Strength From Within

This photo essay was submitted by Ken Driese







Joel Katamba is visionary. Compelled to help his struggling family as a young man, he cut short his schooling, vowing to help others in his community get the education he missed. As an adult, Joel built the Kyamulinga School using funds generated by selling pineapples.

I stayed with Joel while visiting Kyamulinga to photograph a successful partnership between his school and a small but energetic non-profit from Boulder, Colorado, called One School at a Time. One School worked with Joel and the local community to add a classroom building and a water system at Kyamulinga, facilities that were needed but unaffordable, since many students can’t pay full fees.

One School at a Time helped by providing funding and technical oversight for the addition of a classroom and an on-site water system including a cistern, treadle pump, filtration and solar heater. The community provided labor, local materials and enthusiasm. For girls, at-school water is especially important because it saves hours spent out of class, walking to remote ponds where they are vulnerable to assault.

Their Own Kind of “Extreme Home Makeover”

A group from Austin, Texas called Austin2Africa will travel this November to Nyanga, South Africa, one of the poorest townships in Cape Town. The group will be restoring, painting, decorating, and celebrating the completion of an orphanage building there.

Called Emasithandane, or Emasi, the orphanage is home to 32 children from ages zero to 17 years old. Amazingly, all of the kids are taken care of by one woman, Mama Zelphina Maposela, who founded the orphanage. A nurse, Mama Zelphina was taking care of patients with AIDS when she decided to open Emasi for the children of the patients. It is a warm, loving place, yet it is very small — two rooms, a small kitchen, and a little bathroom — and in disrepair.

This is what the Austin2Africa project would like to change. The project took seed in 2008, when Vanessa Noel volunteered for two months at the Emasi orphanage in South Africa. She visited the preschool in the village and was shocked at its condition. Vanessa asked how much it would take to repair the preschool and was amazed how little amount it would take — so she decided to raise the money herself and manage the renovation.

So Vanessa got her friends and co-workers involved, and Austin2Africa was born. The group’s goal is both to restore and expand the orphanage and to help it become more established and official. The group believes that the renovations will create opportunities for further funding for the orphanage, including governmental social service support. Institutions must meet certain requirements to receive funding, and the upgrades would make the orphanage more eligible.

More than anything, Mama Zelphina and the children just need more space for their home. According to the website, “This will allow the children to live and grow in a comfortable space, and to potentially welcome new orphans in need of a safe home and happy place to live.”

Film Festival with a Conscience

On October 8 at 7 pm the Media That Matters film festival will make its Minnesota debut at the Oak Street Cinema. Poetic Assassins will open the night with a spoken-word performance, and festivities will wrap-up with an afterparty at Stub & Herb’s.

Throughout the evening, leaders from nonprofit and community organizations will present 11 award-winning short films that represent different social issues. Each organization’s work will relate to a certain film’s message. At the afterparty the organization leaders will be available to answer questions and explain how to get involved.

Part of ticket proceeds will go to Media That Matters, and Finnegan’s Irish Amber will donate all of their beer proceeds to charity. Help us make an impact by joining us for a night of entertainment, inspiration and conversation. Get your tickets today!

>> more details

The Media That Matters film festival is co-presented by Arts Engine and Cinereach.

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