And yet…

Humanitarian work could benefit from the Hippocratic oath.

Aschiana classroom and artwork Kabul street children study beneath students’ artwork at the Aschiana school, © James Rupert, 2005

Pouring money into a country without thinking things through can actually do harm, as in this story. Dumping surplus food in poor countries benefits our farmers, but wrecks the market for local agriculture. Our humanitarian efforts suffer from a pernicious bias – the perceived need for foreign aid to serve our national and individual interests first. We’ll help, but only if we get something out of it. We want to see a payoff, and we want it right away. We don’t have the patience to continue effective programs and to wait for the local economy to revive. Oddly enough, this is not endearing us to the recipients of our aid.

Local grassroots efforts like Aschiana offer a far more effective way to help. Here’s where to put the money. Because really, a dedicated teacher should be making more than $4 a day. Even in Afghanistan.

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Media Voices Associate Editorial Director Petra Lent McCarron is an experienced television and film producer and editor. She co-produced Stolen Childhoods and Rescuing Emmanuel for Galen Films.

This week at Media Voices, we have a report from UN Special Envoy for Education Gordon Brown, entitled Out of Wedlock, Into School. There are sixteen countries in which more than half of the women marry before the age of eighteen. Every year 1.5 million girls are married off before the age of fifteen. For very young girls, pregnancies carry a fivefold risk of death or life-changing injuries like fistulas. A heartbroken mother mourns her daughter, dead in childbirth at the age of thirteen: “Husan Pari could have lived if she had had skilled health care and not married so young. I blame myself for her death.” The cultural attitudes that favor child marriage reinforce gender inequality and condemn the child bride and her children to poverty and powerlessness. It reminds me of the old children’s game, Chutes and Ladders, in how easily a girl’s progress towards independent adulthood can be derailed. If school is a ladder, early marriage is a chute, and most child brides never recover the ground that was lost.

The encouraging thing, however, is that educating girls can break the cycle. An educated woman can conceive of other fates for her own daughters than being married off as teenagers. She has more options – and more power to protect her children.

Gordon Brown points out, however, that education is chronically under-financed: the current level of $3 billion spent on basic education is less than one-fifth of the amount pledged and required to reach the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education for all by 2015. Child marriage is not only a human rights violation but a criminal waste of talent and young lives. “No country can afford to waste human potential on the scale associated with early marriage – least of all the world’s poorest countries.”

Child well-being does not necessarily rise in proportion to greater wealth, however. In Unicef’s Report Card 11, Child Well-Being in Rich Countries, we see that the Netherlands and Scandinavia continue to be great places to be a child, while the United States comes in towards the bottom of the pack, trailed only by relatively poor countries, like Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. It isn’t necessarily the size of the economy that makes a difference. Outcomes in child well-being are “policy-susceptible,” as the report delicately puts it.

Also this week, we have some interviews Len and Georgia shot in Kenya with students who are being supported in school by The Kenyan Schoolhouse, which is a project of Media Voices. The Kenyan Schoolhouse has educated Kenyan kids with the help of the African Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) for ten years now. These are ambitious kids, good kids with dreams of becoming surgeons, teachers, civil engineers. Not many American academic superstars would say, like William Mutio, that he wants to help the community left behind. That’s a very African thing. It’s typical for an African professional to be the main support of an extended family. The benefits of education ripple outward. It is truly a driver of development.

Finally I stumbled across the excellent series Letter From My Child on Al Jazeera this week. The first two programs have aired and are available to screen online. Brazil: Forced to the Streets, by Gert Corba, is particularly good. Well worth watching!

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Petra Lent McCarron is an experienced television and film producer and editor. She co-produced Stolen Childhoods and Rescuing Emmanuel for Galen Films.

The saddening thing about this, is that parents who send their sons to these daaras, really are trying to give them a better chance in life. In her Q&A, Daniela Kon is careful to point out that abuse of students is a perversion of Islamic education, and that there are in fact good Islamic schools, where students get an education, rather than being exploited. They exist – just not for the poor. Meanwhile, the children run the risk of being run over as they weave through the busy traffic in Dakar, trying to make enough money not to get beaten when they return to the school. Babacar R. (14 years old) had this to say:

Begging is too difficult because if I do not have the daily quota, the grand
talibé beats me. He hits me everywhere—on the head, the back, everywhere,
and over and over. It’s difficult, it’s very painful…. I want to return home and
work in my village. I don’t want to be here.

