Oxfam America is running banner ads on news web sites this week to encourage oil companies to support strong rules that will encourage more transparency in the industry.

A week ago we launched our latest effort to promote transparency in the oil, gas, and mining industries with an on-line petition calling on oil companies to stop blocking new rules by the Securities and Exchange Commission designed to implement the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Bill. Since then more than 14,000 people have signed the petition, and hundreds of our supporters are sharing their views on Twitter and Facebook to help us promote the campaign.

The objective of the campaign is to encourage strong rules that will respect the law and honor the intent of Dodd-Frank: make payments by oil, gas, and mining companies to governments public so that people in poor communities producing precious natural resources can get a sense of where all the money goes.

It’s surprisingly difficult to track this money. In 2007 I visited a town in far western Mali and asked the mayor a question: how much of his town’s US$500,000 annual budget comes from the massive gold mine in his town? He could not say.

We’ve been trying to get major mining, oil, and gas companies to declare their payments to governments so that mayors like the one I met in Mali can try to track how much of the money in their budgets actually comes from mines, oil wells, and gas pipelines in their communities. This level of transparency might help answer a basic question: Are these types of projects helping end poverty, or not?

We achieved a major victory in our campaign for transparency in 2010 when the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Bill included a section requiring companies subject to US Securities and Exchange Commission rules to declare payments to governments. Since then we’ve been waiting for the new SEC rules that will implement the law. They’ve been delayed, and delayed again…

This month we’re on the campaign trail again — we learned that the American Petroleum Institute (the oil industry lobbying arm) is urging the SEC to come out with a weak rule, full of exceptions that will render Dodd Franck impotent, or else face a lawsuit. This is a clear attempt to defy Congress, the American people, and President Obama who signed the law.

To call attention to this campaign, and urge the public to sign the petition, we’ve staged two events: The first was in Washington, in front of the SEC office, just before Valentine’s Day, and the second was in Houston at Chevron’s headquarters.

As part of the campaign to promote financial transparency, Oxfam America ran an advertisement in the print copy of the Wall Street Journal on February 14^th, and is running on-line, animated banner ads in a number of web sites through the 25th of February.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, oil companies attempted to seduce the SEC at the commission’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Photo by Keith Lane/Oxfam America.

Transparency is not monkey business: Activists outside Chevron’s headquarters in Houston. Photo by Scott Dalton/Oxfam America.

The flood destroyed Sorn Ra’s small rice crop, so she migrated to a neighboring province to work as a farm laborer for about $3.50 a day while her husband went to yet a different province to pan for gold. She got sick and used all her wages to buy medication. She then came home to Osala and got a cash grant from APA and Oxfam and bought some peanut seeds, which she planted behind her house. She hopes to harvest 50 kilos of peanuts she can sell. She also bought 100 kilos of rice, which she anticipates will last her and her husband for four months. Photo by Sokunthea Chor/Oxfam America.

Pram Kimsot says it is easy to see which of the 200 families in his village are suffering the worst following flooding in the late summer and fall of 2011: “There’s no rice straw piled up in front of our houses,” he says. “It shows you didn’t have a good harvest, and this year it is one of the worst harvests we’ve ever had.”

Pram’s village is called Osala, and it is right on the edge of the Stoeung Sen river in Cambodia’s Kampong Thom province, one of the most severely affected in three months of flooding last year. All in all, 17 of Cambodia’s 24 provinces were hit by flooding, and the government estimates it drowned about 15 percent of national rice production for the year. In Kampong Thom, about half the land used for growing rice was inundated, destroying 35 percent of the crop in that province, and affecting 54,000 people.

Few of the straw piles in Osala are more than about four feet high. Many of the homes have no straw piles at all. So what can farmers do to recover?

Flood response

In the initial flood response, Oxfam worked with a local organization called APA (stands for Organization for Bright Development in the local Khmer language) to help evacuate families in Osala to higher ground and distribute food. APA also helped to make sure flood survivors had soap and clean water, essential for avoiding water-borne diseases.

Next, Oxfam and eight partner organizations like APA distributed cash grants of $75 per family to 1,678  of the poorest families (that’s $125,850)  in 13 communes, including Osala. Distributing cash in cases like this helps families buy what they need most—and each has different needs. Giving families  cash along with seeds might help a farmer replant —  and he can buy some food instead of eating the seeds to survive. In many cases, giving disaster survivors cash is better than distributing food, clothing, medicine, building materials, and other aid.  If there are functioning markets for these goods, supplying them for free will reduce demand, drive down prices for local goods, and put local merchants out of business.

Pat Kay used the cash grant she received from APA and Oxfam to buy rice and peanut seeds, which she planted in two fields. She needs to grow enough food to feed her four children living with her at home in Osala, and she also wants to send rice to her two daughters working in garment factories near Phnom Penh, which will help lower their living costs and increase the portion of their wages they can send home. Photo by Sokunthea Chor/Oxfam America.

