A version of this article, by Jennifer Swann, a culture and lifestyle reporter covering the intersection of pop culture and social justice, originally appeared on TakePart.
Photo: AFP/Getty Images
To the thousands of European and American tourists who flock to it on vacation, the village of Matemwe Beach looks like a tropical paradise: white sandy beaches, warm turquoise ocean, and plenty of palm trees. Luxury hotels, day spas, and fine restaurants dot the coast on the island of Zanzibar, part of Tanzania, where...
Guest Blogger
This is a photo series from photographer, Darren Ornitz. He is based out of Brooklyn, NY and working as a freelancer for Reuters, his work has been published in the New York Times, Travel + Escape, Afar, and by various other publications and NGO’s.
116 million girls aged 15 to 24 in developing countries have never completed primary education, or have in some instances never attended school, which drastically hampers their chances of rising out of poverty. What Darren Orntiz does...
The craft of cheese-making has been thriving in one region of the Congo, dubbed the ‘Switzerland of Africa’.
David McNair is an award-winning reporter and editor based in Charlottesville, Va. He runs the hyper-local news site The DTM and his fiction has appeared inVirginia Quarterly Review. A version of this was published on Take Part.
In the lush hills of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, an unusual craft practiced in the Masisi Mountains is thriving despite decades of war: fine cheese-making.
Known in...
This is the second in a series of posts on a study abroad in South Africa by Juliet Schear. You can read the introduction to and part 1 of the series here.
Photo credit: Joel Burt-Miller
The Disability Project – Sandanezwe, KZN
Tucked away in the sprawling mountains and grassy hills of Sandanezwe lays a hidden gem: The Sandanezwe Disability Project. The importance of the Disability Project to this closely knit rural community is analogous to the importance of water to a seedling; the...
A Seva Safari participant practicing yoga with members of the Maasai tribe in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. (Photo credit: Africa Yoga Project) By Melissa Catelli. A version of this post was originally published by Take Part. For most travelers, a Kenyan safari involves days of patiently waiting for a glimpse of lions, elephants, or an elusive leopard hiding in the bush. For native New Yorker Paige Elenson, a 2006 family safari yielded a far less conventional sighting: a group of young Kenyan...
By James Nardella
James Nardella is the Executive Director of Lwala Community Alliance, an indigenously founded, nonprofit health, education, and development organization that is working to increase child survival, reduce the burden of HIV, and achieve gender equity in a rural population with acute needs in western Kenya. This blog is part of a chapter in “The Mother & Child Project: Raising Our Voices for Health and Hope” book, which was compiled by Hope Through Healing Hands.
One evening in 2011,...
In the desert of Namibia’s remote Kunene region bordering Angola, live the Himba, a fascinating, semi-nomadic people whose way of life has virtually remained unchanged from that of their ancestors.
We believe that if we can help keep moms and children healthy worldwide, we can get at the nexus of many sustainable development goals. Moms can go back to work to combat extreme poverty; girls can stay in school to finish secondary school and potentially a university degree; we can promote gender equality, improve maternal and child health, and prevent mother to child transmission of HIV, to name a few outcomes.
Dear Mother Earth,
On behalf of the rest of humanity, I’m sorry for what we’ve done to you. We’re destructive, greedy, selfish and, well, just plain nasty.
That being said, I hope you haven’t lost hope in us just yet because we are a new generation about to take the reigns, and I think you’ll dig us.
We are Millennials, and we’re very cool — but I’m sure you already knew that by overhearing the not-so-very-well-known music our hipsters listen to. You’re probably also a fan of the recycled bicycles we take to work that don’t pump poison into you.
Issac Asimov once said, “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” If it is not your desire to live in darkness then please scrub away. It is simple really: assumptions are constant, the world is not. Most of my assumptions of Africa fell apart while I stayed in Kenya.