The other day, Razoo'er Roshani Kothari notified me about a post on the growing global food crisis. The increasing number of food riots in Africa and Asia along with a dramatic rise in food prices have elevated the exposure of this international problem.
According to the post Roshani directed me towards, "The United Nations said this week that 100 million people are now urgently at risk of not having enough food to eat -- and that includes people on every continent of the world."
Photo Source: wmnet.org.uk
Sounds pretty scary, huh? Luckily, there are things you can do to help fight this problem. Check out the OneWorld group on Razoo so that you can educate yourself, spread awareness, and donate time or your expertise.
The Legatum Prosperity Africa Prize is a program which "seeks to recognize and reward the best of small business in emerging markets." The grand prize winner received $100,000 for training and business development.
Check out the trailer for Unlocking Africa, a documentary on the Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity Africa Prize program. More info on this awesome endeavor to come!
I've always been a pet lover...a serious pet-lover, especially when it came down to the classic laborador retriever and other undeniably cute lil' guys. That being said, the pet rat allure always disgusted me. Who could ever, ever find a rat precious, snuggly or good for playing frisbee? In this vain, my rat aversion continued on for 24 years, until...last week.
Last week I was emailed an article about one of the most innovative and exciting social enterprises, well, ever (in my eyes): rats who uncover landmines in Africa. These hero rats are trained to specifically uncover explosive landmines, both metal and plastic, using their sense of smell. The rats are easily trained, too light to set off the landmines and are found almost anywhere and everywhere in the world.
Apopo Vapor Detection Technology first created and tested the concept of hero rats in the mid-90's, in repsonse to the deadly global landmine problem. Techniques at the time were overly expensive and arduous, and so Apopo took to testing and training the rats to detect the smell of explosives and then indicate their presence through scratching the surface and sniffing. In the field, the rats work in on a grid system, with a small harness attached to their backs as they work back and forth, attached to strings overhead. Each time the rat stops to sniff and scratch at the ground, a corresponding point is marked on a grid sheet, indicating the exact location of the landmine. After the rat and facilitators have left the scene, the mines are retrieved and deactivated by explosives experts.
This is a really cool concept, addressing a great need and turning usually burdensome rats into a great source of help. Definitley worth checking out the website for more information on how to get involved.
Want to adopt your very own hero rat? Do it here ... you can even adopt rats named Posh and Becks!
Razoo'er Ellen Fish sent me a video clip of the Barefoot Solar Engineers. The e-mail she sent me reads:
"After 6 months of training at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, these women return to their homes in The Gambia to solar electrify their own communities."
It’s been 3 years since Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole and Jason Russell got stuck in the midst of one of Africa’s longest running civil wars. They went to Uganda to see what they could find—what they could film—what stories they might encounter…and instead found themselves sleeping on the streets and in public structures with thousands of children each night. These children were leaving their villages to walk into the heart of cities surrounding them in order to find safety and sleep without fear.
With the Lord’s Resistance Army still controlling Northern Uganda after an on-going twenty year war, the children were forced to leave their homes to avoid kidnapping that happened at night. The LRA was infamous for storming villages and abducting children, some of the youngest around age 5, and forcing them to become child soldiers and mistresses for the rebel leaders. Bobby, Laren and Jason had found their story, and would soon find themselves thrown into the midst of a conflict that would change the course of their lives and the composition of their hearts.
Each story they heard, stories of fear, of loss and of stolen childhoods, came home to San Diego with them and was turned into Invisible Children: The Rough Cut . The video inspired and impassioned people as a grassroots campaign spread the DVD worldwide. With the impact of the DVD growing quickly, the guys formed the non-profit organization Invisible Children, Inc. and set out on a media blitz campaign to make the stories of the voiceless heard. Through the organization, the IC team is able to direct funds into valuable and creative programs on the ground in Uganda.
Since its inception, Invisible Children has seen incredible success in raising media, governmental and public support for the cause of the children and others suffering as a result of the ongoing wars in Northern Uganda. Their greatest success throughout all of this has been raising an army of passionate young people who are determined to get involved and make a difference. The Global Night Commute, during which people left their homes and traveled to a centralized location in their city, had 80,000 youth participate in solidarity with the night commuters in N. Uganda. Displace Me, this year’s major campaign, boasted 70,000 people peacefully protesting the situation in the Internally Displaced Camps as they built their own makeshift displacement camp in the downtown of 15 major US cities. The Schools-4-Schools Campaign had 580 American schools participate in fundraising for 10 schools around Uganda, raising a total of $1.2 million dollars through the fundraising efforts of participating schools. These initiatives, creative and youth-oriented, have generated significant media buzz for the organization but have also allowed anyone and everyone interested in the cause to get involved.
