#15 Journalist Profile on Denise Rauda

SAWA is building a network of journalists from all over the world. This month we are profiling Denise Rauda from El Salvador, a full time student at Kwantlen University College in Vancouver, BC. Denise knew right away she wanted to be part of SAWA. With a strong desire to help others and be a part of the bigger picture, Denise knew being a part of SAWA would be a great experience allowing her to connect with so many wonderful people from all over the world. Denise has a strong desire to make people more aware of the hardships faced by so many around the world; and to highlight that there are inspiring grassroots solutions making a difference, she is working on an inspiring story from Sierra Leone.

Denise is currently working on a story about a program in Freetown, Sierra Leone, called The Needy Today, which focuses on helping orphans and ex-child soldiers who survived the rebel war by providing food, clothing, medical care, educational support and psychosocial trauma healing. The Needy Today offers the children a protective, healing community. Unfortunately the program is suffering from a lack of funding and is looking for donors to help them continue to care for the orphans. We look forward to hearing more details about the program from Denise in the future and we are happy to have her on board as SAWA searches for inspiring stories from all over the world.

To Learn more: theneedytoday@gmail.com

#14 SAWA partners with Working To Empower!

SAWA is making moves! We've just partnered with Working To Empower, an international NGO working with local community leaders in refugee camps across Africa to promote HIV/AIDS education. SAWA is excited to be connected to this NGO composed of partnerships with inspiring grassroots organizations in countries like Tanzania, Benin, Ethiopia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.Working To Empower's core vision lies in community-based empowerment, and its focus is on ensuring communities have access to the knowledge, skills and tools to educate each other, and other communities, about HIV/AIDS. At SAWA, we look forward to being connected with, and sharing with you, the amazing local heroes Working To Empower has come in contact over the years.

In the next few weeks, Logan Cochrane, the founder of Working to Empower, will be traveling through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania to connect with local community leaders in various refugee camps, training them to be HIV/AIDS educators. And in line with Working To Empower's vision of promoting community-designed/community-led positive change fostering projects, the trips will also provide clear and concrete insight into local needs and how Working To Empower can facilitate the implementation of local projects. SAWA's partnership with Working To Empower, which has connections to over 600 local community organizations, mostly in Africa, is a gateway to a world of inspiring stories. Through Logan's help, we hope to spread the word about SAWA to these heroes, to let them know we are here to tell their stories and connect them with the world.


To Learn more about Working To Empower, please visit their website:
www.workingtoempower.org

#13 Promoting Peace in Sierra Leone: Peter Bangura and the Trauma Healing Centre

SAWA is highlighting some of the 180 journalists or storytellers around the world that help locate and report on the local heroes in the 50 poorest countries. After surviving the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone, which lasted from 1991 to 2002 leaving 50,000 people dead, and escaping, on 5 separate occasions, from the clutches of rebel army groups recruiting child soldiers, twenty two year old Peter A. Bangura formed The Trauma Healing Centre for youth in 2003, a local NGO providing a sense of community and support for children and adolescents traumatized by war.

Through various community building and peace promoting projects (involving workshops, drama, singing, dancing, and sports), The Trauma Healing Centre advocates for the rights of the youths meanwhile instilling within them a set of values, attitudes and behaviors that promote peace, solidarity, tolerance, and respect for life. Youth are educated about HIV/AIDS to end the stigmatization of those living with the disease, trained in non-violent conflict resolution, and given the opportunity to engage in self-esteem developing workshops and activities (like recording an album of music promoting peace). At The Trauma Centre in Sierra Leone, youth are given the opportunity to heal and develop their own integrity to refuse the use of violence in all its forms and stand by the principles of democracy, freedom, justice and co-operation

Peter A. Bangura is currently working on a documentary about the eleven year civil war, which he witnessed first-hand. His courage, perseverance and hope are here to inspire and lead us into a future of peace. The Trauma Healing Centre needs your help in providing resources and fund raising strategies for their various projects. To help, or learn more, please e-mail Peter Bangura at: bangurapetera@yahoo.com

#12 Find Your Courage and Let It Live!

