BAOBAB

This film by Simon Sticker introduces three projects that the Baobab Family, a Germany-based nonprofit, carries out in Mombasa, Kenya. The Baobab Family cares for 31 kids at its orphanage, teaches tailoring skills that enable community members to earn an income, and supports people affected by HIV/AIDS while raising awareness of HIV/AIDS. Sticker says, “Even when a film could not give you the experience — the smell in the slums, the sounds and the feeling of being in these little huts — … maybe it could give a glimpse of a feeling for it. And of what could actually be done.”

BAOBAB from Flow Media on Vimeo.

Simon Sticker
Baobab Family

Party With A Purpose

“Masala” is a mixture of spices, a staple of Indian cuisine. Masala Jam is a spicy blend of musical talent that will take the stage at Gluek’s Bar in downtown Minneapolis on October 13 to benefit street children in India.

The hot list of performers includes the smooth jazz and R&B of Wain McFarlane and Friends, reggae from Ryan Liestman and Ipso Facto, and gospel and soul from JD Steel. Internationally-renowned guitarist and composer Billy McLaughlin will toss in some acoustic zest. The sultry vocals of George Scott McKelvey, of Rhythm Jones fame, will sweeten the lineup. Shawn Douglas, Brian David Band, Michael Wright and many others lend a hand in the cooking of this spicy blend of entertainment.

Masala Jam will benefit Care & Share, a foundation dedicated to giving “children their childhood back” by helping to alleviate the devastating effects of poverty on orphaned and street children in Vijayawada, India. Care & Share supports three children’s villages, where nearly 2,000 orphans are schooled, clothed, fed, sheltered and nurtured in a loving community. The kids can stay active with skating, biking and soccer that are also on offer at the facilities.

Care & Share receives funding mostly through child sponsorship. Sponsors donate a dollar a day to an individual child, and develop a familial relationship through correspondence with the sponsored child and organization. “Every penny, except for some flyers and mailings, goes directly to the kids,” says Julie Roberts, US director for Care & Share. Two hundred children are sponsored by Americans and 5,000 by citizens of Italy, with the need growing every day as more children are losing their parents to AIDS.

Why Congo Matters (Part II of II): Top 5 Reasons

This article was submitted by Emily Troutman.



1. An enormous tragedy requires an enormous response. Since 1998, 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the DRC, making it the world’s deadliest documented conflict since WWII.

The above statistic comes from the International Rescue Committee and is often cited in coverage of Congo. But for full effect, it ought to be amended to this: “Since 1998, 5.4 million people have died — one at a time — from war-related causes.” Because 5.4 million is such an astonishing number, it has the power to make progress seem impossible.

We are asked in a situation like this to think smaller, not bigger. Just as death is experienced one person at a time, hope and progress can also happen through each of us. The enormity of our response is not measured in size, but in depth and of commitment over time.

2. A little safety goes a long way. Ninety percent of early deaths are due to non-violent, preventable causes including malnutrition, infectious disease and complications from childbirth.

Congo's staggering mortality rate results from its ongoing battle with the FDLR, Hutu forces that invaded the country following the genocide in Rwanda. Most people will be affected by the ways in which this violence limits their freedom of movement. When people don't feel safe to travel, they also don't have access to medicine, health care, education or clean water.



3. Women need other women to stand beside them. In March of 2009, there were 1,154 confirmed rapes just in North Kivu province. Of these rapes, 65 percent were committed by the armed forces.

The national army, the FARDC, recently underwent an integration of forces, in which a Tutsi rebel group, the CNDP, was folded into the regular army. Some people blame these numbers on that change, saying a new, more criminal element is at work. Ultimately, however, the epidemic of rape in Congo is an old problem that only got worse.

At the heart of the problem is the Congolese government's unwillingness to hold criminals accountable. Rapists are either not tried, or are tried and then set free. In addition, there are no safeguards to keep people with known criminal records out of the military. UN peacekeeping forces continue to work side-by-side with the FARDC despite its incompetence.

Why Congo Matters (Part I of II)

Why Congo Matters from Emily Troutman on Vimeo.

After spending a month in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I find myself speaking most often about the numbers: 5.4 million dead, 2,000 rapes per month, 17,000 UN soldiers, a war that started 15 years ago (or more?).

