Oh honey, where is thy sting? I shot these in Cerro Negro for fair trade financier Shared Interest.
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Post Tagged with: "people"
Coffee from the Mountains of the Moon
On my whirlwind five-day trip to Uganda last month I managed to cover a lot of ground in both the east and west of the country. Squeezed between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya, Uganda may look like a dwarf on the map, but it’s actually more than double the size of my home state of Virginia. Combining that with some poor road conditions means it can take 12 hours or more to get from one side to the other. Bukonzo Organic Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union (BOCU) is a fair trade coffee producer based in the town of Kasese, Uganda. Its coffee farmers, however, grow their crop in the nearby Rwenzori Mountains. Shared Interest invests in BOCU and other fair trade producers around the globe. The Rwenzori Mountains were known to the ancient world as the Mountains of Moon for their snow-capped white peaks. (Sadly there’s little of these[…]
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Through Wild Karamoja
The journey by road to Uganda’s Kidepo Valley National Park takes you through the remote and untamed Karamoja region. Don’t linger too long with the locals, or you may miss out on the wildlife ahead.
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Nepal: The Fear Inside
When I landed in Nepal three days after the earthquake, aftershocks were still occurring. They woke me early in the mornings, shook the room, and disoriented me in my tired state. Frightening as they were to me, I can’t imagine what it was like for a child who experienced the full impact of the first quake. Here, Ayush, a young earthquake survivor, recounts his experience of the disaster and how it has affected his family.
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Don’t Forget to Write!
I’ve just completed a series of videos for ChildFund, International on how sponsors and sponsored children interact with each other. Sponsorship is about much more than sending money each month. It’s about corresponding and encouraging children in developing countries, as well as learning about those countries and their cultures. This short spot shows how Margaret, from Uganda, and her sponsor’s family in California, keep in touch via snail mail, and how her sponsor’s family shares in the dreams for her future. Of the three videos I created in the series Margaret’s profile was my favorite, though you can see others here on Youtube. Skeptical about sponsorship? I have to admit that I was too. You might find an article by Christianity Today, and the science behind it, surprising. It’s written from a faith-based perspective, but the principles laid out here carry over to secular organizations as well.
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Your Daily Dose of Vegetables
My latest video piece, which I shot for Lutheran World Relief, has given me premonitions of giving it all up and moving out to the country to be a farmer. That’s easier done than most people seeing as how I already live in Africa. Mina seems to like the idea. She used to only farm rice and corn, allowing her family to scrape by at best. LWR‘s agricultural programs in Bihar, India have allowed hers and hundreds of others’ crops to thrive in an otherwise dry and rocky environment. Hit play above and sway along with the saris and sitars.
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Expressions from Madagascar
Expecting lions, lemurs, and baobab trees? In contrast, my recent assignment in Madagascar with CARE was of a human-itarian nature. Madagascar certainly does shatter everyone’s expectations, however, mostly in a good way. This fall, CARE will hold an art exhibit in Atlanta, where the organization is based, as a fundraiser for its programs across the globe. Girls in Vatomandry District, Madagascar were recently invited to participate in the art process, and as you can see in the above video, were thrilled at the opportunity to do so. As part of my assignment in this Indian Ocean island nation off the coast of Africa, I was on hand to document some of the girls’ stories and record their messages. These messages, along with their artwork, will be presented at the Atlanta exhibit. PS. There are NO lions in Madagascar, but there is LOTS of rice.
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Wings to Fly
We often think of Africa as a continent of wide open savannahs and an endless expanse of acacia trees. We fail to remember the massive megalopolises of Kinshasa or Lagos and the seemingly endless expanse of slum dwellings that exist in the urban shadows. It’s true that more so than other regions of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is rural; about 65% of people live in rural areas. But needs exist in both cities and villages here. The above video documents two families participating in ChildFund’s Early Childhood Development Program in Kenya, known as ECD. Solomon’s family lives in rural Samburu County, a traditional village where the main source of livelihood is cattle rearing. Anabel’s family lives in the crowded Mukuru slums of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, where poor hygiene and sanitation practices contribute to the spread of disease. In both areas, food security for families is a problem. The ECD[…]
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Indian Summer
While on my way to some rural areas of Maharashtra state, I took a moment to see how some of Mumbai’s 21 million residents spend their afternoon. I’ve made it to India at the height of summer, but I much prefer the 100°F+ dry heat of June to the extreme humidity to come in July and August, which has rendered my lenses useless in the past. India is both the extraordinary and the execrable, and sadly I’ve grown much too acclimated to the latter. The level of poverty seen here brings about a feeling of hopelessness. But as I’ll show from a couple of video pieces I’m creating now, even at unlikely odds, the battle is winnable.
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A Toast to Tea
If you could get a caffeine rush from walking through tea fields I’d be bouncing off walls by now. But as I’ve learned recently from shooting for Shared Interest in Uganda’s tea-growing highlands, there’s a lot involved in getting those glossy green leaves into a palatable consistency. Shared Interest, an ethical investment company out of the UK, loans exclusively to fair trade buyer and producer organizations around the globe. Hit play below (and turn on the HD!) to find out what Shared Interest is doing in this corner of Africa.
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