But before you go you should read this week’s story called “A Day in the DRC” by Armin Rosen at The Atlantic. Full disclosure: Oxfam helped fund his trip to Goma and environs to report on what he saw. Full disclosure: When we asked him to go, I didn’t care at all what he wound up writing. Full disclosure: he’s a damn good writer and you should hear his take on a region that has seen unspeakable crimes, still sees them, and yet still lives.

“I set out with James [a local tour guide] … to see things that had no overt connection to the eastern Congo’s many tragedies; to gather evidence that life here is more than just displacement and conflict, even in a city this battered, ” writes Rosen.

Children collect water from lake Kivu, near Goma, in late 2012. Photo: Kate Holt/Oxfam

“Even in war, people try to live their ordinary lives,” James tells him at one point. “It’s a reflection of the Congolese people. Even if you go to a death ceremony, people will cry. And then they start to relax – to laugh, to sing.”

The whole piece goes on like that. Really, it’s a great read.

Rosen’s story is the first I have read (and probably you too) that includes mention of a cobbled-together foosball table or teenagers breakdancing on the floor of a former church. These images are, really, the whole point of asking a great writer if he’d be interested in spending some time in an amazing place and telling readers about it.

You see, I’d argue that there’s quite an appetite, especially within the US media, for the stories about a brutal Africa. For the Africa of wars and child soldiers. For poverty and militias. Fascinating, necessary, stories all, and we need them to be told. And goodness knows that had some of these stories been told 10 or 20 years ago in this very place, some of the tragedies that people experienced might have been avoided. But we also need the foosball stories, the breakdancing stories, and the everyday life-in-the-world stories.

This is the Goma that I know. It is a place filled with people dealing with a sometimes brutal history, an too-often brutal present, and figuring out the best place to breakdance or kill a few hours playing foosball. It’s sticking your hand out the window of a boat, dragging your hand across the water, and marveling at one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

OxfamBuzzList is a blog series about the movies, books, articles, music, and more that have Oxfam staff and supporters talking. We welcome guest contributions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Right now the American Petroleum Institute is waging a legal battle in Washington to block key sections of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act– passed by Congress and signed by President Obama– that requires oil companies to divulge what they pay governments.

Some of the same companies supporting the suit, like Chevron, are also say they support the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, which is meeting in Sydney this week to promote more disclosure of oil, gas, and mineral resource revenues.

Chevron’s page on the EITI web site says “Chevron believes that the disclosure of revenues received by governments and payments made by extractive industries to governments could lead to improved governance in resource-rich countries. The transparent and accurate accounting of these funds contributes to stable, long-term investment climates, economic growth and the well-being of communities… Our commitment to promoting revenue transparency in (sic) reflected in our participation in the multistakeholder Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Chevron, which continues to support the efforts of the Oslo-based EITI Secretariat, was elected to serve as a full member of the EITI board in 2009.”

OK so we are asking: Does Chevron support resource revenue transparency or not, and if so why has the company not publicly disavowed its support of the API law suit?

Right now we are calling on Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell to drop their support of the API suit. You can help: Check out our new video, share it through your social networks, and take the action to call on Big Oil companies to be honest, support resource revenue transparency, and drop the law suit in Washington.

Harriet Nakabaale has named her Kampala yard “Camp Green” for the abundant vegetables she is able to produce from it. Photo: Ami Vitale

It’s planting season where I live north of Boston. I’ve never been very good at getting a garden to grow, which is why I was blown away when I walked through the gate into Harriet Nakabaale’s small city yard in Kampala, Uganda, a few weeks ago. She had planted just about every inch of it—and all of it was green and edible. It was a true victory garden, especially in a place like Kampala where the hard-packed earth in crowded neighborhoods can appear so unforgiving. You just have to know how to work it, like Nakabaale does—patiently, with absolute devotion, and the knowledge that all your hard work will pay off in heaps of healthy vegetables.

For all you would-be gardeners out there, maybe this photo of Nakabaale—snapped in a rare moment of repose—will serve as a bit of inspiration to get you going.