“Ummera, ummera-sha”
‘Courage, courage, my friend–find your courage and let it live.’

I was recently inspired by Doctor James Orbinski, who helped establish, and became president of the Canadian chapter of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders/MSF), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Orbinski was the head doctor of MSF in Rwanda at the height of the genocide where he treated thousands of casualties. The people on the frontlines of the world’s crises have a kind of courage the world should breathe more of; an intoxicating kind of courage that forces us to consider how we too might be brave enough to make a difference in our own way.

The following passage from his book An Imperfect Offering is very moving.

“Ummera, ummera–sha” is a Rwandan saying that loosely translated means ‘Courage, courage, my friend–find your courage and let it live.’ It was said to me by a patient at our hospital in Kigali. She was slightly older than middle aged and had been attacked with machetes, her entire body rationally and systematically mutilated … I could do little more for her at that moment than stop the bleeding with a few sutures. We were completely overwhelmed. She knew and I knew that there were so many others. She said to me in the clearest voice I have ever heard,— “Allez, allez. Ummera, ummera-sha”–‘Go, go. Courage, courage, my friend–find your courage and let it live.’
—From An Imperfect Offering

What I found striking in this story is both his own courage to stay and help, when those who could were leaving, as well as the courage of the woman he was treating, who despite her own suffering offered him words of strength so that he could persevere. In times of strain and suffering we depend on each other for strength to go on. We depend on each other to reinforce our hope, our belief in the positive, and our belief in our own ability to make a difference. To believe that this world can be good, we must believe in the good of people.

We must find the courage to believe in ourselves, and each other – believe in our visions of hope for the future and our own and each others’ strength to instill it. Creating a vision of hope for the future can create positive energy – the kind that can invigorate as it spreads and grows. But to be positive about the future and have hope in this world takes strength; it takes courage. Ummera, ummera-sha. Courage, courage, my friend–find your courage and let it live.

Written By: Claudia Goodine

#11 Hope for AIDS Orphans in Rwanada

No one can dispute the seriousness of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic that affects over 40 million people worldwide. The seriousness and magnitude of the problem can be overwhelming. But today, SAWA Global wants to inspire you with the story of an organization in Rwanda (AMAHORO Association) that is making a positive impact on the lives of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. In Rwanda, about 1 in seven people are living with HIV/AIDS, and in a country where the population is so young, (about half of the population is under 17), that means many living with HIV/AIDS are children or youth– most of whom have been orphaned by the legacy of the disease.

The AMAHORO Association was founded in April of 2000 by fourteen passionate and creative individuals who were orphaned by HIV/AIDS, determined to empower others orphaned by the disease through providing education, vocational training, proper health care, counseling and even food and shelter to the most vulnerable families. They used the Arts (music, dance, and poetry) to raise money and rally their community around their cause, to speak out against society's discrimination and stigmatization of those orphaned by AIDS, and to bring together children with HIV/AIDS facing similar problems. Today, the organization, with significant financial support from their partnering NGO CHABHA (Children Affected by HIV/AIDS), has been able to provide 2,000 children with health insurance, 600 children with primary education and school supplies, 120 children with secondary school education, and 200 children with vocational training.

SAWA is excited to share the story of this inspiring local project uncovered by one of our SAWA Storytellers, Ruhalla. With Ruhalla's helps SAWA hopes to soon share with you a short video clip on the beautiful people behind The AMAHORO Association, who are working hard to keep the future bright and promising for the children and youth of Rwanda.

To donate or learn more please visit their website: http://www.amahoro.nl/a1/_a/amahoro.asp

Founder of the Organization:

NDAYAMBAJE Eugène Emile

Written by : Claudia

#10 SAWA speaks at the Projecting Change: Vancouver Green Film Festival happening at The Ridge Theatre May 8-11th

SAWA is extremely excited to be participating in the upcoming Projecting Change: Vancouver Green Film Festival happening at The Ridge Theatre May 8-11^th.

The four day film festival will showcase at least 20 inspiring and provocative films on sustainable living and will bring together local community leaders, environmentalists, engaging speakers, and film lovers to discuss key issues highlighted by the films. The profits from this event will be invested back into local initiatives, SAWA Global gratefully being one of them.

