West African countries produce millions of ounces of gold each year, but the region is one of the poorest in the world. Provisions set forth in a directive issued by the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) create a basis for helping communities ensure that mining revenues will be used in ways that will reduce poverty, and that they enjoy some of the benefits of wealth produced by mining—instead of simply enduring the costs in terms of pollution, and loss of farm lands. Uniform standards across the region will help prevent destructive competition for foreign investment that force governments to relax environmental and financial standards.
Richard Ellimah, from Obuasi, Ghana, says the new mining directive is "probably the most audacious attempt by the sub regional body to address concerns of mining-affected communities... We are looking forward to using the directive to demand respect for human rights, and freedom of information."
Campaign activities during the week of action will take place in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali, and will include debates and information workshops to teach people in communities affected by mining about the principles in the ECOWAS mining directive. Top among those principles is free, prior, and informed consent, which will give people the right to say whether—and under what terms—mining can be carried out in their community. Civil society organizations will reach out to the press, holding information workshops for the media and interested environmental and social organizations. Organizations also plan to contact their legislatures and mining ministries to ask them to change their regulations to comply with the ECOWAS directive on mining.
Six allied organizations held a press conference following the workshop and released a statement calling on the government to revoke permits it granted Newmont Mining of Denver to explore for gold in the Ajenua Bepo Forest Reserve. "When government revokes the Environmental Permit to mine in Ajenua Bepo Forest Reserve it would demonstrate its preparedness to define forest reserves as 'No Go Zones' for mining," the statement says.
"This campaign is the next phase of the movement towards an increased citizens' participation in public policy making and better governance and regulation in the mining sector in West Africa," says Ibrahima Aidara, Oxfam America's lead expert on extractive industries in West Africa.
]]>Urgent action is required to make the bailout work for poor countries, complete the crackdown on tax havens and speed up reform of the IMF and World Bank, Oxfam said as it published its initial analysis of the London Summit, What Happened at the G-20?
The analysis also raises question over how much of the $50 billion promised for poor countries will be new money. Money distributed through the Multilateral Development Banks, in particular, could come from existing aid budgets.
Oxfam's recommended next steps towards for a 'new world order' are:
"The G-20 could mark an historic turning point but we have been here too many times in the past to take rich countries' promises at face value," said Duncan Green, Oxfam spokesperson. "World leaders need to take decisive steps to turn their rhetoric about a new world order into reality.
"That means an end to the damaging conditionality imposed on poor countries when they ask for assistance from the IMF. If the price of a bailout is to close health clinics and schools then the financial medicine offered by the G-20 will make the patient worse, not better.
"And it means real action to tackle climate change. It would be a tragedy if having benefited from an economic bailout, the world economy and the millions of poor people at greatest risk, quickly become the victims of climate change."
]]>Against this backdrop, how did the G20 leaders perform?
]]>There are about 200 indigenous Ashaninka people living in this area, but most of them, like 29-year-old Dante Cheresente, are not making much money and therefore can't pay for things like doctor visits when family members fall ill or education for their children. They live off of the fruits and vegetables they grow in their small plots, but these are mostly for their own consumption. "We grow yucca, plantains, lemons, oranges, and tangerines," Cheresente says. "But we just eat most of it and feed it to our animals, because prices are so low it is not worth selling."
To tap into the opportunities of the market economy and make some money, Cheresente and his father, who is the village chief, and others in their community are collaborating with a local rural organization known as SEPAR, Oxfam America's partner in this central jungle region of Peru, to carry out an experiment: growing the ancient Sacha Inchi plant, which yields a nut that is rich in nutritious omega-3 and omega-6 oils.
"There is demand in Peru for Sacha Inchi oil for cooking, but also as a health supplement internationally," says Raul Ho, Oxfam America's program officer in South America. "It is well known now, and the supply is lower than demand, both in Peru and abroad. To meet this demand, we will help indigenous farmers find the right Sacha Inchi variety for their lands and help them grow, process, and sell it in the fair trade market."
SEPAR is working with farmers like Cheresente all over the central Amazon to plant experimental plots of Sacha Inchi. In San Ramon de Pangoa, they are growing two different varieties, one from the northern Amazon and one from the southern region, to determine which will perform best in the soil and altitude found in their village. "This is being done with indigenous farmers every step of the way," says Ho. "We will help them enter this market with the right seeds and production technology, and the farmers will know the best practices for growing Sacha Inchi." The goal is to produce a high-grade, organic Sacha Inchi, for which the farmers will get the best possible price.
