Climate scientists become climate models

Kickstarter recently featured a funding request for an interesting project by Rebecca Fowler and Francesco Fiondella. The project wants to make a 2014 calendar with "the hottest climate science", and the scientists -the people- behind it.

The photos in the calendar not only highlights the climate change issues in an interesting and provocative way, but also combines it with the science behind it.

I wish I would have come up with that idea! :-)

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Follow the frog

In our ongoing quest to find good and exciting advocacy videos, I found this one from the RainForest Alliance.


HT to Susan for the tip!

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Sahel: The world is waiting for pictures of starving children

When I see the dynamics of the "international aid", I get thoroughly disgusted at times.

Take the Sahel hunger crisis: Less than a year ago, the international humanitarian community got heavily criticized for their lack of advanced warnings, and preventive responses in the Somalia drought crisis.

While the first clear signals of a major drought in the Horn of Africa came as early as August 2010, it was not until a year later, in July 2011, that the international community reacted. The relief efforts mainly started after the UN officially declared a famine in southern Somalia, and the drought – finally – hit the international press.
Way too late for an adequate response though, states the post-factum Oxfam/Save the Children report. With disastrous consequences: Of the 13 million people at risk, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people died. More half of them were children under five, according to the same report.

I would not necessarily agree with all findings in the Oxfam report, but it was clear that "something did not work". According to me, it was not a lack of early warning signals, and not a lack of response from the humanitarian organisations. Nor was it a lack appeals for funding. It was a lack of response from the international community to provide sufficient funding to avoid a food security crisis to turn into a full-scale famine.

Anyways, in fall 2011, the humanitarian organisations humbly bowed their heads, screamed "Mea Culpa" and put ash on their forehead. "We will do better", they promised.

Of course, we did not have to wait long... A few months later, the Sahel drought hit, and this time, the humanitarians did everything according to the books: early warning signals of drought detected (tick), clear assessments (tick), clear targeting (tick), funding alerts issued (tick), media alerted (tick).

Result: already deep into the hunger crisis, the drought appeal for the Sahel is only 39% funded - check out this updated financial reporting for the common appeal (Source: OCHA). Individual sector such as education and human rights only have pledged funding covering 7% and 5% respectively.

Why? Why do donors not come forward with sufficient funding? According to me, the answer is simple: There is a dire lack of pictures from starving children. Misery sells. And people in the aid business know that nothing sells as well as the picture of a starving child on the breast of crying, underfed, exhausted mother. With a dry desert landscape in the background. Insert dead cattle corpses if possible.

There have not been sufficient pictures of starving children in the Sahel, thus funding does not arrive, thus the needs can not be fulfilled, thus people will die, thus awful pictures will come, thus people will get angry, thus donors will donate.

And once again, we will have put a plaster on a wooden leg. Just in time to prepare for the next drought famine in East Africa again. L'histoire se repète.

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Monsanto Go Away

As part of the Occupy Maui movement, The Human Revolution has a clear message for Monsanto.

More on Monsanto on The Road.

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Video: The Girl Effect

We have covered advocacy campaigns by nonprofit organisations in the past. Here is a very simple non-pretentious video by The Girl Effect.

Simple is powerful.

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Shell in Nigeria.

Discovered via Platform London

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The Millennium Development Goals in pictures

Remember my post announcing the UNDP-Olympus-AFP Foundation Photo Contest, called Picture This? People could submit pictures symbolizing the work done on the different Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

The project received over 3,000 submissions from around the world, and some of them are simply breathtaking. Including the touching picture aboved, submitted by Joydeep Mukherjee, titled "Equal Work".

While the purpose of the contest was to shed a positive light on the progress towards the MDGs, I am not sure this particular picture really does. Are we actually making progress on MDG#3 "Promote gender equality and empower women"? That is why I think this picture is so powerful. According to me, it puts it all in question, in a very simple but gripping way.

Oh, by the way, a bit of a lost opportunity for UNDP to make this contest a real advocacy event: Of the 3,000 pictures submitted, I can only find the winners, unless if I look really well for a link to all entries.
I can not embed neither the slideshow of the winners (even though it is a Flickr roll), nor any of the other pictures in the winners' series. There is no social media bookmarking (Twitter, Facebook) on the winner's pages.
I hope that next year, they will have the voting done on the amount of times each picture is twittered, for instance. Would combine crowdsourcing, advocacy and good use of social media.

