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Above, a video by Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan multimedia journalist who works on ”media, women, peace and conflict issues.” She writes, “This is me talking about the danger of portraying people with one single story and using old footage to cause hysteria when it could have been possible to get to DRC and other affected countries get a fresh perspective and also include other actors.”
(more responses here)
(Source: androgynousblackgirl)
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The words of a dictator: The rhetoric of Bashar al-Assad
A year of protest and killing in Syria has resulted in the deaths of about 9,000 people. Activists show no signs of backing down, as President Bashar al-Assad has said on many occasions.(Source: nationalpost)
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Take A Stand For Freedom. by Donna Irene. on Flickr.
(Source: viel-gluck)
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80 Items You Can Compost
Home composting isn’t just for farmers anymore! The practice is becoming increasingly popular among urban environmentalists who are eager to cut their landfill contributions: from apartment dwellers growing gardens on top of NYC roofing, to folks who participate in their local municipal compost program, to homeowners looking to turn their backyards into a teeny tiny sustainable city farms. Composting is a key component of the eco-friendly puzzle, because it takes waste that’s destined for landfills and turns it into usable, nutrient-rich soil, which is perfect for gardening. Most people focus on kitchen scraps, but that’s just the very tip of the composting iceberg. Did you know you could also include the following?
- Dryer lint
- “Dust bunnies”
- The insides of a vacuum bag (just empty the bag into the compost bin)
- The contents of your dustpan (just use discretion)
- Coffee grounds
- Coffee filters
- Tea bags/loose leaf tea
- Soy/rice/almond/etc milk
- Nut shells (but not walnut, which may be toxic to plants)
- Pumpkin/sunflower/sesame seeds (chop them to ensure they won’t grow)
- Avocado pits (chop them up so they won’t sprout
- Pickles
- Stale tortilla chips/potato chips
- Stale crackers
- Crumbs (bread or other baked goods)
- Old breakfast cereal
- Bran (wheat or oat, etc)
- Seaweed/nori/kelp
- Tofu/tempeh
- Frozen fruits and vegetables
- Expired jam or jelly
- Egg shells
- Old, moldy “soy dairy” and other dairy substitutes
- Stale Halloween candy and old nutrition/protein bars
- Popcorn kernels (post-popping, the ones that didn’t make it)
- Old herbs and spices
- Cooked rice
- Cooked Pasta
- Oatmeal
- Peanut shells
- Booze (beer and wine)
- Wine corks
- Egg cartons (not Styrofoam)
- Toothpicks
- Q-tips (not the plastic ones)
- Bamboo Skewers
- Matches
- Sawdust
- Pencil shavings
- Fireplace ash (fully extinguished and cooled)
- Burlap sacks
- Cotton or wool clothes, cut into strips
- Paper towels
- Paper napkins
- Paper table cloths
- Paper plates (non wax- or plastic-coated)
- Crepe paper streamers
- Holiday wreaths
- Balloons (latex only)
- Raffia fibers (wrapping or decoration)
- Excelsior (wood wool)
- Old potpourri
- Dried flowers
- Fresh flowers
- Dead houseplants (or their dropped leaves)
- Human hair (from a home haircut or saved from the barber shop)
- Toenail clippings
- Trimmings from an electric razor
- Pet hair
- Domestic bird and bunny droppings
- Feathers
- Fish food
- Aquatic plants (from aquariums)
- Dog food
- Rawhide dog chews
- Ratty old rope
- The dead flies on the windowsill
- Pizza boxes and cereal boxes (shredded first)
- Toilet paper and paper towel rolls (shredded first)
- Paper muffin/cupcake cups
- Cellophane bags (real cellophane, not regular clear plastic)
- Kleenex (including used)
- Condoms (latex only)
- Old loofas (real, not synthetic)
- Cotton balls
- Tampon applicators (cardboard, not plastic) and tampons (including used)
- Newspaper
- Junk mail
- Old business cards (not the glossy ones)
- Old masking tape
- White glue/plain paste.
(Source: sustainablesex)
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Hershey’s Trust: Stop Exploiting Children to Grow Cocoa Beans
Approximately 1.7 million children work in horrible, dangerous conditions in the West African cocoa industry. While many chocolate companies have committed to guaranteeing that their suppliers do not use child slave labor, Hershey’s refuses to release information about its supply chain or purchase cocoa only from ethical suppliers except in two product lines, Bliss and Dagoba. Because of this, Hershey’s can’t guarantee that the cocoa in most of their chocolate was not harvested by kids, who frequently don’t get enough to eat, don’t have access to medicine, and can’t get an education.
