60 Years of Human Rights: the Idea and the Reality Date: Human Rights Day, Wednesday December 10, 2008 Time: 6PM (Ticketed event) Location: JFK School, Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Speakers: Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and
Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University
Paul Farmer, Co-founder and Executive Vice President, Partners in Health;The Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard University Medical School
President Drew Gilpin Faust (Moderator), Harvard University
Post-Forum concert:
Oumou Sangare, Oumou Sangare is Mali’s great diva, champion of women’s rights, and one of the world’s most astounding female voices
Go to WWW.IOP.HARVARD.EDU between Monday, December 1 & 12:00 noon on Monday, December 8. Winners will be notified via email on the evening of Monday, December 8. Winners must be available to pick-up their tickets on Tuesday, December 9 from 9:00 am-5:00 pm at the Institute of Politics.
Well, it’s one of the most effective health preventions you can make. And the World Bank and the World Health Organization has calculated that if you invest $1 in sanitation, then you reap $7 in health costs diverted and in labor days that are gained. Your workers are not off sick from diarrhea. So, it’s extremely cost effective. It’s actually a bargain.
the western world luxuriates in flush toilets; in toilets that play music or can check blood pressure, where the flush is a thoughtless thing, and anything that can go down a sewer - nappies, motorbikes, goldfish - does. In these times, Japanese women routinely use a device called a Flush Princess to mask the sound of their bodily functions; while in China millions of people happily use public toilets with no doors. The Big Necessity - as one Mumbai toilet builder called the toilet - is the account of my travels through the profoundly intriguing but stupidly neglected world of the disposal of human waste, which houses characters like Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization; Wang Ming Ying, who is attempting to alleviate environmental devastation and deforestation in China by persuading rural Chinese to install biogas digesters, which produce cooking gas from human feces; Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, whose NGO Sulabh has built half a million toilets in India, as well as the world’s only museum of toilets; and the flushers of London and New York’s sewers, who scoff at roaches but hate rats nearly as much as they hate congealed cooking fat and tri-ply toilet paper.
Where do the millions of computer monitors, cell phones and other electronic refuse our society generates end up?
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60 Minutes is going to take you to one of the most toxic places on Earth - a place government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see. It’s a town in China where you can’t breathe the air or drink the water, a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead.
It’s worth risking a visit because much of the poison is coming out of the homes, schools and offices of America. This is a story about recycling - about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.
Scott Pelley reports on the toxic e-waste recycling practices in China. A CBS team tracks a shipping container filled with CRT monitors being smuggled from the US to Hong Kong. They sneakily try to report on the conditions they come across in Guiyu, China, the cargo’s ultimate destination: poisoned air and water, increased cancer rates, government collusion. During the filming they get into a scuffle with business owners who are operating in the “illegal” (de jure - illegal, de facto - tolerated) cottage industry.
You know, it’s a hell of a choice between poverty and poison. We should never make people make that choice. - Jim Puckett, founder of the Basel Action Network
Developing countries are now facing a triple hit - food, fuel and finance, the World Bank President, Robert B Zoellick warned [October 09, 2008]. Speaking ahead of the annual meetings of the Bank and IMF, Mr Zoellick said governments must look beyond the financial crisis to contain a mounting human crisis that could push millions of the worlds poorest people to the brink of survival, and wipe out development gains.
Haiti in Harlem Date: September 29 - October 6 Location: Maysles Institute, 343 Malcolm X Boulevard / Lenox Avenue (between 127th and 128th Streets) Tickets: Suggested Admission: $7. Box office opens 1 hour before show time.
The Films
Monday, Sept. 29 7:30 pm Queimada (Burn!) with Marlon Brando
Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo (Battle of Algiers), 1969, 132 mins.
The German, Polish and French movie posters
Duration: 7 min 33 sec
A Caribbean island in the mid-1800’s. Nature has made it a paradise; man has made it a hell. Slaves on vast sugar plantations are ready to turn their misery into rebellion—and the British are ready to provide the spark. They send agent William Walker (Marlon Brando) on a devious three-part mission: trick the slaves into revolt, grab the sugar trade for England…then return the slaves to servitude. Colonialism and insurrection are explored in the searing epic BURN!. Both visually and narratively stunning, BURN! glows with the fires of filmmaking genius. Genius is also evident in Brando’s complex, intelligent portrayal of a man who is both gentlemen and scoundrel, revolutionary and colonialist. And Ennio Morricone’s (The Untouchables, The Mission) haunting music memorably underscores the almost overwhelmingly powerful story.
Six years in the making and filmed clandestinely under the Duvalier dictatorship, Bitter Cane is a timeless documentary classic about the exploitation and foreign domination of the Haitian people. From peasant coffee farms in the rugged tropical mountains to steamy U.S.-owned sweatshops in the teeming capital, the film takes the viewer on a journey through Haitian history to a deeper understanding of that country’s political economy. We see emerging paths of flight—industries from the U.S., refugees from Haiti—which are having profound effects on both societies. Director will be in attendence.
