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http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam Osman’s mother uses to flick away flies says her youngest son suffers from acute malnutrition and the measles. A chest X-ray will soon reveal he also has tuberculosis.
When he arrived at Mogadishu's Benadir Hospital, 3-year-old Abdisalam weighed only 14 pounds. Each laborious breath made his tiny rib cage stick out even farther.
He lies beside his mother, unable to cry; all his energy reserved for his weak gasps.
“A 50-50 chance,” says Dr. Shafie Mohamed Jimale, gently touching the little boy’s emaciated arm. The 30-year-old Somali pediatrician, trained in Sudan, became a father two months earlier; his son was born at the height of the famine that is mainly killing children.
Many of his patients have died. About 50-50.
When Somalia’s famine was declared in July there were emergency calls for help and shocking statistics: 29,000 children had died in the worst drought in 60 years.
A global relief effort has helped save some. Last Friday, the United Nations Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit downgraded famine declarations for three southern regions, thanks to the rains that have finally come and emergency food aid.
But the UN warns that 250,000 are at risk as cholera, malaria and other diseases spread through crowded hospitals and camps. Tens of thousands of others still face starvation.
This famine should not have come as a shock. And if its roots are not understood and the world looks away again, Somalia’s cycle of despair — corruption, starvation, war, death — will continue, dragging children like Abdisalam into its abyss.
So what caused the famine?
Back-to-back droughts killed the livestock and destroyed the farms throughout the Horn of Africa, like the one Abdisalam’s family tended.
The southern region of the country is also warring with Al Shabab, the militant Islamic group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and starved its own people by blocking outside foreign aid.
These are the easy answers.
These are the hard ones: Somalia’s rampant and criminal government-corruption; a war on terror at the expense of aid; and a lucrative crisis industry that spends millions that Somalis will never see.
This is why this country has topped Foreign Policy’s index of failed states for the last three years and why a drought that affected the entire Horn of Africa became a famine only in Somalia.
The scope of the tragedy is overwhelming. Last Friday’s UN announcement on easing famine conditions did not include Mogadishu. The city remains a famine zone.
Tents made of sticks and cloth, pitched between dilapidated buildings, house the starving and desperate. The sea of people in the camps ripples endlessly. It is difficult to get an accurate estimate, but it is believed that more than 100,000 have arrived since July.
Water is still scarce and largely contaminated. Mounds of human feces dot walkways between the shelters. Security is a problem. Rapes and abuses have been reported. Few foreign aid groups have come, with the exception of the Turks, who have taken over a large region of the city now called “Little Istanbul.”
Across the street from Tarabunka, a sprawling camp of more than 16,000, the graveyard is already near capacity. Ali Kafi, one of the farmers-turned-gravediggers, says he hunts untouched patches of red earth to find burial plots. Before 10 on one October morning, three babies and a young woman, nine-months pregnant, were buried. It was a typical day.
The good news for Mogadishu is that there are few visible remnants of the Shabab, which has waged war against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for nearly three years.
Weakened themselves by the famine and claiming to withdraw for “tactical” purposes, hundreds of Shabab fighters abruptly left the capital this summer.
This is why Abdisalam’s family trekked here from the south, believing there would be help in Mogadishu from the TFG, the UN-backed parliament of 550, propped up by a 9,000-member African Union peacekeeping force of Burundian and Ugandan soldiers.
The TFG had an opportunity to repair its badly damaged reputation and make the famine a priority. That didn’t happen.
As people began to starve earlier this year, the country’s president and its parliamentary speaker — President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Speaker Hassan Sharif, who are known as the “Two Sharifs” — were locked in a dispute, trying to shore up political support as they debated at conferences in Djibouti, Kenya or Uganda.
“They say the fish starts rotting from the head,” says Abdi Rashid, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. “At the height of the famine, there was a president who was busy holding meetings with clan elders, not talking about the famine, but about the struggle with the speaker of parliament.”
But the “Two Sharifs” are not the only members of the TFG accused of political gamesmanship or corruption.
One senior TFG official says he is disgusted with his government’s continued focus on politics and power.
“What are we doing?” he asks. “People are dying and we’re focusing on passing a road map?”
snip
Still, there is confusion, says Joe Belliveau, operations manager in Somalia for Médecins Sans Frontières. “The bottom line is that it certainly does not encourage humanitarian action,” Belliveau says. “It’s fine to say that these conditions are lifted and maybe that will help in the short term, but the fact that those laws are on the books remains a major deterrent.”
Abdisalam is defying the odds that have conspired against him — the war against the Shabab, corruption, ineffective aid groups and a famine that the world failed to stop but is now trying to ease.
The nutrition supplements provided by the hospital have made him stronger and TB medication has calmed his breathing.
