FROM COLORS, WITH LOVE - "UNHATE"

From COLORS With Love

COLORS magazine, the Benetton Group’s socially aware periodical gives UNHATE DOVE to the city of Tripoli, Libya as a sign of peace & hope. The large, dove-shaped sculpture is covered in over 15,000 spent cartridges picked up in the world’s “hot spots”.   Made by Fabrica, the art installation was officially donated to Tripoli on Saturday December 24, 2011, Independence Day, which the Libyan people celebrated for the first time in 42 years.   

 (PHOTO: UNHATE DOVE) “The official handing-over of the dove is the UNHATE Foundation’s first act, both concrete and symbolic,” said Alessandro Benetton, Benetton Group’s executive deputy chairman, on behalf of the Foundation. “Our aim in creating the Foundation is to oppose the culture of hate. It seeks to be a leader and driving force behind the desire for participation and change felt by citizens of the world, especially young people”.

(PHOTO: UNHATE DOVE) The cartridge cases were mounted on the dove in the University of Tripoli & were collected by COLORS from people who live in areas where armed conflicts seem to run on endlessly & who desperately ask for an end to hostilities.   

 (PHOTO: UNHATE DOVE) WITH LOVE is available in four bilingual editions: English + Italian, French, Spanish or Arabic. This issue is also available in digital form to facilitate wide circulation especially online.  Additionally Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Grostein Andrade collaborated on this special COLORS issue & with the support of Criar Institute, founded Cine Rincão, a cinema where children can enjoy the wonderful world of films, safe from drug traffickers and street violence. The video is available on the blog www.colorslove.com & via social networks, including YouTube.  Visit www.unhatefoundation.org to learn more.

The View From Here: Teaching An Important Message-Educating Girls Changes Everything

The View From Here:  Teaching An Important Message-Educating Girls Changes Everything

By SARAH MACDONALD

(PHOTO: Ghanain Girls in Vancouver; CREDIT: Felice News) (Felice News, Vancouver, Canada, Originally Published Sunday, December 11, 2011)

VANCOUVER -- The journey from Northern Ghana to Canada was long for Beatrice, Faiza, Fayudatu and Gladys, having travelled close to 24 hrs on buses, two planes and a ferry. They had never been on a plane before, nor very far from the precincts of their village for that matter, so the journey brought many new and challenging experiences for them. 

They arrived in a completely different world, which necessitated a crash course in order to navigate. It was Shannen O’Brian, founder of Create Change, who shared with these girls that endearingly coveted first introduction. How to flush a toilet, how to use a faucet in an airplane bathroom, all the things we consider common knowledge.

Shannen recounts that it was to their great surprise and amazement that the sun was shining in this part of the world. This is of course reasonable thought process, as the seasons of snow and rain in the great North surely take romantic preeminence in global imaginations.   When I met the four girls for the first time, their smiles were warm, but the way they huddled into their down jackets, tuques and scarves, was telling of their unfamiliarity and slight displeasure with the chilly Canadian climate.

So how did these four Ghanaian girls end up in Vancouver on a speaking tour?

In 2007, Shannen O’Brian founded Create Change after years of working as a field worker for well established, non-profit organizations. She was often frustrated with the corruption and inefficiency she witnessed first-hand and simply wanted to effect change.  So this sharp-witted, driven young woman founded Create Change, a no-nonsense, grass-roots foundation solely dedicated to providing Northern Ghanaians with two of the most basic needs of life, water and education.  

O’Brian claims that ‘it’s not a lack of compassion’ which prevents people from contributing to foreign aid, ‘but a lack of connection’.  Thus, Create Change shares by means of video footage, the projects implemented in Ghana, so that we can directly see the impact of our contributions. Funds don’t disappear into the void of ‘charity’, we are shown exactly where they are allocated and stay current from implementation to completion. Video facilitates meaningful connections between donor and recipient and asks us to view humanitarian aid as a dialogue instead of a one way channel.

In 2007, she created the Ghana Girls Education Project which has enabled many girls, including Beatrice, Faiza, Fayudatu and Gladys, to attend school and acquire supplementary food supplies. Gender inequality in education is a big problem in many developing countries and directly impacts poverty levels.