Thirteen-year-old Seydou R. says that in fear of being beaten he and his friends occasionally turned to stealing:

Because we were scared of being beaten for not having the sum, all of us
would steal something and give the money to the marabout if we were in
danger of not collecting the sum. We would do anything to get the 300 CFA
($0.65)

With the children living in truly Dickensian conditions, beaten, not fed properly and neglected, it’s not surprising that quite a few talibés end up running away and swelling the numbers of children living on the streets of Dakar.

We need some good news, and as it happens, there is some. In Birmingham, Malala Yousafzai was just released from the hospital to recover at home with her family and prepare for another operation to rebuild her skull scheduled for late February. The New York Times has a video of Malala speaking fluently and passionately about education for girls. The human brain is a marvelous thing – particularly hers.

Want to know what you can do to help? Contribute to the Malala Fund.

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Petra Lent McCarron is an experienced television and film producer and editor. She co-produced Stolen Childhoods and Rescuing Emmanuel for Galen Films.

Experiencing the gravity of the situation firsthand, seeing the systematic neglect and exploitation of the boys, their helplessness and hopelessness, made me feel compelled to do what I can to raise awareness, advocate to reform the Islamic education system, support the efforts of Maison de la Gare (the local grassroots organization featured) and to find a way to animate a dialogue in local and international communities that would ignite action and incentives to address the issue and protect the children.

2. What was the biggest obstacle in making it?

The topic of “Islamic education” in Senegal is culturally and politically extremely sensitive. Anyone who tries to tackle the issue runs the risk of being accused of criticizing Islam as a whole, which has made efforts to discuss and resolve the Talibes problem very difficult. Political institutions, Islamic authorities and aid organizations are in a web of interdependence that has silenced the problem and perpetuated it as a result. So one challenge was to ensure that the film can be screened in Senegal, which meant treating the subject both visually and contextually with the utmost respect and sensitivity, not focusing on the worst perpetrators, but on individuals stuck in the system, and not alienating Islamic teachers (who are too often just blamed as scapegoats) but inviting them to participate in the film and conversation.

The other obstacle during the filming process was dealing with the reality of the children’s circumstances, especially when what was needed at times, was urgent medical attention, with no one around to provide that.

3. How did you first connect with the individuals you feature in the film?

I was introduced to Issa Kouyate and his local grassroots organization La Maison de La Gare (MDG) by Fallckolm Cuenca, Director of SDGI (Sustainable Development Group International) a year prior to making the film in Senegal. MDG was creating a volunteer program that I was asked to consult on and in the process was able to learn about the circumstances of the Talibes and the difficulties that organizations face to have long-term impacts.

4. What do you want viewers to take away from the film?

I hope watching the documentary will make people realize that terrible violations against children are being overlooked and perpetuated by ignorance, by the lack of support and competence of aid organizations, by donors not insisting on accountability and follow-up, by the failure of governments to regulate, to enforce laws and uphold commitments to human rights, by the political incentives of civil institutions and the cultural acceptance of families, religious authorities and powerless mothers. I hope that international audiences discover their empathy and sense of responsibility to do a much better job ensuring that education is not used as a front for exploitation and criminal neglect of small children – whatever their culture or belief. As citizens of especially donor countries, we have certain power. We can make choices to invest in responsible programs and demand that the issue is being addressed.
Please find out what you can do to help Talibes: How To Help

5. How is the film different than other projects you have worked on?

I’ve been working in the aid sector for the past seven years on projects in education, agricultural development, youth empowerment etc. and had worked in places of extreme poverty before, but had never seen anything like what I saw in Senegal. I never worked in medical aid and had never before dealt with malnourished and abused children who suffered corporal punishment. It was a shocking and eye-opening experience to witness such neglect of innocent children.

6. In Senegal, did you witness positive elements of Islamic education?

Yes. I saw and worked with people who had been educated in Islamic schools who cared for their children, neighbors and community. I saw people choosing to remove themselves from arguments to go pray and calm themselves instead of fighting. There are also modern Islamic schools in the cities that provide children with actual Islamic education – but those are not affordable for the poor. I experienced a rich culture of Sufism (the movement of Islamic mysticism that is practiced in Senegal) with art, music, jewelry, spiritual belief systems and rituals. Of course my tolerance was challenged when it came to legitimizing corporal punishment with religion, but this is where education comes in and needs to be made safe and productive for all children. Right now, at least 50,000 young boys in Islamic schools suffer under conditions akin to slavery. They know neglect, physical abuse and if at all, how to recite the Quran. How do we expect this next generation to grow up as critical thinking, productive members of society if we ignore this and don’t invest in making their education safe instead of detrimental?

7. What is your favorite thing about Senegal?

Its people.