In San Ramon de Pangoa, the rows of Sacha Inchi plants are interspersed with corn, soy beans, potatoes, and other food crops to determine which growing patterns work best. Frank Mendoza, a tropical agriculture expert advising SEPAR, says the Sacha Inchi crop could be quite lucrative. "If we can help these farmers grow Sacha Inchi as just one of their crops, it will increase the income of the farmers considerably," he says. Cheresente and his father, for example, say if they can make decent money from Sacha Inchi, they could devote five of their eight hectares—about 12 of their nearly 20 acres—to growing the plant. Ho and Mendoza estimate that with luck, in their first year they could get as much as 500 kilos of Sacha Inchi per hectare and sell the unprocessed nuts at about seven Peruvian soles (about $2) per kilo. This could mean a gross return of as much as $5,000 per harvest. With the right variety and improved production techniques, farmers like the Cheresentes could eventually produce nearly 1,000 kilos per hectare, which would bring in over $10,000 for unprocessed Sacha Inchi nuts on their five hectares, a huge income boost in a very poor region of Peru.
Cultivating a valuable cash crop like Sacha Inchi can help the indigenous Ashaninka people in villages like San Ramon de Pangoa to connect with local and international markets on their own terms: to earn money and preserve their culture and way of life. Preserving community and the Ashaninka's legacy occupy Cheresente's mind quite a bit these days: he and his wife, Laura, have a two-month-old son, Jason Fritz Cheresente. While his father talks with visitors, Jason Fritz lays in a hammock, quietly sleeping. Attached to the hammock is a string, which his grandmother pulls gently to rock the baby as she talks with friends. She and her generation have witnessed the wholesale occupation of this central jungle region by settlers from the highlands escaping the guerilla war of the 1980s and seeking land and opportunity. The government encouraged this exodus, believing the land was unoccupied, as it ignored the indigenous inhabitants. The result is that the Ashaninka have been squeezed into smaller and smaller areas and can no longer hunt and fish. They are now settled and trying to become part of the larger economy while preserving their culture. Despite these pressures, Cheresente is optimistic that growing Sacha Inchi will help them. "We expect to increase our income, so we can support the elderly people in the community, as they were the ones who worked to get this land. We also want to improve the level of nutrition and education for children here."
Growing Sacha Inchi is just part of this economic integration for the Ashaninka. Others in the village are getting help in producing and marketing handicrafts such as woven bags and traditional garments, as well as souvenirs for tourists. Cheresente's wife even got a grant from SEPAR to open a store, where she sells food, soap, and other consumer goods. Small enterprises like this will help people earn cash they can use to pay for health care and other services. And more small enterprises will help start to move cash through the rural economy.
Growing Sacha Inchi and other money-making ventures in these indigenous communities will help people prosper and maintain their communities. Cheresente and his neighbors have worked hard to get the research plots growing despite a serious drought that set in just after planting last year. They watered the Sacha Inchi plants from a small stream near the village and tended the plots three entire days per week.
Antonio Cheresente, Dante's father, says they are looking to Sacha Inchi for their future. "We know this research will help us improve our farms," he says.
]]>What is most surprising is not all of Mississippi is poor, or last in every development category. There are regions in Mississippi that rank on par with the richest state in America (Connecticut), and there are regions that rank on par with the least developed countries in the world.
This study illuminates the sharp disparities in opportunity between regions and between races within the state. The report forces us to acknowledge who is thriving, and who is being shut out. It is clear that we cannot forge ahead while leaving so many people behind.
"In Mississippi, where we work with 13 state and local organizations such as the NAACP, this report clearly illustrates the conditions residents were struggling with even prior to the hurricanes of 2005—limited access to education, lower incomes, and shorter lives—and argues for a comprehensive solution for recovery," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
Given the profound economic and social challenges facing Mississippi, and more broadly working families in the US today, this report comes at a crucial time to help policy makers use precious resources to ensure all Mississippians have access to the American Dream.
]]>2008 was an especially grim year in Zimbabwe—and prospects for the coming year seem little better. The fact that Zimbabweans were celebrating the new year at all might seem surprising. But many people, or at least those with some money living in the cities, were in the mood to party, if only for a night and to forget their worries.
