Gonaïves Journal – Living in a Sea of Mud, and Drowning in Dread
Sad story here, reported by the New York Times. With rain and hurricane seasons just around the corner, residents in Gonaïves in Haiti have made little progress cleaning up after the devastation of last year’s string of hurricanes and are living in fear of the next big storm. You can see what it looks like here and here and here.
If you’d like to help, here are some organizations trying to make a difference:
The Guardian reports that 29 year-old Omidreza Mirsayafi died in Tehran’s Evin prison on Wednesday, a little over a month after an Iranian judge gave him a two-and-a-half year sentence for posting comments on his blog about Iranian leaders. According to the Guardian,
Details of Mirsayafi’s deterioration in prison were given by Hesam Firoozi, an imprisoned doctor who witnessed his treatment. Firoozi, who has treated some of Iran’s best-known political activists, told Mirsayafi’s lawyer that medical staff had denied him proper care by failing to send him to hospital.
In addition to Iran, during the past year other nations including Egypt, Russia, China and Myanmar have imprisoned bloggers for their writing. In honor of these imprisoned journalists, to advocate for their release, and to keep them from being forgotten, here are some ways to take action:
Today is World Water Day 2009, and according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, nearly 1 billion of the world’s people live without access to clean water, and about 4 million die each year because of waterborne illnesses. Women and children in Africa walk an average of 3.7 miles each day to collect water for their families. And every 15 seconds a child dies from disease caused by lack of fresh water and the inadequate sanitation that it causes. Diarrheal diseases, such as cholera, are on the rise, especially in Africa. And global warming is making the problem worse because of increased frequency and intensity of flooding and resulting contamination of water supplies.
Meanwhile, the U.N. warns that by 2030, nearly half of the world’s people will be living in areas of acute water shortage caused by increased population, rising living standards, dietary changes and biofuel production. Already, water issues are complicating factors in Darfur and the Arab-Israeli conflict. North Africa and the Middle East have already reached the limits of their water resources, and with world population expected to increase by 2 billion by 2050, the pressure on global water supplies is only going to intensify.
In the U.S., trouble is brewing over drought conditions and water rights in the West, while all over the country activists and communities are fighting the bottled water industry to prevent privatization of water supplies and depletion of local water resources.
But, it’s not all bad news in the world of water. The U.N. says Uganda and Turkey have had success with new water management programs, and that the goal of halving the population that doesn’t have access to clean drinking water by 2015 will be met, except in sub-Saharan Africa. And hardworking organizations around the world are successfully implementing programs and strategies for solving water problems in some of the hardest hit areas.
So, to honor World Water Day, what can you do? Quite a lot, it turns out.
Congress is preparing to expand service programs in the U.S., more than tripling the number the AmeriCorps positions, and creating other new volunteer opportunities and programs. The bill would provide $5 billion over five years for living expenses and educational stipends for people of all ages to volunteer in the fields of health care, energy, education and the environment. An expanded service program would create work opportunities in the shrinking job market, plug some of the holes in the suffering nonprofit sector, and make a dent in addressing social and environmental challenges in the U.S. And as the largest U.S. commitment to civil service since the New Deal, it would boost the culture of service, creating a large new corps of Americans who are more likely to continue to serve their communities in the future.
You can help to make sure that the U.S. receives this much needed infusion of civic participation by signing on to become a co-sponsor of the legislation, urging your Congressional representatives to pass the bill. ServiceNation makes it easy for you to do that here. If you’re ready to serve, you can explore service opportunities here. And you can keep the momentum going and help ignite America’s civic spirit by spreading the word.