Wednesday, Oct. 1 7:30 pm Haiti: Killing the Dream
Dir. Katharine Kean, Rudi Stern, Babeth, Hart Perry 1992, 57 mins.
A stark, explosive look at a besieged neighboring country whose origins as the world’s first independent black republic have been obscured by decades of brutal repression. Here the Haitian people speak for themselves. They also speak through their deposed leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide, the country’s democratically elected president, who is now in exile. Haiti’s repression has been historically countenanced, if not inspired, by the United States, a posture that exists to this day.
Director will be in attendence.
This award-winning film chronicles the political events and human tragedy surrounding the 1991 military coup d’etat in Haiti and the bloody dictatorship that followed. It presents a searing indictment not only of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s role in the turmoil, but also that of the powerful and reclusive Haitian bourgeoisie. Unlike the mainstream media, Rezistans does not portray the Haitian people as helpless victims. It focuses instead on their creative and courageous resistance, and the deep roots of that resistance in Haitian history and culture. Director will be in attendence.
Nicolas Rossier’s powerful and informative documentary focuses on Aristide’s later years as president, as he struggled to fulfill his promises of reform in the face of mounting domestic opposition (driven in large part by business and military interests) and, simultaneously, an increasingly hostile relationship with the United States. Popular among Haiti’s poor and disenfranchised, Aristide became a target of Haiti’s business interests (and the political parties that served those interests) because of his daring policies which tried to raise the standard of living for the huge majority of Haitians. Director will be in attendence.
Friday, Oct. 3 9:00 pm Haiti: Democracy Undone
Dir. Peter Bull, Walt Bogdanich, Pascal Akesson, 2006, 57 mins.
Haiti: Democracy Undone presents new evidence that the U.S. had one foreign policy on Haiti but secretly carried out a very different policy - and that those mixed signals helped tilt the country toward chaos.
Saturday, Oct. 4 7:30 pm The Price of Sugar
Dir. Bill Haney, 2007, 90 mins.
Duration: 2 min 25 sec
In the Dominican Republic, a tropical island-nation, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are toiling under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. They work grueling hours and frequently lack decent housing, clean water, electricity, education and healthcare. Narrated by Paul Newman, The Price of Sugar follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced. Director will be in attendence.
Sunday, Oct. 5 7:30 Man by the Shore (L’Homme sur les Quais) [NYTimes Review]
Dir. Raoul Peck, 1993, 106 mins.
Set in Haiti during the early sixties when François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s regime was consolidating its brutal control, The Man by the Shore is an eloquent account of the ways in which political oppression can saturate ones consciousness and infiltrate the details of everyday life.
Monday, Oct. 6 7:30 pm Pawol Granmoun
Dir. David Belle, 2002, 58 mins.
“Pawol Gran Moun” or “Words of the Elders” is the first part in a number of documentaries about traditional culture that Crowing Rooster Arts is currently producing in Haiti. This series aims to capture the lives, memories and traditions of Haiti’s older generations during a time when the country’s youth increasingly embraces foreign values and culture.
As traditional life and memory seem to be more and more jeopardized everywhere in the world, “Pawol Gran Moun” hopes to serve as a reminder that the wisdom and knowledge of our elders is essential to both our history and our future.
This first one hour segment is the portrait of three elder peasants: a tailor, a sailor and a Vodou priest. Through the story of each man’s life, the Haiti of yesterday and today meet, and the beauty of the way that life has been lived for generations lives on. Director will be in attendence.
Madame Tizo
Dir. David Belle, 2004, 64 mins.
Madame Tizo (Mrs. Little Bones) is a documentary portrait of a dynamic peasant healer from Jacmel, Haiti. The film tells the story of an extraordinary Haitian elder who runs the equivalent of a rural health clinic from her modest thatched roof hut situated near the Jacmel River. While taking care of numerous relatives and neighbors who depend upon her, Mrs. Little Bones or Mother Bones, as friends know her, simultaneously works as a midwife and leaf doctor for an endless stream of men, women and children who find their way to her yard seeking relief from their maladies. Humorous, mysterious and insightful, the film offers a rare glimpse into the traditional life of Haitian peasants. A reality where faith in the spirit world is central to resolving problems and where access to modern medicine is extremely limited. Director will be in attendence.
Former ab-fab community outreach intern, Katie Bliss, is back in the UK (sniff!), but she wrote me about Massukos, a popular band from Mozambique who have a strong commitment to humanitarian work in their country and abroad. She met one of the band members, Feliciano dos Santos, while she was in Cuba last month.
