A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Fellow Blogs: Wastepickers in Delhi, Coming to a Computer Near You...

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AdvocacyNet
Fellow Update
July 10, 2008
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Thirty-four Peace Fellows are volunteering this summer in 21 countries or territories with community-based partners of The Advocacy Project (AP). AP issues a weekly digest of their blogs.

Highlights:

Wastepickers in Delhi, Coming to a Computer Near You
Commas and Camaraderie in Uganda
Rice Paddies Meet Politics in Nepal
Guatemalans Look Beyond Their Borders for Work
Campers Confront Cliques in Jordan
Military Curfew Cripples Village in Palestine
Discrimination Hinders Dalit Journalists in Nepal
Shooting Survivor in Ethiopia Faces Long Road 


Excerpts:

Wastepickers in Delhi, Coming to a Computer Near You
Paul Colombini (American University) is working with informal waste recyclers at the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group in Delhi, India.
"...I am filming their un-prompted comments after a Chintan wastepicker meeting on the beautiful grounds of Lodi Park, amid the crumbling grandeur of dynastic tombs. When I return to the Chintan office, I upload the videos onto the Youtube.com page I have created, called 'Delhikabari' where they join almost a dozen other videos I've accumulated from wastepickers in different parts of Delhi over the last three weeks. Next I ask my colleague Zeeshan to give me a rough English translation of their comments, and I upload that too. For the first time in their lives, the wastepickers now have a voice on the Internet."

Commas and Camaraderie in Uganda
Juliet Hutchings (American University) is working to raise awareness of the plight of pygmies with the World Peasants and Indigenous Organization in Central Africa.
"Freddy and I just had a fantastic shoulder-to-shoulder training session, where I helped him with writing a bulletin about their campaign to free slaves in Congo. My mom has been a tutor for years and she almost always works with people who don't speak English as a first language... When she would recount the events of the evening, I would just reel from how much time she spent with them on one sentence or one paragraph. But, now, I think I understand it a bit more. It is unbelievably satisfying when, as we hit the return key to make our way down into the second page, Freddy says, 'Oh, dude, we have to put a comma there!'"

Rice Paddies Meet Politics in Nepal
Jes Therkelsen (American University) is advocating for Dalit rights with the Jagaran Media Center (JMC) in Kathmandu, Nepal.
"We speak to a man who has been here for 31 years. He tells us about the house he built from clay and bamboo, the six children he raised and the crops he grew. But I also catch some words in his diatribe like Dalit Movement, Congress Assembly and New Nepali. I wonder why he answers such simple questions as, 'What are the best crops to grow here?' with such political rhetoric. I look at us: our cameras roll from the firm ground our boots stand on. I look at him: his bare feet are submerged in the rice paddy."

Guatemalans Look Beyond Their Borders for Work
Heidi McKinnon (University of New Mexico) is working with the Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of Violence in the Verapaces, Maya Achi (ADIVIMA).
"In Colonia Naranjo, Pacux, or any other remote village in the region, one can only hope to make $150-200 a month, six days a week, for manual labor, if you are part of that 10 percent who can find work. It makes sense that someone would look elsewhere for a way out of the economic oppression brought on by internal displacement and attempted genocide...Looking through the lens of life in Colonia Naranjo, traveling to the US to work seems more like exercising a basic human right to have access to paid labor rather than a series of illegal actions to defraud Americans of their income."

Campers Confront Cliques in Jordan
Krystal Sirman (George Washington University) is working with Landmine Survivors Network-Jordan in Amman.
"As the theme of the camp was social inclusion, I could tell from the moment I arrived at the Jordan Paralympic Committee building, where we all departed for Ajloun as a group, that the camp leaders and facilitators would have their work cut out for them over the next four days. In every corner of the room sat a different clique, each made up of either only disabled or non-disabled youth. Even some of the facilitators and volunteers, those who were supposed to be mentors and leaders, had formed their own groups, not bothering to initiate any new relationships."

Military Curfew Cripples Village in Palestine
Willow Heske (Columbia University) is working with the Democracy and Workers' Rights Center (DWRC) in Ramallah, Palestine.
"And my favorite place in Palestine, quite possibly my favorite place on earth, has been living under a military curfew for over a week. Ni'lin has been completely occupied by the Israeli military. All the entrances have been sealed, people cannot leave the village to get to work, shopkeepers cannot open their shops, women cannot buy the necessities they need for the kids who melt my heart. You are not allowed to walk in the streets....Inshallah, tomorrow a group of us from Ramallah will be allowed to enter the village to bring food relief and medical supplies. Inshallah the people of Ni'lin can have a normal life."

Discrimination Hinders Dalit Journalists in Nepal
Heather Gilberds (Carleton University) is advocating for Dalit rights with the Jagaran Media Center (JMC) in Bhutwal, Nepal.
"I was lecturing about advocacy journalism and discussing that it is different than ordinary reporting in that journalists explicitly locate themselves on one side of an issue, but that they, nonetheless, should strive for balanced reporting by still presenting both sides. One of the participants raised the question of how it is possible to present the other side when people from that perspective refuse to be interviewed. For example, a Dalit journalist reporting on a human rights abuse against a member of the Dalit community may have a difficult time interviewing non-Dalits about the incident, even those who were not involved in it. Many people, especially in the villages, refuse to speak with Dalit journalists."

Shooting Survivor in Ethiopia Faces Long Road
Lucas Wolf (Universidad del Salvador) is working with Landmine Survivors Network Ethiopia to support those disabled by violence in Addis Ababa.
"The survivor lost the use of his lower body when a random shooting occurred at his high school... Despite all of this support, major medical obstacles remain as the bullet continues its slow, gradual and excruciating advance. He explains that eventually it will near his lungs and impede his breathing, complicating his health even more. A surgical operation followed by medicine could change everything and reverse his disability, but this could only be performed in South Africa or the United States and Europe. Most embassies do not facilitate medical visas for the average Ethiopian citizen, even if they could come up with the large amount of financial capital needed for such operations."