Oh, and I would also like to see a Creative Commons copyright prominently displayed.

Oh, and I'd like better quality resizing of the pictures. The quality of the front page slideshow pictures is much better than the resized ones in each of the category pages.

(Why can't I just keep my mouth shut. What's wrong with me?)

Picture courtesy Joydeep Mukherjee

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The Majestic Plastic Bag

We featured several good and bad examples of advocacy for nonprofit causes. Here is a type we have not featured before: "The Majestic Plastic Bag" is a "mockumentary": it uses the format of a documentary, in a sarcastic jacket, to drive home a strong message.

The video is made by Heal the Bay, a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds safe, healthy and clean. They use research, education, community action and advocacy to pursue their mission.

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Italy biggest donor in "Adopt a Clitoris" campaign

The charity "Clitoraid" is the most popular with the Italians, who account for 26.88% of the donations in 2009, according to the organisation's financial statement. This makes Italy the largest donor for the "Adopt-a-Clitoris" campaign.

I am not sure how to bring this news to you, as I don't know how it was meant. Female sexual mutilation is a crime. Punto.

How to react to the name of the charity and their campaign? I hope they actually meant it to be eye -or- ear catching and provocative.

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One million shirts

Since a couple of marketeers started the One Million Shirts campaign, it looks like to be fashionable in the aid world, you have to write about it.

As I did not want to be left out, and "fashionable" is my second name, here is my blogpost summarizing my opinion about "One Million Shirts":

Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.

There.

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Video on Declaration of Human Rights

An excellent advocacy video from The Human Rights Action Center.

Discovered via Falling Whistles Blog, with thanks to Eric.

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The world's most shameful events in 2009

Two weeks ago, readers sent in nominations for the "2009 Humanity's Shame List", a Top-10 highlighting the last year's events we, humanity as a whole, should be ashamed of.

I pulled all suggestions into a poll and for one week, readers could vote on this post. A total of 299 votes were cast before the deadline of Dec 31st midnight.

So without further delay, here are

The Top-10 "Shames on Humanity":

1st place:
Palestine: the Gaza blockade, implemented by Israel and Egypt and endorsed by most governments, collectively punishes 1.5 million refugees by inhibiting education, reconstruction, health and nutrition to allow the people to break out of a vicious circle of abuse. Hamas is cruelly and strategically using the Gaza situation to its political advantage. Israel used the highest grade weaponry to indiscriminately kill civilians, target aid organisations and schools.

2nd place:
World hunger: We allowed a record of 1 billion people to go hungry, while the world is producing sufficient food.

3rd & 4th place are shared between the US and DRC:
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): The international community ignored the widespread violence against civilians, mostly women and children. Meanwhile the largest UN Peacekeeping force in the world was unable to make a significant difference in the world's biggest human catastrophy.
US: Continued their short sighted armed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, plunging any country they touch, into chaos. Further mixing humanitarian and military causes, continues to put the lives of aidworkers at stake.

5th place:
Copenhagen: Where the world's political leaders failed to come up with a significant agreement to protect the environment.

6th and 7th place: shared between Sudan and the international community: (how ironic)
Sudan: The international community failed to execute the international arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Non-action allowed the Darfur genocide to continue, tolerated the expulsion of a dozen NGOs on allegations of spying. Meanwhile Khartoum arms fractions in South Sudan, preparing for a new war.
The international community: for being schizophrenic at the cost of human suffering in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, DRC, Myanmar and so on, and so on.

8th place:
GMO seed and food market manipulation: Monsanto and Cargill further monopolized the seed market, using the US government to introduce GMO food and seeds into developing countries. Shame on Monsanto for single-handedly causing the autumn corn harvest in South Africa to fail.

