As a writer, I’m the biggest word fan there is–but I also appreciate the power of photography as a means for making an instant emotional connection. Beginning with the stunning Rankin photos from the Democractic Republic of the Congo that we highlighted in the January 2009 issue of our magazine, OXFAMExchange, it seemed like photography really came to the forefront this year, especially as a way to tell stories about the people behind our work. On that note, here are a few (very subjective) picks for my favorite Oxfam images from the year.

Loko Dadacha photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

Many unforgettable images come to mind when I think of my trip to Ethiopia earlier this year, but I especially like this portrait of Loko Dadacha, one of the most extraordinary people I met during my visit. You can really sense the great strength–physical and emotional–of this widow and mother of six from Gutu Dobi, Ethiopia, who is helping to lead her community during a time of ongoing drought.

Saving circle, Mali. Photo by Rebecca Blackwell / Oxfam America

Women from the Banakoro, Mali, village Saving for Change group–dubbed Sabougnuma, or “good deed”–hold their weekly meeting. I like how this colorful photo really captures the community spirit of the savings groups, where women work together to help each other save money and start small businesses.

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When I first moved to Alabama five years ago, just about all I knew about the state was that it was hot, and Montgomery was known as both the cradle of the Confederacy and the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. But mostly, it was hot. So last week when we had what amounted to a cold snap—about three days of weather in the 50s—conversations usually started with some variation on the theme of global warming: “So much for global warming,” someone would say. Or, “We really could use some of that global warming about now.”

If only it were that easy to turn global warming on and off like a switch. For a lot of us, global warming is a euphemism for climate change, something we don’t fully understand, something happening somewhere else—certainly “not in my backyard.”  Even in sweltering Alabama, we don’t talk about global warming until it gets cold. But climate change is happening, and it is in our backyard.

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The system of rice intensification, or SRI, is an agircultural technique that improves the yields of farmers while using fewer seeds and less water. The method is improving the lives of more than 80,000 farmers in Cambodia. Photo by Isabelle Lesser/Oxfam America

“One sixth of humanity undernourished”

That was the stark headline on a news story put out at the end of last week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. All it takes is some simple math, and suddenly the immensity of the global hunger problem is as clear as a line in the sand: five of us stand on this side, one of us on the other. Read the rest of this entry »

Oxfam America Boston staffers watching the inauguration. Photo: Ephraim Freed

Like many of you, I watched yesterday’s inauguration with a crowd: my Oxfam America co-workers, and a few of their kids and spouses, too. At noon, many of us clustered around the big TV in the lobby of our office, balancing our sandwiches on our laps as we watched history in the making.

Amidst all the rhetoric of the day, I was particularly struck by one quote from President Obama’s inauguration speech:

“To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

What do you think: Are we really waking up this morning to a world transformed? And if things have indeed changed, what must we do, as individuals, to keep up the momentum?

It was the kid who saw me first, his dark eyes glancing up to meet mine. About seven or eight years old, he nudged his father, who stood facing impassively out into the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue, one arm firmly around his son’s shoulders. With his other hand the father held up a handmade sign: “My son and I are homeless. Please help.”

I’d hurried past them at first, toughened to such requests in the manner of a longtime city dweller. Buffeted by a freezing wind, carrying a heavy bag of groceries, I was anxious to get to the subway and home. But something about the father and son made me stop short only a few feet from the station doors.

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There’s a new book out there that makes sobering reading—and it may help bring a little perspective to the unease financially comfortable Americans are feeling as they watch the value of their homes plummet and their savings evaporate.

Called “The Measure of America,” it’s a clear-eyed, methodical examination of one of our treasured myths: That with pluck and persistence the American dream—a decent standard of living, a long and healthy life, a good education—can belong to all of us.

It just ain’t so.

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Oxfam organizer Rasa Dawson.

Every year on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, thousands of Americans participate in Oxfam’s Fast for a World Harvest campaign—attending Oxfam America Hunger Banquets, skipping meals, or taking other actions to fight world hunger. Here’s Rasa Dawson, lead organizer for the campaign, with her thoughts on this annual tradition.

A few years ago, I organized an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet on a small college campus in rural Virginia. I remember we had high hopes that it would be a good event, but as we watched people pouring in the doors, we were shocked.  It wasn’t just students; it was professors, people from the local church, and community members—over 300 of them. 

Over the next hour and a half, it was awe-inspiring to watch the transformation in that room.  People shared food, laughed, told stories, and cried.  Three hundred strangers left the room not strangers any longer, but fellow travelers. They forged relationships because they shared the same fate that, as in real life, was given to them at random. 

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Last night I took my place inside the booth, only partially hidden behind a frayed red, white, and blue curtain. Balancing my paper ballot on a wobbly, dented metal shelf, I carefully filled in the circles using a thick black marker. After I stepped out and slid the completed ballot into the machine (wondering the whole time if I was putting it in backwards) the woman working the polls handed me the emblematic sticker—“I voted today.”

And I wasn’t alone. According to Politico, more than 130 million Americans also cast their ballots yesterday—the most ever to vote in a presidential election.

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In the past 12 months, as we’ve followed the incredible US presidential campaigns, I have periodically paused to try and ”feel” this historical time. I can truly say that November 4, 2008, ranks right up there with other historical moments that I have experienced in my lifetime.  A man on the moon, even before I realized the significance of what we were watching on the neighbor’s tiny black and white TV screen. I cried during Nelson Mandela’s inauguration because I truly never believed we would see an independent South Africa in my lifetime.  The fall of the Berlin Wall. Who, in the worst of the cold war, would have imagined we would freely travel behind the Iron Curtain? An African woman Nobel Prize winner–despite the odds that place the African woman at the top of the disenfranchised and disadvantaged list. And yesterday, the first African-American President of the world’s slightly-shaky only superpower. I cried again, because–like many others–I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. I can now dare hope that this will not be ”only in America,” but that we will see the same sort of unity of purpose–to live democractic ideals–in other lands that we care so deeply about. This is what history feels like: like HOPE!

How do you feel today as you head to the polls? Energetic? Scared? Excited? Ambivalent?

The New York Times website created a page just for today where you can choose one word to describe your current state of mind (no login required). In case your moods are prone to shifting during the course of Election Day, you can update your choice every hour. And you can also see how others are feeling as the most popular words stream by on the page. (The top choice right now: passionate.)

As for me, I selected “anxious” from the list. I was out until late last night making get out the vote calls, at which time I would have said I was alternately frustrated and elated, depending on who was on the other end of the line. But since I woke up this morning I’ve felt only a deep restlessness, a constant uncertainty in the back of my mind. I think, no matter the outcome, I just want it to be over.

What about you?