“Money when I really needed it”

One woman named Chit Sinang told me the floods washed away all her assets right when she needed to take her five-year-old daughter to a distant city for crucial medical care. For her, this was the highest priority. “I was so happy, almost crying, because I got the money when I really needed it,” she says. Sending her daughter to the hospital took up half the cash grant, the rest she used to buy food for her family of four and invest in growing rice in the dry season.

Most of the people we spoke with said they used the money to buy seeds and food. Pat Kay was one: She’s a lively woman in her early 50s in a bright yellow shirt who enthusiastically filled us in on her family: The youngest four of her eight children are living at home with her, and she is struggling to find food. She says she divided her grant from Oxfam and APA between rice and peanut seeds, and a 50-kilo bag of rice to eat. She replanted two small fields, and bought some fuel for a borrowed pump to irrigate them.

She shows us the rice she planted behind her house after the flood waters receded. The green plants are about as high as her ankles. “If there are no insects, I can get about half a [metric] ton,” she says. “It’s still not enough for all the members of my family.”

Back in town in a meeting in Oxfam’s office, we talked with Rith Bunroeun, who works for an organization called Action for Development that helped Oxfam disburse the cash. “We educated people about how to use it, because we did not want people to abuse it,” he says. “We also went back to monitor the project, and found that [the cash] was used to help people address their needs.

“Is it enough? Not really but it helps them get through a tough time.”

Chek Cheoun (left) is the village chief of Osala. He worked closely with Im Kim (right) of APA to identify the poorest and most vulnerable people in Osala so they could get cash grants. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America.

2. Make it hands-on. We host a lot of [informational] tables about Oxfam at farmers’ markets and music festivals. At one festival, we wanted to offer people something more than a petition to sign. So we invited them to use food items, like seeds or beans, to decorate postcards with what they thought a world without hunger would look like, or to write or draw a message to share with their legislators. We ended up with about 60 hand-decorated cards. When we brought the cards to our next meeting with representatives, they paid attention. Signatures are great, but a handwritten note or picture feels more personal.

3. Connect your community to the world. In Des Moines, the Oxfam Action Corps combines legislative efforts with hands-on projects that make a difference in our city. Once a month, we volunteer at community gardens or help out at a local food pantry. Talking to [our fellow volunteers] helps make people  aware of Oxfam and the international angle to the issues. It’s also a great way to bring in new volunteers who are looking for ways to give back.

4. Reach out over a meal. Food brings people together in ways that you wouldn’t expect. It was an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet that first inspired me to work with Oxfam; I’ve been part of five Hunger Banquets, and each one is different. We co-organize these events with other groups, like the ONE Campaign or students at a local university, who can bring in additional people and ideas. We also co-hosted a potluck dinner with Oxfam’s Sisters on the Planet ambassadors in Iowa, and we’re planning another potluck in the spring. There are always good discussions during the meal, and afterward a lot of people come up to us wanting to get involved in our efforts.

If you want to get involved, apply here to join the Oxfam Action Corps in Des Moines and 14 other US cities.

John Ekono Ekiman is a herder who lost most of his animals to drought. He received four camels and 20 goats as part of Oxfam's restocking program. "I feel really proud of having them," he said of his animals. "In the future I want to expand and grow my camels and goats." Photo: Alejandro Chaskielberg

Judging from the comments on our Facebook wall, many of you liked the stunning new photos taken in Turkana, Kenya, by Alejandro Chaskielberg. The acclaimed Argentinian art photographer traveled to the region with Oxfam to take portraits of people affected by the recent East Africa drought and food crisis. Last week the photos were featured in a slideshow on BBC News, raising awareness of both the crisis and Oxfam’s ongoing response.

In most of the photos, Chaskielberg used his trademark technique of shooting by moonlight, illuminating these scenes of herders and their families with a dramatic, unearthly glow. The results are memorable (and newsworthy) because they’re so distinctive.

However, when we saw how the photos came out, some of my Oxfam colleagues loved them, but others gave them mixed reviews.

Women tend gardens they built with support from an Oxfam project, which aims to help mothers improve nutrition for their children while also earning an income by selling extra vegetables. Photo: Alejandro Chaskielberg

For one thing, as Chaskielberg explains, the moonlight photography technique requires subjects to hold their poses for extended periods of time. Because of this, some of the people in the photos look stiff and detached, standing motionless like wax figures in a museum. Maybe that’s not a problem in itself, but neither is it completely in line with the way Oxfam strives to portray people living in poverty—as active, empowered agents of change, rather than passive objects of our regard. When people don’t seem to move or act as we do, some of the human connection between viewer and subject gets lost, resulting in images that risk “exoticizing” the people portrayed.

Second, some felt the pictures were a bit too beautiful, given the situation. Is it OK to photograph families who have lost nearly everything, in the midst of the world’s biggest crises, looking like they’re part of a glossy spread in a fashion magazine? Does the artist’s technique—so much a part of these images—enhance the subject matter, or does it obscure it?