Dos Santos was one of 2008’s Goldman Environmental Prize winners [visit the site to see a short video profile]:
Using music to spread the message of ecological sanitation to the most remote corners of Mozambique, Feliciano dos Santos is empowering villagers to participate in sustainable development and rise up from poverty. In Niassa province, many villages lack even basic sanitation infrastructure. Without reliable access to clean water and waste management systems, the population is highly susceptible to disease. Santos, who grew up in the region, today heads an innovative program that is bringing new hope to Niassa. With his internationally-recognized band, Massukos, Santos uses music to promote the importance of water and sanitation in Mozambique. His program is now serving as a model for other sustainable development programs around the world.
Feliciano dos Santos Goldman Acceptance Speech and Song
Duration: 5min 8sec
Dos Santos along with the rest of Massukos and several other international artists have banded together for an Poo tour “to promote, educate and facilitate a wider understanding of life’s basic necessities – principally sanitation and clean water – in Africa”.
If you are in the UK and going to the Glastonbury festival (lucky devil), check Massukos out at the Jazz World Stage on Saturday, June 28th.
At the end of March, we and our community partner, SOIL, finished 2 urine-diverting dry toilets (a.k.a. ecosan toilets) in Shada, Cap-Haitien.
Here is part 2 of the pictorial how-to. You can find Part 1 here.
Building the stairs.
Molds for the toilet holes and pouring the concrete floor. Four plastic buckets are used to form the mold for where the toilet holes will be located for the 2 chambers. The concrete is poured and allowed to cure.
Lids for unused toilet holes.
Building the toilet house out of concrete block.
Finishing touches. The roof and door are added as well as a few accents. The chambers are sealed.
Urine Diverting Toilet and Urinal
Unfinished interior with urinal and 2 toilets (1 for adults, 1 for children). The simple urinal was constructed from cement with a wooden mold.
Urine collection drum and air vent. Hoses drain urine into the urine collection drum.
Pa jete fatra andedan twalet la!!! Don’t throw trash in the toilet. Latrine design allows for natural light and ventilation.
Squat Eco-san toilet with a bamboo superstructure in India
Duration: 2min 2sec
This squat latrine also has an area for cleansing.
Ecosan toilet in Bangalore
4min 47sec
Ecosan toilet in an urban area and that too on a first floor.The source separating pan ensures that urine and faeces is collected separately. The system has been designed for the Indian condition,squatters (not sitters) and washers(not wipers). A rainwater collection system collects rain from he roof into a barrel. The water for ablution purpose comes entirely from rain. A Tippy Tap dispenses water in small doses for cleansing. The urine itself is used as a fertilizer for plants and the faeces composted for application to soil. The Ecosan system is a water conserving,resource generating and pollution preventing system, good for urban areas and rural places especially.
Dry Toilet-Barrio La Vega, Venezuela
This clip is too short to tell you enough about the system, however the rain water catchment system to include, presumably for handwashing, is a great idea.
Description:
The Millennium Campus Network (MCN) is an organization of university student groups in the Boston area committed to supporting the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate extreme poverty. The Network brings together student organizations at leading universities to make the anti-poverty movement - in the spirit of the MDGs - a fully cross-disciplinary, collaborative and integrated effort.
The MCN’s Millennium Campus Conference will be hosted by different member universities each year, with the MCN hosting a series of seminars, workshops, and projects in between each conference. The inaugural conference, hosted by the MIT GPI, will open MCN’s resources and mentorship opportunities to the hundreds of students interested in starting or continuing work in poverty alleviation in the coming year.
Schedule:
Day 1 - Friday 4/18
9-11am
Registration
11am-12pm
Opening keynote
1-2pm
Technology keynote:Amy Smith
2:15-3:30pm
Track Session 1
Economics: Globalization: The Panacea for Poverty?
Education: The Bottom Up Approach
Health: AIDS in Zambia: A Personal Account
Public Policy: Leading the Charge Against Global Poverty
Technology: The Technological Chasm in ICT
3:30-5:30pm
PANEL: Stories from the Field: Student Work in Poverty Alleviation
Movie Screening: Salud
6:00-10pm
Evening Activities
Day 2 - Saturday 4/19
8-9:30am
Registration
9:30-10:30am
Health keynote: Paul Farmer
10:45am-12pm
Track Session 2
Economics: Banking for the Poor
Education: Bridging the Technology Gap for Educational Growth
Health: Health Challenges of Today: New Versions of Old Diseases
Public Policy: Power, Responsibility, and Extreme Poverty
Technology: “Small is Beautiful”: Appropriate Technology
12-1pm
Education keynote: John Wood
1-2:30pm
Networking Luncheon (limited to 100 attendees)
1-3:30pm
Student Expo for Social Change
3:45-5pm
Track Session 3
Economics: Institutional Aid: Harmful or Essential?
Education: Cost-Effective Education
Health: : Obstacles to Healthcare Delivery
Public Policy: Faith and Famine
Technology: The Green Revolution and the Fight Against World Hunger
5-6pm
Action Workshop - Starting Projects for Global Change
Action Workshop - Leadership and Organizations: Leading Your Peers to Change the World
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