And watch for others that we’ll be sharing. They are part of an ambitious effort to advise the Rockefeller Foundation in identifying promising innovations in African agriculture for small farmers. The idea was to do a scan of work being done across sub-Saharan Africa by our peers as well as local citizen groups, organizations,  governments, and corporations, and then to try to identify ideas and projects that might be both innovative and scalable. We are writing up our findings now for the foundation to present at its centennial celebration in Nigeria in July. In the meantime, we have a treasure trove of great ideas, stories, and pictures–including the one above taken by Ami Vitale—of incredible people and innovations to share with you.

Emelia Amoateng speaking to a delegation from Oxfam America in the church in her village, Teberebie. Photo by Neil Brander/Oxfam America.

The first time I met Emelia Amoateng she introduced me to the members of the Teberebie Concerned Farmers’ Association. The farmers had recently been moved off their land by the Iduapriem gold mine, and were contesting the compensation they were offered by the company. “According to our law, no one should take anything away from you by force, but that is what happened here in Teberebie,” she said to me.

Teberebie’s fields are now buried under massive piles of grey waste rock. The farmers live in modest concrete homes the company built, and have to walk long distances (15 kilometers round trip) to their new fields where they grow oil palms, cocoa, pineapples, and other crops in the rich tropical soil. They live close enough to the mining operation that their homes crack from the blasting in the mine pit, but few of the people have been able to secure employment there.

When I first went to Teberebie in 2007, Amoateng and the others in the Association were in the early stages of what has become a 10-year legal battle. With help from Oxfam’s partners the Center for Public Interest Law and the human rights and environmental group Wacam, the farmers maintained their struggle, despite having little income as the case dragged slowly through the courts.

Oxfam America’s partner Wacam trains activists in the rights protected under Ghana’s Minerals and Mining Act. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

The case is now on the verge of being settled in court-ordered arbitration, so it is particularly tragic that Amoateng, 38, passed away earlier this month. Despite chronic asthma, she was an inspiring and dedicated leader, tirelessly defending the rights of her neighbors when innocent community members were shot by police, and documenting chemical spills so the community could get appropriate compensation for damages. When the proper authorities failed to do their duty to protect the lives, livelihoods, and property of her community, Amoateng reached out to the media and led demonstrations to call attention to the injustices being perpetrated against Teberebie. She did all this while taking classes to finish her secondary education, and raising two children.

“Our constitution says that if someone comes for your farm, they should negotiate and compensate you before they carry out a project,” she told me, showing me her copy of Ghana’s 2006 Minerals and Mining Act. Her training helped her hold the government and AngoGold Ashanti Mining company accountable for their actions.

Emelia Amoateng in 2007. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

I found out that Emelia passed away last week when I was in Senegal, driving from the eastern region Tambacounda back to Dakar. We stopped for lunch and I took advantage of a wi-fi connection to get my email, and I read a statement from Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, one of the founders of Wacam: “Emelia Amoateng, the great warrior of Teberebie and an icon of Wacam, has gone the way of all mortals. She died carrying high the resolve of Wacam to fight against irresponsible mining.”

Reema holds the notebook with one of her poems. Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam

A couple of weeks ago I met Reema. When we left, we gave her with a notebook, pencils, and pens.

At the cash-for-rent distribution I saw her mother, who told me Reema had drawn a picture of me. We went back and found that she had also written two poems. The translations below are “rough” as the poems are written in an Arabic that is likened to Shakespearean English. I hope to go back with a new notebook so I can borrow the one she’s been writing in to photocopy the original Arabic.

Reema is writing more poems. She says she is better at that than drawing. She is happy for us to share her poems and was really pleased that so many people, around the world, knew her through the blog.

Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam

Here are the rough translations:

Poem 1
Syria
Our hearts love you
How your children love you
How the memory would forget you
We will be back soon, to remove the tears on your cheeks
We will return one day to our mothers to kiss the soil and the flowers
Lovely Syria, we will be back soon.

Poem 2
When I take my pencil and notebook what will I write about?
About my school or my house
I am deprived from living in my house and school
My school, when will I visit you again
To take my bag and run to you
Destruction has replaced you and taken the place of your ringing bells
and without the students

My house, my flowers, I miss you
My Syria, when will I return back to you?

I have dreams that I can’t achieve and make come true
And all I want is living with you in freedom
Syria, my country, I love you.

Reema’s family are among the 50,000 refugees displaced by the crises in Syria who are receiving cash transfers from Oxfam to help pay rent; the transfers are worth $150 per household per month for two months. Up to 150,000 people will also be receiving vouchers for food and hygiene items.