The Raise the Bar Hershey’s campaign has sent a petition to Hershey’s Board of Directors asking them to responsibly source cocoa from independently certified suppliers who comply with international labor rights standards. Hershey’s failed to respond, so this petition will go to the Milton Hershey School Trust, who owns a large part of Hershey’s Chocolate Company as well.
(Source: sheshallgofree)
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(Source: worldvisionacts)
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How Many Slaves In Your Closet?
Like electronics, fashion these days comes churning out of the slave-driven factories with built-in obsolescence – a dastardly device of economy that is the very essence of evil… IMHO. Those of us that believe in changing the world for the good can and must do better. Through a fashion lens, it means skipping the latest polyester-laden fast-fashion mash-up in favor of well-made secondhand items. This, along with saving my pennies for the very occasional splurge on a beautifully crafted high-end item, is my approach to being responsibly stylish.
(Source: slaveryfootprint)
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(Source: worldvisionacts)
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48 women get raped every hour in Congo
About 48 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congoevery hour, a study has claimed.
The study, due to be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, found sexual abuse was rampant not only in conflict areas but also in the home, with nearly one woman subjected to some form of sexual abuse every minute.
The DRC has been racked by war, with rapes widely documented in theconflict-hit east of the country. However, the study suggests the problem is bigger and more pervasive than previously thought, and goes further in documenting domestic sexual abuse.
It found 1,152 women are raped every day – a rate equal to 48 per hour. That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations.
“Not only is sexual violence more generalised, but our findings suggest that future policies and programmes should focus on abuse within families,” the study’s researchers said.
The study, carried out by three public health researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute at Stony Brook University in New York, and the World Bank, was partly financed by the US government and based on figures from a nationwide household survey of 3,436 Congolese women aged 15 to 49 in 2007.
The figures showed 12% of women had been raped at least once and 3% of women across the country were raped between 2006 and 2007. About 22% had also been forced by their partners to have sex or perform sexual acts against their will. The study also revealed alarming levels of sexual abuse in the capital, Kinshasa.
The UN has called the country the centre of rape as a weapon of war. Commentators have also described Congo as the worst place on Earth to be a woman.
Over the past 15 years, civilians have been drawn into the conflict, which has been driven by a weak government and rich mineral resources, often in remote, forest-covered areas.
The highest levels of rape were found in North Kivu, an eastern province ravaged by conflict, where nearly 7% of women were raped at least once between 2006 and 2007, according to the study.
Comprehensive statistics on rape in the DRC have been difficult to collate, although widespread anecdotal evidence has been collected on atrocities.
There have been many reports and witness accounts of the gang rape of young girls and elderly women by armed militia, and also accounts of men being raped. Because of the stigma of rape, many married women find themselves abandoned by their husbands.
“There are two big surprises in the study,” said Anthony Gambino, a former mission director for the US Agency for International Development in the Congo.
“First, the magnitude of the problem – rates of rape that are much higher than seen elsewhere. And second, that these alarming, shockingly high rape statistics are found in western Congo as well as northern and eastern Congo.”
Gambino said 40 years of “steady economic and political decline” may explain the high incidence of rape in the DRC.
While the authors have extrapolated their figures to show that as many as 1.8 million women out of the country’s population of 70 million people have been raped, with up to 433,785 raped in a one-year period, some have urged more caution in the interpretation of the figures and their date.
Michael VanRooyen, the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which has sent doctors to Congo to treat rape victims, said there were “some limitations in the methodology, such as the sampling methods and the sample sizes” of the new rape study.
But, he said, “the important message remains: that rape and sexual slavery have become amazingly commonplace in this region of the DRC and have defined this conflict as a war against women”.
However, Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who specialises in gender-based violence, said that because the figures were collected during face-to-face interviews – where women could be less forthcoming – the figures could be much higher.
Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative for sexual violence in conflict, said the figures in the study were higher than the UN’s because they covered all sexual violence, including domestic and by known partners.
She said UN figures tended to be conservative because they had to be verified by the UN itself. “The number of reported violations are just the tip of the iceberg of actual incidents,” she added.
(Source: warriorsrise)
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This is boy is one of the thousands of children in Pakistan who are a victim of child labor. The children are force to do such hard work at such a young age when they should be availing education, laying strong pillars for their future and so for their country, but their guardians/parents neglect this long-term success to avail temporary, short-term benefits.
This too shows inequality in the society, as women behind the child, in the picture, enjoy luxuries of life while this little boy works his sweats off. People in our society, like the women in the back can spend money on luxuries.. like keeping a pet… but can’t help needy people, nor aid their stability.
