This week I noticed a documentary on the shelf at my library, called War Dance, directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine. I took it home and watched it; I'm glad I did. Maybe your local library has it, too.
War Dance is set in northern Uganda, a region that has been wracked by conflict for two decades. Ongoing fighting between government forces and the rebel group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has created instability in wide swaths of the countryside. (The LRA is also linked with the conflicts in neighboring Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which we've previously discussed on this blog.)
Perhaps the dimension of the conflict that has received the most attention is the forcible "recruitment" (a.k.a. abduction) of children to serve as soldiers or slaves for the LRA. Although child soldiering is not the main focus of War Dance, one child featured in the documentary tells his story about being abducted, taken into the bush with the rebels, and forced to perform terrible acts. The other children interviewed in the documentary share their stories of how the war has affected their lives and the lives of their families. The film is a good introduction, on an educational level, to issues like child soldiers and orphan-headed households.
But the film doesn't stop with tales of atrocities. The main storyline of the film revolves around Uganda's National Music Competition, where 20,000 schools compete in dance, singing and instrumental music. The featured students in northern Uganda (from the Patongo school) have never made it to this competition before; after all, many of them are orphans, refugees, heavily impacted by the war. The film follows these students in their quest to compete in the Competition in Kampala. I won't give away the ending, but I will say that it was refreshing to see a film in which the children come away feeling empowered because of something they accomplished. So often, kids are portrayed strictly as victims, or they are shown being empowered by adults' lectures--but in this film, the kids work hard, accomplish something, and feel powerful as a result.
If you like music and dance, you will love the scenes of children performing traditional music and tribal dances. And if you like stylistically-beautiful films, this one's for you. Despite its sometimes-dark subject nature, it is gorgeous. The cinematography is breathtaking, the landscape is beautiful--and the color! the light!
I think the filmmakers made a stylistic choice to skimp a bit on historical analysis, so if you watch this film I would recommend that you read up on the LRA and the situation in northern Uganda, to help you contextualize what you're seeing. In fact, even if you don't watch the film, click on these links. Northern Uganda gets remarkably little international attention, and it is one of the world's most dangerous conflicts, especially for children.
You can watch a trailer for the film and look at (beautiful) still photographs at the War Dance website.
Tomorrow (April 25) is World Malaria Day, so of course: Let's talk about it.
(This photo is from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation photo gallery.)
This is how it happens: Malaria is caused by a microscopic parasite that is carried by infected mosquitoes. When an infected mosquito bites a person, the parasite goes straight to the person's liver and begins to reproduce, then the infection is passed throughout the body through the blood stream. If the parasite arrives in the brain, cerebral malaria (which may lead to a coma and permanent neurological damage, and may be fatal) occurs.
Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria. Worldwide, malaria exists in 109 countries (which, combined, are home to half of the world's population) and kills a million people every year. In Africa specifically, malaria kills more children than any other disease. Overall, 90 percent of the people who die of malaria live in Africa. As is the case with so many public health issues, children are disproportionately affected by malaria.
Of course, even if a person doesn't die of malaria, there can be long-term effects just from contracting the disease. Globally, there are an estimated 350 to 500 million cases of malaria every year. Children who survive a case of cerebral malaria may suffer from long-term learning impairments or brain dysfunction. Also, malaria can cause anemia in children, which makes them more vulnerable to diarrhea, dehydration, and respiratory illnesses--which can, as we've seen in previous posts, be fatal in areas without ready access to health care, clean water, and adequate nutrition. Also, pregnant women (another high-risk population) who contract malaria have higher infant mortality rates, and their babies may be born with dangerously low birthweights.
You can imagine the toll that this disease takes on communities and nations; Africa loses an estimated $12 billion every year because of malarial infections.
One of the best-known (and simplest, and cheapest) ways to prevent malaria is to promote mosquito control initiatives. Distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets have been shown to have a remarkable effect on decreasing malaria. Technological innovation has made these nets more effective; old nets sometimes had to be re-sprayed with insecticide every six months, but the new nets are extremely effective. This, in combination with simple public health efforts such as removing standing water from the vicinity of homes (since mosquitoes breed near standing water), is crucial toward preventing malaria.
Other crucial initiatives involve improving access to drugs that treat malaria (which at present may be hard to come by, or too expensive). Other organizations are working to develop other prevention strategies (such as a malaria vaccine). The international community is working toward a goal of near-zero deaths from malaria by the year 2015. Obviously this will require concerted effort--and commentators seem divided on whether it is possible at this point--but many organizations are working toward this goal.
Recent data suggest that things are already changing, in some target countries, even faster than anyone expected. For instance, in Zambia, malaria deaths have been cut by two-thirds! And countries like like Rwanda and Ethopia are registering significant declines in their child mortality rates, attributable to the widespread distribution of bed nets.