9th, 10th and 11th place: ex aequo Somalia, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan
Somalia: The international community failed to stop the politicization of the civil war, with the US through its proxy Ethiopia, and some Arab states through their proxy Eritrea who did nothing but put oil on the fire. Meanwhile the donor community failed to provide sufficient aid to sustain the feeding centers and refugee camps.
Zimbabwe: The international community failed to pressure Zimbabwe's government to provide sufficient social security, social safety nets and proper social welfare to its citizens, turning what once was the breadbasket of Sub-saharan Africa, into a well of hunger and human suffering.
Afghanistan: The international community and the UN underestimated the level of corruption during the elections, trying to cover it up while supporting Karzai, ignoring all reports of large scale fraud.

Here are the results, sorted by number of votes:

Nominee	Votes
Palestine (Gaza blockade, Israeli attacks, Hamas politics)	35
World Hunger (over 1 billion hunger)	22
Democratic Republic of Congo (violence against civilians)	21
USA (wars in Iraq, Afghanistan)	21
Copenhagen Climate Summit (summit failure)	19
Sudan (violence against civilians, Darfur and South Sudan wars)	16
The international community (non-action)	16
GMO seed and food market manipulation	14
Afghanistan (corruption, failed elections)	13
Somalia (civil war)	13
Zimbabwe (failing social system)	13
Sri Lanka (civil war, crimes against humanity)	10
Pakistan (war in Swat, suicide attacks)	10
China (bypassing arms embargoes)	9
Iran (post-election violence)	9
LRA (violence against civilians)	9
Aid Agencies (failure of accountability)	9
Neocolonialism (land hogging in Africa)	8
Ethiopia (famine, civil war)	7
North Korea (civil rights)	6
Guinee (violence against civilians)	5
ASEAN (human rights)	3
Belgium (failure to cater for homeless)	2
Other answers...	9

Let's hope that 2010 will mean a fresh start for a better year. A year we, humanity as a whole can be proud of.

I know, I will be an optimist until the day I die...

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Emily Troutman is now a UN Citizen Ambassador

We featured photographer, writer and videographer Emily Troutman in two separate interviews here on The Road: one on her video "Why Congo Matters" and another one on her appointment as "UN Citizen Ambassador" after she made a compelling video message to world leaders.

Above is her interview with CNN after she recently received her award from UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon.

Well done, Emily!

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The 2009 Humanity's Shame List. Vote Now!

Update:
The results are out. See this post.

A week ago, I called for nominations for the "2009 Humanity's Shame List", a top-10 highlighting the last year's events we, humanity as a whole, should be ashamed of.

As of now, until December 31st, you can cast your vote at the bottom of this post, to stress the importance of the individual disgraces.

Here are the nominations:

1. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): The international community ignored the widespread violence against civilians, mostly women and children. Meanwhile the largest UN Peacekeeping force in the world was unable to make a significant difference in the world's biggest human catastrophy.
2. Sudan: The international community failed to execute the international arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Non-action allowed the Darfur genocide to continue, tolerated the expulsion of a dozen NGOs on allegations of spying. Meanwhile Khartoum arms fractions in South Sudan, preparing for a new war.
   
3. Copenhagen: Where the world's political leaders failed to come up with a significant agreement to protect the environment.
4. Somalia: The international community failed to stop the politicization of the civil war, with the US through its proxy Ethiopia, and some Arab states through their proxy Eritrea who did nothing but put oil on the fire. Meanwhile the donor community failed to provide sufficient aid to sustain the feeding centers and refugee camps.
5. Zimbabwe: The international community failed to pressure Zimbabwe's government to provide sufficient social security, social safety nets and proper social welfare to its citizens, turning what once was the breadbasket of Sub-saharan Africa, into a well of hunger and human suffering.
6. Afghanistan: The international community and the UN underestimated the level of corruption during the elections, trying to cover it up while supporting Karzai, ignoring all reports of large scale fraud.
7. Pakistan: Armed interventions in the Swat province plunged the country into chaos, riddled with suicide attacks, displacing over 2 million people, with no hope of a longer term peace settlement.
   
