Collective Lens

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

2009-09-28T05:33:34Z

October 15 is Blog Action Day 2009, and this year’s theme is Climate Change. So, come on bloggers and let your readers know what they can do to make a difference.

Head over to blogactionday.org for more information.

Hunger and Hope

2009-04-29T17:16:52Z

We’ve all seen the images and heard the statistics. Hunger–indeed starvation–is something that people face all over the world. Many people in Africa and Asia are just one poor harvest away from starvation. Children in the U.S. will soon be at the end of school, and while many will rejoice, many others will lose the only healthy meals they have had for the past 9 months. Global warming, development, poor farming techniques and limited fresh water are threats to the food supply that are in our future. It is easy to be bleak about the outlook for the world food supply.

And yet there is reason for hope. People are learning sustainable farming techniques. Organizations like Heifer International give people the means to produce or purchase their own food, those getting them out of a cycle of poverty. That is why bloggers are uniting today to publicize hunger and the needs people are facing today and in the future. Please consider a donation to Heifer, your local food bank, or another hunger-related charity. Bring hope to someone who is hungry today.

The Orphans of Djenne

2009-04-23T18:46:49Z

Amidst the numerous mud-brick buildings of Djenne, it is hard not to notice the multitudes of children. Djenne is a small town situated on an island in the Bani River in central Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world. 90% of Mali’s population lives on less than $2 a day. The town of Djenne draws many tourists every year who come to see its large mud mosque and colorful weekly market.

We spent a week in Djenne and got to meet many of the street children. They followed us around, a few asking for money but most just curious to know more about us. We discovered that many of the children in Mali are orphans, often given up by their parents who can not afford to care for them. Boys are sent out on the streets to sell sugar or to beg, while girls are kept in the house to perform manual labor, or even sold to other families to do chores.

In Djenne we met with Amadou, a local man who has taken action to solve the town’s orphan problem. Djenne does not have an orphanage, and children without parents to care for them roam the streets, searching for a way to survive. Amadou invited us to his family’s modest home so that we could meet some of the children and learn more about the specific problems relating to orphans in Djenne. Amadou’s English was limited, but he did know one word very well: “problem”. On the street, we passed a young pregnant woman that Amadou knew well. He placed his hand on her belly and said, “problem”. He explained to us (in French and broken English) that she was not married, and when her child was born, it would likely become an orphan. A child born to an unwed woman is not only a financial burden on an already struggling family, but also a social embarrassment in this mostly Muslim community. Furthermore, children that are not born to married couples usually can not get an official birth certificate. This important document is required to enroll in school in Mali, and without it a struggling child has an even harder challenge ahead.

After weaving our way through the narrow streets of Djenne, we reached Amadou’s house. Many children were waiting to meet us. They were happy, excited, curious, and rambunctious. Packed into the front room of Amadou’s house, they said hello to us in French which they have been learning in school. They curiously posed for photos, and the older children helped the younger ones maneuver to the front of the pack to greet us. Fortunately, most of these children now have a home. Amadou and other community members recently started an organization to help place the orphans with nearby families that can afford to take in an extra child. The organization also acquires birth certificates so that these children can attend school, and provides funds to provide for proper medical care. An orphanage is also being planned, so that even more children can receive care.

After the children left, we stayed in Amadou’s house while he served us tea and explained more about his future plans for the orphans. Amadou and the rest of the organization’s members are attempting to raise a significant amount of money to build an orphanage on an empty plot of land just outside of town. But Amadou does not like “projects” as he describes them. He is referring to “projects” and funding that come from NGOs or foreign governments. When the money comes, Amadou says that the money is illegally squandered. “New house, big car for fat man in Bamako,” he says in his broken English. During our time in Mali, we have heard many other stories about corruption, theft, and resources diverted from the local people intended to receive the benefits. Amadou does not trust anyone outside of his community to run the project, and he wants to raise money for the organization directly from donors.

As we sat in his house drinking tea, I had more time to look around. The room we sat in was actually open to the sky, and a few smaller rooms with a roof extended through a small doorway on one side. A narrow stairwell led to another room built on the roof. Amazingly, the entire structure is built of baked mud bricks and then coated with a smooth outer layer of mud. Every year the family must repair the damage to their home after the rainy season. The town does not have plumping, and all water is carried in from the nearby well. His family’s life is difficult and demanding, and yet Amadou served us tea and peanuts while he explained to us how and why he wanted to raise so much money to help others.