I love these figures; I love to tell them to people who try to tell me that making donations to public health NGOs doesn't make a difference. Because if you choose your organizations wisely, your small donations really can contribute to difference-making.
Also, if you have ten seconds to spare, you can sign this proclamation indicating your support for President Obama's promise to make ending malaria a national priority in the USA.
All right, folks. This blog has gotten a lot of hits over the past couple of weeks, but I didn't get any comments on that last post! Did any of you watch a film or read a book about genocide? Do any of you have any recommendations for me or for other blog readers? I'm working on another post about Genocide Prevention Month, but before I get there I would love to hear some input on what you are learning and thinking about. (It's okay if you don't know me; I'd love it if you introduce yourself.)
April is Genocide Prevention Month. April 7 marked the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, where nearly one million people were slaughtered in three months. Other genocides have begun in April, too--the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. Genocide Prevention Month was established in the United States to be a period of remembrance, and also a period of activism directed toward fighting the forms of genocide that are happening today.
(By the way, if you're interested in the nitty-gritty definition of genocide, click here.)
Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be putting up several posts with suggestions on how you can commemorate Genocide Prevention Month, and turn it into an opportunity for activism. This post, though, is going to focus on what I view as the heart of everything: Education. The first thing I want you to do this month is to read a book and watch a movie. Learn more about genocides that have occurred; feel it.
1) Read a book. The Genocide Prevention Project and the American Booksellers' Association have created a list of "Books of Conscience" that will give you insight into past and current conflicts and genocides. I'm going to post the list in its entirety here, but please be aware I haven't read most of these books. ABOUT GENOCIDE
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal
ARMENIA
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility by Taner Akcam
BOSNIA
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo by Zlata Filipovic
CAMBODIA
Children of the River by Linda Crew
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
DARFUR
Darfur: A Short History of a Long War by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal
Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival by Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain, and Adam Shapiro
The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle, Gretchen Steidle Wallace
A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide by Eric Reeves
Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond by Don Cheadle, John Prendergast
The Translator: A Memoir by Daoud Hari
THE HOLOCAUST
The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank by Anne Frank, Susan Massotty (translator)
The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman
Night by Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel (translator)
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi
RWANDA
Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe by Gerard Prunier
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda by J.P. Stassen, Alexis Siegel (translator)
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Romeo Dallaire
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali: A Novel by Gil Courtemanche
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families Stories From Rwanda by Phillip Gourevitch
ALSO OF NOTE
What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers
Let me recommend a couple of others that aren't on this list: When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him, and Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza.
This is why I love to read: I believe that reading breaks down the barriers between groups and peoples. It gives us the chance to see from behind someone else's eyes, to get inside their skin. It humanizes everyone, including the reader. And I like to believe that this process--of humanization and the destruction of superficial barriers--is a crucial part of creating a world where genocide is unthinkable. So do a little something to get more human: read a book of conscience this month.
2) Watch a film. A good film does the same thing as a good book; it puts you into another place and time and makes you capable of feeling what someone else feels. I'm going to list some that I can vouch for personally, and others that I haven't seen but have heard recommended. Some of these films are feature/fiction films, and some are documentaries. Some are about the genocides listed above, and others just share similar themes.
FILMS I HAVEN'T SEEN (but have heard recommended): The Devil Came on Horseback The Killing Fields Sometimes in April Darfur Now Blessed is the Match My Neighbor My Killer Ghosts of Rwanda The Diary of Anne Frank Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire
Feel free to list other recommendations of books and movies in the comments section! And if you'd like to write a book review or film review for this blog, just let me know!
"The human right to water is essential for living a life of human dignity. It is the pre-requisite for all other human rights." (Kofi Annan)
Yesterday (March 22) was World Water Day, and this coming week (March 22-28) is World Water Week. It's perfect timing for this blog to address the world water crisis. Water is often discussed in conjunction with sanitation, but for today's post I am just going to focus on water.
This is a big, big deal and it directly affects roughly 1/7 of the world's population.
There are really two linked issues when we're talking about the world water crisis: water scarcity, and water quality.
The water scarcity issue is particularly prevalent in Africa, where vast tracts of the land is dry and receives little rain. In some rural regions, women walk ten miles a day to fetch water for their families--carrying 40- or 50-pound water containers--and during the dry season, women may walk nearly twice that distance. (You'll notice I said women, not people--water-gathering is typically considered a female activity, linked to domestic reproductive tasks, and across the world women generally bear the brunt of water-collecting labor.) In fact, the World Health Organization has estimated that African women and children spend, collectively, 40 billion hours a year gathering water.