8. US: Continued their short sighted armed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, plunging any country they touch, into chaos. Further mixing humanitarian and military causes, continues to put the lives of aidworkers at stake.
9. Sri Lanka: The international community failed to highlight the crimes against humanity and genocide the Sri Lankan government covered up during the last weeks of their civil war in an attempt to exterminate the Tamil population as a whole, locking up all civilians in camps which are rated as 'inhumane'.
10. Palestine: the Gaza blockade, implemented by Israel and Egypt and endorsed by most governments, collectively punishes 1.5 million refugees by inhibiting education, reconstruction, health and nutrition to allow the people to break out of a vicious circle of abuse. Hamas is cruelly and strategically using the Gaza situation to its political advantage. Israel used the highest grade weaponry to indiscriminately kill civilians, target aid organisations and schools.
11. Guinee: Where the government violently suppressed protests through whatever means, including widespread rape.
12. World hunger: We allowed a record of 1 billion people to go hungry, while the world is producing sufficient food.
13. GMO seed and food market manipulation: Monsanto and Cargill further monopolized the seed market, using the US government to introduce GMO food and seeds into developing countries. Shame on Monsanto for single-handedly causing the autumn corn harvest in South Africa to fail.
14. LRA: For their atrocities in DRC, Uganda, Chad and Sudan, with an international community unable to stop the abduction of children as sex slaves and child soldiers, widespread rape and indiscriminately killing amongst civilians.
15. Ethiopia: Wide spread famine taking gigantic proportions, despite a decade of aid efforts. Press and NGOs were closely monitored not to make the disaster "too public". Meanwhile, as a US proxy, Ethiopia continued their shady role in the Somalia crisis, discriminating their in-country political opposition and keeping a close lid on their civil war in Ogaden.
16. Iran: Rigged elections caused widespread protests, violently suppressed by the government killing innocent civilians to secure the government's handle on internal and external affairs.
17. Belgium: Administrative Kafka-ian hurdles paralysed the government in providing inadequate shelter and protection for the homeless and the asylum seekers during the severe winter.
18. North Korea: for their scare tactics, failure to cooperate with any common sense, and their wide spread human rights violations.
19. ASEAN: looking seeking to improve trade relations, but at the expense of basic rights across the entire region, the US plays along. Genocide in Burma continues.
20. Neocolonialism: EU, Middle East and Far East countries are buying up and leasing land in Africa either for biofuel production, or production of their own food. Despite the fact that those countries do not produce enough food for their own yet.
21. Aid agencies: for not being accountable for the $100 billion a year, failing the world's poor.
22. China: for equivocating in Sudan for the sake of oil resources, circumventing the international arms embargo for Sudan and Zimbabwe, and being a main stumbling block at the Copenhagen summit.
23. The international community: for being schizophrenic at the cost of human suffering in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, DRC, Myanmar and so on, and so on.

Here is the poll:
(You can vote for several nominees at the same time)


If you are unable to view the poll in your browser, you can also access it directly on PollDaddy.

Spread the word, and let's have a mass voting to show we care, and to give a clear sign these shameful events are to be stopped.

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Condition Critical: MSF on DRC

Today, 44,000 people are reported to be on the run again in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Do me a favour. Leave a message on Condition Critical, MSF's advocacy and awareness campaign about the plight of people in the DRC.

It is a small deed, as a sign of solidarity. May it help stop the violence.

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Emily becomes UN Citizen Ambassador and has a message for us

On September 22, UN Secretary Ban ki-Moon launched a challenge: "Use your voice as a global citizen and tell these leaders in a short video what you think needs to be done to make this world a better and safer place. Be a Citizen Ambassador to the UN."

Emily Troutman which we featured before on The Road thought of her core message: "I want us both to agree to say one true thing out loud everyday. To remember one real person. To remind ourselves that our tragedies—yours and mine—are lived and felt one person at a time; just like our hope, our renewal, our future can also be lived and carried out into the world, one person at a time. You have a chance to be that person."


It was one of five selected out of more than 450 screened by top leaders at the UN. As a result of winning the contest, Emily will be named a "UN Citizen Ambassador", get to travel to New York to attend the UN Day Concert, and meet Secretary General Ban ki-Moon.

So, time to have another chat with Emily:

Photographer, videographer,... What are you now?
Emily: The lines are blurring between the photographer and the videographer. Which for me, opens up the possibility to create really robust narratives. I'm still just a baby in this process, my work leans more towards automated slideshows, but in the future, I expect more and more online articles to contain video instead of still shots.

