Oxfam America music artist relations coordinator Bob Ferguson recently returned from his first visit to Oxfam’s programs in Darfur, Sudan.
In the first of two multimedia blogs featuring photos by Liz Lucas, Bob tells the story of his memorable encounter with a family living in the Al Salaam camp for displaced people:
March 8th marks 100 years of celebrating International Women’s Day. And to honor the occasion, people like you are teaming up with Oxfam America throughout the month to show their support for women worldwide. Though hunger and poverty affect everyone, women and girls in poor communities face particular challenges. But they can also be leaders in coming up with solutions.
Our centennial celebration includes over 130 grassroots events in 39 states, from Oxfam America Hunger Banquets to panels and film screenings, house parties to open-mike nights , concerts to meetings with members of Congress. There’s an impressive list of speakers, too: former governors; state and national policymakers; farmers from Mali, Cambodia, Haiti, and the US; Sisters on the Planet Ambassadors; business leaders; agricultural innovators; foodies; and more.
We’ve also put together an interactive photobook featuring images from around the world, along with videos, notes, and tweets (see some highlights from the photobook in the slideshow above). And we invite you to join this grassroots show of solidarity by adding your own. The message? Ending hunger starts with women, but it doesn’t stop there. No matter who we are or where we live, all of us can add our voices to the effort.
It’s official this week: the southern region of Sudan will secede from the north and form the world’s newest nation.
When I read the news out of Sudan, I always wonder how the latest events are affecting the people I’ve had a chance to get to know on my visits to Darfur.
Maryam Gado’s daughter holds the hand of a public health promoter. Photo by Elizabeth Stevens/Oxfam.
Scuffing through the powdered-sugar dusting of snow on the streets the other day, zipping up my bulky down coat against the chill, I realized there’s no avoiding it: another New England winter is here. And with the Midwest reeling from a giant snowstorm last weekend, we Bostonians are not the only ones bundled up against the cold.
In northern Pakistan’s Swat Valley, winter is also settling in. December through February are the coldest months in this mountainous region, bringing heavy snowfall and below-freezing temperatures. This winter could be especially difficult for the thousands of people in who lost their homes, belongings, and livestock during Pakistan’s devastating floods earlier this year.
That’s why Oxfam is working to distribute thousands of winter survival kits in the Swat Valley before snowstorms cut off access to remote communities. According to Oxfam’s Jane Beesley and Caroline Gluck, who recently put together a photo slideshow about the kits (above), “Oxfam is distributing the survival kits—which consist of quilts, shawls, sweaters, and socks—with the help of its local partner, Lasoona. These warm items will go to the most vulnerable families who lost their homes and possessions, including female-headed households.” (Click on each photo in the slideshow to learn more.)
Sarah Peck is Oxfam’s email advocacy writer (and occasional photographer).
Not long ago I attended an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet® in Des Moines, Iowa, with over 200 people, most of them high school students from the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute. This was just one of hundreds of Hunger Banquets taking place around the country this Thanksgiving season.
To get a glimpse into what a Hunger Banquet looks like, check out some of my photos below, and hear from a few people who attended the event:
Photo: Sarah Peck / Oxfam America
“It’s one thing to talk about hunger, or to read about it. It’s another thing to actually experience it.” – Event participant Read the rest of this entry »
I just wanted to share some of the recent photos I’ve seen coming in this week from Pakistan, where more than 21 million people have been affected by the recent flooding.
Above, a young girl carries a water bottle on her head while taking refuge in a graveyard with her family in Thatta, about 62 miles from Karachi in Pakistan’s Sindh province. While international funding for the crisis has stalled in recent weeks, the number of people displaced by the floods continues to rise each day.
Photo: Jane Beesley / Oxfam
Oxfam and our partners have launched a rapid-relief effort to reach more than one million people with essential aid. Some of that aid takes the form of hygiene kits, like the one shown above. Each hygiene kit includes 15 bars of soap for personal use, soap for washing clothes, two towels, a cloth that can be cut into strips for sanitary protection, a plastic kettle for washing, and two buckets with lids.
Every day this week I’ve seen more photos coming in from Oxfam’s flood response in Pakistan, where Oxfam and our local partners are working to reach more than a million survivors with essential aid. Most were not taken by professional photographers, but by Oxfam staff on the ground—and they have a kind of immediacy that captures the urgency of the situation. Here are a few of the latest images:
Photo: Mubashar Hasan / Oxfam
Above, Oxfam and a local partner organization use a rescue boat to help people reach relief shelters in Koth Mithan, Sindh Province. So far, local search and rescue boats have helped Oxfam safely evacuate tens of thousands of people.
Photo: Atul Loke / Panos for Oxfam America
Things have been a bit hectic here over the last week or so as Oxfam responds to the massive floods in Pakistan. But even when disasters are happening, we also have to think about the bigger issues–and seize our opportunities to take action.
President Obama recently released a US plan to address the Millennium Development Goals, a set of global targets for reducing world hunger, improving health, and tackling poverty by 2015. But this plan is only a stepping stone. What we really need at the UN MDG Summit in September is for Obama to present America’s first-ever Global Development Strategy, which will be a crucial tool to for the US to lead the fight against global poverty.
What can you do to help? Check out our new photo gallery on Facebook, where we’ve posted eight photos from Oxfam’s work around the world–one for each of the Millenium Development Goals, like Global Partnerships (above). Make sure to hit the trusty “like” button and share the photos, then take action to tell President Obama that we are waiting for a Global Development Strategy. Oxfam will then present the pictures and names at the UN Summit in September.
I recently came across a quote from one of my favorite photographers, Minor White, who said, “At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.”
My job is to organize and catalogue Oxfam’s photography from Haiti and other disaster-affected areas. That’s why I wanted to highlight a few recent images from Haiti—all by Ami Vitale—that are worth a second glance. Six months after the devastating earthquake, they illuminate Haitians’ efforts to rebuild and recover.
Photo: Ami Vitale / Oxfam America
In rural Haiti, farmers are learning better beekeeping with the promise that more honey means more income to spend on household necessities. For me, this image from the village of Lacedras comes alive through the light and the points at which it hits. As the beekeeper angles the honeycomb towards the sun for a better look, the comb glows with a warmth and seems to be lit from within. It suggests the hope and potential for beekeeping to provide greater opportunity for these farmers.
Oxfam teamed up with a local kite maker to help children create and launch hundreds of kites bearing public- health messages. Photo: Julia Gilbert / Oxfam
In Oxfam’s Haiti photo collection from the last six months – in among pictures of tent camps, water trucks, and survivors picking up the pieces of their lives – there are some scenes that look like fun: children building toys and painting pictures, grownups hamming it up on a makeshift stage, and rows of brightly colored kites.
This is the playful work of Oxfam’s public health promoters, whose job it is to help people adapt to the hygiene needs of the crowded camps, where the threat of disease epidemics is ever-present. So the child-crafted paintings, the kites that leap and dive above the rubble of the camps, and the actors entertaining their young audiences all carry messages about staying clean to stay healthy. So far, Oxfam’s health-education messages have reached more than 200,000 people, and in post-earthquake Haiti – so far – there have been no serious outbreaks of disease. So, long live the kites. Or in Haitian Kreyol: Viv – yo cerf volants!
Check out more photos of public health workers in action:
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