“He’s a fighter,” said Jimale, the doctor who has volunteered at the city-run Benadir Hospital for the last two years.
Abdisalam was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago and Jimale said the little boy’s odds of survival had increased to more than 80 per cent.
But Abdisalam and his family haven’t returned home. The rains may have come and eased the drought, but a Kenyan-led offensive to fight the Shabab has left the region war torn again.
Abdisalam now lives in one of the camps, just one of thousands getting by, waiting for help.http://bcove.me/sxi31pzq (For video)
—The medical chart Abdisalam... more
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All too often you hear the stories of NGO's who barge in and take over in small communities across the developing world. The majority of which have very good intentions at heart but many fail to listen to the communities needs and often overlook what the community can do for themselves with just a little helping hand.
This article (below) from the Phnom Penh Post talks about an NGO that supports a community and helps it start up self sufficient programmes that, once up and running, do not rely on western funding but become independent, self sufficient tales of success
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THIS Life Cambodia began its own life in 2007 and the NGO believes that Cambodians can change their own community by getting parents and children involved in education.
Its main goal is to help local people and groups become fully self-sustainable. The starting point is their belief that every child has the right to a free, high-quality education.
It achieves the former through the latter by providing educational and training opportunities, securing project funding, building infrastructure, and creating networks of support.
It believes education enables children to develop the essential skills needed to make positive changes in their lives, and break free from poverty and the aims of This Life are to assist grassroots organisations in developing projects in an ecologically sensitive and socially just manner; to implement and coordinate community development and educational programs in various rural areas of Cambodia; and to facilitate people-centred learning.
“We believe that white people come to change the system in Cambodia. Khmer students should be taught by Khmer,” says Se Sen, assistant director to This Life Cambodia, an NGO based on producing sustainability through direct community direction.
This Life began when Billy Gorter, now This Life’s director, visited Cambodia as a volunteer. He met a guide who took him to the commune of Krabei Riel and told him he wanted two English classes for the children. Gorter then made a proposal to the community to raise funds and reached out to his friends and connections.
With their help, the first learning centre was built and is now 100 per cent run by the community.
“Most organisations cater to what volunteers want, not what communities want,” says program development officer Sophie Potter, and that is what separates This Life from the average Cambodian NGO.
This Life has created entry and exit level strategies via a three-point plan. The goal is for the community to become completely sustainable, minus the “hand-holding” of an outside resource.
It now has a lower-secondary school, which caters to 12 villages in Krabei Riel. The community comes up with the problems and has a yearly plan to address the issues at hand.
This Life created a tool called Participatory Rural Appraisal that finds out the problems and creates solutions with the guidance of This Life. Participatory Rural Appraisal plays the role as the facilitator.
This Life has also developed a School Support Committee, which functions like a Cambodian parent-teachers association and has a list of people that involve the community in every step of the program through yearly planning.
“At the end of the year we have a year work plan to see how successful the plan was. If not, we redesign and put it into the following year’s plan, “said Borany Chea, program director.
The funding is not from Western donors but rather This Life provides 40 percent while Krabei Reil accounts for the other 60 percent.
“Potentially, this program can work in any school and provide education for all of the children in Cambodia. As the community learns and is able to do more, This Life pulls back. The success is if we can leave. You don’t want to trade short term success for long term inequality “said Will Brehm, the research, monitoring, and evaluation officer.
Everything is kept internal, including providing Khmer teacher training at the teacher training college. This Life has also taken on another lower-secondary school in Chub’ Ta Trav, which has just finished its first year.
Aside from working with civilian youth, This Life created a program called This Life Beyond Bars, which works with Siem Reap’s incarcerated minors.
Beginning in November, 2010, the program was researched for 18 months before getting implemented.
It provides classes three times a week in vocational training such as motor mechanics and TV/radio repair and has built separate classrooms, all of which are solar powered, in the prison.
The NGO concentrates on personal development, morality, and healthy life choices and provides scholarships for families and has a set plan in place to support their child after release.
It is a progressive, forward-looking well-managed local NGO that believes education enables children to develop the essential skills needed to make positive changes in their lives and break free from poverty.All too often you hear the stories of NGO's who barge in and take over in small... more
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pdy
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6 months ago
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Biotu BioTU is an educational program that promotes modern sustainability in Mexico, integrating the ancient indigenous legacy of living within ecological limits with the technology of the modern world.