From the narrative in the video, it seems you are not only good in visuals, but also in wording it.
Emily: People who know me, know that I began my career as a writer through poetry. And even at a young age, was very successful at that. The study and craft of poetry taught me a lot about how to draw a line from complex intellectual constructs into emotion.

And then comes the humanitarian aspect..
Emily: Humanitarian work is considered the next frontier for me. There is a tremendous need for high quality communications tools that also maximize the potential of the internet to bring people together around important issues.

Although I have a Master's Degree in Public Policy, it was really through my blog that I really learned how to talk to people about complicated issues. In 2005, I traveled to Iraq while conducting research for my graduate thesis on democracy. While there, I witnessed the first post-Saddam elections and emailed my friends about what I saw and how it made me feel. I had no idea that the emails would be more important than the thesis, but somehow, I managed to tell real stories about people I met and the lives that touched mine.

From those early emails, I created my blog: who we are / how we live, and really started to embrace an unusual avocation-- to write and talk about complicated problems in a personal way. I tried never to forget my original audience: my little sister, my mom, policy wonks, colleagues.

And then came this video you made for the UN. What message did you try to bring?
Emily: For this project, I genuinely asked myself, "What do *I* want to say to world leaders?" I knew I didn't want to put forward any particular policy or opinion, but instead, to call on them, and all of us, to connect with something true and real. To think less about politics and more about people, actual people that we know. I think this is something humanitarian workers in the field do regularly. When they talk about Iraq, they tell stories about people they know there. When they talk about hunger, they tell stories about hungry people.

It's a subtle but profound shift in thinking. Through this video, and all of my work, I hope to remind myself and others that power is personal. Real change is only created by hope and empathy, by strength and commitment, by listening to others and acknowledging that quiet voice, in my own heart, telling me what needs to be done.

So what's next?
Emily: For now, my professional goals as a writer and photographer are just to get better at what I'm doing and learn more. I have some local projects planned here in Baltimore and DC, but I'm hoping to head back to Africa in the winter. I'm always looking for interesting projects and people to collaborate with.

Check also Emily's website and her blog

Read other interviews on The Road.

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Picks of the week: Project 10 to the 100, 350, peace x peace...

Here are the interesting links I harvested last week:

• Last fall, Google.org's Project 10^100 called for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Thousands of people from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 ideas. Now is your time to help selecting the best.
  
• 350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that science and justice demand.
  
• Vittana is a microfinance site, like Kiva, bringing student loans to the developing world through the power of person-to-person micro-lending. The difference is that Vittana borrowers are students who are in need of capital to finance their education. After the student finishes school and finds work, they pay the lenders back.
  
• Peace X Peace is connects women across cultures for friendship, support, and action for peace.
  
• Daily Good is a community blog delivering an inspiring quote, a related good-news story, and a simple action. "Good" does not have to be "big".

More Picks of the Week on The Road.

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CNN Heroes. Cast your vote now.

"I was raped when I was 6 years old," Betty Makoni, a lady from Zimbabwe, recalls. Her attacker was a local shopkeeper. Her mother would not allow her to report the abuse.

"She said, 'Shh, we don't say that in public,'. I had no shoulder to cry on."

Three years later, she witnessed her father murder her mother. In that moment, Makoni said she realized the potentially deadly consequence of a woman's silence.

"I told myself that no girl or woman will suffer the same again," she says.

Believing an education would provide her the best opportunity and means to speak out, Makoni earned two university degrees and became a teacher. While teaching, she noticed that girls were dropping out of school at an alarming rate. She approached her students with an idea.

"I said to girls, 'Let's have our own space where we talk and find solutions,' " Makoni said. Girl Child Network was born.

By the end of the first year, there were 100 GCN clubs throughout Zimbabwe where girls could find support. Makoni said she was not surprised: "Every woman and girl identified with the issues that we were raising," she said.

In 2000, she quit her teaching job to volunteer with GCN full time. "I decided to become an advocate because I walked my own journey to survival," she said.

The following year Makoni successfully procured a piece of land and opened the organization's first empowerment village, designed to provide a haven for girls who have been abused. Girls are either rescued or referred to the village by social services, the police and the community. The healing begins as soon as a girl arrives.