Zimbabwe is gripped by economic collapse. Hyperinflation, the worst in the world, has seen prices skyrocketing, making it hard for many to access food and fuel. Last month, the country's central bank introduced a 10 billion Zimbabwean dollar banknote, but its actual worth, about $10 US dollars on the black market, is rapidly decreasing day by day. Most shops now only accept foreign currency not Zimbabwean notes.
On top of the economic meltdown, which has seen doctors, teachers, and most government staffers staying away from work because their pay in local Zimbabwean dollars won't even cover their crippling transport costs, there is a serious and worsening humanitarian crisis.
A cholera outbreak in August has now affected more than 30,000 people, and claimed the lives of more than 1,600 people, with cases now being reported across every province in the country.
Cholera is an easily preventable and treatable waterborne disease. But its spread in Zimbabwe is being fuelled by the collapse of health, sanitation, and water services. There are limited medical supplies and many don't have access to clean drinking water or proper sanitation. The onset of heavy rains this month is worsening an already alarming situation.
A second humanitarian crisis, still under-reported, is the worsening malnutrition and food shortages. There have been several years of failed harvests; a serious shortage of seeds and fertilizers; and driving hunger is forcing many to eat seeds instead of planting them for next year's crops.
The UN has warned that around five million people, more than half of the population, will soon rely on food aid.
The country is also facing political deadlock. Efforts to form a power-sharing government between the ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, have stalled.
I got a somber insight into many of the problems the country was facing as I visited Kadoma city in central Zimbabwe, about 112 miles west of the capital, Harare.
Oxfam has been working in the area, drilling wells so that communities can access safe drinking water, distributing hygiene kits, and undertaking health promotion work.
The health authorities have reported nearly a thousand cholera cases since mid November, with 29 deaths. Unofficial statistics put the figure even higher.
Two people had died that day; and I was shown a tent containing the wrapped corpses of seven bodies, several of which had lain there for several days and were swelling. Fuel shortages and rocketing prices meant that there were no vehicles available to take the bodies to the local cemetery.
"Things aren't stabilizing," said one nurse. "They're getting worse. We're seeing more patients every day."
With early access to treatment—intravenous fluids and oral rehydration—patients can recover quickly and be discharged within days.
But a visit to a nearby housing estate—described as a cholera "time bomb" by a senior health official—made clear why the epidemic is sweeping across the country.
The sewage system had broken down, and residents were disposing of human and other waste in the narrow lanes around their homes.
Those images haunted me as I sat in the jazz bar that night. Zimbabweans might have little to celebrate, other than surviving another difficult year; but they are still pinning their hopes that the coming year might bring some change for the better.
]]>But now that she has insurance, she can afford to take him to a clinic to get checked out.
According to Devudamma, many mothers here face the same dilemma when their child comes down with fever. Fevers could mean malaria or dengue, both of which are potentially fatal.
"Because they don't know what it is, the tendency is to rush to the hospital," said Devudamma, "But they charge a lot."
"That's where insurance is very handy," she said.
Many fishing families in the Pudimedaka village are deep in debt, borrowing money to rebuild boats, to cover daily costs when the catch is small or injury or illness keep them from working, or, like Devudamma, to pay for medical care.
When fish are plentiful, families have to pay back their loans, usually with a high percentage of their catch.
But health insurance, as part of a broader economic plan, is opening up new possibilities here.
Three years ago, the District Fishermen's Youth Welfare Association (DFYWA) a local NGO, and Oxfam partner, helped families in this village determine that medical expenses were a huge drain on their resources, costing some up to a quarter of their yearly income.
DFYWA also convinced Oriental Insurance, a government of India company, to create policies designed, and priced, for very poor fishing families.
Now, for what they make in a day, families like Devudamma's, can purchase an annual policy, protecting themselves from the costs of sickness, accidents ? even the death of a breadwinner.
With money saved on medical care, families here are buying ice-boxes, fishing nets and fish drying and processing equipment. These investments can help them earn a little more on their catch than they did before.
Health insurance is a great first step, but ultimately, the people of Pudimedaka need a more comprehensive insurance package to keep them out of the pockets of money-lenders, who fulfill a "mafia-like" role, according to J. Saravanan, fisheries expert from the Development Human Action (DHAN) Academy in Madurai.
