matter of moral principle.

Bill Porter founded a global think-tank out of his concern about the media’s influence. Michael Smith tells his story.

IT WAS only three days before the tsunami struck that Vijitha Yapa decided to give a day off to his staff of eight at his bookshop in Galle, though for the last 10 years they had worked on Boxing Day.

Two great windows of opportunity will swing open this year in the fight against world poverty, surely one of the most pressing moral issues of our age. Poverty kills 6,000 children each week—the equivalent of a tsunami a month.

A new comedy drama, Rhubarb! Rhubarb! by Hugh Steadman Williams, was premièred in a church-based arts centre in London recently. That was appropriate enough: the play is set in the home and family of a Church of England vicar.

Rebuilding after war - and rebuilding relationships - are keys to sustainable development says agriculturalist, Paul Craig

Yet Wais, an ethnic Somali of Dutch nationality, was snapped up as a driver within three days of his arrival.

A leading apostle of employee share ownership sees worker-owned companies as a model for sharing wealth and improving company performance.

Can big business and activists agree on fighting poverty? Michael Smith reports.

India's information technology revolution has turned the nation into a 'software superpower'. Can it help to bridge the rich-poor gap?

UK citizens were 13th on the integrity list of 18 nationalities, with only 58 per cent reckoning to be honest.

Michael Smith reports on the Indian industrial empire that is producing social capital as well as profits.

In recent years LFL has turned its attention to 3,500 Afghan refugee children - girls and boys - living in and around Peshawar. As the two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan begin to return home - a process which is expected to take at least two years - LFL aims to expand into Afghanistan itself.

The arms trade accounts for 50 per cent of all corrupt international transactions, stated a report launched by Transparency International (TI) in April.

The annual Worldaware Business Awards in London celebrate outstanding enterprise initiatives that benefit economic development in Third World countries. Michael Smith reports:

Michael Smith attends the world’s biggest anti-corruption conference in the Czech Republic.

Shipyard worker, Ryuzaburo Kaku, rose to become Chairman of the cameras-to-copiers multinational Canon. Few Japanese businessmen have gone out on a limb the way Kaku has, in advocating a global philosophy for business.

Sheffield, renowned for its stainless steel, has had a Master Cutler for 700 years. Richard Field, who held the office in 1997, tells about his city's fight back from recession, and the remarkable turn round in his own life.

Printing company director Richard Hawthorne chairs a Nottingham partnership which engages citizens in urban renewal through 'honest conversation'.

'Honest conversation' at Nottingham's Partnership Council is a key to urban renewal, Michael Smith discovers:

Globalization has become the defining issue for the new century, and big business is not unaware of its social, ethical and global responsibilities.

John Carlisle Partnerships aims to create a culture of openness and efficiency in the world's construction industry.

Five years after the Dayton peace agreement, Michael Smith visits the Bosnian capital Sarajevo to attend an international media conference.

Bethuel Kiplagat believes that Africa's development depends on peace and security, as he tells Michael Smith.

Michael Smith reports on India's information technology revolution which has turned the nation into a 'software superpower':

An OECD treaty aims to put an end to the international culture of backhanders. Peter Eigen, founder of the anti-corruption body Transparency International, was a moving spirit behind it.

The world's 40,000 multinational companies concentrate billions of dollars in a few hands and control the global economy far more effectively than governments, says Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trades Unions (ICFTU).

French businessman Jean Fayet believes that business thrives on a culture of risk taking. But he worries about the social consequences of globalization.

Analysing the war in the Balkans, as well as the student massacre in Colombine High School and racist attacks in Britain, William Rees-Mogg wrote in The Times of London recently about 'the racism that threatens the world's future'.

Ten years after the fall of the Wall, Michael Smith visits Berlin and meets the woman charged with bringing down the barriers between the city's multi-racial communities:

Groucho Marx once quipped, 'I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member'.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that 'the sole aim of journalism should be service'. Many see the aims of today's newspaper moguls as increased profit margins and political influence.

Michael Smith meets the man behind an international move to outlaw bribery

Sophia Swire gave up a high-flying career in the City of London for the sake of illiterate children in Asia. She tells Michael Smith why:

Michael Smith reports on an initiative to create jobs in one of Britain's unemployment blackspots:

The media in the Balkans, divided on ethnic lines, did 'more damage than weapons' and had played a pivotal role in 'initiating the processes that led to unbelievable bloodshed,' said Senad Kamenica, Head of News and Current Affairs Programmes for Bosnia and Herzegovina Television. Two hundred and fifty thousand people had been killed in the war, including 30,000 children, and Bosnia was still burdened by 'the by-products of the factory of evil'.

Michael Smith encounters the Western face of Islam--and meets British Muslims who are fighting back against Islamophobia.

Britain, where more people are living longer and alone than ever before, may need up to 4 million new houses, prompting fears of rural destruction. But what about renovating existing housing stock? Michael Smith finds out how Birmingham's largest housing estate is being rescued from urban decay.

French businessman Jean Fayet has never jibbed at taking risks. He talks to Michael Smith about conscience, cars and the economic crisis in Asia:

Indian businessman Farhad Forbes packed his bags in California's Silicon Valley and returned to serve his own country. Now his company is meeting the challenges of India's economic reforms.

Disillusioned with Marxism, David Erdal became chairman of the Fife paper making firm Tullis Russell--then handed over ownership of the company to the workforce.

A tree planting ceremony honoured the nearly 2000 refugees housed at Caux during World War II

Public apology, an empty gesture or the creation of trust?

As India celebrates 50 years of freedom, Michael Smith observes her economic reforms.

Over a billion people in the developing countries suffer from the burden of debt repayments to the West. Will our governments take the opportunity of the new Millenium to cancel these debts?

Investment, innovation and honesty are keys to success, believes German businessman Friedrich Schock.

Celebrations of the new Millenium should not be only a secular event

No biterness for husband's muder by a teenager, but call for the government to abandon its neutral stance on family life

Britain's Institute of Business Ethics, which marks its 10th anniversary in October, has put values onto the agenda in many boardrooms. Its chairman, Neville Cooper, talks to Michael Smith.

Yusuf Al-Azhari spent six years in solitary confinement as a political prisoner. Now he is helping to bring Somalia's warlords together. Michael Smith tells his story:

Shop floor disruption led to training programmes in 'self-motivation' at Tata's flagship truck and bus company in India.

Gordon Wilson and his daughter Marie, a 20-year-old nurse, were buried under six feet of rubble when the IRA bombed a Remembrance Day gathering in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen in 1987. Marie was one of 11 who died in the blast.

`We decided to tell each other about everything we'd done in our lives we'd been ashamed of,' says Philip. `It was not an easy process but a liberating one.'

What does Lodi Gyari, a right-hand man of the Dalai Lama, make of the recent crackdown in China?

We walk down that path each day - my six-year-old daughter and I - on her way to school. We must have passed within feet of the dead body. They cordoned off the path and we came home from school another way.

Mulugeta Asseratte spent nine years in jail as a political prisoner - and then met the man who had killed his father.By Michael Smith

They had taken to the streets in reaction to the latest stringent conditions imposed on Brazil by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While wages have been pegged, prices in the shops continue to rise and the cruzado has been devalued by 27 per cent. There are, says Dr Jones Santos Neves, one of Brazil's leading employers, some 500,000 children without adequate food.