DANIELA KON
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR | PRODUCER
DEEDA PRODUCTIONS | SIMA
www.deedaproductions.com
www.socialimpactmediaawards.com

TALIBE – The Least Favored Children Of Senegal (TRAILER) from DEEDA PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.

“It is really difficult to combine school and work. One cannot do the two at the same time. I am always tired.” Nanfadima A, age 11, tells an interviewer in Mali.

The eagerly awaited report by Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Child Labor and Educational Disadvantage: Breaking the Link, Building Opportunity, has finally been released. It’s an excellent report. “We know how to spring the trap,” says Brown, referring to the grim feedback loop of child labor begetting more poverty through the generations. But momentum has begun to stall; there is “child labor fatigue syndrome” and in some parts of the world, notably sub-Saharan Africa, the numbers of laboring children are rising. Signing UN conventions on child labor is easy – devising a coherent national policy on universal education seems to be hard, or rather, less of a priority. Brown points to inconsistencies like compulsory primary education coexisting with a legal working age that makes a mockery of access to education. The quality of the education on offer matters too, as does the perception of its value. Monetary incentives to parents to send their children to school play an important part in cushioning vulnerable families from economic shocks that would otherwise make it necessary to pull children out of school. Second chance and non-formal educational options for children who have been involved in labor are critical to preventing a lost generation. More resources and aid are needed, of course, but the best way to make that happen is an overwhelming wave of public revulsion at this modern form of slavery. That’s where you come in.

We have two different reports focusing on the garment industry. Deadly Secrets, released by the ILRF in the wake of yet another appalling factory fire in Bangladesh, looks at how suppliers are cutting corners in terms of worker safety, while Apparel Industry Trends 2012: From Farm to Factory, is a report card on how the major brands are doing on keeping child labor out of their supply chains. Made me wince.

In case you missed it, Tina Rosenberg had a wonderful article two days ago, At Year’s End, News of a Global Health Success on a massive worldwide health study. Child mortality is way down in many many countries, even countries that are still desperately poor. The education level of mothers seems to be the most important factor. Yes!

Len Morris has a piece of wonderful news concerning the Kenyan Schoolhouse program in the new year, and Marsha Winsryg is back with We Will Never Forget Your Beautiful Love on a young man named Emmanuel, orphaned in the Rwandan genocide, who is running an orphanage in Rwanda with over a hundred kids. Do you want to make a difference for some kids this Christmas?

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Petra Lent McCarron is an experienced television and film producer and editor. She co-produced Stolen Childhoods and Rescuing Emmanuel for Galen Films.

The program is a partnership with one of the leading African NGOs, ANPPCAN, a pan-African organization with chapters all over the continent, similar in mission to UNICEF.

Since 2002, hundreds of young people have attended primary and secondary school through the support of Kenyan Schoolhouse.  When you give a young woman a chance to educate herself, rather than become a child bride, she takes it. Just listen to Deborah Kamene, who wants to be a surgeon, in our short film KIMANA, made at a school in Maasailand where there are six of our sponsored children. Deborah told me that she’d perform brain surgery on me, should I ever need it. I assured her I’d prefer our current relationship of student and sponsor.

Today, there are seven graduates of our program in college, seven young men and women who were picking coffee or living on the streets a lifetime ago whose degrees will be in chemistry, architecture, business and engineering. Other graduates study tailoring and hairdressing to prepare them for jobs and enable to support themselves and their families.

Three times a year tuition comes due. It’s not a mountain of money but it’s a sufficient amount to worry over.  Christmas is one of those three occasions when school fees come due. The school term resumes January 7th in Kenya. Fees must be paid before the term starts and our students are in schools all over the country. Books and uniforms have to be acquired; some kids will need remedial help and there’s even a need to cover transportation costs, since our students normally can’t afford food, let alone the luxury of education.

So the prospect of failing these students is quite a motivator for those of us who work year round to raise the money and it produces a kind of infectious spirit that has touched many people in our community. Businesses donate counter space for collection boxes; people buy holiday cards, dance at our Holiday Ball or learn about child labor in their schools, churches or libraries and each of these efforts contributes something toward paying the school fees. Hundreds of our neighbors make small donations; a half dozen families sponsor children for the year. We are always surprised by how the money never fails to materialize in time, part work and part magic… it takes some of both, along with a certain amount of faith.

Last week we got some very good news when we learned that The Kenyan Schoolhouse was selected by Operation Days Work to receive a ten thousand dollar grant to support our KSH students in Kenya in 2013. Seven public and private schools in Massachusetts and Vermont, who comprise Operation Days Work, voted to commit themselves to the project’s support through volunteer projects. ODW has been supported a remarkable range of projects all over the world since 1999 and these efforts have changed the arc of many lives.

