There is another aspect which niggles slightly and that is the deafening silence that generally meets the news of aid workers being killed or taken hostage. There is not only a relative silence from governments, media or the public but even from the humanitarian sector itself. Compare the death in Afghanistan of aid workers to that of soldiers who, by and large, are armed to the teeth and sent to Afghanistan to kill or be killed. I don't dispute military interventions - not my business - but it is quiet incredible that the media is so keen to eulogize the military as 'fallen heroes' and ignore those who risk (and give) their lives desperately trying to make a difference on the human level without resorting to state of the art munitions and military occupation.But I want to make it even more black and white: We, the aid community are left clueless what to do with this increased risk we face. The only thing we seem to be doing is piling up those sandbags even higher. Buying more bomb-blast film, bullet-proof jackets and mine-resistant Kevlar layers for our vehicles. Measures which should be taken, but proven to be insufficient.
They did not tell anyone, to keep them stocks floating high, but actually Yahoo does not exist anymore. It has become a virtual team of pre-teen hobbyists, working from their garage.
At least that is what I can tell from the (lack of) support for some of their products. Yahoo Pipes is one of them.
The Yahoo Pipes servers, previously running in a cloud-environment, have all been replaced by a single laptop owned by Johnny, a volunteer, in Santa Monica. When his mum cleans his room, and accidentally hits the power switch of his laptop, Yahoo Pipes goes down. Down until Johnny comes back from kindergarten. He is 5 years old, and mostly uses his laptop to play the "Musti" DVD.
The support for all their products is done by automated bots saying "Issue solved now, can you try it again, and report back if you experience more problems?".
They did consider to outsource the product support to a single call center in Bombay, which also caters for Johnny's Pizza Take-away, Rent-a-Girl Escort services and Gary's Route 66 Tow-away road service. It was too costly.
Yahoo apologizes for any possible inconvenience, but reminds its faithful clientele: "When reaching the bottom, there is only one way. Up!"
Market experts say this phrase has now shown up in several of Yahoo's press releases, which confirms the rumour all Yahoo services will soon be renamed as "Yahoo Up!", to distinguish from their current service level, which is now commonly referred to as "Yahoo Down!". It is said that the key to Yahoo's increased service level will be Sarah, the 6 year old girlfriend from Johnny. She just got her dad's old laptop for Xmas.
More satire on The Road.
Back in June, violent protests erupted all over Iran to contest the obvious election fraud. During the time, I reported on the influence of social media in the street fights, and had one article about "Neda", a 26 year old girl who was shot in the heart while in a traffic jam near the protests.
Someone caught the killing on a mobile phone and posted it on YouTube. I predicted then that Neda would become the face of the 2nd Iranian revolution, and it seems Time magazine helped a bit (politically inspired or not): Neda is now the Time Magazine Person of the Year.
Picture courtesy The Times
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:
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.
According to a recent figures, one gallon oil costs the invading troops $400. The annual expenditure of one soldier is almost one million US dollar. Yearly, the presence of US troops in Afghanistan costs $103 bn, including the troop surge recently announced by Obama.
According to the Sept 21 2009 Congressional Research Service Report, there are 73,968 private contractors working for the US military in Afghanistan. (Full)
Update:
Comments are closed on this post, and the nominations are included in the poll.Cast your vote on this post. The results are out - see this post.
MSF began with the "Top Ten" list in 1998, when a famine in southern Sudan went largely unreported in the US media. Maybe due to the CNN effect ("no media attention, no aid pesos"), MSF went a more commercial course last year, converting "the most Underreported Crisis" list, to "the Top 10 Humanitarian Crisis".
When we hear "climate change", we think of melting polar ice, raising sea levels. At best, we might imagine violent hurricanes in South Asia.
We don't often consider how changing weather patterns affect the poorest first. We, the lucky ones, have a buffer. We are more resilient, have alternative livelihoods. The majority of people on this planet don't.
For over one billion people, a few degrees more will mean the difference between life or death. Survival of a tribe or starvation.
