While visiting Zambia recently,
November 29th, 2007 at 4:42 pm | posted by Field
While visiting Zambia recently, I was reminded that extreme poverty is not just numbers and statistics. It lives in real people and has a life of its own. I was part of a group that was visiting a project that helps care for orphans and ensure that they receive education. In seeing this project, I was faced with the reality that I live in a world where I was fortunate enough to obtain a graduate education and as a result, provide for my family (my only daughter has just started college). I kept thinking that mothers around the world deserve similar opportunities.
During my trip, I met a lovely young boy named Armand. Armand, his little sister, his big brother and his three cousins live in a cramped, one room home that has neither running water nor electricity. He was smiling with his sister by the time I met him, a smile brighter than I had ever seen. Unfortunately, due to school fees, Armand doesn’t know whether or not he will be able to go to school as expected next term. This bright bubbly boy is just one of the many people, women and children that daily face life and death struggles, and lack of opportunity.
In a land faced with 78% unemployment, where 87% of the population lives on less than $2 per day, and life expectancy hovers around 38-years old, change is essential. The scriptures state that to whom much is given, much is required. As a person living in a nation that has been so richly blessed, I don’t see how we can sit idly by while neighbors literally fight for their lives? We must use our platform and speak out! Anything else is unacceptable. The ONE Campaign, and each member’s decision to take action, will ensure that Armand and others like him will have the opportunity to become all they were created to be.
The need is urgent and the stakes are high. The stakes are, literally, life itself. What will you do with all you have received? Take Action!
-Tatia Gibbons, mother and ONE Member, Oak Park, Illinois
November 29th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
This is ONE of the better posts that I have seen in the ONE Blog in quite some time.
WHY? Because it focuses on the reason why we all are ONE - the People living in extreme poverty throughout Africa.
Our movement was created as a vehicle through which we could express our concern for them and I hope that we’ll always remember that.
Whitebanding politicos and having photo op moments with them is only meaningful as a way to get our point across to them that we are committed to ending extreme poverty in the world and that we encourage them to join us AS ONE in this endeavor.
Thank you, Tatia, for your very important post. The time is now for all of us to TAKE ACTION to stop HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty in our world.~
Take very good care of each other, my friends. Blessings always.
AS ONE, debbie
November 30th, 2007 at 1:51 am
We all talk about the crisis in the educational system, but maybe we’re overlooking some powerful tools. Because they are considered entertainment. I’m contacting all the US presidential candidates, different parties from several countries, the entertainment industry from various countries, and scientific foundations for studies on this matter. My questions are: how effective would it be to have entertainment devices used in schools? What would the needs of the education department be? And how would the entertainment industry be able to respond to those needs? Let me give you more details.
Reading does widen horizons. Reading is a most invaluable tool, but one that takes time and a lot of effort to acquire with the traditional methods, used so far. I believe the answer lies within finding new methods.
I always loved music. When I was growing up I’d memorize the lyrics of my favorite songs from the Top 40 and the words I didn’t know, I’d look them up in the dictionary. Memorizing and singing lyrics helped me develop the English I learned in school and helped me untangle my tongue when speaking it.. Then I started studying singing. That was my favorite class ever. I could come to it feeling tired but I’d always leave in a good mood. That happens because to sing properly, you have to fill your lungs with oxygen all the way down to your diaphragm, and as a consequence your body and brain get plenty of it. So singing does two things at the same time, helps you think faster and is a natural self-esteem booster. I believe that learning would improve, if there was a way for students to learn how to read while singing. I think there is. It’s called Karaoke. I’m sure you’ve seen it before, you sing to a music while looking in a screen that moves the lyrics word by word by word… You can start by hearing the lyrics along with the music and with slow paced songs and then move to faster ones later. Further more, Sesame Street and other children shows from all over the world, have songs about various subjects. If they were put into CD’s they could be used as learning tools. Adriana Calcanhoto, a Brazilian singer put up a beautiful quite instructive children’s show with songs about animals, famous people, called Partimpim, to give you an idea of what is possible to do .
But learning to read isn’t the only way it’s possible to put Karaoke to a very practical usage. A few years ago I read that if you studied the songs from the Beatles you could learn to speak English. My personal experience tells me it is so and since I heard that Bob Dylan’s name had been suggested for a Literature Nobel Prize I was even more convinced about it. We can add more names like U2, Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen, Ella Fitzgerald etc. Learning Portuguese with Rui Veloso, Chico Buarque, Xutos e Pontapés, Gilberto Gil, Amália Rodrigues etc. Learning French with Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf etc. Learning Italian with famous opera songs like “La donna é mobile”… There’s so much to choose from.
From a different fields, movies with subtitles, and books with the original language on one page and a translation on the adjacent page could also be used as a learning tool for languages. Some twenty years ago the French made a wonderful and accurate animated series about the history of Mankind, “Once upon a time… man”. A series like that with English subtitles could do three things at the same time, teach history, make kids listen to French and force them to read English.
We’re used to regard materials from Odyssey, National Geographic and History channels as educational entertainment. The fact is, they are educational. Being entertaining does not take their value away. Why not have some of the documentaries from those channels played at schools just like a regular class?
Another tool we’re overlooking is trivia games, with or without a computer. And specific subject trivia question games could also be developed and used.
These are all tricks I have used myself when studying, so that’s why I believe they can be effective. I don’t have any scientific studies to base my theories, yet but I firmly believe that improving the level of education is, if not the only way, it is the best way, to improve the conditions of life for people on earth and I think it’s obvious kids would enjoy more going to school if such entertainment devices were more used. Consequently they would be more productive. The richest person can loose all his money but nobody can take away from you what you’ve learned.
Thank you
Fátima d’Oliveira
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Thank you for your touching story about Zambia. I really could relate to the story of Armand. I too have been to Zambia on several occasions and met first hand the children who have been orphaned by the pandemic. Most have no one to look after them and just survive on the streets of Lusaka or N’dola. One boy who called himself David did not even know his last name or his age because that had long been forgotten since the death of his parents. He was just a child lost in a sea of humanity. It broke my heart since there was not much I could do for him or the thousands more in Zambia just like David.
That is what motivates me to be involved in the One Campaign. At least I feel I am making a difference maybe even in David’s life. Maybe now there will be a chance that someone will be able to find him and to care for him the way a child should be cared for.