So, Kenyan Schoolhouse will have a new partner for the upcoming year and best of all, they are middle and high school students, like their Kenyan counterparts.

“ODW strives to teach students and people everywhere that youth in less fortunate countries are no different than in the United States. These students need an education to change their situation and their country. Knowledge is power.”

So, the foundation for the Kenyan Schoolhouse is broader and deeper this year with the addition of all this youthful idealism in action. It’s still going to take a lot people to make the school fees materialize, as it always has, but this year…. there’s magic in the air!

Daniel told me that Emmanuel was a young man in his 30s, who managed to sustain his program but barely. He couldn’t turn anyone away and has ended up with 100 children! Daniel emphasized the honesty and kindheartedness of this man and urged me to help him however I could.

I went to the OVC’s facebook page/website, and was further convinced of the OVC’s worthiness. I also noticed that they had over 900 “friends”! I suggested he put out an appeal to these Facebook friends and ask for 10 or 20 dollars. If only one tenth of them responded, he stood to gain $1000, which in Rwanda, would at least get them through the next few months, if not longer. I sent some money and wrote a post on my page and his, asking others to do the same.
Here is his response:

Oh my God,
Dearest Aunt Marsha, hello
You make the difference. God is good all the time. We will never forget your beautiful love. Together you make the difference. We know miracles still happen.

Hugs from the children,
Emmanuel

Emmanuel became an orphan in 1985 as a result of the Rwandan genocide. He worked his way through school, training in child care and psychology and then graduating in 2002 with a degree in Economics from The National University of Rwanda. During this time he founded the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Organization, began a nursery school, another orphanage and a vocational training Center. He has taught high school economics and worked with the handicapped in Kigali. In other words, he is one amazing guy!

He did receive some ten and twenty dollar donations, but the bank in Kigali won’t take any foreign checks less than $100. If anyone out there has had enough of consumer Christmases to last a while, why not send the OVC $100? Think of all the money you would normally unthinkingly spend on meaningless stuff this season. Then think about Emmanuel’s dream:

My top priority is searching for emergency assistance to rehabilitate the orphanage. I dream of a larger,more functional facility on a bigger site, and envision strong economic, social and cultural development for all the orphans. My goals are to reintegrate the children into everyday family life and to know they will have a chance to live into old age with peace and dignity.

OVC’s Facebook page website: http://www.facebook.com/orphans.vulnerablechildren?fref=ts

I’ve mentioned India Unheard (Video Volunteers) before. They are running a series of eighteen videos (not all of them have been released yet, so stay tuned) from their community correspondents all over India on how climate change is impacting communities and traditional livelihoods. What are poor people doing about climate change? See particularly their fine trailer, Climate Changing Communities, on the scale of the changes that are happening. As one woman remarks in What Does Climate Change Have to Do With Fish?, “soon we won’t be able to do anything but wash dishes in rich people’s houses.” There are some livelihoods where adaptation is just not possible, and the only way out is migration to the cities, which would be great if there were jobs there, and places to live. The reality is that families wash up in enormous slums with no infrastructure and limited opportunities of making a living (What Does Climate Change Have to Do With Migrants?)

Whole towns have already been lost to the effects of climate change. In The Shifting Sands, Raymond, one of the last inhabitants, walks the camera crew around the dunes in Androka, Madagascar. “That was the colonial governor’s palace,” he gestures, “and there was the police station.” Floods, cyclones and desertification have made the area unlivable. All that is left of the town is sand.

Depending on where you live and what you do, adaptation may be possible. In Swapping Crops (IRIN Films), Pushkar, a 24-year-old farmer in Jugedi, Nepal and his father describe how he switched from growing rice, which was increasingly tenuous with the changing weather patterns, to bananas. His father was very much opposed at first. “I shouted at him that his plan was impossible, but he said he didn’t care what I thought, he was going to go ahead regardless.” “But I was right,” says Pushkar and grudgingly his father agrees. The family’s income has doubled with the switch to bananas.

The Loss and Damage in Vulnerable Countries Initiative spearheaded by the Government of Bangladesh has brought out a valuable report by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, Evidence from the Frontlines of Climate Change. The report focuses on five countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Gambia, Kenya and Micronesia. The sobering conclusion of the report is that in certain areas, climate change is happening faster than people’s capacity to adapt and change.