I was looking for a first hand recount, and asked Jane Barrett to write up something from her last visit to Somalia. Jane is a press officer at Oxfam Novib for Somalia, Niger and Burundi. During a recent field visit in Somaliland, she was met warm and generously by the communities. People were clearly eager to tell their stories to someone who wanted to listen.
Here is a story Jane wrote after meeting SalebanYussuf Noor, a grandfather and probably the last of his pastoral generation:
Somalia: A way of life lost
In Burcao, Somaliland we visited a village called Ununley. Here, in houses spread on either side of the road, live pastoralist families. When the village gathers to meet us, providing an occasion to drink tea and chew khaat, there is a distinct majority of elderly and women. Indeed, many men have gone with their sheep and goats to search for water. The latest information, a village elder tells us, is that it has rained by the Ethiopian border.
It will be busy, as many herders have heard the same. Having missed several seasonal rains, the herders have to go further and further in search of water and vegetation for their animals. Along the way, many livestock will be lost to the drought.
SalebanYussuf Noor is 75. He is one of the oldest in the village and was one of its founding members at age ten. In his younger years, his family was wealthy. “When I was young, my family was most generous. I ran a tea shop and to feed people I slaughtered my goats,” he says.
Then, the village was growing. Saleban himself owned 500 sheep and goats. Now his family of 11 own just 30. In the last ten years, climate change has endangered the pastoralist way of life that has existed for centuries in Somalia. The last four years the drought has intensified, with the most recent summer the worst. “Every place they, the herders, go they lose some cattle.”
Saleban is very concerned about what the future holds for the younger generation of the village: “The young people who are supposed to continue to build the village are leaving to places such as Lybia, the Sahara and Europe to find work and build a family. This changing weather is very bad. The people living here used to be wealthy, now they are very poor.”
He doesn’t quite know how to deal with the impact it has had on himself and his village. “We are proud. We used to live lavishly, we don’t know how to help, it sounds like begging,” Saleban said.
Saleban’s grandson has been sitting nearby throughout our conversation, drawing patterns in the sand. I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up. “Teacher” he says shyly. Then I ask his friends who are sitting around us, “Teacher.” “Doctor.” “Teacher.” “Teacher.” “Big man who can work in the factory.” Not one of them wants to be a herder like their fathers. That outlook is too bleak.
Check Oxfam's climate change blog
Picture courtesy Jane Barrett/Oxfam
We have featured UNV (UN Volunteers) before on The Road. I don't think there is anyone amongst us, aidworkers, who have not come across "a UNV" in the field. Volunteering in a UN organisation via UNV is an excellent way to get started in the humanitarian world. Whilst you get a taste of the aid or development work, they also pay you for your living expenses.
Equally interesting is their online volunteering section, an "market place" linking people who want to volunteer and organisations who need volunteers.
On the occasion of the Copenhagen climate summit, they are totalling the amount of hours people have volunteered "for a better planet" in the past half year. They are almost up to a remarkable 1.5 million hours. Not bad...
Today, December 10th, is the International Human Rights Day and for the first time, we have a guest writer on The Road. Barbara Becker wrote this gripping article about Aminatou Haidar, a lifelong campaigner for the rights of the people in Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 34 years.
Say the words “hunger strike” and many will recall images of an emaciated Mahatma Gandhi enduring several famous fasts to protest British rule of India.
This post is part of "Bloggers Unite - International Human Rights Day". Are you a blogger? Write a post about this cause today!
Read the full post...
It is amazing how many small things we pass every day, and we don't notice. Take a beach. Just sand right?
On the first day, God created the dog and said, "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years."
The dog said, "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"
So God agreed......
On the second day, God created the monkey and said, "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."
The monkey said, "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the dog did?"
And God agreed......
On the third day, God created the cow and said, "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years."
The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?"
And God agreed again......
On the fourth day, God created humans and said, "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years."
But the human said, "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?"
"Okay," said God. "You asked for it."
So that is why for our first twenty years, we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.
With thanks to Jeff.
News feed courtesy Humanitarian News.
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 Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order. |
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