Learn more about how Oxfam is helping Syrian refugees and donate now to support these efforts.

Enter Saving for Change, an innovative program from Oxfam America, Freedom from Hunger, and the Strømme Foundation. Focusing on rural villages like those in Segou, the program trains groups of women to save regularly; they borrow from their group’s fund to build small businesses or homes, or to buy essentials for their families. Members then repay loans from the group with interest. The model has taken off, and Saving for Change now has 680,000 members in 13 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. (Read what members in Guatemala and in Senegal are saying about their experiences.)

Women from the Banakoro village Saving for Change group in Mali hand in their weekly savings contributions during a meeting in 2009. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell/Oxfam America

In Mali, where some of the first Saving for Change groups were founded, Oxfam and Freedom From Hunger conducted a three-year study exploring the impacts of the program. The results of the study, released last Friday, show that households in villages with savings groups experienced an 8 percent increase in food security and saved 31 percent more on average.

The groups helped in other ways, too. The study showed that the value of livestock held by households in participating villages increased by 13 percent compared to families in villages without the program. “Livestock are a critical safety net for families. The animals are a form of savings that can be sold in hard times. Imagine if your home value or stock portfolio increased by 13 percent—it could be game-changing for your family,” said Freedom from Hunger President Steve Hollingworth.

Learn more about Saving for Change and the results of the study here.

Shoes belonging to Reema (not her real name), 12, a refugee from Syria living in Lebanon. Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam

Today I met a girl whose face you’ll never see because she’s too scared about what will happen when she returns to Syria.“I don’t want my photograph to be taken because I’m afraid that when we go back something might happen to us.” If I quoted her on everything she said you would say I made it up. She’s 12 going on 25.

She lives on the first floor of a house, in Lebanon, still under construction. There are piles of rubble and concrete all around, no windows, no comfort. She sleeps in a small “room” with her parents and four siblings.

I’d just finished talking with someone else when she came up and started talking to me in a mixture of English and Arabic. The first thing she says is, “I was at school when it was bombed. Some of the children were killed. We all ran away. We left because we were afraid of the bombings in Syria. When we saw the bombing of the school we thought they bombed all schools all over the world.” It feels like one of the saddest things I’ve heard.

“I miss my friends,” she says, “I miss my teachers. I miss my classes, my English classes, my Arabic classes, my music classes. Now I’m just sitting here every day.” Her mother adds, “She gets bored a lot and keeps crying. I don’t let the children out on the street because I don’t want them to have problems with other children and I’m scared they might fall and get hurt. I don’t have money for any medical treatment.”

The girl continues, “‘I don’t have a pencil, no paper, no nothing. I wake up in the morning and I see children going to school and I cry, why don’t I have the right to go to school? And I sit here and I remember our home back in Syria before the fighting.”

Looking around the small area that is now home, she points and says, “We moved sand and stones from here with our own hands so we could try and have some kind normal living here. There are a lot of rats. I’ve seen them. We get sick because of them.”

A year ago her home in Syria was destroyed by the bombing. In the time that followed they moved from place to place. Each time the fighting got worse the family moved on. Eventually they spent three months living underground with no electricity.

The few belongings that Reema’s family managed to take with them after their home in Syria was destroyed by an air strike hang on bare walls inside the partially constructed building that is serving as their home. Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam

She’s the most articulate 12-year-old I’ve met. I’m told, “She was at a school for bright students and was in the top class.” Without a shadow of a doubt she loved school; repeating again the classes, teachers and friends she loved, and saying how so many children died. “I have no idea what has happened to my friends. I don’t know if they are here in Lebanon or in Syria.” When her school was first bombed, “…it was only a small corner so we continued going to school but then it was bombed again and no one was able to go back.”

We look at the tiny space they have for cooking. She looks at me and apologizes: “I’m sorry I’ve forgotten the word in English.” She means kitchen. For the rest of our time together she keeps apologizing. “It’s been a year now since I went to school and I’m forgetting many things. The teachers used to take me to other schools to represent my school. As well as classes I used to teach myself English by reading English books.”

Before leaving she says, “I loved my city. I loved my school. I loved my friends. I loved my teachers.” Her final words are, “Will you come back and visit us?”