And suddenly, the conflict seems impossibly huge, unsolvable, tragic and remote. It is easy to forget that numbers are symbols, representing real people who take up an actual, physical space; who walk the down the dirt roads at sunset and carry water from the river, just as they did when I was there.

Numbers are a simple way to measure what has been lost. But we also lose something in the counting. We begin to think we know the exact dimensions of a problem, and then we file it away to be solved later, somewhere between running out of milk and global warming.

For a number to be useful, it should have a beating heart and a face. It should collect names and remind us of something in ourselves. A number should challenge us to unravel it, to give it a smell (the earthy jungle undergrowth), a color (the black volcanic dust), a taste (papaya), and a sound (the “snap” of a green bean).

Each death, each rape in Congo, happens in a moment when the sun is either up or down, when the rain has started or stopped, when a small phrase was uttered, or a glance exchanged. The numbers can tell us something about how often it has happened, but almost nothing about how. Or who.

With a story this big, and so little public awareness of it, I started to ask myself, “Does Congo matter?” I don't know. I guess that's hard to measure. It matters to the people who live there. It matters to me.

The statistics used in this video can be found in the following reports:

UNICEF – Country Statistics
International Rescue Committee – Mortality in the DRC, An Ongoing Crisis
International Committee of the Red Cross – Survey on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Civilians

Emily’s Photography
Emily’s blog, Who We Are / How We Live

College Students Teach Health Ed

According to Peer Health Exchange statistics, one in four American teenagers is a binge-drinker, one in four smokes cigarettes, one in five sexually active teenage girls becomes pregnant each year, one in five teens experiences violence in a relationship and one in six is overweight or obese. Budget cuts have eliminated comprehensive health courses in many public high schools, leaving teenagers to face these health risks unprepared and alone. In 2003, Louise Davis and Katy Dion co-founded Peer Health Exchange to aid teenagers in high schools that lacked health education to make healthy decisions regarding sex, drugs, drinking and more issues that are growing concerns in the United States.

Peer Health Exchange trains college students in four urban areas (New York City, Boston, San Francisco Bay area and Chicago) and prepares them to teach one of twelve workshops. The college students travel to different schools in their city, holding workshops in the homeroom periods of ninth grade classes. The workshops are interactive and easy to comprehend for ninth graders and the benefits of the peer education are far-reaching.



In observing a session on sexual assault and rape, I noticed that the initial questions asked of the students revealed the underlying need for such a program. About 80 percent of the students responded “yes” when asked if sexual assault was ever the survivor’s fault. Over the course of an hour of acted-out scenarios and question-answer sessions with the group leaders, each student came to understand that this belief was unequivocally false. After the session, I asked Lloyd, a 14-year-old from the class who had answered “yes” to the question, what he learned from the class. He responded, “That rape is never the girl’s fault. You have to ask if it’s okay, and that if she doesn’t actually say ‘yes’, it means ‘no.’”

Reaching out to those in need

A team of college kids wakes up before sunrise to prepare for the day. Breakfast is served at a local church and then they’re off to work. Soon, you can hear the sound of hammers pounding on a roof; kids laughing as they run into each other’s linked arms, playing red rover; a relieved sigh as a client walks out of the thrift store with bags of free food and clothing. These are just a few sounds you would hear if you spent twelve weeks at Appalachian Outreach, an organization located in the Appalachian Mountains of Jefferson City, Tennessee.

Appalachian Outreach was founded in 1984 in association with Carson-Newman College. From its beginning as a home repair organization, it has expanded to serve people who are in need of food, clothing, linens and household items. An estimated 600 clients came in and out of Appalachian Outreach in June 2009.

In order to help these 600 clients plus the home repair clients, Appalachian Outreach hires college students to work for twelve weeks. Some students are from Tennessee’s Carson-Newman, and others come from states such as Illinois and Mississippi. Many of them work on home repair projects for the summer, including roofing, tiling and landscape.

Michelle Shackleford, then a Southern Missouri student who has since transferred to Carson-Newman student, didn’t know much about home repair but was excited to learn. She wanted to make an impact on someone’s life. “I was given more opportunities to love people as they are, as we were in their homes and spending more time with them, getting to know and love them as people,” Shackleford says.

15 Years

This photo essay was submitted by photographer Simon Sticker