However, this type of achievement is nearly impossible without connections to the outside world. Like many people in Mali, Amadou suffers from an inability to explain his plight to the outside world. Internet access is expensive and scarce, and very few Malians have a strong understanding of technological resources. While the organization’s plans for the orphanage are very detailed, the plans to raise money are not progressing as well. The members are trying to raise money from nearby towns, and they occasionally and politely ask tourists for help, but neither strategy has achieved much success. Amadou hopes that word will spread and donors will send money via Western Union. While this is far from convenient for anyone wishing to make a donation, it is the only way Amadou knows how to collect funds. The mail is slow and unreliable, and he does not have enough knowledge of or access to the internet to create well connected fundraising campaign.

After our conversation at his house, Amadou took us to see the site for the future orphanage. We made our way to the edge of town and down the small slope to the river. At this time of the year the river is very low, so we waded across the ankle-deep water while children played and women washed clothes. About five minutes later we arrived at a marked-off area with a stack of mud bricks in each corner. Amadou pointed at different areas and described how some rooms would be for the children, some for the school, and some for the small tourist hotel. He was very proud of the idea to let tourists stay at the orphanage – it will provide the funds to sustain the organization indefinitely as well as give tourists a cheaper alternative to Djenne’s mostly higher-priced tourist campements. The first step is to build a well, he said. Without water, the orphanage would not be practical and the construction can not begin. Next comes the construction itself, and the budget and work is entirely planned.

Work is progressing slowly due to a lack of funding. Most money that the organization raises is allocated to the daily tasks of healthcare and education. In addition to “purchasing” the birth certificates for orphans, medical expenses are a large portion of the organization’s budget. Several times each year, doctors from Europe come to donate their time for free. However, the hospital costs, while very inexpensive by western standards, are still far out of reach to most people in Mali. One young girl, Coumba Bah, is awaiting the opportunity to have an operation on her leg in late April if the organization can raise several hundred dollars.

Amadou is making progress to improve the situation for Djenne’s orphans. His plans for the orphanage are moving forward and he is slowly reaching out to beyond his immediate community. But with little outside help he is finding that the goals of the organization are being delayed. The community would like to begin construction of the orphanage in October of 2009, but over 10 million CFA, or $20,000 (US) must first be raised. In Mali, this is a daunting task, but one which Amadou and his community have taken on despite the challenge.

Anyone wishing to help can contact us at info [at] collectivelens.com

Sports for Good: Photography Can Change the Way We Play

2009-04-09T18:40:11Z

A sports photographer’s dream shot:

Chunks of mud splatter onto a face twisted in concentration; limbs scatter in all directions as the body contorts in a frozen moment of action that seems to mock gravity. Perhaps a few drops of perspiration fly from the forehead, and wisps of sweat-soaked hair join the body’s movement towards impact…

…and most importantly, the subject is a celebrity athlete, preferably the star player with a big contract from the NFL, the NBA, the MLB…

Or a more likely sports photographer’s dream shot:

A sports celebrity wearing plain clothes engages in a naughty act. Perhaps he’s tangled in a fight or cheating on a spouse. The news networks will shell out some big bucks for this shot.

I know that I’m not alone when I say that I’m tired of seeing sports photography used as a channel for mass-media gossip. Can’t we do better?

Indeed, we can. In fact, there’s a global community already working to change the way we play; their goal is to use sports to address our most pressing social issues. But in order to fuel a changing attitude about sports, we need to document our accomplishments and show exactly what we want to see. We want athletes who run for charity, soccer programs for underprivileged youth, rowers who cross the ocean to raise money for clean drinking water, and adaptive sports programs for differently-abled children and adults. And that’s where we could really use a new model for sports photography.

The sport-for-good community isn’t using cameras to display celebrity lives and high-profile action shots; this community is much more interested in documenting how we can use sports as an agent for social change. Young people, photographers, athletes, and activists are coming together to show how they “sport for good.”

