Omo Child

Nowhere in Africa is more remote than the valley of the lower Omo river in the far south-west of Ethiopia. Isolated by mountains to the north, swamps to the west and deserts to the south, the lower Omo is the world’s last great tribal stronghold. Untouched by colonialism, largely ungoverned and only tenuously connected to the rest of Ethiopia, the valley is a vast elongated basin occupied by 16 tribes, totaling some 220,000 people.

The peoples of the Omo valley live by herding cattle and goats, planting crops after the river floods its banks, and conducting violent raids on each others’ livestock. Many wear animal skins and adorn themselves with mud, paint, goat fat, ostrich feathers, lip plates, elaborate hairstyles, piercings and scarification patterns.

I recently came across the inspiring story of Lale Labuko, a native of the Kara tribe in the Omo region, working to save Mingi children. Lale is one of the founders of Omo Child, an organization that rescues Mingi children in the Omo Valley.They also provide education and a safe, nurturing shelter for rescued children. Lale himself lost two sisters to Mingi ritual killing. He believes he can best help his tribe through education and developing humanitarian support to overcome their many hardships.Read more about this at Omo Child.


 

'Kony 2012,' World Changing or Slacktivism?

Kony 2012 is probably the most ambitious social media campaign to date. 

For those that need a quick background on the now viral issue, here it is. In 2002 a couple of young film makers were on their way to Darfur to cover the conflict and on their way became captivated with the conflict in Uganda, their transit location. This conflict has been going on for decades and is between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony. Kony and his rebels abduct children and forces them to become child soldiers, among other atrocities. While in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, the film makers saw the plight of several hundred young children walking from the countryside every night just to sleep in the capital to avoid abduction. In the morning the second part of the mass migration continued and these children headed back to their villages in the countryside.(Somewhat reminiscent of the Lost Boys of Sudan). 

After film makers returned to the US they formed the NGO, Invisible Children to raise awareness about the plight of these young children and the brutal tactics of Kony.He is now the most wanted man by the International Criminal Court in Hague.   

So what is  Kony 2012 proposing we do? They want to raise awareness about Kony and his rebels, they want that awareness to translate into action by the Government to put boots on the ground in East Africa to help capture Kony and bring him to trial. 

So what is all the controversy about? Well the biggest criticisms  are about their finances and that they paint an unfair picture of Uganda. The Telegraph says this about their finances. 

  

Of more than £6 million it spent in 2001, less than £2.3 million was for activities helping people on the ground. The rest went on “awareness programs and products”, management, media and others.

The other side of this argument is that Invisible Children's main goal has always been to raise awareness. Their charter has not changed and their finances reflect that charter, anyone giving to them hopefully understands that their goal is not to rebuild villages, drill for clean water or implement educational programs, although they have done some of this type of work. 

As for the second criticism about Kony 2012 here is what  Arthur Larok,Action Aid's director in Uganda, says this about this film.

It doesn't sound like a fair representation of Uganda. We have challenges within the country, but certainly the perception of a country at war is not accurate at all. There are political, economic and social challenges, but they are complex. Being dramatic about a country at war is not accurate. 

So whether you agree or disagree with these criticisms Invisible Children has certainly done what they set out to do, to raise awareness. Their video has had more than 70 millions views and counting which is impressive since Uganda has no strategic importance to any Western country. It is has no oil, diamonds, minerals or US bases.

If you haven't seen the film as yet here is a link. It's only 30 mins.

So what do  you think, Kony 2012, World Changing or Lazy Activism aka. Slacktivism?

Just Love Coffee Roasters

I'm a huge fan of coffee, on the average week day I probably have 5 cups a day, and not that silly decaf stuff, I leave that for the wussies. 

