Win a Trip to Africa…

…with award-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof.

Writes Kristof in “Win a Trip You Won’t Forget” in the New York Times:

“If you win, you won’t be practicing tourism but journalism. You’ll blog for nytimes.com and file videos for The Times and for YouTube.

I’m doing this for two reasons. First, I want to engage young people about global issues that I’m passionate about. Second, it’s good journalism, for you’ll bring a tool to reporting from Africa that I no longer have: a fresh eye.

The contest is open to undergraduate or graduate students at American universities. Details for applying are on my blog, http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground. You can apply by essay or by video on YouTube, or both.”

Bush Cuts Birth Control

Excerpts from Nicholas D. Kristof’s “Can This Be Pro-Life?” in the NY Times:

“The Bush administration this month is quietly cutting off birth control supplies to some of the world’s poorest women in Africa.

Thus the paradox of a “pro-life” administration adopting a policy whose result will be tens of thousands of additional abortions each year — along with more women dying in childbirth.

The saga also spotlights a clear difference between Barack Obama and John McCain. Senator Obama supports U.N.-led efforts to promote family planning; Senator McCain stands with President Bush in opposing certain crucial efforts to help women reduce unwanted pregnancies in Africa and Asia…

…Retrograde decisions on reproductive health are reached in conference rooms in Washington, but I’ve seen how they play out in African villages. A young woman lies in a hut, bleeding to death or swollen by infection, as untrained midwives offer her water or herbs. Her husband and children wait anxiously outside the hut, their faces frozen and perspiring as her groans weaken.

When she dies, her body is bundled in an old blanket and buried in a shallow hole, with brush piled on top to keep wild animals away. Her children sob and shriek and in the ensuing months they often endure neglect and are far more likely to die of hunger or disease.”

(Red)Auction Rakes in $42.6 Mil

Contemporary art collectors–including Queen Noor, Martha Stewart, Anna Wintour and Russell Simmons–showed their love today by bidding $42,584,300 on 82 works donated by artists to Bono and Damien Hirst’s The (Red) Auction at Sotheby’s.

All $ raised will go to the The Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.

How to Help Kenya Now

An Emergency Fund has been set up for victims of violence in Kenya, where more than 250,000 people have been displaced and more than 800 people killed since post-election uprisings.

Learn what you can do to help now at www.afsc.org.

Jolie-Pitt Foundation Gives a Mil to Darfur

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt have donated $1 million to assist the two-million-plus displaced people within Darfur and the 1/4 million Darfur refugees in camps in neighboring Chad.The donation will go to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Rescue Committee and SOS Children’s Villages.

Bed Net Beckham’s L.A. Debut

Malaria No More spokesman David Beckham made his public debut with the L.A. Galaxy this evening, where he was wildly cheered for tying his shoelaces–and for playing soccer for 15 glorious minutes (in spite of a nasty ankle injury).

Malaria No More‘s goal is is to end deaths caused by malaria, which claims more than a million lives a year and is the #1 killer of kids under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa. Find out how to bed net it like Becks and help at www.malarianomore.org.

Buy a bed net for ten bucks & save somebody’s life!

$1/Day Sends 3 Street Boys to School in Nairobi

Watoto wa Lwanga is a children’s organization that provides education & rehabilitation for kids from Nairobi’s worst slums (including Kibera, which was featured in The Constant Gardener). Established by the Brothers of St. Charles Lwanga–a Catholic community initiated in Uganda–Watoto wa Lwanga has transformed the lives of thousands of children in Nairobi.

Learn more about Watoto wa Lwanga at www.charleslwanga.org

#1 Cause of Preventable Blindness

“Nobody need suffer a life of misery, pain, eventual blindness, and early death from their trachoma. We have for trachoma a strategy that works, and we’ve applied it successfully in southern Sudan–which is the most difficult place to work in the world–and made it work.”

–Dr. Paul Emerson, director of the Carter Center’s Trachoma Control Program, from Laura Svienty’s “Into Africa” piece on the Carter Center’s fight against controllable blindness  

 

Click link to read “Into Africa” piece: https://philanthroflash.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/0707_featcarter_v3.pd

Hammer Time

“Animals are being threatened with extinction and the young generation is is being imprisoned for criminal activities. We are looking for supporters so that small business enterprises and conservation education programs can be introduced to the community. There is a chance to rehabilitate the national park’s biodiversity and its people.”

Hammer Simwinga, winner of the 2007 Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa

Click link to read about Hammer’s work in Zambia: https://philanthroflash.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/0705_recognition_v2-11.pdf