According to UNESCO, “being born a girl carries with it a significant education disadvantage in many countries”. Girls often miss out on opportunities to learn or have to quit school when domestic needs and the absence of funding arise. When a family is struggling financially, they will most likely put their son in school before their daughter. Perhaps this is why out of the 67 million children out of school in Africa, more than 50 percent are girls.

Economically speaking, it makes sense to educate girls and give them equal opportunity.  According to the World Bank “the world’s most competitive economies are those where the opportunity gap between women and men is the narrowest”, with Economist headlines reading: “Forget China, India and the internet… economic growth is driven by women.” Due to the socio-economic disadvantages brought on by gender inequality, the UN has set a lofty goal of achieving gender parity in education by 2015.

With a parallel goal, these bright young women have embarked on a speaking tour called ‘For Our Daughters’ to spread this message of the importance of educating girls. They represent their sisters in Ghana and do so proudly, knowing that this tour will raise awareness and funds so that others will have the opportunity to progress in their education like them.

Having graduated from high school under sponsorship of Create Change, they are proof that educating girls changes everything and are poised to be leaders in their communities upon their return. They will continue speaking to communities and schools, inspiring Ghanaians to support female education. They will also be given an internship with Create Change to lead the implementation of a personal project they will have raised funds for during the speaking tour.

On the helm of the most recent Nobel Peace Prize winners, three powerful African female leaders, these girls are demonstrating the power of educating girls in their goals to be agents of change within their communities. In this instance I omit the word ‘hope’, because they are not just hoping, they are striving, doing, creating and realizing.

All coming from disadvantaged families, they have overcome great obstacles to be where they are today.  Beatrice intends to be a state agricultural officer in order to bring sustainable farming practices to rural communities. Faiza plans to attend University to become a girl child educator and to protect the rights of women and girls in Northern Ghana. Fayudatu, a natural born leader, will soon attend nursing college so that she can treat rural populations who lack access to healthcare. Gladys, elected as library prefect in her high school, has her eyes set on being a politician one day, to bring change to her community and protect the rights of widows and children.

The next month will be full for the girls as they grace a diverse selection of Vancouver audiences with their songs, stories and visions for the future. Their visit will surely help us understand the challenges faced by girls in developing nations, and hopefully raise enough funds to support and empower the next group of female leaders in Northern Ghana.

(Sarah McDonald is a reporter for Felice News.  Started in 2008, as Weekend News Today, Felice News is a Toronto, Canada based not-for-profit news organization, catering to the world’s citizens, who are tired of the negative news that the traditional press report.  All reporters are aged 12-25, in a mission to get more youth involved in world affairs, and occupy their time to ensure that they are not becoming involved with the wrong crowds.  Felice’s Founder, Max Jones is a mere 14 years old.  In Italian, the Word 'Felice' translates to 'Happy' in English. Find Felice at www.felicenews.com and on twitter @Felicenews) 

The View From Here: Pneumonia-The Leading Killer of Children Under 5

(HN, November 10, 2011) -  Academy Award-winning actor Julia Roberts, who serves as Global Ambassador of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, released the following statement today in recognition of World Pneumonia Day, which falls on November 12th.

This World Pneumonia Day I’m speaking out as a mother about the leading killer of children under the age of 5.

Pneumonia kills about 1.4 million young children annually, 99% of whom die in developing countries. That’s one child dying every 20 seconds.

I was inspired to join the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves because its core mission is saving lives - especially children's lives. Of the 2 million people killed each year from diseases caused by toxic smoke from dirty stoves and open cooking fires, about half are young children who die from acute lower respiratory infections, most commonly pneumonia.These women at a UNICEF-supported school feeding programme in Nigeria endure long hours of smoke from open cookstoves. CREDIT: M. Bociurkiw

Cooking shouldn’t kill, but the sad reality is that it does, and a disproportionate amount of the victims are children at the household hearth with their mother as she cooks.

I believe this is a particularly cruel injustice. But it is one that can be stopped. 

The deployment of clean cookstoves and fuels can significantly reduce worldwide childhood death from pneumonia.

