TAN – The Afro News

Zimbabwe Reconciliation Feature -Mugabe -Tsvangirai

By  PATRICK MUSIRA, Harare

 Long winding road to peace as . . .

 In the last decade or so, Zimbabwe has been so full of turning points that it often resembled a maze with no exit as it seems to have cornered the market for negative superlatives – a human rights slaughterhouse; rampant lawlessness; an unprecedented economic meltdown; stratospheric inflation rates – whether the subject is economic growth or political elections. Read the full story

Loren Balisky member of Salsbury Community Society

By Ryan Mitchell The Afro News Vancouver

Loren Balisky is a member of Grandview Baptist Church. He is a passionate member who works for Salsbury Community Society, making sure new immigrants receive proper living arrangements until they eventually become independent once they arrive in Canada.

Loren Balisky states his position and the origin of his passion, “I work for a small charity called Salsbury Community Society. Salsbury was formed out of a local Church, by people in the congregation with a vision to connect with the outstanding needs in the community. Back in 1997, when it was founded, it revolved around housing issues. Presently, we still providing housing, but we also help people with the systems’ bureaucracy, immigration, refugee hearings, helping their kids get into school, trying constantly to keep people from falling through the cracks. It’s sort of what we call low level advocacy. We also fulfil the minor work like getting the clients orientated with the city.”

Kinbrace was one of the first non profit initiatives under Salsbury Community Society, “Kinbrace focuses on providing housing for refugee claimants in Metro Vancouver. It is a community, rooted in relationships and practised hospitality that welcomes refugee claimants new to Vancouver by providing housing, support, and advocacy.”

“Our model is very simple; we have a core community who live here permanently.” Balisky believes living within the community of the new comers is the best environment for developing connections.

He describes the reason and goal for Kinbrace. “Our mission is to welcome refugee claimants who are new in Canada and who are homeless. Balisky and his family, along with others, live in a community which is physically connected to the housing units that provide shelter and transitional housing to the new residents. “Refugee claimants live here in self contained units for three to five months and then we work together to help them transition into a permanent housing situation.”

“We have a real interest in community living; I want to know how we can be together as human beings in none isolating ways, so to create a community like this held a lot of attraction and interest.” Living in close arrangements gives Loren opportunities to get to know the new immigrants and assess what other needs they may have. “We also provide any other support, whether it is a job that we can refer them to or something we can help them with directly.”

Loren mentions his support for community living and how it gives comfort to the new comers. “Settlement takes time, and a huge amount of energy to pass the language barriers. There are a lot of issues that need to be attended to, but the people who have been here longer, mentor the new ones just arriving because we all live here together, so it’s a constant spiral of help! ”

Loren speaks about people who are the most exposed in society, “The most vulnerable people in our community are ones who are not having their basic needs met like shelter and food. Of those coming new into the country, which has no shelter and no social connections, the most vulnerable people are refugee claimants.”

He goes further into detail about the predicament of new comers. “We have a lot of vulnerable people, who are Canadians, but often there is already services establish to meet their needs, there aren’t as many services for refugee claimants.”

“You don’t see them sleeping on the street, like some of our Canadian homeless population, but they fit into a category of what we call the ‘hidden homeless.’ They will find someone who speaks their language or who are the same culture as them and they will make a connection, and communities are generally very supportive, of each other, and they will sleep on the couch here and there. So again they don’t sleep on the street, but they are homeless.”

Balisky states the challenge for government policy is trying to attend to the people. “Our government policies need to be attentive to vulnerability and what systems we can set up to help people settle.”

Balisky emphasizes the importance of keeping in touch after welcoming new immigrants into the country. “As an immigrant and refugee accepting country, we welcome newcomers, but if we don’t provide mid- to long-term supports or don’t engage in ongoing mutual relationships, once people land here, they will flounder.”