"I appreciate pastoralism but animals are not sustainable anymore," said Elisabeth Ekatapan, a widow bringing up eight children. "If I could make one thing happen it would be to have my own business and earn money." Photo: Alejandro Chaskielberg

The latter is a tough question to answer, and one that Chaskielberg himself identified as his “main challenge” in his interview with the BBC. “I would like to break with the idea that a beautiful picture of a hurtful situation detracts from its message or documentary value,” he said. “My intention is to highlight a hopeful vision of the present, showing people’s strength and to inspire the viewer that a change is possible.”

So what do you think? Did he succeed? Or is there such a thing as a photo that’s just too beautiful?

Sophia Lafontant is Oxfam America’s lead Haiti organizer, working on policy and advocacy issues with the Haitian diaspora. In her first post about Haiti—hours after the earthquake—she recounted her profound worry as she tried desperately to learn the fate of family members still living in the country.

Before my 25^th birthday, I hadn’t been to Haiti since I was a girl in the 1980s. My parents were among the second wave of Haitians that left the country in the decade prior and once the Duvalier regime fell there was enough uncertainty that Haiti became an all but distant memory for them. But I held on to my fond and vivid memories of growing up in my grandmother’s house on Avenue Christophe, in the heart of Port-au-Prince, a few blocks away from the famous Olfoson Hotel which counted Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Mick Jagger as some of its famed international guests during its heyday.

Sophia Lafontant, right, worked with Jacqueline Morette, a farmer and head of an Oxfam partner organization in Haiti.

While I lived in Boston, MA, I always had a foot in Haiti. Like most children of the diaspora, I felt the need to embrace both places. In the summer of 2007, I embarked on my first trip back to Haiti: it had been on my mind and it was time to return to the place I now scarcely remembered. I will never forget the blast of heat that rushed over me when we touched down; it was like someone was holding a blow dryer to my face.

It’s difficult to explain why, but Haiti instantly felt like home. The familiar foods, music, language filled with allusions and metaphors, the stream of relatives and family friends that trickle in throughout the day to greet and welcome me; the constant color everywhere—on tap taps, sides of buildings, street art and of course the brightly painted houses. It all beckoned me–with so much beauty it’s hard not to smile still.

A friend once asked me what makes Haiti so different from other Caribbean countries. I paused to think about what answer I would give. My response was “the struggle.” The long struggle. Haiti has had more than its share of pain and tragedy. Whether it’s the subjugation and indignation of slavery, 32 coups in its history, harsh and crippling international sanctions and policies, and tense relations with its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, and seemingly endless battles with mother nature, Haitians miraculously dig deep to find an inner strength that escapes most of us. And it is that spirit and determination to make a way out of no way that I find beautiful and admire so much.

It’s been two years since the devastating earthquake. Despite the inactions or action of those in power, Haitians will continue to pull money together to pay their children’s school fees, continue to ensure that their uniforms are pressed and clean, and continue to hope that tomorrow is better than today. It is that seemingly bottomless well of hope that keeps me at my computer late into the evening some nights. It’s what keeps me on conference calls with allies and cranking out organizing plans. All minuscule in the grand scheme of things, and none of which can be credited with saving lives or adding to the meager incomes of the millions of Haitians that live on two bucks a day.

Still, it’s the very least I can do for a nation that has given me so much—so much laughter, color, and so much love.

Along with millions of other Americans, I’ll be watching Anquan Boldin and the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL playoffs this weekend—but my mind will be in Ethiopia.

I traveled to southern Ethiopia not long ago to visit Oxfam America’s programs in the area. As we drove, my colleague Tewodros Negash explained why Oxfam uses its cash-for-work program to pay communities to clear brush from the fields by hand, something they’ve done for generations by setting controlled fires. As it turns out, the winds, which for as long as anyone can remember have been predictable, are now wholly unreliable. It used to be that people could set fire to the brush, rely on the wind to control the flames, and have a field that was clear in time for the rains. The grass would grow and their animals would have a place to graze. But with wind that’s unpredictable, and rain that’s even more so, communities must now take steps to survive the effects of climate change.

Just weeks later I told that story to Boldin and his friend and former teammate Larry Fitzgerald, NFL wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, during a meeting to discuss Oxfam America’s work. Boldin and Fitzgerald learned this summer of the devastating drought in East Africa and were looking for ways to help, which is why they reached out to Oxfam.

“I’ve been to the Horn of Africa before,” Fitzgerald, who will be appearing in the Pro Bowl for the seventh time later this month, told Yahoo! Sports Radio in a recent interview. “And I’ve seen some of the effects of the drought myself. … When you see [people affected by drought] you definitely want to do something because they are in dire need.”

Since then, in between catching footballs and evading linebackers and safeties, Boldin and Fitzgerald have raised money for Oxfam America on Twitter and Facebook, filmed a public service announcement (below) and used their high profiles to bring attention to the crisis.

One of the things Boldin, Fitzgerald, and I discussed is why the unpredictable weather is such a problem. This time last year Oxfam was warning of a serious summer drought, and urging the international community to step up its preparedness plans. Unreliable winds and rain mean there is a strong likelihood that the situation will be bad again this summer. Now is the time to prepare, and to expand sustainable development programs that work so that we can mitigate the effects of the next drought.

