Congratulations to Three Courageous Women

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.  We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.

In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325.  The resolution for the first time made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue.  It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president.  Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.  Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections.  She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.  In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the “Arab spring”, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.

It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent.

Oslo, October 7, 2011

“The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 – Press Release”. Nobelprize.org. 20 Oct 2011

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/press.html

Subsistence Fishing

Looking out over the Mekong River in Phnom Penh you will see what appears to be floating villages. The “villages” are actually groups of fishing boats—they look like long rowboats with a cover over the mid-section. Families have built their lives upon these boats, joining together their home and their livelihood. Our team spent the day on the river meeting and speaking with some of these families about their life on the river.

Families who make their living fishing on the river seem to be somewhat more secure in their economic position in the sense that at least they have a meal to eat every day.Anything extra that they might catch can be sold to acquire some additional food, such as rice, but fish is their primary source of protein. Everything they own is with them on the small boat; they have no other home. An entire family eats, sleeps and works on the boat to survive. This means the loss of a family member due to illness or injury also means losing a breadwinner. Also, the children are not in school and are wo

rking alongside their parents every day in order to have food to eat and perhaps to earn a dollar or two at the market.

The livelihood of subsistence fishing families, like that of subsistence farmers, depends largely on environmental factors. If the river becomes so polluted that fish cannot survive, the families also cannot survive. In times of flooding or drought, again they are affected.  Even the sanitary conditions of the water can lead to illnesses since the river water is what they eat and drink from.  Also, unregulated industry can have an effect on their precarious situation since over-fishing by large commercial boats can threaten the basic food supply for the individual families.

With so many factors affecting the health of the rivers and the daily lives of these families, it is a struggle to get through each day, and it will be harder still for future generations. Because the children grow up on the boats, fishing is the only way of life they know.  Certainly the work these young kids do every day is difficult and dangerous, but it is also robbing them of an education, such that their options for the future are limited and the cycle of poverty continues.

Certainly the river is beautiful, and to some this may seem like a simple life free of many of the modern complications of our Western city living, but with no social safety net, such as education or basic healthcare, these families and their way of life will always remain vulnerable. Unfortunately, this is far too regular for communities like these, and a situation we hope to shed light on.

From our President, Tom Nazario:

I just wanted you to know that I just got back from my trip to New York to meet with publishers about our upcoming book, “Living on a Dollar a Day.” While there, I met with three publishers and a prospective literary agent. The three publishers all found our proposal quite compelling.

The literary agent that I met with is a top notch agent and has worked in and around Manhattan for some years.  She would like to see the next iteration of the proposal and had some suggestions for me. It’s not clear whether she’ll take this on as a project, but she certainly found it very worthy and timely because of all of the things that are happening in the world. 

This is all good news, but I anticipate that finding the right publisher and cutting the best deal possible will take at least two or three visits to New York, so bear with us. I also plan to contact publishers in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

For now, I am going to update our book proposal and talk to some additional agents. At many of the big publishing houses, they won’t even meet with you unless you have an agent, so this is a work in progress.  I thought, however, I would give you an update on how our first trip to New York went. That’s it for now.

Forced Evictions

Our team went to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, a city of great disparity. While part of the city is filled with upscale hotels and modern government buildings, the view changes drastically just on the other side of town. This area is comprised of over-crowded slums with too many people just struggling to survive. They live on swamp-like land in small tin shacks. These communities display the extreme poverty that exists, and it is a sight that the Cambodian government wants to hide.

Local authorities have been relocating these families, without any option or much notice, to outlying areas of the city so that luxury apartments can be built for businessmen and other affluent members of society. The problem this presents goes beyond stripping these families of their homes and communities. The relocation areas are so far out of town that these individuals find it difficult to maintain their jobs or to access any sort of government services, such as health care and proper schooling for their children.  The only thing this accomplishes is to push the poor out of sight and hope they will be out of mind.

The slum we visited had been warned that any day they could be relocated to one of these outlying areas. Our team spent time meeting some of the families who lived in this area and who faced an uncertaint future. One family who lived in a small tin house was surviving off the income of the two oldest daughters who worked in the flower market. Their mother was dead and their father lost his leg in an army injury. We believe he also suffered from HIV and, therefore, needs to be close to a hospital where he can receive treatment. If this family is forced to relocate, the young women would lose their jobs and the younger children would no longer be able to attend school.  The father would also not be able to keep up with his needed medications without access to the hospital. The fate of this family lies between trying to keep what little they have and losing it all. This also means they have no hope of creating a better life in the future since the next generation, the children, are losing their chance for an education.