Combined with our partners’ global efforts to encourage vaccinations and increase basic health and wellness education, the Alliance is playing an important role in reducing pneumonia and other preventable deaths among the world’s most vulnerable people.

Editor's Note: The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is an innovative public-private partnership led by the United Nations Foundation to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s 100 by ‘20 goal calls for 100 million households to adopt clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020. The Alliance is working with its public, private and non-profit partners to help overcome the market barriers that currently impede the production, deployment and use of clean cookstoves in developing countries. Visit: www.cleancookstoves.org for more information.

The View From Here: Cambodia Wilderness Under the Chainsaw

by Stephanie Scawen in Asia 

"Tell me how can we fix Khmer culture," my driver asked me, as we sat outside the CRCK rubber concession in Prey Lang forest. 

"Education, education, education," I replied. "So that people know corruption is wrong and can be stopped."  

"Yes, but our leaders, they are rich and they were educated overseas. They have education, but it seems to make no difference," he retorted. "What can we do?"

It's heartbreaking to see the rapid destruction of the last and largest primary forest of its kind left on the Indochina peninsula. 

About 3,600 square kilometres of land that is quickly falling victim to the chainsaw. 

Tens of thousands of people who live around the forest and rely on it for their livelihood are seeing their primary source of income disappear. 

Resin trees are protected under the constitution from being felled. 

Villagers can tap the resin and sell it for use as a sealant on boats, as a fragrant oil, and the flammable properties of some species allow it to be used as a slow-burn wick. 

About 20,000 of these trees were felled in the first six month of this year alone. And that was just in one district. 

People are going hungry and growing angry. 

And it's not just the resin trees. Luxury Asian hardwoods are being picked off and shipped off at night. 

Locals talk of hearing the sound of chainsaws after dark in the forest. Other villagers who have moved to the area are hired for their oxcarts to help drag the logs deep out of the forest, indirectly complicit in the destruction.

Activists say if the cutting continues at its present rate, there will be nothing left in a year. 

At the CRCK concession, they were meant to plant rubber. The land was cleared, the trees felled, but the land wasn't suitable for rubber. So now they grow cassava. 

Yet it's guarded by police armed with AK47s and M16s. 

We need the guns to protect ourselves, the police tell me. 

"From what?" I ask. 

I can't get an answer, but they are here to confront several hundred villagers from the four provinces that cover Prey Lang, who've been trekking deep through the forest for the last three or four days to protest against the logging.

The district governors have been ordered to get their villagers back. How they hope to do this is not clear, but police reinforcements have been arriving over the last 24 hours. 

The last time villagers tried to protest outside CRCK they were surrounded by armed police and prevented from even fetching water from the river for two days until they had to give up.  

The deputy district governor told us there would be 500 police to stop the protest.

If they can put that much effort into stopping a protest, you have to ask why they can't do the same to protect the last great wilderness in Cambodia.

Originally published by Al Jazeera under Creative Commons Licensing

The View From Here: Emails from China

By Zachary Schnell

Students in China - photo by Zachary Schnell I left for Beijing, China on June 13, and although I had not slept on the flight there, I couldn’t wait to go explore the minute I arrived. My two-thousand photos taken over the course of seventeen days only showcases a small portion of what I saw and felt on a daily basis.

After returning from China, I figured that, using both my photos and my stories, I had successfully captured the China that I was absorbed in - the China that I witnessed firsthand throughout my trip.

Two months after returning home, I realized that I was completely wrong.

That is, I captured the China that I saw throughout my trip, but, as I soon learned after my departure from China, what I saw greatly differs from that of what Chinese citizens see on a daily basis.

Midway through my trip, I did a home stay with sixteen year-old Deshi. He was chosen to house me both because of his family’s financial state, but, more importantly, because he was among the top ten students in his high school.

Deshi’s family, feeling obligated to give me my own room, insisted on me living with just Deshi for my stay in their cozy, 700 square-foot apartment while the rest of the family lived in another one of their three apartments downtown. 

Home stay room, photo by Zachary Schnell Deshi was, at least in front of me, both curious and insightful. However, it was not Deshi that would reveal the “real” China to me, but his brother, Cheng-Gong who I had only met briefly at a grocery store and once in the apartment. The last time we met, the seventeen year-old nervously asked me for an email address so we could stay in touch. 