Both Boldin and Fitzgerald have expressed an interest in traveling overseas to shed light on the situation in East Africa, and I hope to join them. If they go to Ethiopia, they’ll have a chance to see the effects of the crisis firsthand, as well as to visit the Oxfam programs that they’ve helped to support.

“I always thought when I was growing up that I had it hard, but in no way does it compare to what’s going on in [East] Africa,” said Boldin of his efforts. “Anything that I can do, I’m going to do.”

Rice farmer Ynodyl Fils. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America

Got an unexpected Christmas present this year: I woke up on December 25 to find a story in the New York Times on rural livelihoods in Haiti: Quake-Scarred Nation Tries a Rural Road to Recovery.

Here’s the key paragraph from the story: “When the earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010, planners and visionaries here and abroad looked past the rubble and saw an opportunity to fix the structural problems that have kept Haiti stuck in poverty and instability. An idea that won early support was to shrink the overcrowded, underemployed, violence-ridden capital and revive the desiccated, disused farmland that had long been unable to feed the country.”

So I spent part of Christmas morning studying the piece, as I had just spent part of the previous month in Haiti, and was trying to finish a story for Oxfam’s Exchange magazine on the very same topic. (Exchange readers will see it in their mailboxes in about a week.)

(The Times followed this up with an Op-Ed on 9 January by the co-directors of the Haiti Humanities Laboratory at Duke University entitled Haiti Can Be Rich Again encouraging support for small-scale farming. Conclusion: “The return on the investment in the rural economy would be self-reliance, the alleviation of dangerous overcrowding in cities and, most important, a path toward ending Haiti’s now chronic problems of malnutrition and food insecurity.”)

A quick review: lack of investment in agriculture and Haiti’s rural infrastructure, combined with macroeconomic policies that brought in cheap foreign competition in rice and pork and other food, has made farming a difficult way to make a living. Agriculture used to comprise nearly half of Haiti’s GDP; now it amounts to less than a quarter. Haiti now imports much of its food, and farmers have streamed into the city to seek work, part of the reason the January 2010 earthquake was such a disaster: a city designed for roughly a quarter million had about 3 million people there, many living in poorly constructed housing.

Farmer Perspective

Reading the New York Times article brought me back to Artibonite , the fertile, rice growing region in central Haiti, where I met Ynodyl Fils. Fils is 63 and has been growing rice since he was 12. He’s over six feet tall and looks incredibly powerful and fit. His short hair just slightly frosted with gray is the only hint of his true age. He says all his contemporaries look older and more broken down, and that his work is what keeps him looking half his age.

Fils is one of the founders of a network of rice grower cooperatives that Oxfam has been supporting steadily for 10 years. But he says he and his fellow rice farmers have not seen any of the billions pledged to help Haiti recover from the earthquake. “When it comes to resources for reconstruction for Haiti, the only way small farmers will get help will be to create a special mechanism to bring resources in a more direct way to farmers,” he told me while he was standing next to his field, just outside the town of Petite Rivière. “Otherwise there won’t be much impact.”

Fils told me that farmers are suffering due to competition from low-priced imports, and expensive inputs like fertilizer and seeds. He also said that since agriculture started tanking in the 1980s, security has become a serious issue: He and other farmers are sometimes robbed on the road home after selling their crops. All the hard work, expense, and unfair competition from abroad was too much for him on some days. On more than one occasion, he declared, “’I’m going to quit!’ But you have to feed your family and this is the only thing I know how to do—I just can’t give up.”

Support for growers

Oxfam has been supporting rice farmers like Fils in Haiti for years, and has been helping well-organized cooperatives improve production, processing, marketing, storage, and transportation networks. We’re also training farmers to advocate for better services from the government, to get more support for their work, and a fair share of reconstruction funds. Oxfam is also investing in irrigation and drainage systems in areas like the Artibonite River valley, which routinely floods during tropical storms, and can be too dry in some potentially productive areas. Oxfam also supported a pilot project to teach 135 farmers (inlcuding Fils) the System of Rice Intensification, which has shown so much promise in our work in Asia. But compared to the billions pledged to help Haiti, Oxfam’s work in rural areas is a relatively small proportion of the resources farmers really need to get ahead.

It was great to see the NY Times looking at this issue as it shows that others are thinking about supporting farmers as an essential means to defeat poverty in Haiti, an idea we’ve been promoting for some time –(see the briefing paper we published in 2010, Planting Now).  And that farmers like Fils, who refuse to quit no matter what, could get the help they need to prosper.

Many Americans I speak with say that Haiti looks like a hopeless case. I say that Haitians are hopeful; they are working hard and want our support. If a determined, hard-working farmer like Ynodyl Fils won’t give up, why should anyone else?

Oxfam’s GROW campaign is advocating tor the support that  small farmers like Ynodyl Fils need to improve their productivity, self-reliance, and access to resources like land and water.  You can lend your support to this work by joining the GROW campaign here.