For the next seven weeks, a youth-based activist web space known as YouthNoise Play City is hosting a photo competition that asks “What do you play for?” The entries are pouring in-each submission fulfills another athlete’s need to share her or his story. Through their photographic documentation, these artist-athletes are showing the world how they use sports to affect constructive change in their local and global communities.

It’s about time we take our sports media coverage back from the world of marketing strategy and celebrity hype, and start snapping shots of young athletes who are changing the world through sports and play.

The Great Cholera Epidemic of 2008-2009

2009-02-19T14:10:39Z

Cholera is a disease most people in the developed world think about very little. It is a bacterial infection that is caused most often by contaminated water supplies. Most of the developed world can take clean drinking water for granted, but that unfortunately is not the case worldwide. Once a person is infected, the chief symptom is extreme diarrhea which can cause dehydration and death within hour if left untreated. For most people, treatment does not require expensive drugs or advanced medical intervention; a simple rehydration therapy that balances fluids and necessary minerals will get most people through an infection. A smaller number of people may need IV fluids, and an even smaller number may benefit from antibiotics. As the World Health Organization says, “Cholera is an easily treatable disease.”

That is why it is all the more tragic that more than 3600 people have died of Cholera in Zimbabwe since last summer. A perfect storm of events has led to a controllable disease having this bad an outbreak: a governmental collapse led to a collapse in infrastructure maintenance and repair. As a result, water became contaminated which led to an outbreak where more than 76,000 people have been infected. At the same time, the health-care system in Zimbabwe collapsed while floods took already contaminated water and spread it into streams and rivers to spread the disease even more. While there has been some media coverage of the Cholera outbreak, aid from developed countries has been slow in coming due to the political upheaval. As usual, Doctors Without Borders has jumped in to provide medical treatment where none would otherwise exist (they estimate that they have treated over 45,000 people already). But their efforts cannot stop the epidemic from expanding and killing more people.

Left untreated, Cholera will kill a person. Let to run rampant, an epidemic will lead to more and worse conditions. Doctors Without Borders warns that further troubles could be ahead for Zimbabwe if more aid is not forthcoming. Famine, further disease outbreaks, and a worsening of the death rate from AIDS are all things that can happen if cholera continues to ravage the country unchecked. A simply treated disease can cause a medical emergency. For the people in Zimbabwe, it already has.

Ethical Tourism

2009-02-05T21:42:01Z

We’re now in Morocco, our first destination in Africa, and have had a chance to reflect on our current and previous travels. Our experiences in developing countries have given us a unique glimpse into the challenges that many face when meeting life’s daily requirements. Whether you travel for business or pleasure, you likely interact with communities that depend on tourism to help support their economy. When appropriately distributed, the money tourism brings to a community can dramatically impact the quality of life that residents experience. We’ve outlined several tips below to help ensure you have a positive experience, and provide a positive impact on the communities you visit.

Ensure that your money stays within the local community. If possible, try to avoid businesses run by overseas companies. Stay at locally run hotels, visit locally owned restaurants, and shop at merchants where products are created and sold by residents of the community. If you choose to participate in a tour, find one that’s locally run and gives back to community. These souvenirs and experiences will likely be more personal and memorable, while also supporting a range of industries in the community.
While it may be tempting to give a quick donation to an individual on the street, restrain from giving handouts, especially to children. It’s often hard to walk by someone in need and know that your money or gift could help them. However, giving handouts ultimately leads to dependence on further handouts. Children are often pulled out of school to beg on the street for their parents. Giving handouts only encourages this behavior and limits the child’s future potential.
If you wish to make a donation, find a legitimate NGO or charity in the community. Many organizations work to create sustainable programs that help residents become financially independent. Guidebooks often provide a useful list of successful organizations in the area of your travels.
Negotiate fair prices for goods and services. By regularly overpaying for certain services, tourists often price out locals. For example, when tourists artificially inflate the price of taxis, locals are no longer able to afford them. Similarly, when specific careers move up the pay scale, other industries not directly impacted by tourism suffer. Ultimately, more locals focus on this artificially inflated career path, limiting the number of individuals entering other high paying professions that require further education. This leads to a less educated and diverse population and an unbalanced economy that is dangerously dependent on tourism.
Don’t support government run businesses in politically corrupt countries. Additional money given to these governments only strengthens policies that have historically harmed the citizens. If possible, find locally run businesses that allow your money to stay within the community. While you do not have to avoid all travel to countries with poor human rights records, you should still be sensitive to where your money goes.