The day after my home stay ended, I got an email from Cheng-Gong - simply verifying that our communication method works. I told him it did, and I said that we could talk more once I got back to the States.

A week after returning to Atlanta, I got an email from Cheng-Gong. He apologized for not emailing me until then because he was busy taking practice college entry exams at school.

He then began to tell me of his friends who have gone to the U.S. for college, saying that Chinese students are not given an “realistic” view of the U.S.

“As you know, what we learned from the government may not be very realistic. I can tell you what Chinese government tells us about America and the whole capitalistic world,” ending that email by saying, “too private things aren't allowed here.”

I read and reread this email. I forwarded it to the teacher, John, who had led the trip to Beijing. John had told me earlier that the Chinese government scans all emails to and from China. If an email contains certain keywords or expressions, it is trashed. If the same person’s email gets stopped again, however, they get placed on a watch list.

While it is unlikely to end up on this list, it is a large risk for Cheng-Gong, a mere high school student desperate to go to college, to take. With around 100 million high school students, there is hardly room for twenty percent of these students to go to college. 

John, however, thought it was an amazing opportunity to hear the honest words of a bright, young student born and raised in China. I couldn’t have agreed more, and tried my best to reply.

I told Cheng-Gong that the media is independent in the States, so the government doesn’t tell us things about China or any other country.

An email was waiting for me in my inbox the next morning. “In China,” Cheng-Gong wrote, “the government controls the media. In fact, we don't know the exact situation about the things around us. What we know may be optimized by the government. It's very good to know your country is full of freedom.”

I had learned a lot about China’s history, and given the rise of communism, I wasn’t surprised to hear about their lack of freedom when compared to the United States. However, I did not see anything remotely resembling this while in China.

Skip ahead a few emails, Cheng-Gong and I began talking about our similar personalities:

“Actually, my personality is more like a Western person. I respect everyone's opinions and don't like the so-called standard answer, that really changes a healthy person into an absolute android...Humans are born to be humans. The Chinese teachers just want you to lose yourselves and accustom yourselves to the society. I think being accustomed isn't bad, but giving in to the educational system is harmful. What can we do when we grow up? I just come to school for knowledge but not losing [stuff].What the hell are they thinking about?...Ah...The teachers really don't trust any student...Therefore I don't like Chinese teachers. I know it is not in America. I really like the teachers who respect students and just provide the students with what they need.”

I reread this email six or seven times, not knowing what to do with it. While in China, I visited and taught in an English class at Deshi’s high school. Again, I didn’t see any of what Cheng-Gong described. I was taken aback by what I continued to read. I couldn’t imagine such a world occurring in the same world that I had been in the middle of for three weeks.

For the first time, I realized just how much of an individual Cheng-Gong is. As he points out, China is a massive society with one party in collaboration with one media source, all of which is controlled, monitored, and run in its entirety by the Government. He goes on to write:

“Most of the Chinese students believe they can have a good future if they go to the top universities...But I don't think so. A good specialty and good performance are necessary.”

English class - photo by Zachary SchnellGrowing up with communist parents and in a society where only the top students go to college, this, among other things, is a courageous point to make (especially for a brilliant student like himself). He not only wants to live a life of the freedom I have described to him, he wants to question the blatant, develop differing opinions, and have his own stances on issues that aren’t even brought up in his society.

The freedom and qualities, which fill my culture and way of life, are what makes an individual stand out among the other 1.3 billion Chinese - one fifth of the world’s population. These characteristics in China, contrastingly, define an outcast - someone who is both frowned upon and scolded.

I want to make it clear how great of a kid Cheng-Gong is. He is simply a kid with his own thoughts and beliefs that he wishes to express to someone who he knows will listen to what he has to say.

Cheng-Gong is, in every way loyal to his country and understands how hard it is to rule a country of its size with its history. He said that he signed up for a program that shows him American schools, but he wishes to remain in China for the time being. I give him my greatest wishes and hope that he continues to be heard. He is, like his brother, very unique, and I encourage every bit of it.

- Zachary Schnell is a student in Atlanta, Georgia