Gas flare at an oil rig in north east Ecuador. Photo by Coco Laso/Oxfam America

The case of Aguinda vs. Texaco in Ecuador is back in the news:  The plaintiffs won an appeal and now have the right to seize the assets of Chevron-Texaco anywhere in the world. It’s another stunning legal victory for the farmers and indigenous people of Ecuador’s Oriente who have been fighting this case in the courts in the US and Ecuador since 1993. However the defendant, the second-largest US oil company, is expected to appeal to a higher court in Ecuador.

Oxfam has been supporting the efforts of the plaintiffs in Ecuador off and on since 1991.

My colleague Chris Jochnick, the director of Oxfam America’s private sector engagement program, calls the case unprecedented, both in terms of the size of the award and the amount of litigation that has gone into it.  He also sees the most recent ruling as very significant: “While Chevron will continue to appeal the decision, for the first time the plaintiffs have what they need to go anywhere in the world where Chevron has assets to seek enforcement.  That puts a lot of pressure on Chevron to settle.”

It seems like an appropriate time to check back in on this story, one I have been following for more than 10 years. For a detailed history of the Chevron-Texaco saga, and the most recent legal action taken directly against the US-based lawyer who has been working on the case since the beginning, see the New Yorker article out this week by Patrick Radden Keefe. The story closes with comments from Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the indigenous Secoya people, who I met when I visited the affected area in 2004.

Lest anyone think Chevron is giving up, consider this excerpt from the New Yorker story:  “In 2008, a Chevron lobbyist in Washington told Newsweek, ‘We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this.’  One Chevron spokesman has said, ‘We’re going to fight this until Hell freezes over—and then we’ll fight it out on the ice.’”

Oxfam’s Caroline Gluck retraces her steps and finds that the challenges many people faced in the wake of the disaster continue to persist—as does their hope for change.

I wasn’t looking forward to returning to Haiti. Two years ago, I was one of the first of Oxfam’s emergency team to fly to the island, arriving three days after it was hit by a devastating earthquake, which killed more than 220,000 people and left more than a million others homeless.

Marguerite Ulysse holds her two-year-old daughter, Neika, who was born in a camp two days after the earthquake. Photo by Caroline Gluck

 First impressions weren’t good. Rubble still lay in the streets. Though much of it was carefully piled up, many collapsed buildings still remained balanced precariously in between other spaces where rebuilding had taken place. 

And then there were the camps of tents. Not the flimsy shelters made of clothing scraps and plastic sheets I’d become so familiar with on my first visit.  These camps appeared depressingly permanent. It seemed people were settling down for good; that what had been a temporary option was now the only long-term solution available.

But many tens of thousands of families camped on private land, not in public spaces, now face the threat of forced evictions, often through the use of violence, by the owners who haven’t received any rent for the past two years. 

I spent the first few days retracing my steps. The old Oxfam office – part of which had been seriously damaged in the quake – had been remodelled and repainted and was now the office of a private company. The damaged annex had been fenced off and the collapsed top two stories had been removed.

The enormous camp for displaced families occupying what had been a golf course in the leafy and well-to-do suburb of Petionville was still bursting at the seams.  Although the number of residents had decreased, people were still living cheek-by-jowl. The daily struggles for the basics–clean water, some privacy, and work–were still as pressing as ever.

I returned to the neighborhood of Baillergeau, in Carrefour Feuilles.  It had been one of the worst-hit areas I’d visited two years ago with around 90 percent of houses flattened, debris piling and obscuring the road and thousands camped out on what had been a football field. The campsite was no longer there.  Most people had moved into transitional shelters, rather than proper homes, and a lot of the rubble had been cleared.

There was a lot of rebuilding going on: Noisy trucks tore up and down the narrow, dusty, and windy roads with various building materials. There were many people along the roadside selling food and other necessities from small kiosks. Some had received small grants from Oxfam to restart their businesses.

It was in Baillergeau that I found Marguerite Ulysse.  She’d given birth to a baby girl two days after the quake. Now, two years later, she was pregnant again. Her baby, Neika, was a healthy, gregarious, and mischievous toddler.

We hugged in greeting and then sat down to talk.  While daily life had been a struggle, Marguerite was neither pessimistic nor bitter, but grateful for the help that she and others had received from Oxfam and other aid agencies. 

True, she admitted, she had been hoping that change would happen more quickly. But this was the reality. She was happy for the small things: that her husband, who’d been trained as a policeman, would have work; that her children were healthy; that her oldest daughter was still in school. Her main concern was shelter. She wanted to move away from the rubble and the dirt and into a permanent home her family could call its own.

“The most important thing for me is the future for my children,” she told me.  “When I die, I want to know I can leave my daughters a place where they can grow up.”

I visited more sites over the next few weeks where Oxfam and its partners have been working–installing water and toilet facilities in communities and schools; carrying out health promotion activities to try to control the spread of diseases like cholera; helping people to start business again with grants and skills training, including literacy classes which have given them a new-found sense of pride and purpose.