Beyond medical costs, fishing families would benefit from insurance that covers assets including their boats, houses and even their day's catch.
Initially, Oriental did not know how to insure the traditional Indian catamarans that the poorest fishermen use, since they had no way of knowing whether the boats were seaworthy.
But DFYWA convinced the Department of Fisheries to rate and certify even these homemade boats. As a result, boat insurance should be available soon, according to Oriental representative Srihari Naidu.
Home insurance has also proved tricky for Oriental, since thatched roofs break easily in storms, even though they are also cheap and easy to repair.
And Naidu was confounded by the idea of insuring a fisherman's catch, despite the fact that other insurers have found a way to insure a farmer's crops.
Fish are a common resource, used by many, said Naidu. "We can't possibly know how many fish are in the sea."
Insuring assets, and not just health, would do more to keep vulnerable families out of debt, and allow them to build their savings, add value to their work, earn more money and reduce their vulnerability.
Mahalakshmi Kara, a grandmother in the village, has relied on a health insurance policy for at least a year and has started saving a small percentage of her earnings.
"We never thought that we could save, but we're doing it," she said.
"I don't know how it will be helpful," said Kara, "but if [saving] can lift us even an inch out of poverty, I'll be very happy."
]]>Fidel had an 18-year-old brother who deserted the Mai-Mai, one of the eastern Congo's multitude of armed factions. Men from the group came looking for his brother at family home, but he wasn't there. Fidel was. They decided to take him instead.
"My mother begged and cried," he says. "The rebels said they'd spare me, if my mum paid them $100. But we were poor and didn't have the money."
As he was snatched away, his mother screamed. The soldiers said that they would kill her if she didn't shut up.
He still finds it difficult to play, he says. Even though he is now in safe place, he still has the memories.
"I used to carry ammunition for the soldiers as they fought on the front line. One day I saw 60 bodies dead in the battlefield. I knew then I needed to escape or I'd end up dead myself."
After six months of enduring beatings with sticks, Fidel managed to escape one night when the soldiers were sleeping. He ran two miles in darkness of the night until he reached the base of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission for Congo.
From there, he was taken to CAJED, a Congolese NGO that rehabilitates child soldiers and other vulnerable children, and helps them reintegrate back into the community. I am at the transitional center run by CAJED and UNICEF that aims to help the children come to terms with their trauma.
After they leave the center, CAJED keeps in contact with the boys and helps them adapt to civilian life. This is a difficult stage. In a country with grinding poverty and few job prospects, many child soldiers get re-recruited. CAJED's community work aims to prevent that, and Oxfam supports CAJED at this stage.
Alongside Fidel in the transitional center, I meet Michel. Michel wears a T-shirt with a rhino on it, and has flecks of vibrant green paint on his arms and forehead. He's been painting. But despite the familiar childhood activity he was in the midst of, his mood seems much darker than Fidel's. He spent four years with a rebel group and was forced to fight.
His story starts simply. He was abducted when he left his house to get some milk. He never returned. But then the horror escalates. Michel was taught to fight. He shot people and remembers jumping over bodies in the battlefield. His friend was taken prisoner by another armed group. They discovered him hanging from a tree with blood pouring from his ears and his nose. It is horrible to learn that a 12-year-old child has seen such scenes.
The stories of children like Fidel and Michel painfully underscore why we need to find an end to horrific violence that has plagued the eastern Congo for too long. Child protection agencies have reported that Mai Mai militia in the town of Rutshuru recruited 37 children into military service the week before last. An estimated 150 children have been forcibly recruited since heavy fighting resumed in August.
Congo's armed men need to put their weapons down and find a peaceful solution to this conflict. Five millionfour hundred thousand people have died in Congo's decade-long war. The people of eastern Congo have suffered too much. We need to push our politicians to keep up the diplomatic pressure and find a political solution to this harrowing war. Only then will we be able to confine the stories of Fidel and Michel to the history books.
Names have been changed to protect identities.
]]>"The project has been very favorable for us, because we have seen ourselves embark on a really positive path within ANAP," Ydalmez Gonzalez says. "And for my personal experience, it has been very fruitful. We learned about gender, organizing, communication, computers, and organic agriculture. We learned a lot and it is very satisfying."