For many communities tourism has provided a positive economic jolt that brings outside currency to a locally maintained economy. When traveling, keep in mind that your actions can have a direct impact, either positive or negative, on individual lives and entire communities. Remember to enjoy your travels and continue to learn from the cultures around you.

The Bamboo Famine

2009-01-13T15:29:37Z

Myanmar has had more than its share of humanitarian crises in recent years. The overall situation is well-summarized by Doctors without Borders.

What is even less well known than the general state of affairs in Myanmar is a famine that has struck the area around the town of Ccpur. Bamboo grows wild in that area, and is an important source of food for the people and animals who live there. However, once every 50 years, the bamboo blooms and forms fruit. This fruit and the seeds inside are a rich food source for the rats that live in the bamboo fields. With an abundant food source, the rats thrive and reproduce at an alarming rate. More and more rats survive to maturity as they sate themselves on the fruit of the twice-a-century bloom. The problem occurs when the bloom is over.

When the fruit from the bamboo is gone, the artificially high population of rats must search elsewhere for food. As cwnewz.com reports, “Once the rats have finished eating the bamboo plants, they plow their way through other fields, devouring grain, corn and rice. The rats even dig up and eat the seeds farmers have planted in the ground.” As a result, famine arrives closely on the heals of the bamboo bloom. The phenomenon is such a part of life in this region that they have a word for it: mautam (which translated means “bamboo famine”).

Photo by Ashley Clements

This century’s first mautam is blamed for 40 deaths and has left over 100,000 people on the brink of starvation. The infamously inept government has been slow to provide aid to the people living in that area. There are a few Christian relief workers in that area (ccpur is a predominantly Christian area of the country), but otherwise there does not seem to be a way to get aid to these people. Pressure from other governments could help prod the Myanmar government to provide better aid, but since I have been unable to find this famine reported in a western news source, the chances of that seem very slim.

Sugar

2009-01-09T21:15:23Z

Everyone should have a look at burn magazine, a new online publication by David Alan Harvey from Magnum. The goal of burn is to provide a platform for emerging photographers, and a $10,000 grant will be awarded to a deserving and upcoming artist.

A recent photo essay entitled Sugar, by Anton Kusters, is one of several on the site, and artistically portrays the life of a young girl diagnosed with diabetes.

She taught me a lesson there… The things that are on top of a kid’s list, should in fact be on top of anyone’s list: Life is about playing with friends and family and having fun as much as you possibly can…

Submissions are currently being accepted to burn magazine via their website.

2009: A Year of Outreach

2009-01-10T04:20:34Z

We founded Collective Lens to raise awareness of serious issues in the world that are often overlooked. Frequently popular media in western countries ignores or avoids stories related to the everyday plight of people around the world. It is not just the struggles that are overlooked by the media, but also the inspiring and successful programs established by NGO’s, governments, and individuals to remedy these problems. In 2006, my wife Laurie and I traveled through Southeast Asia and found people rich in culture and nations covered in beautiful landscapes. Unfortunately, we also saw lots of poverty. Much of this poverty is exasperated by a lack of educational standards, unsustainable business practices, curable diseases awaiting treatment, and a general lack of opportunity for individual people. These living conditions were not new to the many people living in such places, but the simple fact that these huge problems exist had never fully come to our attention through our normal news sources: American television, newspapers, and the internet. Nor were we aware of the many simple opportunities for us to make difference in someone else’s life. When we returned home to the U.S. we became frustrated by the content of national news both on TV and the internet. Popular culture, including the activities of movie stars and musicians, often takes precedence over other headlines about the struggles of people in third world nations. Most journalism in western countries has become a business, and poverty does not sell. At that point we realized that we needed to start some type of news and educational resource to inform everyone that the problems we witnessed do exist, and furthermore, that there are real, tangible, and inexpensive ways that someone can help. We knew that this resource needed to be a nonprofit organization instead of a business. We also knew that the best source of information is the person right there in front of the problem, and that people everywhere must become the journalists. Thus, Collective Lens was born.