Some Day Is Now International Project in South Sudan

This is the story of three friends, Galib Bhayani, Stephanie Williams and Dennis Kulakwa and how they decided to do SOMETHING.These friends met in 2007 in Sudan. Galib and Stephanie were there working for the United Nations and Dennis was working for the Christian Brothers, a Catholic NGO. Sudan and the people of south Sudan touched them profoundly and none of them have ever been the same. They have not forgotten for one day, the children walking naked with protruding bellies and runny noses, the women carrying 20 litre jerry cans full of water on their heads, the girls who only make it to Grade 5 because they get married and start having children soon after and the men who work in the hot sun all day to earn the equivalent of 1 Canadian dollar.

These three friends chose to do something more than just look at their photos from Sudan once in a while or reminisce once in a while about their time there. These three friends are doing something. These three friends are going to make a difference in the lives of south Sudanese women and girls. These friends haven’t tried to forget the injustices or poverty or suffering they saw. They hung onto these memories and DID something. They put in their own money, their own time, their own effort, quit promising careers and made sacrifices. Because they didn’t expect someone else to help, didn’t want to wait and hope that someone else would and they never ever wanted to forget the people in south Sudan.

The result is Some Day is Now International. A registered Canadian charity that is working with women and girls in south Sudan to improve their lives and give them opportunities that we in Canada take for granted. Ninety percent of girls in south Sudan are illetrate, the life expectancy is only 42 years (Sources, CIA, UN, UNFPA). Some Day Is Now International wants to give girls the opportunity to attend school and graduate, to deliver their babies in safe and clean medical facilities with trained health professionals, to work with us to help us create projects that are sustainable, capacity building and long lasting.

Galib, Stephanie and Dennis did the paperwork, background work and leg work and launched three initial projects in June 2009 in Yambio, Western Equatoria. On a tiny budget, but with lots of spirit and determination, they jumped in.

The first project, Save Our Girls, in coordination with the Government of South Sudan Ministry of Education was delivering a reproductive health curriculum to secondary school children. Many girls in south Sudan do not know what their period is or what changes are happening in their bodies. Yet many of them become mothers by the time they are 16 years old. They are treated like women, but shielded from issues about their own bodies. In 2010, this project will include an expanded curriculum that will reach girls of all ages in rural areas and will focus on encouraging girls to stay in school.

The second project, Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies, focuses on safe motherhood. South Sudan has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. One of the most effective ways to decrease this trend is to have trained birth attendants at births, a relatively simple solution. You are providing training and employment to many women and helping those who need it. Most women, who live in south Sudan, do not have access to medical facilities or a way to get there or the money to pay for the services. A skilled birth attendant can literally make the difference between life and death for a woman. This project will continue in 2010 and also include supplying birth kits to trained birth attendants.

The third initial project, The Kids Next Door, is helping a 72 year old woman named Santina who is raising four orphans. Technically, they are not all “orphans”, some have both parents who have died, some may have one parent alive, but they are unwilling or unable to care for the child. Santina refers to this service as the “Lord’s work.” She was receiving funding up until January 2008, but since then has not received consistent donations. Pretty hard to raise four kids when you don’t know how much money you’re going to have to live on from one week to the next. She has no other source of income and no other way to support herself and the children if she does not receive donations. There is no running water, no electricity, no radio, no TV, no computers, no video games, no vehicle, no plumbing, no toys……..you get the idea. Things that most of us have never lived without and could not even imagine not having. It is especially tragic to see children going without such basics as, food that provides proper nutrition, clean water, an education and regular medical care.

During a visit with Santina, two of the boys she cares for were sitting and playing in the dirt. Literally……they were laughing and giggling and drawing figures in the dirt with their fingers. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? You won’t trip on any toys when you’re at her compound, you won’t hear music blasting or a TV show in the background. These children have the clothes on their back, which by the way, are dirty and torn. She has a baby who requires milk, but she can’t afford it. So she has to give him home made rice milk, which often causes diarrhea. But what can she do? When is the last time you saw an 8 year old girl doing her own laundry by hand in Canada? We would call that child neglect, but it’s the way life is here. Harsh and demanding. In 2010, Some Day Is Now will continue to support Santina and the children and look for opportunities that will help her to provide for the children.