Many women in the rural areas of Cuba are looking for work, but there aren't many opportunities. Oxfam is helping to solve this problem by including in its projects the construction of greenhouses and nurseries where women can work. In addition, ANAP has organized workshops on gender in order to lift women's self esteem and create new leaders. Today, in the municipalities of Roda and Palmiras, there are 60 new women leaders.
"This project has been a base for us to continue working on what we have dreamed about for years. Women have the same rights as men, the law says so. But in the real world, from a social point of view, it isn't so," says Alberto Curbelo, president of ANAP in Cienfuegos. "Today, because of this project, 53 percent of the leaders in this province are women. So, when we saw these excellent results, we decided to develop a gender strategy for ANAP nationally. This strategy allows us to identify the problems that limit women's participation in each cooperative and find a way to resolve it. What's more, the project helps women and men identify their own strengths and potential."
For Carmen Padron, president of a credit and services cooperative, ANAP's gender work has been the key to her development. "I started out in ANAP in an administrative position in a livestock cooperative," she says. "Because of this women's leadership project, I began to feel more confident. I started to take on other responsibilities within the same cooperative. I worked a little in sugar cane production, taking on a little more of the role of a director among my workmates. And my workmates, apart from respecting me as a woman, saw me as a leader."
"Later, I went on to manage a 125-member sugar cane cooperative," she says. "It wasn't difficult. I learned a lot in the women's workshops. I felt confident. I learned to direct, to communicate, how to talk to my workmates, how to get them to do things without offending them, without mistreating them, or imposing myself upon them. I used the power of persuasion. But when I went on, a few months ago, to lead an entire cooperative I thought they might reject me. But they didn't; they accepted me. And since I had experience, it wasn't difficult. The farmer today is not the same as before. He accepts the fact that women lead, that they have opinions, and he takes them into consideration. So it wasn't difficult to be a woman leader. But if I hadn't have had all these training sessions, all this instruction, all this knowledge I had acquired, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would have stayed behind a desk, scribbling numbers. No one would have been able to get me out of there."
It isn't just older women who are discovering these new abilities and possibilities. Only in her twenties, Yamelis Ferron was a speaker at an official ceremony. She spoke to thousands of farmers.
"It was really exciting, because after I spoke people said, 'I didn't know you were capable of that,' and 'I didn't think you had the courage to stand up and speak in front of so many people,'" she says, remembering her experience. "In school I would panic whenever I had to speak to large groups. But when I got involved in this movement of women leaders, little by little I lost that fear. I feel very proud to have started from the rank and file. I am now deputy in the municipality of Roda and I continue to work. They are small steps, but steps you notice."
]]>Members of Oxfam International have also provided grant support for neighborhood social programs, such as the world-renowned Martin Luther King Center, a leader in popular education.
Cuba's civil evacuation and protection system is widely renowned for its excellence. Oxfam works with Cuba's Civil Defense to help communities prepare for disasters and has helped Cuba significantly reduce its vulnerability to hurricanes. In 2004 Oxfam America, as part of Oxfam International, documented these experiences and lessons in the publication "Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction in Cuba."
Gender equality is a priority in all the projects Oxfam supports. While Cuban women enjoy a wide array of rights, there continue to be gaps, particularly at home. Supporting research and sensitivity training, particularly in regards to violence against women, is a priority for Oxfam in Cuba.
As part of Oxfam International, Oxfam America has contributed roughly $1.1 million to Oxfam International's work in Cuba since 1995. All of Oxfam America's grants were approved by the US Department of State, and mostly supported agricultural transformation projects designed to improve food security.
]]>In the 1980s, 80 percent of Cuba's trade was with the Socialist Block. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, this market disappeared and the economy practically collapsed. From 1990 to 1991 Cuba's imports declined by 73 percent. The agricultural sector, centered on intensive sugar production for export, depended on imported supplies. It hit rock bottom.
Then came the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (also known as the Torricelli Law) and the Helms-Burton Act, prohibiting companies that receive US subsidies to trade with Cuba, and excluding ships that dock in Cuba to visit the US for six months. This resulted in Cuba paying more for shipping because ships had to come from very far away and often solely to go to Cuba.
There were shortages of everything: medicine, gas, food, soap, toilet paper, and matches. "My bones were protruding here," says Jose Diaz, a 66-year-old architect, pointing to his ribs. "I had to sell my car because there was no gas. I lost 80 pounds, since there wasn't enough food and I was biking to work. But now I have a pot belly. I eat everything put in front of me."