Our bus carries solutions in sustainability. We use biodiesel from waste vegetable oil, solar panels, a composting toilet, have locally-grown bamboo interiors, and an organic garden.Biotu BioTU is an educational program that promotes modern sustainability in Mexico,... more
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Johanness Haasbroek, founder of Elephant Human Relations Aid, a Namibian non-profit organization aimed to facilitate the peaceful co-habitation among subsistence farmers, community members and desert adapted elephants living in the region, shares future challenges.Johanness Haasbroek, founder of Elephant Human Relations Aid, a Namibian non-profit... more
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Hendrick Munembone, a Namibian conservationist, dedicates his time and efforts to Elephant Human Conversation Aid, a non-profit organization aimed to facilitate the peaceful co-habitation among subsistence farmers, community members and desert adapted elephants living in the region.Hendrick Munembone, a Namibian conservationist, dedicates his time and efforts to... more
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Neil Bone, a South-African native, has moved to Namibia, Africa, to help the Earth through Elephant Human Relation Aid, a non-profit organization aimed to facilitate the peaceful co-habitation among subsistence farmers, community members and desert adapted elephants living in the region.Neil Bone, a South-African native, has moved to Namibia, Africa, to help the Earth... more
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There is no security for the women and girls in the camps. They feel abandoned and vulnerable to being attacked. Armed gangs attack at will; safe in the knowledge that there is still little prospect that they will be brought to justice. Watch our video here and help us raise international awareness to end violence against women in Haiti. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8xb94sfIEQThere is no security for the women and girls in the camps. They feel abandoned and... more
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While it is generally clear, even to the relatively uninformed, that government and corporations have become one and the same, the extent to which this is the case is still largely unknown amongst the general public. Likewise, the extent to which this merger is affecting public health is also not widely known. In recent years (aside from their other horrific projects) government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, and corporations have all banded together to combine two of the biggest scourges on the environment and human health -- genetic modification and vaccines -- into one entity.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/viruses-and-gm-insect-flying-vaccine.htmlWhile it is generally clear, even to the relatively uninformed, that government and... more
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The Aqua-hopper is a new invention set to take the developing world by storm. Based on the Q-drum technology, the aqua hopper solves the problem of fetching water over long distances. Destructive infrastructure is not needed and indigenous women's cultural tradition of socialising at the local well is preserved. This is more than a practical cure; it is a life-saving miracle from the West for the rest.The Aqua-hopper is a new invention set to take the developing world by storm. Based on... more
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NGO Monitor's Anne Herzberg discusses the implications of the "lawfare" legal measures taken to delegitimize Israel, including boycotts, divestment, and universal jurisdiction.NGO Monitor's Anne Herzberg discusses the implications of the "lawfare"... more
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The exploitation of international legal rhetoric by NGOs has become a major weapon in the political war to delegitimize Israeli responses to terrorism. This strategy, adopted at the NGO Forum of the UN's 2001 Durban Conference, is used to support the BDS movement and "war crimes" trials against Israelis.
Anne Herzberg is the Legal Advisor for NGO Monitor, the Jerusalem-based research institution. Her areas of expertise include universal jurisdiction, international criminal and human rights law, NGOs and the UN system, and the laws of armed conflict. Her op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Ha'aretz, and the Jerusalem Post.The exploitation of international legal rhetoric by NGOs has become a major weapon in... more
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American lawmakers commemorated the 20th anniversary of a Mumbai-based rights organisation dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating vulnerable Indian children from being abused and exploited. Congressman Todd Akin, Trent Franks, Joe Pitts, Chris Smith and Frank Wolf wrote a letter to NGO Bombay Teen Challenge congratulating on its 20 years of service. http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/latest-news/933557/International/2/20/2American lawmakers commemorated the 20th anniversary of a Mumbai-based rights... more
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Clint Borgen photographed in Seattle (2007). Clint Borgen works with Congress to advocate for the world's poor. As President of The Borgen Project, a national campaign, Clint Borgen leads efforts to improve living conditions for those living on less than $1 a day.Clint Borgen photographed in Seattle (2007). Clint Borgen works with Congress to... more
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Armed Groups Raped More Than 150 Women
Added On August 25, 2010
Journalist Josh Kron reports from Goma, DRC, about the mass rape of women over four days in North Kiva last month.Armed Groups Raped More Than 150 Women
Added On August 25, 2010
Journalist Josh... more
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How do you find food when your village is flooded? According to the NGO Hands on Help for the Poor, you can simply grow it on the flood water. These floating farms can also be created on ponds and canals. Want to grow one of your own? Here’s how.
You can also watch this programme on the online news channel www.worldbytes.orgHow do you find food when your village is flooded? According to the NGO Hands on Help... more
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Even though the mainstream news crews have left Haiti, the relief work continues on. One organization, Partners In Development, has seen a surge in the medical care required by the locals, as they are still without general care with almost no hospitals/medical facilities up and running. As PID’s relief work continues in Haiti, they look to a way to keep those interested informed, and keep those who may have otherwise forgotten the situation in the know. Please see the attached link for a short documentary that a few recent relief trip members put together to keep the world informed.Even though the mainstream news crews have left Haiti, the relief work continues on.... more
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Jame89
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added this
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1 year ago
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