In 2009 we will travel through Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, meeting with local people and small organizations along the way. Our goals will be to show how people in other parts of the world live and how you can make a difference that can better someone’s life. No matter where you live, there are many stereotypes and assumptions about other cultures that often limit your ability to make a personal connection. By showing the differences and similarities between cultures, we believe that more people will be encouraged to reach out to their neighbors across the globe. We also want to showcase the important work of small organizations that are truly making a difference. Instead of blind charitable handouts to people in need, many organizations are relying on education and sustainability to allow recipients to help themselves perpetually. These charities deserve more attention not just for their innovative work, but also because we can all learn from their experiences. Our hope is to inspire more people to reach out and make a difference to someone who lives a life different from their own.

Our year long trip will begin on January 20th in Morocco. Over the next several months we will weave our way through West Africa passing through some of the world’s poorest, yet most amazing countries. Then we will head to the Middle East, a region where many people maintain a relatively high standard of living, but find their lives often interrupted by religious and racially driven conflict. Next we will head to East Africa before venturing on to India. We won’t be able to visit every country in each of these regions, but hopefully our trip will provide us with a solid cross-section of the cultures and beliefs in each place. While a major motivation for our trip is to raise awareness through Collective Lens, our adventure is self funded and some of it will be for personal enjoyment. We plan to see some amazing cultures, make some wonderful friends, and learn about the world from a variety of perspectives.

If you know of any organizations, charities, or NGO’s in the regions that we will be visiting, please let us know about them. We are currently in the process of seeking out organizations to visit, and we’d love to hear from our readers. You can post in the comments or send us an email to info [at] collectivelens.com.

Naturally, you can expect blog posts about our travels here on the Collective Lens blog, but this blog will contain much more than that. We’ve gained a few writers lately. Russ will usually be writing about humanitarian issues, Chanelle will be writing about nonprofit strategies, and Heidi and Brynn will be writing about various issues in third world countries. (If you’re interested in writing for Collective Lens, read this.)

Thanks for your support everyone, we’re looking forward to a great year.

-Bryan and Laurie, founders of Collective Lens

Best of 2008

2008-12-30T19:07:25Z

Yes, it’s that time of year where we all take a look back and contemplate on the future. A number of magazines and websites have come up with their own versions of “the best photos of 2008″ and we have to agree that there are some terrific photos out there.

Boston.com’s The Big Picture: part 1, part 2, part 3
Time Magazine’s Pictures of the Year 2008
NY Times 2008 – The Year in Pictures
The Economist 2008 in pictures

Finally, here are some of the best photos uploaded to Collective Lens in 2008.

Street life from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. A head load would possibly fetch him the money to buy his meal for the day. ‘Daily Labor’ is possibly the only means of earning for many people living here. A centralized policy (or Enforcement of such a Policy) on the minimum wage to be offered for daily labor would possibly make their lives relatively better and reduce their exploitation !!

by Tanushree

Beno is hard at work in one of his four barbershop locations, which are rapidly growing through the use of microloans.

by Meda.org

An officer taking blood sample from a Sumatra Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) in BKSDA (Badan Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam – Natural Resource Conservation Agency) in Banda Aceh, Aceh Province. June 26th 2008. (fauzan ijazah)
The tiger was captured in Southern Aceh on November 2007. The Tiger will be identified with a transponder device and tattoo, and soon will be release in national park Bukit Barisan Selatan which covers 3 provinces Lampung, South Sumatra, Bengkulu.
The Sumatran tiger, or Panthera tigris sumatrae, is the world’s most critically endangered tiger subspecies. WWF estimates fewer than 400 remain in the wild in comparison to about 1,000 in the 1970s.

by fauzan ijazah

A baby’s temperature is being taken at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Southern Sudan. The Clinic provides OB/GYN services and almost 200 expecting mothers were seen and evaluated in the first year of operation. These are the first women to ever receive prenatal care in Southern Sudan. The Duk Lost Boys Clinic is operated and funded by the John Dau Sudan Foundation.

Photo by Dennis Steinauer for the John Dau sudan Foundation.

Little girls from the first home, eating lunch cooked by their local “aunties” (they are the ladies who look atfer them, day and night.

by Orphfund

Thanks for your contributions, everyone! We’re looking forward to 2009.