To confront this crisis, Cuba's doors were opened to tourism and certain economic activities were liberalized, like small restaurants and fruit and vegetable markets. Later on, foreign currencies were allowed to circulate. Today, in addition to the Cuban peso, a convertible peso is circulating and can be used to make purchases in many stores and restaurants. Cuba also started to diversify its exports, focusing on medical services and biotechnology, distance learning, and commodities like nickel and tobacco.
What little foreign currency entered the country was used to maintain basic social services. In meetings with the Ministry of Education and National Institute of Economic Research, representatives were proud of the fact that no educational or health facilities were closed, and the weight of the crisis was distributed in an even manner.
The agricultural sector had to adapt to new conditions, and change from a monoculture, export-oriented model to the organic production of food for local consumption. Cuba is now considered the biggest laboratory for organic agriculture, in part because there are no chemical products available in Cuba for many of its crops.
In recent years, Cuba is slowly emerging from the crisis. In 2005, economic growth was at 11.8 percent; the next year 12.5 percent. During 2007 it grew 7.5 percent, thanks partly to a relaxation of some aspects of the US embargo. The United States is now Cuba's fifth largest trading partner.
The GDP of the country is higher than it was in 1989 when the crisis began. But this doesn't mean that Cuba has fully recovered. There are still great challenges ahead, like transportation, housing, and food security, to name the most pressing. Even though the average diet has increased to more than 3,200 calories per day, there is still much to be desired in terms of variety. There are shortages of milk and beef, and crop yields are lower than they were in the 1980s. The country spends a lot of money importing subsidized food to distribute to the population. But that food only covers half the population's nutritional needs. The buying power of salaries and pensions are insufficient to cover basic needs. Despite substantial increases, an average family still needs the equivalent of three median salaries to cover their basic needs.
]]>But with fuel prices rocketing and dock amenities still in short supply, making a living from the ocean has become next to impossible for the couple. They depend on their social security checks and Geneva's schoolteacher's pension.
"I ain't made a profit in three years," said Joseph. "The boat supports itself, but that's it. It's so hard to make a living."
Disaster has compounded that challenge for the Rosses and countless others on the Gulf Coast. But they are not alone. Millions of Americans face similar struggles trying to earn a living, to stay healthy, and to educate their children in a country where the American dream has become more myth than reality for many people.
That truth emerges—sharp and stunning—from the pages of a new report that, for the first time, provides a human development rank for each state, congressional district, and ethnic group in the US. Called "The Measure of America," and supported by Oxfam America, the report takes tools long used to analyze the complexities of developing countries and applies them to one of the richest nations in the world. The report was written by Sarah Burd-Sharps, Kristen Lewis, and Eduardo Borges Martsin. Its goal is to deliver a clear picture of what life is really like for many of the 305 million Americans in a country where the average income among the top fifth of US households in 2006 was almost 15 times that of those in the lowest fifth—or $168,170 versus $11,352.
"The American Dream has drifted beyond the each of many, while fading from view among others," say the authors in their executive summary. "To reinvigorate it, to make it real for millions of middle-class and poor Americans, the stagnation and decline of middle and low incomes must be reversed, and opportunity must once again reach down to the lowest rungs of society."
That mission—to give poor people a fair shot at opportunity; to ensure their basic rights and dignity—lies at the heart of Oxfam America's US regional programs in the southeast. One of them is concentrating on helping the Gulf Coast recover from the devastation caused by back-to-back hurricanes in 2005.The second program seeks to reform the food system so that those who produce the food that feeds our nation—the low-wage farm and meat-processing workers—can secure their rights to decent work and improved conditions in their communities.
When Katrina and Rita barreled into the Gulf Coast, the damage they left was enormous—and indiscriminate. Regardless of their means, everyone in the paths of the storms got slammed. But not everyone has benefitted from the multi-billion-dollar recovery—funded by American taxpayers—that slowly has been restoring what the wind and water swept away.
In Mississippi and Louisiana, many of the region's poorest residents continue to struggle toward recovery. The persistent inattention of state and federal policy makers to meeting the needs of the most vulnerable people has compounded the storms' destruction.
Walk through storm-battered Biloxi, Mississippi, and the disparities in the recovery become clear. Remodeled hotels glimmer and luxury condominiums have sprouted just blocks from narrow streets where many people still live in temporary trailers.