Clearly, more needs to be done. We’ve posted an interim snapshot from the International Institute for Environment and Development on the state of fast-track climate finance, in which the countries who have done the most to cause climate change are supposed to finance mitigation and adaptation efforts. We’ve been a bit distracted over here in the United States, and have somehow managed to pay less than half of what we promised for climate finance. It’s apples and oranges, I know, but it does seem ironic that we’ve spent billions on television ads for the election, yet can’t seem to meet our commitments on climate change.

If you can’t bring yourself to dig in to reports (life is short, after all), the Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CGIAR) has a set of Big Facts on climate change that is tremendously helpful and clear. It’s a good place to begin. Because really, what’s needed is not just more money, but more thought. The largely unacknowledged (and highly uncomfortable) reality is that when people lift themselves out of poverty, they’re liable to want air conditioning and a car. It stands to reason. Don’t you? Yes, they’ll be more resilient in dealing with the shocks of climate change. But unless we all come up with some pretty innovative changes in consumption, the end of extreme poverty will be accompanied by an acceleration of climate change. As an island dweller, I’m a bit apprehensive.

Finally, it is the holiday season. This week, we have an update and an appeal from local artist and low-end philanthropist Marsha Winsryg, the Christmas letter from AACDP, describing her work in Zambia on behalf of local artists and the Mama Bakhita Cheshire Home in Livingstone, Zambia for disabled children. It’s a wonderful thing!

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Petra Lent McCarron is an experienced television and film producer and editor. She co-produced Stolen Childhoods and Rescuing Emmanuel for Galen Films.

In 1999 I found myself at the craft market on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. Fifty booths of vendors waited for the next tourist bus. It was a mystery to me how these vendors could possibly make a living. A Mukuni craftsman named Foster Wachata convinced me to take a few boxes of wooden carvings made by him and his friends and sell them here in the US.

That’s how it all began.

Three years later I decided that the crafts I sold for Foster could benefit both the artisans and the Mama Bakhita Center for Disabled Children in nearby Livingstone, Zambia. I bought the crafts at fair market rates, sold them here in the US and sent the profits to Mama Bakhita.

In 2002 I visited the Center for the first time and found a small, dedicated community of Franciscan Sisters creating a facility for children who had formerly been hidden away, their disabilities a source of shame and superstitious unease.

I saw how grateful the parents were that the Center believed that their children could be educated and valued within the community. I saw the children themselves respond with confidence and playfulness.

In 2002 these warm-hearted Zambian Sisters provided medical referrals, food, clothing, and physiotherapy, accompanied children who need operations to Lusaka and conducted workshops for parents all in a modest compound that had been the private home of an Indian merchant.

Today, ten years later, the AACDP has helped them build a large hall for group events, a two-room special needs school for 30 students who cannot be mainstreamed in the local public schools, and a state-of-the-art physiotherapy room. We are able to send them monthly support.

In those ten years our work has steadily grown.

CRAFTS
Now we buy crafts at fair trade prices not only from the Mukuni craftsmen, but also from:
• Craftswomen at the Kabwata Cultural Center in Lusaka
• The mothers of the disabled children at the Mama Bakhita (who make Zambezi Dolls that we designed together)
• A small non-profit in Ghana who fund education for poor high school students
• A Tuareg tribe in Niger who are struggling to settle in the desert
• Various children and young adults who send me crafts as a way to pay for educational grants.

COLLABORATION
We are pursuing cross-cultural collaboration connecting American artisans with the Kabwata craftswomen’s Quilt Project and the Mama Bakhita Mothers’ Zambezi Doll project.

EMERGENCY RELIEF
We assist in emergencies when a family is at the edge of survival, as when a family lost half its members to a drunk driver who crashed into their house. The police did not arrest the driver. We sent money to help them build a house of their own. When the tiny village of Jack Mwanapapa flooded, we bought seeds and tools for replanting.

We’ve increased our income from craft sales every year to $24,000, but our income from contributions has remained steady at around $4000 for the past several years.

Your contribution will go directly to people in need. There is no middleman at the AACDP. Just me…and I personally know that every dime we send actually helps a specific child or family or organization in need.

Please give today.

Thank you,

Marsha Winsryg
Director

P.S. – The African Artists’ Community Development Project is a big name for a small enterprise. It is also hard to remember. So we are going to change our name in the coming year to The Zambezi Project and hope that you will continue to support our work.

Separate
Race
Check one:

Black____ White_____ Red_____ Yellow____ Human____

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Marsha Winsryg is an artist and a low-end philanthropist living and working on Martha’s Vineyard. “In my 60 years I have been an artist and early-childhood educator but my transformation into a woman waging peace for Zambian children began when my two adult daughters and I traveled through Africa ten years ago.”