Unfortunately, this has been the story of too many Cambodians for too many years now. People are continuing to have their homes taken from them and forced to live somewhere they are not prepared for. It too closely resembles the state of Cambodia decades ago when many were forced to leave the homes and jobs they knew and expected to make do in a foreign environment with no support. Of course the poor have the smallest voice in any society, and for that reason their story must be told. This article from 2006 is an indication how many years this has been going on and the thousands of people affected by forced evictions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5392474.stm

*All Photos provided by George Rosenfeld 

“Living on a Dollar a Day” at Bingham

On August 19, 2011, the law firm of Bingham hosted a presentation of the Making of “Living on a Dollar a Day” at their Silicon Valley office. Professor Tom Nazario and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Renée Byer gave our guests a sneak peak of some the stories and photographic profiles that will make up the book to be published next fall.  The Forgotten International will be making several presentations around the Bay Area in advance of the book’s release. Renée Byer and videographer George Rosenfeld returned from their final trip abroad in May, wrapping up travel to 10 countries on four continents. They interviewed individuals and families around the world who survive on about one dollar per day. They met subsistence farmers, factory workers, prostitutes, fishing families, herders, garbage recyclers and beggars, starting in India in June 2010, moving through Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia, Liberia, Ghana, Romania, Moldova, Peru and finally Bolivia this summer.  In addition, they visited charitable clinics, community centers, foundations, and other aid organizations trying to help the poorest of the poor to not only survive another day, but try to improve their lives through education, healthcare and job training. Our hope with this book is to shine a light on the plight of these people and communities and create a call to action so that anyone who wants to can get involved. (Photo by Paul Kitagaki, Jr.)

Past and Present Cambodia

Years of conflict, civil war and corruption has left Cambodia deeply scarred and only recently able to experience some stability. Cambodia with its shocking history, and repercussions of which continue to play out in its present state, is where our team headed to next.

Cambodia’s circumstances cannot be fully understood unless one knows the horror that existed not long ago leading to mass genocide of its own people. The Khmer Rouge was a brutal regime that gained power in the 1970s when Cambodia was struggling to stay neutral during the Vietnam War. This communist regime took over under leader Pol Pot in 1975 and set out to transform Cambodia into an agrarian utopia. All educated individuals and professionals were executed, along with ethnic minorities. Temples and all Western symbols were destroyed.   Everyone was forced to move out of the cities into rural areas where farming was to become the core means of the country. While the exact numbers are uncertain, it is estimated that over two million people perished from executions, extreme labor and starvation. It was not until four years later that the regime was overthrown by the Vietnamese, but the damage caused by the Khmer Rouge’s brutality would last decades. The 1984 film, The Killing Fields, depicts this horrific period in Cambodia’s history.

Cambodia now faces the aftermath of years of destruction and upheaval. The land has been raped by its own citizens struggling to survive, and its children have suffered from the increase of trafficking into the sex trade. The economy has shown growth over the last decade due to the country gradually opening up internationally to business and tourism. However, the response of the government has been to push the poor out of their homes in the cities and in order to build luxury apartments in their place.

Our first story is about the forced evictions of the residents in Phnom Penh who live in the impoverished areas. This practice is on the rise and is creating further civil unrest. Of course, development cannot take place without removing the slums, but the people who lived in the slums are being moved so far out of the city that they have few means to survive, which for some brings up memories of the not too distant past.

Here is a recent video of people standing up against the government’s orders for land evictions: http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/video.php?perm=22

 

Mae Tao Clinic

In the previous entry we mentioned the free medical clinic that both the father and mother of the Burmese family used. This clinic in Mae Sot is the Mae Tao Clinic also known as “Dr. Cynthia’s Clinic.” You can check out the clinic here at  www.maetaoclinic.com  It was founded by Dr. Cynthia Maung during the re 1988 to serve the Burmese immigrant community, but is open to anyone who needs care. This small clinic offers extraordinary services to these struggling people. Some of these include: pediatric and adult outpatient clinics, inpatient facilities, surgery, maternity and sexual health services, dental offices, free medication and vaccinations, and prosthetics fittings, a pretty amazing feat to provide such extensive treatments at such a humble clinic. They do not stop there—if they cannot meet the needs of a patient, they will transfer them to the city hospital and cover the costs of the patient’s medical expenses. If only health care could be like this for everyone. This clinic is the only access to healthcare this community has, yet for some it is still too costly just to get there.
Another organization meeting the needs of the Burmese people in a different way is a social service group called the “People’s Volunteer Association.” They are a grass roots organization made up of individuals who tried to stage a revolution against the oppressive Myanmar government and now are serving the people of Mae Sot.

The People’s Volunteer Association functions a little like a neighborhood citizens’ watch, whose mission includes aiding the Thai police in settling disputes, providing refugee care, mediating domestic abuse issues, labor rights, health and education issues, and, really, to help solve migrants’ problems any way they can.  http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=20374

This area is home to many abused women and children who have been left homeless to fend for themselves. This group adopts them and helps them get through their misfortune by providing them with help towards a better future. One woman our team spoke with had been abused and beaten by her husband. She suffered a severe head injury from his attacks and was abandoned along with their 3-year-old son for another woman. She is one of the many who has been left in a desperate situation. She is living in a small garage space with her in-laws who feel responsible for what their son has done to his family. She constantly is leaving work early because of dizziness that occurs since her husband’s attack. Her beautiful boy is young enough that hopefully he will not be as affected by the misdeeds of his father, and rather know the strength of his mother.

With all the suffering that many of these immigrant families endure it is good to know that there are places like the Mae Tao Clinic and People’s Volunteer Association working to create a real difference in their lives.