"We need affordable housing: not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Sharon Hanshaw, a lifelong resident of the city who longs for the old neighborhoods to come alive again. She's executive director of Coastal Women for Change, an Oxfam partner organization founded following the disaster. Its goal is to empower local women to participate in the recovery. "New houses mean new life."
After the hurricanes hit, Oxfam's first response was to work with its local partners and provide emergency assistance to people. That response has now grown into a five-year, $12-million program focused on Mississippi and Louisiana. Working through local organizations, the program's goal is two-fold. The first is to ensure that the regio's most vulnerable people have access to safe and affordable housing. And the second objective is to ensure that workers in the hospitality industry—including those employed by restaurants, hotels, and casinos, as well as the construction workers now rebuilding those facilities—can land jobs that will allow them to achieve a decent standard of living.
By working with local communities to understand, demand, and ensure their rights, Oxfam's objective is to influence the outcome of the recovery and to help bring equity to the country's poorest states.
To the authors of "The Measure of America," it's a job that will require an investment of both will and financial resources on the scale of the Marshall Plan—a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction effort that helped to rebuild Western Europe following World War II. According to the report, about 12 million people live in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and together their three states have the lowest human development index scores of any region in the country—and that was before the consequences of the storm were factored in.
"On key measures of human development, the region today is at the level of development the country as a whole experienced 18 years ago. It has the nation's lowest levels of educational attainment, shortest life expectancy, and lowest incomes," say the authors.
"A Gulf Coast Reconstruction Plan, encompassing far-reaching humanitarian, social, political, and economic aims would expand choice and opportunity for the people of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi."
Expanding choice and opportunity for farm and meat processing workers is also going to require some far-reaching change. Oxfam America's program to improve conditions for some of the country's lowest-paid workers in the rural southeast employs a number of tactics including consumer campaigns that pressure employers to offer workers better pay.
"By working at multiple levels, the program addresses the issues of declining wages, low union density, gender and racial discrimination, high rates of occupational injury, and abuse due to the immigration status of workers," said Guadalupe Gamboa, Oxfam's worker rights program officer.
Farm workers, of whom there are an estimated three million, are among the poorest laborers in the country. Half of all individuals earn less than $7,500 a year, and half of farm worker families earn less than $10,000 a year—wages that are well below the US poverty threshold. Most workers get paid on a piece-rate basis, and because of their poverty they often live in overcrowded and substandard housing that routinely violates federal regulations. Food processing workers—there are about 800,000 of them in the US—face similar stressful economic and social conditions.
Besides poverty wages, both groups of laborers face dangerous working environments. Accidents and exposure to toxic pesticides are among the regular risks for farm workers. Meat packers are often forced to work at blinding speeds using razor-sharp knives, risking accidents and cumulative stress injuries.
But momentum for change is building. Oxfam-supported campaigns against some of the biggest names in the food industry—Yum! Brands (owner of Taco Bell), McDonald's, Burger King—have coincided with the public's increasing concern about food safety, motivating people to mobilize in support of farm workers. All three companies have agreed to pay some of the field hands in their supply chain a higher wage.
Building on those successes, Oxfam is now supporting a major campaign to organize 5,000 workers at Smithfield's Tar Heel, North Carolina pork processing plant—the largest of its kind in the country.
"Low-wage workers in the rural southeast, particularly people of color, immigrants, and women working in agriculture and food systems have a right to decent work and improved conditions," said Gamboa. "And we'll know they've secured that right when we see their increased power through collective bargaining, fair compensation, and worker leadership."
]]>But not so long ago, he was a boy fighting a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It's dark inside his shop: He works only with hand tools, as there is no electricity. But it's darker where he came from, and through memories spun from a tangle of languages—Swahili, French, English—the boyhood of Egiba Sango emerges. His real name is being withheld to protect his safety.
Sango's case is one of about 3,000 that the Concert d'Actions pour Jeunes et Enfants Défavorisés, or CAJED, has worked on since 1997. CAJED is based in Goma and is funded by Oxfam and UNICEF. Its mission is to help child soldiers recover from the trauma of their combat experiences and return to normal lives—a challenge in a place where years of conflict have left an estimated 5.4 million people dead since 1998. Between that year and 2003, about 33,000 children were among the ranks of various armed groups.
