Good News in Africa

Positive news does come out of Africa. For example, the largest African film festival, Africa in Motion, featuring 70 films from 28 countries, is currently taking place in Scotland, the 5th such festival to date. This year's theme is celebrations.

Other examples: South Africa and India are joining forces on HIV vaccine research; Uganda receives a grant of $207 million for clean energy; Angola increases tourism significantly; Nigeria boosts its status as the top oil producer in Africa, Rwanda initiates a plan for economic recovery.... For details on these stories and other good news from Africa, go to http://www.africagoodnews.com/ and http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/

A Public-Private Partnership to Reduce HIV/AIDS

North Star Alliance sets up roadside wellness clinics for truck drivers. Established in 2006, it currently has more than 60 partners, including governments (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands), private companies (TNT) and non-governmental organizations (the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - GBC), all working together across different countries to reduce HIV/AIDS.
North Star's vision: "a world in which mobility and dynamic workplaces do not fuel the spread of disease, sexual abuse and human trafficking"
North Star's mission: to "provide transporters, sex workers and related communities sustainable access to basic healthcare and safety"
This large partnership is an excellent example of how a public-private alliance can tackle an important global health challenge. Partners include the Federation of East and South African Road Transport Associations (FESARTA), PharmAccess Foundation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), UNAIDS and system developer ORTEC.

Women Making a Difference

Unite for Sight, an organization founded in 2000 to provide "high quality eye care for all," was created by Jennifer Staple-Clark. The non-profit's website celebrates having provided eye care services to 1 million people, performed over 36,800 sight-restoring surgeries and trained 7,450 fellows to help eliminate preventable blindness. The eye care is administered by local optometrists and ophthalmologists to patients in their own villages. Unite for Sight also supports eye clinics worldwide.

First Book, also a non-profit social enterprise, was founded in 1992 by Kyle Zimmer, who realized that the children she tutored at a soup kitchen had no books. Today, First Book lays claim to having delivered more than 70 million new books to children in need in communities across the US and Canada. It thus addresses "one of the most important factors affecting literacy -- access to books". Volunteer to distribute books to the needy by contacting First Book.

Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE), founded by Elizabeth Scharpf, aims to "improve the quality of life for people in developing countries" via market-based means. A major project has been the development of a low-priced sanitary pad from natural raw materials for women in Africa and Asia. The idea is to help women start their own businesses making and locally distributing eco-friendly pads. Meanwhile, SHE is helping girls stay in school rather than staying home during menstruation because of the lack of sanitary facilities.


These women are not drops in the bucket. Every person they educate, every person they help can in turn help others and teach others to acquire the skills needed in their own villages and towns. Altruism is indeed contagious. Thanks to The New York Times' Nicholas D. Kristof for pointing that out.

Reframing the Fight against Poverty for Better Results

In case you missed it, in "Boast, build and sell" (International Herald Tribune, 24 September 2010), Nicholas D. Kristof offers three suggestions to improve humanitarian assistance in fighting poverty:
1. Spread the good news: the fight against poverty currently saves the lives of approximately 32,000 children daily (around 22,0o0 children die per day at present against 54,000 per day in 1960)
2. Promote economic growth over charity
3. Market antipoverty work better

As Mr. Kristof likes to remind us: "We should note that schools have a better record of fighting terrorism than missiles do and wobbly governments can be buttressed not just with helicopter gunships but also with school lunch programs (at 25 cents per kid per day)."
So let's emphasize the positive and recall that today's fight again poverty is "where the success is."

Put Pressure on Politicians to End Hunger

As of now, more than one million people have signed the petition that you will find at http://www.1billionhungry.org/

If you are mad as hell, if you "find it unacceptable that close to one billion people are chronically hungry" then sign the petition. Its aims: "Through the United Nations, we call upon governments to make the elimination of hunger their top priority until that goal is reached." The more the political pressure, the more governments will have to do more to end hunger.

Swiss Association Kaicedra Funds Classroom in Remote Village

This story begins in December 2009 under the "village tree" of Gorin, in northern Burkina Faso. The "ancients" and the women welcomed members of Kaicedra to their town and asked their help in providing an adequate learning environment for their children. With their meager means, the community had built a temporary shelter that was bound to be destroyed in the next rainy season (which it was).

Back from their trip, the Kaicedra team chose to make the Gorin classroom their main project for the year. The budgeted 19,000 Swiss francs were raised in the first half of the year and construction began in June 2010. Just a couple of weeks ago, on October 1st (official back-t0-school day in Burkina Faso), children from the village of Gorin had their first lesson in their new classroom.

Kaicedra supports education and health community projects in Burkina Faso. It also sponsors children in kindergarten so they can enter primary school and young girls so they can continue their education. (www.kaicedra.org/)

Walking for Hope

It is cold and a bit windy in Geneva; the sun will certainly not shine very bright today. Nonetheless we put on our walking shoes and headed out for the 19th edition of the “Marche de l’Espoir” or “Walk for Hope”, run by Terre des Hommes. This walk, which takes place in early October every year, benefits one or more countries, and specifically children in these countries. Last year, it was Senegal; this year it is Brazil, Burkina Faso and India.

Importantly, this year’s edition is focused on healthy, sustainable food for all. Today, more than one billion of the 6.7 billion people on our planet suffer from hunger or malnutrition, or 150 million more than in 2008. More than half are children.

This number is growing in spite of the Millennium Development Goals which aim to reduce malnutrition by 50% by 2015. But the Earth could feed 12 billion people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This food is inaccessible to a large part of the world’s population, especially those in the Southern hemisphere, because of low wages and agricultural practices that are not adapted to the regions where food is needed the most.

It is with this in mind that we set out this morning to bring our part of “Hope”. As with all walks of this kind, our children have dragged their parents along. They have already done the advanced footwork, going to neighbors, family and friends and getting them to pledge money for each kilometer walked. And it will not be in vain.

During our walk, we mingle with the thousands of other participants, old and young and all ages in between, who have come along to bring their bit of “Hope” to the world. We walk along the route, have our “passport” stamped every kilometer, and take part in the two quizzes that will bring us two bonus kilometers – that much less for our feet to trod.

Our oldest child logged 12 kilometers, and the youngest 16 ‑ a nice reversal that will lighten a few of their sponsors’ pocketbooks, and put healthy, sustainable food in a few more stomachs.

The "Truth" for Free

Launched in 2008, Mozambique's biggest circulation weekly @Verdade, which reaches more than 400,000 people in that south-eastern African country, is the nation's first high-quality, free newspaper. According to its founder, Erik Charas, "@Verdade was really created to bring out good values and positive morals as well as to raise our society to the levels we want. ... The average Mozambican is so preoccupied with his survival that he has put his ambition aside. If we are in no condition to dream, then we have no ability to have ambition. And that is where @Verdade fits in; to bring back hope, to raise the level of ambition of the Mozambican and hopefully instigate change." As few people in Mozambique have electricity, not to mention TV sets or computers, and few can afford to buy a newspaper, most had little, if any, access to mass media communication before @Verdade was created. Today the newspaper provides information at the local level, including on health and women's issues and even on domestic violence, in order to "be informative but at the same time to have potential for behavioural change". It also reports more widely on the news in Maputo and in the rest of Africa. @Verdade has become a very popular and successful social enterprise that serves the people of Mozambique while transforming the nation.