I want to say Haiti has changed a lot over the past two years. But I can’t. The emergency aid effort and the donations that flooded into Haiti after the quake undeniably helped save lives and provided basic and essential services, including food and water, to millions. But rapid progress in Haiti’s reconstruction and rebuilding has been quite another issue. 

Yet the thing that struck me when I first visited and continues to strike me today is the energy, creativity, and the intelligent spirit of Haiti’s people – despite the daily difficulties and the challenges. Haitians are survivors;  realistic, but not defeatist. They still hope for change and believe that some day, change will come.

Small-scale miners look for gold near Romtom. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

If you go to a meeting in the community of Romtom, don’t be surprised if you hear some contradictory information about the effects of industrial mining on the indigenous Kuoy people here.

A foreign-owned company is moving in to mine iron ore on nearly a thousand square kilometers of land, and taking up community-held land used for growing rice, as well as small-scale gold mining. The Kuoy people here are also concerned about the loss of forest land. The “spirit forest” is an integral part of their culture as well as an area where they gather nuts, fruit, and other products they can sell.

“So far we’ve had some issues between the company and community,” says So Sea, the commune chief and an ethnic Khmer. “But these have been resolved. Presently there are no problems.”

One minute later Ouk Kong, one of the elders of the Kuoy village here paints a different picture. “One area where we used to pan for gold has been lost to the company, and in another area we can’t plant rice anymore. It’s making life very difficult here.”

Oxfam is supporting a coalition of 56 organizations called the Extractive Industry Social and Environmental Impact (EISEI) that is helping local communities negotiate with the government and mining companies, to reduce the problems related to industrial mining in Cambodia. Svey Pheoun works for the Community Peace Network, one of the nine members of EISEI’s steering committee. He says that the indigenous people are trying to understand what to do in the face of powerful forces. “Companies are coming to this area with soldiers and police to force them out of areas where they farm and pan for gold. By law there is supposed to be consultation with communities but in reality there is no consultation at all.”

Ouk Kong speaks at a meeting with Oxfam staff. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

Cambodia has laws on the books protecting the right of indigenous people to their community lands, but there are also laws that encourage investment. Which law is being respected, and which is being violated, depends on your perspective and your agenda. Most major decisions about development are made in Phnom Penh, the capital. Local leaders  are not consulted, and are expected to side with the more powerful government and military.

I’m in Romtom with a delegation of Oxfam staff working with communities affected by oil, gas, and mining issues in about a dozen countries. We listen to the community leaders, and take a short trip into the forest to see an area where local people are mining for gold, which the Kuoy people say they have done for hundreds of years. These days they excavate areas from which they pump mud through a sluice to separate the heavier particles of gold. The artisanal miners sell the gold-laden sand to small-scale refiners in nearby towns. It’s incredibly tough work in a hot and dirty environment, we see workers up to their waist in mud and water, digging away the soil and pumping the mud up to their sluices.

We encounter three men who had recently lost their entire rice harvest to flooding over the summer, and are desperately mining for gold to try to make up for their losses. “I think we can get some gold and buy food for our family,” one says. If they are lucky, he says they can earn between $20 and $35 per day, which is a pretty good income in rural Preah Vihear province. If they are excluded from mining in this area, rice farming alone may not sustain them in the future.

At the community meeting in Romtom. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

Circumstances seem stacked against the indigenous Kuoy people, but they are just beginning to learn the skills they need to address their problems in Romtom.  I’ve seen similar situations in communities affected by mining in Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Ghana, Mali, and Senegal. When communities get the right training, and can understand their rights and how to defend them, they can negotiate access to the resources they need to survive, and get fair compensation for their losses.

I always try to relate positive stories about these other cases, so the community members and their leaders do not lose hope. So I was pleased that my colleague Moussa Ba from Senegal encouraged the community members to keep working with the Cambodia Peace Network, and keep talking with the local officials and the company representatives. “If you keep the dialogue going, eventually they will recognize your rights,” he says. “Be confident, and don’t ever close the door to negotiation.”

“The authorities need to remember that you are more precious than anything else.”

On a good day, miners can make $25 or $35. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

Yesterday I read a great blog post by Alexis Okeowo of the New Yorker: “The Ten Biggest Positive Africa Stories of 2011.” With drought and conflict affecting many of Africa’s fifty-plus countries, no one can say this has been an easy year. But “with all the gloom and doom,” writes Okeowo, “it’s easy to forget the strides the continent’s residents make every day in business, art, technology, and politics.” From the independence of South Sudan to Liberian women winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it’s refreshing to hear about some of Africa’s triumphs instead of its tragedies.

Inspired Okeowo’s blog, here are three more positive stories from Africa in 2011—worth a mention even if they’re not necessarily the kind that make headlines.

Ethiopian farmers embracing change. Hit hard by drought, 1,981 Ethiopian farmers in Tigray who bought weather insurance through an innovative program received a payout this November—the first in the project’s history. Launched by Oxfam America and a host of partners, the risk management initiative now has more than 13,000 participants and is set to expand into three new countries.