You can imagine that this takes its toll on women and families in various ways. Health problems can develop from carrying heavy loads long distances (even, in some cases, curved spines and pelvic deformities that cause problems during childbirth). Pregnant women who carry these heavy loads suffer increased health risks. Women and girls traveling alone can be vulnerable to violence and rape. And in some families, girls are required to gather the water--a task that can take so much time that it makes it impossible for the girls to attend school. This time-consuming activity also prevents women from working in other income-generating activities or vital domestic tasks (or caring for their own health).
In the West, we're always being exhorted to drink eight glasses of water a day. Certainly this would be good, healthy advice for anyone, but it isn't an option for much of the world. In fact, one flush of a Western toilet uses as much water as the average person in the developing world uses for a whole day's washing, drinking, cleaning and cooking.
So once a woman has spent half her day collecting and carrying water, the difficulty still hasn't ended. Because chances are, the water she found is not clean or safe for her family to drink. Issues of water quality affect people in urban and rural areas alike.
My own personal introduction to the water quality issue came when my husband and I were living in Mozambique. We were conducting a research project that took us out to a rural village with our research assistants to do some interviews. We noticed a hole in the ground toward the center of the village, and we went to take a look. This was the water supply for the entire village: A crumbling hole dug in the ground--not even a well--with dirt and dead insects floating on top. I remember feeling sick: Even though I'd read about water quality issues, I looked down at that dirty water and imagined scooping up a cup of it for a child to drink, and I felt the world's inequity sink down into my bones.
When a person drinks unclean water (any water from a non-purified source, which can include groundwater, contaminated rainfall, floodwater, or river water, to name a few), that person is vulnerable to various waterborne diseases. Diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid are the most common diseases that are transmitted through unclean water supply. There are dozens of other waterborne diseases--giardiasis, guinea worm, etc. (These are all diseases that occur from drinking unclean water; I am not even going to go into diseases that are connected to standing water, like malaria, dengue fever, or schistosomiasis and related parasitic infections--maybe in a future post.)
This interesting document is a reminder that water scarcity and quality are not necessarily issues of physical scarcity, but that the Africa water crisis is "structurally induced scarcity." In some cases, the world water crisis has been accentuated by politics, economic interests, and even unscrupulous marketing practices. I can't resist mentioning an issue that I find particularly telling:
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, people began to learn that Nestle and other baby formula companies had been aggressively marketing infant formula in less-developed countries. The suggestion implicit in the marketing campaigns was that babies would grow fatter and healthier with formula than they would with breastmilk. Many women (who grew up in communities where breastfeeding was previously the normal--and even only--way of feeding a baby) began to give their babies formula instead, in response to the marketing campaigns. And this is what happened: Families began to spend money they didn't have on infant formula they didn't need. They began to mix the formula with the only water sources they had, which were often unclean. And, since the formula labels were often in a foreign language like English (or because the mothers had not been to school or learned to read), the mothers often used very small amounts of the formula, to make the container last longer.
You can imagine what happened. In addition to losing the natural benefits of breastfeeding (like passing antibodies on to the babies, facilitating the release of bonding hormones, and having a natural method of fertility suppression and birth spacing), the families lost money and inadvertently exposed their babies to the dangers of unclean water and malnutrition. And babies got fatal diarrhea. And babies began to die. You can read more about this in Gabrielle Palmer's marvelous book, The Politics of Breastfeeding, which I highly recommend.
When I worked with UNICEF in the Philippines, I learned that UNICEF still will not accept monetary or in-kind donations from Nestle, because Nestle has continued to promote the use of baby formula in the Philippines, undermining the health of babies and accentuating the already-enormous issue of water impurity and children's health.
We already have technology for many solutions to the world water crisis. In some cases, solutions are free: Encouraging a cultural return to exclusive breastfeeding, helping urban communities negotiate with their local governments to extend clean water systems to the entire community. Other solutions are well-established and cost-effective: Creating rainwater collection systems, or digging pumps and wells in rural areas to create access to groundwater sources. There is very little mystery behind the world water crisis. It's an issue of distribution, and with increased resources this is something the world community should be able to make fast progress on. Despite this, the world water crisis is actually becoming worse over the past few years. As the world's climate changes, communities are being subjected to more drought and the drying-up of water tables. It's urgent.
There are many, many organizations that are working on clean water and sanitation issues around the world. I'd like to introduce you to one project that I particularly like: Tap Project.
There are a number of ways you can get involved with the Tap Project.
1) Are you planning to go out to eat anytime soon? Click here for an interactive map, which will show you restaurants in your community that participate in Tap Project. At these restaurants, you can donate $1 (or more, of course) to Tap Project.