"In the first 72 hours, a girl is provided with emergency medication, reinstatement in school, as well as counseling," said Makoni.

It is important to her that the girls are in charge of their own healing. "It gives them the confidence to transform from victims to leaders," she explained.

But for Makoni, speaking out came with a high personal cost. In 2008, she was forced to flee her native country. "I left Zimbabwe because my life was in danger as a result of my project being interpreted politically."

Today, she lives with her family in the United Kingdom. She still serves as executive director of her organization and shows no signs of slowing down.

Betty is one of the ten people chosen by CNN as "CNN Heroes". Look at their profiles and choose the one you find the most inspirational here.



Text adapted from Betty's profile page on CNN. Picture courtesy Davison Makanga/IPS

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The heart is what counts

In what seems to become an ongoing series about humanitarian advocacy ;-)... Here is another video which spoke to my heart.
Compare this piece of (he)art with the MSF video we discussed earlier, and you will see what I mean when I say "you don't have to fake stories to move a public"



Added to inspirational video collection.

Video courtesy the Strongheart Fellowship Programme

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Advocacy, the other way: "Why Congo Matters"

The discussion around MSF UK's controversial video sparked quite a lot of comments around the topic 'How do you portray aid and poverty' or 'How do you make people think about these subjects'.

So I thought it is a good idea to show another way. A way that touched me. Meet Emily Troutman.

Emily Troutman is a writer and photographer living in Washington. She just came back after a month travelling around Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She made a video collage of her pictures, mounted it with some gripping music and appropriate text. Its simplicity took me in, and contrasted sharply with the MSF video we talked about a few days ago. Have a look for yourself:



I contacted Emily, and we had an interesting exchange:

Why did you make this video?
Emily: It was a rare opportunity to give voice to an issue that at this moment only exists at the fringes of the mainstream media.

Was this your first trip to rural Africa?
Emily: I also traveled with UNOCHA in the Gulu area of Uganda in 2006. I took some wisdom and knowledge from that trip into Congo. For example, I already knew what real poverty and starvation looked like, so I was able to pay attention to what could maybe be called higher-level needs, but are still urgent: space, pots to cook in, blankets. Of course in Congo, the biggest issue is safety.

What was different in the experience between the two trips, Congo and Uganda?
Emily: In Congo, I generally saw less hungry people, but still some malnutrition, and a whole new complexity of issues facing internally displaced people (IDPs). In Congo, IDPs are still running in a way that they were not in Uganda in 2006. I was also profoundly impacted by the enormity of the jungle in Congo. My four day trip to Pinga, through an area where civilians and aid workers have been shot, really brought home the sense of danger that the Congolese face in simple day-to-day tasks like gathering wood, or walking to market.

These are areas where the authorities or even the people, are not always happy to see a photographer
Emily: The DRC was a very frustrating place to take photos because the work I was doing was technically illegal.
It is exceptionally difficult to get permission to take photos there, so most of the time when I shot, it was in IDP camps or traveling with UN MONUC escorts. I have a profound respect for those photographers who risk their lives to take photos of the military or shine light on issues like child soldiers.

But DRC.. So many have published stuff about the DRC?
Emily: I recognized that Congo, like so many intractable problems, has a way of receding into the noise of daily life. Even for me, it became one of these world crises that are too far away and too foreign to matter on a daily basis. It becomes hard to summon the energy to pay attention. Like, why even look at the issue if I can’t do anything to help?

And did you? Did you help?
Emily: I wanted to go, just so I could see. And ultimately, to decide if that experience of seeing and sharing what I saw could transform how all of us think about Congo, and more generally, the problems of “other people.” Although I have written and photographed similar issues in the past, Congo seemed uniquely overlooked, especially in light of the scale of its tragedy.

People talk a lot about “awareness” and “action” and “making a difference.” But honestly, this was not an aspiration of mine. I only wanted to be open to the moment and encourage those I photograph to also be open to me. The next part is like a witnessing, seeing what happens when two people enter a silent pact to tell the truth. I wanted to make the video because it is an easy way to draw people in; a photo doesn't ask anything of us except our attention.


You can find the stories behind the pictures, on Emily's blog. More of her work, you can find on on her website.

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