Interesting fact: Ethiopia is the birth place of coffee, see my previous post about how Starbucks was beaten by a bunch of goats to discovering coffee and other interesting facts about Ethiopia. It was discovered in a region of Ethiopia called Kaffa. Traders from the Arabian Peninsula brought it to Yemen where the roasting process was refined and exported mainly through the Yemenese port of Mocha. The concept of a Coffee Shop was popularized by the Italians (I know the French would like to claim this and have tried to do so by popularizing the name 'French Press'). The French Press as we know it is actually attributed to an Italian designer named Calimani; he took the French Press Coffee Maker a step further by using a glass jar with a spout, much like a laboratory beaker, and fashioned a plunger with a filter on the end to press the ground coffee to the bottom of the pot.

I was surfing the web and found Just Love Coffee Roasters, they have a very cool story. Owners Randy and Emily Webb adopted from Ethiopia and during the process of learning about Ethiopian culture discovered the wonderful history of Ethiopia and its great contribution to coffee lovers all over the world. They've started their own coffee shop which has a store front and an online store. A large portion of their profits go to help with Ethiopian orphans. Check out their story.

A Walk to Beautiful (2007)

This an amazing story of hope for women in Ethiopia. This is a must see for anyone interested learning more about Ethiopia or East Africa. Often the AIDS pandemic overshadows some of the other struggles women and children face in this part of the world and Mary Olive Smith, the director, does an amazing job of capturing the stories of these five Ethiopian women.

A Walk to Beautiful is a feature length documentary that tells the stories of five Ethiopian women, who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries and make the journey to reclaim their lost dignity. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. The trials they endure -- and their attempts to rebuild their lives -- tell a universal story of hope, courage, and transformation.

See A Walk to Beautiful Preview here.

Planting Shade Trees

Children of Ethiopia

What would you do if the closest clinic is a 6 hour walk? I took this picture the day we did a mobile health clinic in Tufa. The village of Tufa is located 200km South of Addis Ababa, on the shores of Lake Langano in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia. The area has traditionally suffered from famine but a recent project run by our sponsoring organization has been improving irrigation in the area. The goal of this project is to improve food security in these this chronically famine-affected community, by building two 40 hectare irrigation schemes to sustain crops through drought. These will directly benefit 8,500 people.

 

This picture proves that friendship can be made with candy. Keep enough bubble gum on you and you'll always have friends. Ganet was walking around barefoot everywhere, including on our construction site. She is the daughter of one the school teachers we worked with. Her brother is Tamaskin.

Tamaskin is from the Oromo tribe in southern Ethiopia,the national language in Ethiopia is Amharic and he has many friends that are foreigners. Both he and his brother speak three languages. In a country where formal education stops two grades lower than the rest of the world the intellectual potential of their children say a completely different story.

Tamaskin's father works at Langano Elementary school. When it started the school originally covered only Grades 1 to 4. It has been well received in the community which places a high emphasis on education. In the last three years the school has expanded to include grades 5 and 6, special camps have been offered for girls and a newly constrcuted library space that I helped to work on last year.

Mingi Children

For generations southern tribes in Ethiopia have believed in what they called "mingi children," infants that have been cursed. It could be for something as simple as their top teeth came in before their bottom teeth.

This is an excerpt from an article I read recently. There has been little modern research on mingi. Elders single out for death children who are born out of wedlock, have damaged genitals, or whose top baby teeth emerge before the bottom ones. Elders believe keeping this traditional practice is crucial to tribal survival. Allowing a mingi child to live among their people, they fear, will cause the rains to cease and the sun to grow hotter. In the three tribes, which practice “mingi”, there are a total of roughly 130,000 people living in hundreds of villages spanning an area totaling hundreds of square miles. It is estimated that more than 1000 children are killed each year because they were “mingi”.

For whatever the reason the children are cursed and are usually thrown into a river and left to die. There are now several groups working to convince tribal leaders to give these children up for adoption.  

What can you do to help? Awareness is the first step. Search for articles or news reports about the problem of "Mingi Children" and share what is going on Southern Ethiopia.  Second find a group that is caring for "Mingi Children" and support them. One organization I've found is Bring in Love, they pair up widows that they've trained with vocational skills and Mingi Children who need adopted parents.