Successfully reintegrating them into community life will be essential to ensuring the lasting peace villagers in the eastern provinces long for.
And that's where Sango is now—joined again with everyday people doing everyday things—in a wooden shed perched on a heap of volcanic rock. A new bedstead and table stand in the dirt outside, announcing his wares and skills.
With a tool kit provided by CAJED—planes, saws, a drill, a vice, a square—Sango is making his living and paying $15 a month rent for this shed that he shares with a partner. A piece of cardboard, printed in a careful hand with project dimensions, is tacked to the wall, a counterpoint to the chaos in the shop—tools scattered on the ground, the blade of a giant knife glinting through the wood chips, a pile of chairs heaped along the back wall.
He speaks softly, his face nearly blank, as he tells a small crowd of visitors from Oxfam about the years he spent with the military—a choice he made as a very young boy to escape a life of misery.
The oldest of five children, he was 8 when his parents died—poisoned, he says, by neighbors who were jealous of his parents' efforts to improve themselves. Sango was sent to live with an uncle whose wife decided she didn't like him and treated him badly. Determined to find a better alternative, he joined a military group—and that's when his real trouble started.
Sango was just 10 at the time, and life among the soldiers was brutal. He told about how he was made to walk day and night, sometimes without food. He was forced to carry heavy loads and bore frequent beatings. One time, the soldiers punished him by cutting his leg. Pulling up his pant leg, Sango reveals an ugly scar on his right shin.
Five times he tried to run away—once getting as far as 80 kilometers from his unit before stumbling into soldiers who recognized him and forced him to return. Finally, on his sixth attempt, he escaped for good. That was in 2005.
For two years, Sango was on his own, surviving by his wits around Goma with two other boys who had also fled their military units. They would beg for food from house to house and when one received a handout, he shared it with the others. Occasionally, they would steal to stay alive.
Eventually, one of the outreach workers from CAJED found Sango on the streets and convinced him to come to the center. Sango said he knew he needed a way to become self-sufficient. The first stop was a three-month stay at a transit center in Goma, the capital of North Kivu, where staff members work with youngsters on psychosocial issues and help prepare them to return to their families. They also track down those families and work with them to be ready to welcome their children back.
But Sango had no parents—and no place to go. Instead, he enrolled in CAJED's training program and after six months had gained enough skill to launch his own small furniture-making business.
He finishes his story, and for the first time in nearly an hour of talk, life seems to return to his face when one of the visitors asks if Sango could make him a table.
Sango flashes a smile. He's back—in his shop, in control of his life, his boyhood behind him for now.
On the hilltop behind Sango's shop, how many other stories like his can be found among the children and teenagers learning to be carpenters or bakers or any of several other skills CAJED is imparting through its training programs there?
Rain pelts the metal roofs of the workshops as Gilbert Munda, CAJED's coordinator, leads a tour from the wood-fired brick oven to the electronics-repair room and into the room where girls are learning to sew on big black sewing machines.
The reality of many of the trainees' lives becomes clear in a visit to CAJED's infirmary housed in a small wooden shack with a concrete floor. There Dorotheé Mushesha, one of two nurses in a dark room with plywood walls, is pounding a root into powder. She says when the center runs out of modern medicines, she treats her patients with traditional ones from plants, and she keeps a small garden right behind the infirmary for that purpose. The root she is pounding helps the kidneys, she says.
About 20 children a day come for care. Malaria, typhoid, worms, respiratory illnesses, skin issues—Mushesha sees the gamut among the young patients.
In his office, Munda talks about the pressures that have pushed kids into the arms of military men willing to exploit their loyalty for murderous ends of their own.
Many children don't have the opportunity to go to school, he says. Poverty has a stranglehold on their families, and often the kids are unable to find work.
Human rights advocates says the recruitment of child soldiers stems from a host of deeply ingrained attitudes that hold little respect for the lives of individuals, including those of children. And compounding that is a widespread lack of basic services and social support networks.
But Munda is optimistic that with the kind of help programs like CAJED offer, children swept up in the horrors of war can recover their old lives and become productive community members.
The rain has stopped by the time the Oxfam visitors take their leave of Munda. On their way home, they again pass Sango's shop. The table and bedstead are still there. But now they are beaded with rain. No one thought to bring them in, or cover them with plastic. Maybe there was none to spare.
]]>