Because of SAWA’s focus on showcasing sustainable solutions to global problems, including environmental issues, SAWA has been asked to be a speaker at the festival on Saturday May 10^th following the film Taking Root. This film tells the story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, who became an inspiring leader of an environmental movement that began with the simple act of planting trees. Her vision of protecting the environment, her people’s human rights, and her country’s democracy became infectious and this film shows how this charismatic woman helped eventually bring down Kenya’s twenty-four year dictatorship.

Her story reveals what SAWA showcases every day – that small changes, small acts of defiant hope can have great impacts – that sometimes all it takes is a vision, and the will to install it. This will be an educational and engaging event promoting an awareness of environmental problems and sustainable solutions. See you all there!

#9 Doing the Future a Favour: The Rehabilitation of Arid Environments Trust in Kenya

SAWA Theme: Ending Environmental Degradation and Extreme Poverty

"We're looking at a situation where about 82 percent of the area of Kenya is semiarid, and very much of that area has become overgrazed and denuded. Now, using the techniques that we have developed here, a lot of that area can be rehabilitated and become useful again." – Murray Roberts, founder of Rehabilitation of Arid Environments Trust

In sub-Saharan Africa, and in Kenya in particular, land degradation and desertification due to overgrazing and overpopulation pressures, are having serious environmental and social consequences - as erosion, drought and diminishing resources exacerbate the problem of poverty. Today, about 30 million people are dependent on resources from Africa's Lake Victoria, a body of water large enough to share its waters with Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, and yet, not large enough to sustainabley support so many people.

Much of the surrounding grasslands around the lake have become overgrazed, leading to severely eroded savannas and destroyed ecosystems. To the north of Lake Victoria lies Lake Baringo, another beautiful fresh water oasis amid the surrounding arid plains. But as the lake receives about 4 million cubic meters of silt every year it is predicted to turn into a swamp.

Murray Roberts, born and raised in Baringo, Kenya, has seen with his own eyes, the lake’s waters begin to disappear. In 1982, he formed the Rehabilitation of Arid Environments Trust with the goal of rehabilitating local grasslands and so far, by working closely with local pastoralist communities of Baringo, the RAE Trust and its programs have managed to reclaim almost 5,000 acres of once-devastated landscape! There are incredible before and after pictures on their website.

By using knowledge from practical research, development experience and local expertise, the RAE Trust has created a program that benefits both people and the environment of the Baringo lowlands. The RAE Trust not only works to restore the savanna, it also aims to alleviate poverty by providing sustainable income generating opportunities for local agriculturists.

By addressing the challenge of environmental degradation today, the RAE Trust are doing the future a favour.

To Learn More:

The Rehabilitation of Arid Environments Trust: http://michna.com/rae/

PBS article: http://www.pbs.org/journeytoplanetearth/hope/baringo.html

#8 UN World Urban Forum 2008 in Nanjing, China

SAWA Global, together with the Huairou Commission, have applied to participate in the upcoming UN World Urban Forum happening in March 2008 in Nanjing, China. Together, and in partnership with two other organizations, they have sent a proposal to do a training workshop on video production for organizations of the economically poorest countries. The goal of the workshop is to empower these organizations to be able to make and submit short effective videos promoting their projects. The ability to create effective short videos and submit them to media outlets like SAWA is an empowering way for organizations to raise awareness and gather resources to support their causes. SAWA is excited by the prospect of connecting with the many organizations that will be at the conference and being able to offer them the opportunity to promote their causes through SAWA.

The UN World Urban Forum - hosted by the UN every two years, bringing together NGOs from all over the world to discuss the environmental, social and economic impacts of rapid urbanization - is a wonderful opportunity for organizations to network, share ideas and solutions and work together to figure out how to make our cities environmentally, socially, politically, economically sustainable. This is an extremely important and valuable conference and SAWA Global is hoping to participate.