And in southern Ethiopia, where drought is making it difficult for herding families to earn a living from their livestock, some took a risk and tried a new approach: irrigated farming. As noted in the video below, true change takes time. But families now tapping the Dawa River for water are working hard to transform their lives for the long term:

Women leaders speaking up in Ghana. Already the site of a booming international gold mining industry, this West African country began pumping a billion dollars in oil at the end of 2010. As its leaders wrestled with how to avoid falling victim to the resource curse this year, Oxfam’s partner Wacam built a network of grassroots activists—many of them women—who are helping Ghanaian communities defend their rights and environmental resources.  Some, like Joanna Manu, have been elected to public office. Others, like Philomena Addo, are trained village advocates who monitor projects and bring their concerns directly to companies. “Now they know if they want to work here they need to come and ask for our consent,” said Addo. “Now they recognize we know our rights, and that is why they are respecting us.”

Musicians defying genres and boundaries. Africa’s music is as varied as its cultures, but too often some amazing artists end up stuck with the marginal “world music” label just because of their countries of origin. This year, many African musicians seemed to transcend genre and connect with listeners in the US and beyond— whether it was British producers and Congolese musicians teaming up on the outstanding DRC Music album, or innovative artists like Spoek Mathambo and K’Naan earning acclaim from bloggers and fans alike.

What other positive stories have you heard from Africa this year? Add yours in the comments below.

Oxfam America CHANGE Leader Paul Gallegos recently traveled around the eastern US with the Reverb Campus Consciousness Tour, which aims to “inspire and activate students in an electric atmosphere while leaving a positive impact on each community the tour visits.”  This particular tour featured international sensation Janelle Monae and indie-popsters fun. Check out some of Paul’s highlights and his comments below:

Photo: Bob Ferguson/Oxfam America

At Cornell University, above, our second stop on the tour, about 200 people signed our petition asking Congress not to cut life-saving aid.

Photo: Josh Glasheen/Reverb

Our table was never short on information to give to inquisitive students, like these two new Oxfam supporters at the University of Maine.

Photo: Pretty Polly Productions

Janelle Monae took time out of her hectic post-show schedule to meet with a couple of Oxfam volunteers during our tour stop at Dickinson College.

Photo: Pretty Polly Productions

Several of my fellow CHANGE Leaders joined me during our three-week tour. Above, Katie Cordell, far left, talks to an interested music fan at the University of Iowa.

Photo: Pretty Polly Productions

We were able to reach out to students during the day while the band fun. performed an acoustic set for students at each stop. Here, the guys provide a break for students at Tulane University.

Photo: Bob Ferguson/Oxfam America

Each night of reaching out to students was capped with a phenomenal performance by Janelle Monae.

Photo: Paul Gallegos

Alex Page from Janelle Monae’s Arch Orchestra hangs at our booth before heading for the dressing room during our final tour stop at Dickinson College.

 Learn more about becoming an Oxfam concert volunteer.

Telley Madina, Oxfam America’s coastal communities program officer, just returned from Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where he visited with Oxfam America’s partner organization Zion Travelers Cooperative Center (ZTCC).

Reverend Tyrone Edwards, Founding Executive Director of ZTCC, is a lifelong community organizer and a tireless advocate for coastal communities affected by hurricanes and last year’s BP oil spill. Edwards often says that if coastal erosion and the emission of gas and other toxins are allowed to continue, our children’s future will be robbed. That’s one reason that his organization started a program to educate and involve Louisiana youth in coastal restoration, hurricane protection, and the broader environmental movement.

Rose Butler of the Bayou Rebirth Wetlands Education Program shows children from Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana how to do water quality tests. Photo by: Rev. Tyrone Edwards / Zion Travelers Cooperative Center.

I saw firsthand how the kids ZTTC works with feel connected to the environment. Since most of them are teenagers, they remember what Katrina did to their lives. When I visited with them, they were preparing to plant seed grass on the side of levees. This work is vital to coastal restoration because the overall objective is to rebuild land, and their work is the starting block for that to happen. The kids seem to be conscious that by fighting to protect and rebuild this land, they are protecting their very futures.  As one of the kids jokingly said, “If we don’t fix this place then we won’t live here soon.”

Participating in this work seems to build up their self-esteem as well.  One said, “Rev. Edwards is the man because he listens to us.  Our opinions are important, and he wants us to back them up with work.  If we think of something to do, he’ll say let’s go do it and see what happens.”

Edwards has been doing community organizing and youth empowerment for 41 years.  He makes sure these young people have a place at the table for whatever he’s working on because he realizes that coastal restoration may not be completed in his lifetime, so he wants to make sure he can hand the mantle off to the next generation to make sure the work gets done.

These kids’ energy and capacity to understand the magnitude of what’s happening in Plaquemines Parish continues to inspire me.  Edwards would assert that he could fix Plaquemines with enough money and the kids in his program.