It’s no surprise that the global economic crisis is hitting the word’s poor and economically vulnerable the hardest. As Sonni Efron wrote in Thursday’s LA Times, jobs and income are receding, while food prices are not, leaving people in the poorest parts of the world even hungrier. Public and private resources for feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless are decreasing, while the need for assistance is growing. In the U.S., where homeless shelters are full to overflowing, tent cities have popped up in places like Reno and Sacramento, while the “hidden homeless” live on friends couches, in their cars, or in motel rooms. As families line up to receive food assistance, soup kitchens struggle to keep up with the demand. Though the U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes funding for homeless prevention and re-housing, a temporary extension of the food stamp program, and other provisions for “protecting the vulnerable”, it will take time for the funding to make its way to communities and to have an impact. And while the federal funds should help, they will still be inadequate to meet the needs of America’s poor. Meanwhile, other governments have done little so far in the way of economic recovery efforts, and developing nations will continue to be unable to take care of their poorest citizens.
So what’s a concerned citizen to do?
But if you’re experiencing your own economic crisis, there are still things you can do to make a difference.
Last year Americans alone used over 100 billion plastic shopping bags. Blue Avacado has created a campaign to try to make a dent in that (and to save millions of pounds of global warming causing carbon gasses) by getting Americans to take the pledge to “get off the plastic”. Visit their website to learn more about the positive impact of reusable bags, to take the pledge, and even to get help remembering to bring your bags with you when you shop.
Did you know that 80% of the worlds 27 million refugees are women? Or that of the 1.2 billion people in the world living in poverty 70% are women? Did you know that women do two-thirds of the world’s work but receive only 10% of the world’s income?
Today is International Women’s Day. All around the world, today and for the rest of March, International Women’s Day activities are celebrating the social, political and economic achievements of women, and highlighting the myriad challenges to their safety and well-being that women still face.
Born during the labor protests of the early 1900′s and finally endorsed by the United Nations in 1975, International Women’s Day is an official holiday in over 30 countries. This year’s U.N. theme for Women’s Day is “Women and Men United To End Violence Against Women and Girls”. The official International Women’s Day website lists hundreds of local events in 62 countries that you can participate in. And there are opportunities all over the web to learn more and take action on issues like violence against women and children, wage inequality, women’s economic empowerment and women’s health.
Here are some of the best resources, to help you celebrate the day:
Did you know that more than 1 out of every 6 children are going hungry right now in the United States? That’s more than 12 million American children who aren’t getting enough to eat today. And with our deepening recession and rising unemployment, that number is growing every day. More than 30 million Americans are on food stamps and food banks are experiencing unprecedented demand at the same time that donations are shrinking. Here’s one way that you can make a difference today.
The Pledge to End Hunger shines a bright light on hunger in America by asking concerned individuals to be a part of the solution. If you pledge to help by making a donation, volunteering in your community, or sharing information about the Pledge to End Hunger with your network, not only will your contribution make a difference, but Tyson Foods will donate 35 lbs. (140 servings) of food to match your contribution. That’s a tractor trailer load of food for every 1000 pledges. Not bad for one click.
Twitter Action Pack | Social Actions.
Here’s another great tool from Social Actions. It’s a long list of subscribable Twitter feeds, organized by issue areas like “Disability Actions”, “Climate Actions”, “Democracy Actions” and “Darfur Actions”. Each feed includes actionable items, including opportunties to donate, volunteer, sign a petition, send an email to your representative, or attend an event. So if you have a favorite cause (or ten), you can subcribe and receive regular “tweets”, regularly connecting you with direct ways to make a difference. You’ll need a Twitter account, which you can get here.
How to Take Action on Any Web Site – Social Actions.
Imagine you’re reading an article from your favorate internet news source and it gets you all excited (or upset). Now imagine that instead of ranting at your unsuspecting friends or family members until you calm down and forget about it, that right at your fingertips while you’re reading there’s a way to take action, to satisfy your righteous indignation, and to do good things for the world all at once. If you use Firefox (and if you don’t, why don’t you????) you can do just that. The set up takes a couple of steps, but using Ubiquity and the Social Actions Ubiquity Command you can highlight any phrase on any web pages and immediately find actions you can take to make a difference. Follow the directions here to put the power of the web for activism at your fingertips.