Two reports, two fancy meetings, and one essential problem
Friday, October 30th, 2009 Posted in English, Zambia | No Comments »By Ann Witteveen Zambia Country Director The period between the August school holidays and the Christmas break is the traditional workshop/meeting/report launch season in all developing countries as humanitarians, activists and donors clamour for space to tell their stories. This last month ...
Southern Africa: My Place Under The Sun
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 Posted in English, South Africa | 1 Comment »I would like to invite you on a journey in discourse about my people, the people of Southern Africa. On this expedition, let's set out not to talk about the poverty and suffering of my people. Rather, let us go ...
Restoring dignity to Zimbabwe
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Posted in English, Zimbabwe | No Comments »By Nicole Johnston “I am actually seeing myself as a human being again.” When I heard these words at a food distribution point in Bulawayo’s Mzilikazi township this week, I was jolted as I understood for the first time the impact that ...
Floodwaters reach Zambia’s high ground, devastating villages
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Posted in English, Zambia | No Comments »By Nicole Johnston On the flood plains of western Zambia the annual rains and the flooding of the Zambezi traditionally herald prosperity and are a key cultural event in the lives of the Lozi people. In a sacred age-old custom, the ...
Superwoman is alive and well and living in Zimbabwe
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Posted in English, Zimbabwe | No Comments »By Nicole Johnston They get up before dawn every day to cook and clean, draw water and carry wood. They till the fields and pull up weeds until their backs could break, and when they are finished they care for the ...
Africa speaks out on climate change
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Posted in English | 1 Comment »Earlier this month Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, Honorary President of Oxfam International and former UN commissioner for human rights, heard testimony from people living on the climate front line at a special tribunal in Cape Town. The climate ...
“They have destroyed nature”
Friday, October 16th, 2009 Posted in English, Malawi | No Comments »Malawi’s rural poor don’t know much about the science of climate change but they know the effect it is having on their lives: a slow slide deeper into poverty, in an inexorable cycle of heat, hunger and HIV/Aids.
Holding up half the sky
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 Posted in English, Malawi | No Comments »By Nicole Johnston As the world’s decision-makers embark on the road to Copenhagen, the oft-repeated refrain is that climate change will hit Africa "first and worst". What we don’t hear enough about is the enormous additional burden it is already placing ...
Courage in the time of climate change
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 Posted in English, Malawi | No Comments »Climate change is driving poverty and HIV in rural African communities. Nicole Johnston meets an inspiring grassroots leader who is trying to change that.
