In Kenya, it’s difficult to provide African herdsman in the bush with an education, but volunteers and aid groups have found a way to ensure they do not miss out. Volunteers and NGOs are setting up night schools where nomadic people live.
It is also where illiteracy levels are highest. Now some herders head for their classrooms after putting their animals in their pens.
Most of the students are in their twenties and have to learn eight years work of schooling in just three years. They want to learn how to write, read, and count.
Yet they are too busy during the day, and school was never really an option before. Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi reports from Kajiodo, South West Kenya.
The Forum of the of the Network of Joint Movements of African descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean contributes to the process of regional integration by promoting politic strategies.
Women in a civil rights group in Togo called a weeklong sex strike in August to try to force the president of the West African nation to resign. Members of “Let’s Save Togo” planned to withhold sex from their husbands to pressure the men to take action against President Faure Gnassingbe. The opposition says his family has ruled Togo for too long. He became president in 2005, shortly after the death of his father — who had held power for 38 years. Withholding sex for political goals has a long history. The idea appears in the theater of ancient Greece. In the play “Lysistrata,” the women of Athens decide to deny their husbands sex until the men end the Peloponnesian War. But do sex strikes work? Pepper Schwartz is a sociology professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says the idea is good for making news headlines, but it takes a lot of work. She says the sex strike is a good way to make a point for a few days. But she says that it probably will not work over a long period of time. She also notes that: “if you do stick to it too long, you might lose that other person’s willingness to support your issue.”But pro-democracy activists in Togo say a sex strike during the civil war in Liberia gave them cause for hope. In 2003, Liberia had been through 14 years of war. Leaders of the group Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace organized a series of nonviolent actions. They included a sex strike. The actions earned the group’s leader a share of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Leymah Gbowee shared the prize with two other women, including Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She became Africa’s first democratically-elected female president in 2006. The third winner was Tawakkul Karman, a women’s rights activist in Yemen. Yaliwe Clarke teaches gender studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She says that the women in Togo can inspire other women in Africa just like the Mass Action for Peace in Liberia did. But sociology professor Pepper Schwartz says women need to hold real power in order for something like a sex strike to work. “They only work in proportion to the amount of power women have in a society,” she says. “In other words, you have to have a certain amount of power already to tell your husband no.” She says this depends on having a society where men respect the opinions and wishes of women. For VOA Learning English, I’m Laurel Bowman. (Adapted from a radio program broadcast 05Sep2012)
A very well made and detailed documentary by John Allan Martinson Jr. regarding the Jewish control over the African slave trade during the founding of the America’s. Using only Jewish sources, he proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jews owned the African slave ships, controlled the entire African slave trade, and gained an incredible amount of wealth through their involvement.
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U.S. Sen. Christopher Coons joins top African investment managers and business leaders before a live audience to highlight some of the most successful investments in Africa, in a panel moderated by Editor-at-Large Sir Harold Evans. (October 1st, 2012- Reuters TV)
This is a short film about making crafts from banana and palm leaves at the Dewe School of Art in Uganda.
People who attend the project use banana and palm leaves grown on the project’s plantation to weave various products, including baskets, purses, mats and hats.
The people who attend the project are learning new skills so that they can learn practical skills to help make an income.
I took this film while volunteering at the project in May and June 2010. The film features Msangi Christine and at the beginning, she is talking with Namatovu Jane.
Dewe is on the edge of Lake Victoria, in Uganda, Africa.
Ardmore Ceramic Art Studio, situated in the Champagne Valley of the KwaZulu Natal Drakensberg, is one of the heartwarming success stories in South African Arts and Crafts. Some 22 years ago, Fee Halsted-Berning began training Bonnie Ntshalintshali (in-chully-in-chaalie), the daughter of a farm labourer, in the delicate art of ceramics. This culminated in Ardmore becoming the largest ceramic art studio in South Africa today, with approximately 80 self-employed, aspiring artists, all of whom receive ongoing training, materials and equipment. With the gallery showcasing some eighty different artists works – each piece being a distinction of the expression of their imagination based on nature, Zulu folklore and tradition the variety on display is simply breathtaking.
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Rock climbing is one of the most dangerous forms of extreme sport but if done the right way, it is a thrilling adventure. NTVSPORT joined the Mt Kenya School adventure for what was an exhilarating day in and around the scenic mountain, where we came to learn, that extreme sports is also a team sport.
Study in Ghana, West Africa with ThisWorldMusic (www.thisworldmusic.com) and experience the best in traditional African music, arts and culture! People come from around the globe for the educational opportunity to study in Ghana, which is also known to many academics as the ‘Gateway to Africa.’ They come for the good food, friendly people, lively culture and historical sites like Kakum Park, Cape Coast Castle and Kejetia Market in Kumasi.
Many university study abroad students also enjoy studying in Ghana because English is the official language and because the country is very safe for foreigners. In the capital city Accra, musicians and dancers can learn about Ghanaian highlife music, kpanlogo (sometimes spelled panlogo) African drumming, hip-life music, and other forms of music, art and drumming of Africa. People enjoy eating indigenous African food such as fufu, banku and tilapia fish with jollof rice. Other people who travel to Ghana go to Kumasi, the former seat of the Ashanti Kingdom, where there is still an active African chief.
Ghana was formerly called the ‘Gold Coast’ and to this day there is active gold mining that takes place. In addition, they recently discovered oil, which may change the nation someday from a developing country into an industrialized country. Oil companies have recently started offshore oil drilling near the Ghanaian city of Takoradi, which is the capital of the Western Region. The potential for economic growth is quite astounding, and greater than at any other time in Ghana’s history. Those on summer study abroad programs and others who study in Ghana know about this growth phenomenon from studying Nigeria, which is also in West Africa though not right on the Gulf of Guinea. Since Ghana is on the Atlantic coast, it borders Togo on one side and Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) on the other.
UNTV: United Nations, New York (September 25) – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia said today (25 September) that the “ultimate goal of the post-2015 developing agenda is to end world poverty and to improve the well-being of our citizens.”
Yudhoyono was briefing the media immediately following the first meeting of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, together with the other two Panel’s Co-Chairs, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom.
The Indonesian President said it was also clear “that the agenda must be built upon the MDG’s achievements as it sets new goals and targets.”
Johnson Sirleaf said gender inequality is “universal” adding that “in most developing countries it reaches a critical level.”
She said “even in countries that are referred as developed, the issue of gender inequality is still prominent.”
The Liberian President said “we must redefine our priorities and change the nature of the debate” as “we cannot apply the same solutions and expect different results.”
For his part, David Cameron said “we are not here to get rid of the Millennium Development Goals” but “to urge countries to complete and meet the Millennium Development Goals and to meet the promises that countries have made about how they will help to meet the Millennium Development Goals.”
In July 2012, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the members of a High-level Panel to advise on the global development framework beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There are 27 members on the High-level Panel from civil society, the private sector and governments.
The Panel is part of the Secretary-General’s post-2015 initiative mandated by the 2010 MDG Summit. UN Member States have called for open, inclusive consultations involving civil society, the private sector, academia and research institutions from all regions, in addition to the UN system, to advance the development framework beyond 2015.
The work of the Panel will reflect new development challenges while also drawing on experience gained in implementing the MDGs, both in terms of results achieved and areas for improvement. The Panel will submit a report containing recommendations to the Secretary-General in the first half of 2013.