Because Bobby, Laren and Jason were college students who stumbled upon an incredible story and wanted to make a difference, Invisible Children encourages participation at any level. Donations have flooded in from cities around the world, with testimonies from children all over the US who have deeply responded to the Rough Cut DVD and have committed to doing all they can to make a difference. Invisible Children actively encourages contribution in any form; from young kids holding their own fundraisers, to hosting an Invisible Children viewing party, to volunteering with the Acholi people in Northern Uganda. The point is simply to get involved, give what you can and tell the stories of those who cannot tell their own.
In June, peace talks finally began between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, including its leader, Joseph Kony. Kidnapping and violence rates have dropped significantly because of these peace talks and the international community is hopeful that this will signal the end of the longstanding conflict.
With a feature length film close to release, Invisible Children continues to raise awareness and further the cause of the northern Ugandan people stateside. As I write, Bobby, Laren and Jason are in Gulu, Uganda with the top fundraising winners from the Schools-4-Schools competition. Those who were passionate and engaged in the plight of their peers in Uganda are now able to stand side by side with them in solidarity and share with one another beyond boundaries, beyond language, and in love.
This Saturday marked the beginning of the Panafrican film festival, FESPACO. Inaugurated in 1969, it serves as a major festival for African film students and professionals. Many have said that FESPACO, although not hugely popular like Cannes, Venice, or Toronto, is one of the only coherent cultural forums open to the entire continent. Based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, FESPACO has been a crucial element in preserving African cinema. The African film industry has experienced weak growth across the continent, although industry professionals continue to produce engaging and quality work. Historically, African film has not had a strong voice internationally and thus FESPACO provides a platform for film talents to exhibit their work to large crowds and compete for critical claim and further funding prizes.
Each edition of the festival is based around a new theme concerning “the worries of Africa” and “the role African cinema should play in the awareness of African people.” Example themes from past years include, “Cinema and People Liberation,” “Cinema and Economic Development,” and “Cinema and New Technologies.” Although these themes are not criteria for film submission, they are designed to help guide the discussion surrounding the films and draw a social relevance to the festival. This year’s theme is “African Cinema and Cultural Diversity.” As stated by a FESPACO spokesperson, “With external influences, Africans are gradually giving up their “Africanity” to become something else: wandering souls. Cultural diversity aims to promote the African film industry; this implies preserving African culture.”
The festival opened with a huge kick-off parade on Saturday morning, boasting more the 40,000 attendees, with traditional dancing and music, and will continue on to March 3rd.
FESPACO is supported by a variety of western donor countries, as well as donor institutions such as UNESCO, UNICEF, and the EU. In conjunction with the general film competition aspect, FESPACO also screens films in rural areas in partnership with a variety of local and international NGOs.
In the United States, we sit on the bus and subways and try not to touch one other. Even on a full train or bus, we look down or away or absorb ourselves in our music, magazines and books so as to avoid eye contact. We get angry when our transportation does not come at the moment the schedule says it will, and furies are doubled in wet and cold conditions.
Each country has its own name for their “mini-bus” which usually (legally) seat about fifteen people. In South Africa they are called mini-buses, in Mozambique chappas, in Tanzania dala dalas, and in Kenya mtatus. In any given East African town or city there will be at least one station and probably various outpourings of pick up and drop off points. There are no schedules, there is only word of mouth. When you get to a station you ask someone where you have to go to catch the right bus and fifteen people try to help you out. Buses leave when they are full. It may take a half hour to find the one you are looking for and you may sit and wait for it to fill up for three hours when you’ve finally found it.
After traveling through these countries for two months, all by bus, I learned that the general threads that bind the transportation systems of these countries together are reflective of an entirely different culture and philosophy of time. Time occurs in a spiral and events are forever overlapping, in contrast to western time where only one thing can happen at a time until the next thing happens. In a place where drastically fewer people have cars and therefore depend on buses for their every transportation need, people have a much straighter sense of what really matters. We are so jaded in America by all the things we have but in the spectrum of things, everyone has five minutes, is it really killing us that the Metro is delayed?
In Africa, people do not have books or magazines and they certainly don’t have mp3 players to pass the time on twenty hour bus rides. They have their minds and perhaps their friends or family—and friends, for that matter can be made anywhere. Africans know how to look each other in the eye and they sit close together on buses. They ask each other for help, they ask you how your day is going, how you are doing. A skeptic could take one look at a typical mini-bus station and think, how unorganized and why don’t they change this? But from a scenario that may seem like chaos, the product is people who still talk to each other, face to face and who actually care about their neighbors.
Razoo is a community united around making a positive difference in the world. Where passions are connected with actions, showing us that when connected, our small contributions add up to a big impact. Go ahead, have a look.
Good Happens is a daily dose of good stuff. A counter to all the bad stuff we hear every day. There's plenty of good in the world -- we find it and celebrate it here. Why? Because man can't live on dread alone.