The 100 years from 1950 to 2050 will be remembered for the greatest
social, cultural, economic and environmental transformation in history
– the urbanization of humanity. With half of us now occupying urban
space, the future of the human species is tied to the city.
– Anna Tibaijuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Executive Director
UN-HABITAT in remarks at the third session of the Forum in Vancouver, Canada, in 2006.

#7 SAWA partners with The Huairou Commission

SAWA Theme: Global Partnerships

SAWA is pleased to announce its new partnership with the NGO Huairou Commission – a global coalition of networks, institutions and individual professionals supporting and promoting the creative and grounded perspectives of grassroots women’s organizations involved in development. Grassroots women’s organizations have emerged as innovative leaders offering creative and tested solutions to many challenges facing their communities. They also play a vital role in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment as a priority in development work

SAWA is excited to partner with the Commission and help support and empower the different grassroots organizations it is involved with by sharing their stories and spreading their ideas. Through this new partnership these grassroots organizations are given the opportunity to submit videos of their inspiring stories, strengthening their influence and impact on the global community.

The Huairou Commission provides a platform where grassroots women’s organizations share creative solutions to problems facing their communities; a goal SAWA Global is happy to support. Together, SAWA and the Commission will help improve the overall practice of development by sharing the stories of grassroots organizations using local solutions that work.


To Learn More: http://www.huairou.org/

#6 SAWA Global supports upcoming 2008 Youth Darfur Conference here in Vancouver, BC, March 2nd

SAWA Theme: Empowering Youth

SAWA is excited to support the upcoming model-UN conference for youth, being held here in Vancouver, BC on March 2nd, by Amnesty International. At this 2008 Youth Darfur Conference, students from across the province will come to discuss the issues currently surrounding Darfur- where, according to UN estimates, at least 450,000 people have died from violence and disease, and 2.5 million people have been displaced since the conflict began in 2003.

At the conference, 100 youth between the ages of 16-30, will represent relevant nations, groups, multilateral organizations, and non-governmental organizations, in order to examine and discuss the complex issues surrounding the Darfur crisis. For the sake of creating a better understanding of the complexities surrounding the conflict, groups like the Janjaweed, the Justice and Equality Movement, Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army and Darfuri women refugees will be represented at the event.

Through participation in this forum, students will not only gain a deeper understanding of the situation in Darfur, but they will also gain insight into effective and creative ways to raise awareness and motivate appropriate individual action after the conference.

The conference is further exciting for bringing together the support of many different Canadian NGO’s, of which SAWA Global is one of them. This conference allows an opportunity for different organizations, who are working in their own way towards a better world, to be able to come together to share insights and inspiration for today’s youth. Each participating youth will receive a package with information on the different organizations supporting the conference. Through the package youth at the conference will learn about SAWA’s journalist campaign – just one opportunity for them to continue making a difference after the conference.

To learn more about the upcoming conference, or the crisis in Darfur, please visit:

www.darfur2008.com

#5 SAWA's Journalist Campaign

In the fall of 2007, SAWA Global launched a campaign to recruit 100 volunteers across the world("Sawa Journalists") to find and film stories of hope and inspiration in the poorests countries of the world. SAWA has been receiving hundreds e-mails, (which we are currently going through), from people all over the world who know of individuals, local heroes, and local NGO's making positive changes in their communities. With their knowledge and connections, the stories of these local heroes will be shared at SAWA Global: the gateway to change.

SAWA's aim is to make connections with journalists and journalism/media students in the capitals of these countries who can help us find stories we can showcase on our site. Finding these stories of inspiration and admirable leadership may be challenging, and being able to film a shrot clip about them may be even more challenging. This is why SAWA's goal is to make connections with new and established journalists and media personell. Together we hope to ignite a new media - one that offers hope and inspiration for positive change, and fosters global awareness, and global action.

At SAWA we give a voice to these heroes of the world and offer an opportunity for them to voice their initiatives to a global audience, which we hope will inspire and spark action and positive change.

At SAWA we also provide an opportunity for people all over the world to get involved by supporting these local grassroots intitiatives that are making positive lasting changes in the fight against poverty, HIV/Aids, child abuse, gender inequality and environmental degradation.
Stay tuned for more stories of hope coming soon!