Oxfam is providing vulnerable families, including Reema’s, with cash to help them afford safe housing and other essentials. Learn more about how Oxfam is helping Syrian refugees and donate now to support these efforts.

Read more about Reema here.

Last week, National Public Radio gave us a window into the lives of Syrian refugees living in Jordan. Middle East correspondent Deborah Amos visited the Za’atari Camp, home to more than 100,000 Syrians at any given time. Oxfam’s Caroline Gluck showed NPR how Za’atari has become a city unto itself–one that no one would create if they had the choice. Oxfam is working in the camp to support refugees who need basic services like water and sanitation.

Amos’ story introduces us to Liqaa, a 26-year-old refugee living with her husband in the camp and expecting her first child. She scrapes together ingredients to make Syrian food in their camp trailer in an effort to create normalcy in their life, which has been turned completely upside down.

Listening to Liqaa’s story, you can imagine walking in her shoes. Homeless, afraid, and living in a foreign country, I think I would crave something as familiar as hometown comfort food as well. The basic things that we take for granted are the things that Liqaa and her fellow refugees are living without while also enduring the trauma of escaping (and surviving) violent conflict. Listen to the story below, and then let us know what you think.

You can meet more refugees like Liqaa by following Oxfam on Twitter and Instagram to see the latest photos from the crisis.

Learn more about how Oxfam is helping Syrian refugees and donate now to support these efforts.

So make sure you look for Oxfam, and learn more about our efforts to right the wrongs of poverty and injustice, at these summer dates by the following great bands:

1. Fitz & The Tantrums

Known for their incredibly fun live shows, Fitz & The Tantrums plan to spend most of the rest of 2013 on the road, and Oxfam will be at many of their tour dates too.

Fitz & the Tantrums. Photo: Bob Ferguson/Oxfam America

2. The National

Touring behind their new album, Trouble Will Find Me (out May 20), The National recently released a video for “Demons” from that album:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow has been an Oxfam supporter since his trip with Oxfam to Kenya in 2007 (see more about the trip in the video below). His current tour features his “All Basses Covered” DJ set.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Devendra Banhart

Longtime Oxfam supporter Devendra Banhart sets out on his first full tour in several years this month, and Oxfam will be at many of these shows to reconnect with fans.

Devendra Banhart. Photo: Ana Kras

5. David Wax Museum

Fun fact: David Wax was once an intern at Oxfam’s Boston headquarters. These days he and his partner Suz Slezak travel the country turning music fans on to David Wax Museum’s brand of Mexo-Americana sounds. Here’s the video for their super-catchy “Harder Before It Gets Easier”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. The Breeders

Kim and Kelley Deal of the Breeders. Photo: Chris Glass

Anchored by Oxfam supporters Kim and Kelley Deal, The Breeders are touring this year to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their iconic Last Splash album.

7. Ra Ra Riot

In between dates supporting The Shins and The Postal Service, Oxfam supporters Ra Ra Riot will be headlining plenty of their own dates too this summer. Look for the Oxfam table at Ra Ra Riot shows while you dance to “Beta Love”!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Want to join the effort? Find out more about opportunities to volunteer with Oxfam this summer.

And more than 7,000 people are fleeing to neighboring countries every day.

But aid providers are struggling to raise funds for this emergency, and there are serious obstacles to reaching people in need within Syria.

In a new report, “Overtaken by Need,” Oxfam lays out the latest facts and figures and warns of the consequences of neglecting this human-made disaster.

Numbers only hint at what’s happening on the ground, though, so our colleagues in the region have also sent us pictures of people they’ve met—a reminder that every one of the millions affected is a human being with a story.

Like Samira (see below), a widow and mother who fled with her family to Lebanon. “We decided to come to Lebanon because of the fighting that was taking place,” she said. “We couldn’t get any food anymore, we couldn’t live our lives, we lost our jobs, and we worried that we couldn’t stay alive.”

Now she is safe from the weapons of war, but not from the elements: her family spent the frigid winter in a homemade shelter built of cinder blocks, cardboard, and plastic sheeting. And day and night she keeps a vigil. “I just can’t stop thinking about how to feed my children and how to protect them.”

Learn more about how Oxfam is helping Syrian refugees and donate now to support these efforts.