2) Learn more about becoming a Tap Project volunteer in your community or workplace by clicking here.
3) Make a donation (or learn more about using eBay's Giving Works program) by clicking here.
4) Or (this is even quicker and easier), text the word "TAP" or "AGUA" to UNICEF (864233) to make a $5 donation!
5) Check out this cool article in the New York Times to see some of the great ad campaigns that have been created to help Tap Project.
You can read my original post about the conflict in Sudan by clicking here.
Since the beginning of March, there have been some major developments in the crisis in Darfur. Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan. He has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity; this arrest warrant is significant because it is the first time that the ICC has ever issued a warrant for a sitting head of state. (You can read more about the ICC here.)
The government began kicking these organizations out of the country a few days ago. NGOs like these have been providing ongoing aid to millions of displaced people across Darfur and Southern Sudan. The UN warned that "the loss of these non-governmental organizations means that more than one million people will be without food, 1.5 million without health care, and over one million without drinkable water" (read the full article here). You can listen to or read a March 10 NPR story about the situation in Darfur here.
Aid organizations predicted that the Sudanese population could begin to feel the effects of these expulsions within a few days--so, that means today. I read that some NGOs from Asian and Arab countries have applied to begin working in Sudan, in attempt to fill some of the gaps left behind by the departure of these major NGOs. This is a small glimmer of hope, but the information trickling in from Darfur is pretty dire. Save Darfur has up-to-the-minute information on their website.
A couple of things you can do:
1) Sign up, if you haven't already, to receive e-mail updates with action alerts from Save Darfur.
2) Click here to send a letter to Secretary of State Clinton, urging her to make Darfur an immediate priority.
3) Send a postcard to President Obama. He has issued some strong statements over the past few days, but we need to hear more. According to this interesting article, President Obama has "moral authority" in this area because of his African heritage, and we need to keep the pressure on him to be an unwavering voice about this conflict.
A few months ago, I posted about the conflict in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Please click here to read my post, if you haven't already.
The conflict is still raging. In fact, it's the deadliest war our planet has seen since World War II. People are still dying and being displaced from their homes. Women are still being raped with impunity. Eastern DRC is the most dangerous place on earth for women.
I've been receiving frequently e-mails from the organization Raise Hope for Congo, and I've been able to write letters and sign petitions through their action alerts. This week, I got an e-mail describing the Congo Challenge. For the next three months, the organization is encouraging people to learn more about the crisis in the DRC and become involved in raising the profile of the conflict, and in generating awareness about the atrocities occurring in conjunction with the war. They will be sending e-mails with suggestions on how to get involved, "whether you have 5 minutes or 5 hours," they say.
I want to encourage you to sign up for the Congo Challenge, to read the e-mails, and to become activists, whether that means writing letters to politicians or publications, signing petitions, or using social networking to spread awareness. You can sign up by clicking here. This isn't asking much... but at least it's something.
A discussion of global issues; Comments are welcome.
"My trip to the former Yugoslavia had opened the world for me, and my hunger for the world. In doing so, it undid the contained, safe borders of my existence. Suddenly a woman weeping over her lost son in an image on the front page of The New York Times was no longer a theoretical entity. She was real, a woman I might have met, might have known. I was connected to her. I could no longer divorce myself from her pain, her suffering. Initially this was overwhelming. I had nightmares. I felt restless and wrong in my comforting life in America. Everything seemed absurd and pointless. I came to understand why we block out the pain and atrocities of others. That pain, if we allow it to enter us, makes our lives impossible. It forces us to examine our own values and reality. It insists that we be responsible for others. It thrusts us into the messy world where there are no easy solutions or reasons, only struggles and questions. It creates great fissures in the landscape of our insulated, so-called safe reality. Fissures that, once split open, can never close again. It compels us to act." (Eve Ensler)
"To study foreign affairs without putting ourselves into others' shoes is to deal in illusion and to prepare students for a lifelong misunderstanding of our place in the world." (Paul Gagnon)
"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." (Nelson Mandela)
"I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own." (Howard Zinn)
"We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life." (Martin Luther King Jr.)
"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." (Stephen Jay Gould)
"But in the end, there will still be a morning like this one, full of new light, and a distant voice will be heard, like a memory of before we became people. And the tones of a song will well up, the gentle lull of the first mother. This song, yes indeed, will be ours, the memory of a deep root that they were unable to wrench out of us. This voice will give us the strength for a new beginning, and upon hearing it, the corpses will find peace in their graves and the survivors will embrace life with the simple joy of young lovers. All this will happen if we are able to rid ourselves of this time that has made animals out of us. Let us strive to die like the people we no longer are." (Mia Couto)
"If they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away." (Toni Morrison)
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