#4 SAWA highlights the heroes of The Panzi Hospital in The DRC

It is easy to focus on the negative. You don’t have to look too hard. The news on TV and in the papers is usually the bad kind, and if you can stomach it, it can leave you with a pretty grim view of our world and the individuals within it. It takes courage to be positive and hard work to share good news – which is what makes SAWA so special.

We feed off of the courage of those individuals out there making a difference and spreading positive changes within their communities and beyond. We aren’t here to ignore the bad news or the awful situations; we are here to show the world the remarkable ways in which people are dealing with awful situations.

Right now the situation for thousands of women in the eastern part of The Democratic Republic of Congo is truly awful. The violence being inflicted upon women by various militia groups is the most horrific imaginable. Women – from the ages of 6 to 75 – are being brutally raped and tortured by gangs of men to the point where their digestive systems are beyond repair. In October 2007, The New York Times published an article detailing the situation there: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html

But even in such horrific circumstances there are individuals providing hope and strength to their communities. The Panzi Hospital, (created in 1999 with the help of the Swedish International Development Agency), is the only place in South Kivu where thousands of women have been able to receive proper medical treatment for the kind of damage they have suffered. The individuals who work at Panzi Hospital, who are able to provide strength and healing for their communities despite all the negativity they see on a daily basis, are truly remarkable. Director Denis Mukwege performs on average 6 surgeries a day, working tirelessly to help the women of his community, while training new doctors to be able to perform the surgeries. He has a vision for a Women’s Center to be built alongside the hospital, which would provide counseling services as well as educational programs enabling the women to be reintegrated into society as financially independent individuals. He has witnessed some soul wrenching scenes and yet manages to find the strength to stay and help.

In the past few years, The Panzi Hospital has been able to receive some valuable support from a Toronto based organization called S.A.F.E.R. (Social Aid For the Elimination of Rape). S.A.F.E.R. have managed to send two shipments of two years worth of medical supplies to Panzi, and they are currently working on being able to send a third shipment in the spring of 2008. To learn more about them please visit their website at: http://www.saferworld.ca/ To donate e-mail them at donate@saferworld.ca

At SAWA we want to highlight these amazing individuals around the world who are making positive changes in some of the hardest places to be positive. It is vital that their stories be heard and that they are given all the support we are able to give. Their lives are a testament to the strength of the human spirit and they embody all that we could ever hope to be as leaders.

"Seek the good, the positive, the creative..."
Swami Radha

#3 Why SAWA focuses on the poorest countries

SAWA theme: Extreme Poverty

Poverty exists all over the world – in every country, and every city. But extreme poverty reserves its clutches for the people of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries. It is estimated that approximately 1 billion people in the world today live on less than $1 a day. Those living in extreme poverty are literally ‘the poorest of the poor’, and lack access to the most basic of human needs – such as food, clean water, proper shelter, clothing, medication, sanitation, and education. Extreme poverty brings along with it a list of other environmental and health problems. For example, the lack of clean drinking water is the number one reason for why 50% of Africans suffer from water related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

Tackling the issue of extreme poverty is a huge task, as it is a multifaceted issue, but change starts in each country with those courageous and inspiring individuals who, through their leadership and vision, create hope in seemingly hopeless situations. Their ability to create positive change – whether it be through providing a safe community environment for orphaned children (as the Fundación Niña Maria does in Columbia), or training the orphaned youth in Rwanda in employable skills so that they can support their siblings (as ASOLATE does) – is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

SAWA chooses to focus its attention on the poorest countries of the world not only because the people there live in the harshest of human conditions and are in the most need, but because the stories of the individuals there who, despite everything, can and do gather the strength to lead, to give hope, to provide healing to their communities are the most inspiring of all. If they, who have next to nothing can, out of sheer determination, passion, and vision, create positive changes, then surely we can too.

And so SAWA continues to search out and give voice to those heroes whose stories remind us that anything is possible as long as there is someone to imagine the possibilities. After all, “The First Step To Better Times Is To Imagine Them.”

“There is absolutely

No inevitability

As long as there is a willingness

To contemplate what it happening”

– Marshall McLuhan