What would I do for a cause I believed in? Wear a pin or a t-shirt? Sure, no problem. March in the streets or shiver in a tent, a la Occupy Wall Street? Maybe—if it was something really important.

But what if speaking up endangered my life? What if my fellow activists faced threats, or even actual violence, because of our actions? Would I keep going anyway, or be scared into silence?

Big questions, but those are the kind of things I’ve been asking myself since I met Francisco Pineda last week.

Pineda, an Oxfam America partner and recent winner of the prestigious Goldman Prize, led a citizens’ movement to protect El Salvador’s land and water from the harmful effects of a gold mine. He’s one of six Goldman Prize winners featured in a documentary called The New Environmentalists, narrated by Robert Redford and premiering starting Sunday on PBS stations around the country. “The new environmentalists are making personal sacrifices that most of us can’t even imagine,” says Redford in the trailer, below.

In Pineda’s case, that’s definitely true. Though he comes across in person as an unassuming guy, the story he told when I interviewed him was pretty shocking: A community’s only source of clean water being pumped away by a gold mine. A mining company scientist trying to convince people that cyanide isn’t poison. A leader living with 24-hour police protection because of repeated attempts on his life—and mourning his friends and fellow activists who’ve been killed for speaking out.

Ultimately, Pineda’s grassroots activists won an important victory. They stopped the Pacific Rim gold mine from operating in their region of El Salvador, at least for now. Since then, Pineda has been bringing attention to the effects of oil, gas, and mining projects on poor communities worldwide, and is leading a campaign to stop all mining in El Salvador. “You can live without gold, but you can’t live without water,” he said of the threat to his country’s vital resources.

When I asked Pineda whether he was worried about the risks, he told me he was just doing what he had to do. “This is our responsibility as parents: to protect our land and water for our kids,” he said. “All of us are volunteers, but we’re still ready to give our lives for this.”

In other words, even if the cost is high, some things are always worth fighting for.

Farmers clearing a field near Brocozele, in the Artibonite River valley in Haiti. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America

In a small town called Brocozele, you can stand at the edge of the irrigation channel running along the road and look out across the rice fields and see the problem: One part of the vast area in front of you is green with the nearly mature rice plants, and just next to it is a grey, brown expanse of land choked with weeds and little else. The local farmers just can’t get the water up and out of the irrigation channel and into these fields. And for the last 18 months they say there has not been enough rain to bother planting there.

The irrigation channel flows along, looking tranquil. In dry times, most of the water is in the nearby Artibonite River, and not much of it makes its way into the channel and to Brocozele. “There’s a lot of demand and not enough water,” says Cebey Augustin, who works for the Haitian Development Organization or OAD (for Òganizasyon Ayisyen pou Devlopman). Farmers keep working anyway, hoping to get enough to at least feed themselves, he says. “They are getting low yields and wasting money.”

However when it rains heavily, the channel overflows and destroys houses and crops. “The water takes away everything we produce,” says Elizabeth Dieujuste, a farmer in Brocozele. “It eats everything we grow.”

Rice Farmer Elizabeth Dieujuste. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America.

Farmers can lead recovery

I’m here to follow up on a story I wrote last year about the role of agriculture in the post-2010 earthquake recovery (see p. 8).  I want to hear from the farmers themselves about the challenges, and find out what kind of changes they want to see. I’ve been talking with rice farmers in the Artibonite river valley as well as people in the greater Port-au-Prince area who want to start growing their own fruits and vegetables on the hillsides above the city, improving their own diets, earning money, and protecting the city from floods through reforestation.

History shows the potential of agriculture in Haiti: it used to account for most of the economy and provide most of the jobs. Part of the reason there were so many people in Port-au-Prince in 2010 (and why the earthquake became such a disaster) is that farming is no longer a viable way to make a decent living in Haiti. People moved to the city to try to eke out a living, and it will be hard to satisfy the demand for jobs (and clean water and sanitation) for survivors still in Port-au-Prince. A solid agricultural future for Haiti could go a long way to meeting this demand for employment.

Farmers know they are important to their country. I went to one meeting in Brocozele in which each of the speakers brought up the need for more investment in irrigation, roads, better tools and more modern processing facilities for rice farmers, all of which could provide much needed jobs. None spoke about their own poverty; over and over they said that they wanted to improve agriculture to help improve Haiti.

“After 200 years of freedom, it’s time to stop this exploitation here,” one of the leaders of the local farmers’ association named Cyrus Kelly says. He says they want to learn how to get the government to address these problems in Brocozele.

For many years, Oxfam has been helping farmers in the Artibonite River valley form cooperatives and work on improving their production, processing, and transportation. During this time, and most importantly now after the 2010 earthquake, many in Haiti have been asking for more investment in rural areas, and for the government and international donors to make agriculture a priority again. The farmers I spoke with are certain that they can succeed: As Madame Dieujuste puts it, “If we get the right support we will fight, and keep fighting.”

Farmers say they would plant this field if they could irrigate it properly. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America