I hope reading this makes you upset, makes you think how unfair the world is, makes you cry, makes you want to know more about Some Day is Now International and south Sudan, but mostly, I hope it makes you want to DO SOMETHING! You don’t have to help Some Day is Now International, but you have to do SOMETHING. If you don’t, who will? Don’t make any excuses, yes aid organizations can waste money, can be inefficient, can get off track, but do some research, find one you believe in and trust and give. It doesn’t have to be just money, it can be your time, your effort, your knowledge, your brain power, your abilities. Don’t make any more excuses, SOME DAY IS NOW! I urge you to take action. It doesn’t have to be thousands of miles away, help someone in your own community. How is the world going to get better, if we don’t care and don’t act. Be kind to each other, be good to each other, treat others the way you want to be treated, use what gifts and talents and resources you have to make a difference. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Some Day Is Now!

Please visit our website to learn more and make a donation at www.somedayisnowinternational.org.

Stephanie Williams

Managing Director

Some Day Is Now International

Koku Anyidoho, the director of communications at President John Atta Mills’

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong The Afro News International

Koku Anyidoho, the director of communications at President John Atta Mills’ Osu Castle, says he hates ex-President John Kufour’s face more than any other person in Ghana. “I don’t like his face, so I don’t want to hear anything about him.” That’s disturbing from a high profile government figure in Ghana’s/Africa’s volatile political environment where hatred emanating from top government official has set ablaze many an African state – Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and the Democratic of the Congo attest to this. In all these countries, as Koku is increasingly positioning himself into against the backdrop of the poisonous and fire-spitting Jerry Rawlings, his political godfather, people in charge of communications fueled some of Africa’s destruction. You cannot understand some of the reasons for Africa’s disaster without reading Koku. The increasing saturation of the Kokus and their lackeys gives me a jolt of anxiety. Ghana, like either Rwanda or Liberia, doesn’t have any immunities against hate-driven disaster. In the fickle African environment, with its ancient, tribal hatred flowing into the modern nation-states, hate is difficult to talk about. The African mind resists it, yet it exists. Hate is amorphous and disorderly. As the hearings at the UN Special Courts in Freetown and Arusha revealed, even people responsible for hate-driven horrors in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda and DRC, find it difficult to discuss why they committed such atrocities. But Africans know such people were juvenilely saying that “I don’t like his face, so I don’t want to hear anything about him.” And boom, a genocide, a deadly civil war and an African nation-state turned into ashes. In Koku, hatred is intellectually and morally difficult to debate; hatred is such a dangerous, unmanageable mess, such a monster that even I am sure Koku cannot tell us deeply why he doesn’t like Kufour’s face, in an atmosphere charged with his political godfather constantly attacking Kufour. I have nightmares hearing the hate-filled venoms of Kuko and Rawlings.

Why wondering why Kuko, part of Ghana’s new generation of elites, haven’t learned from Rwanda, DRC and the Central African Republic, and why President Atta Mills is still keeping him at his presidency, as a response to Africa full of hatred, I reviewed the Sierra Leonean disaster, where I covered the initial outbreak of the country’s horrendous civil some 14 years ago. As images of Sierra Leone, supposed to be the most civilized country in West Africa then, with its remarkable ancient Fourah Bay College, flashed through my mind, my wits drifted to key figures like Koku who made hatefully mindless speeches. It is Siaka Stevens, Sierra Leone’s long ruling despot, who hatefully said, “pass I die,” as majority yearned for democracy, the rule of law and freedoms. Stevens prepared the grounds for Sierra Leone’s explosion. And the fuel was hatred, as Foday Sankoh demonstrated.

What is hate? A Rwanda turned upside down, the senses and the brain darkened? Deadly African tribalism projected openly? The Other demeaned and seen in gloom? Arrogance killing humility? Feelings and love amputated? Darkness ruling over light? Whatever. The image may give hate too much power, as Koku is using his powerful office to do, but in the long run, as Sierra Leone shows, light and justice prevail. Are Koku and his ilk know that there is hate crime laws in Ghana, in Ecowas regulations, in the African Union charter, and other international laws?

The reason hate is hard to discuss is that it is an ambiguity. As Koku exhibits, hate is either too weighty to comprehend or too superficial and dim-witted to bear much analysis – the machetes used to commit genocide in Rwanda, violent, irrational, an albino cut into pieces for traditional rituals, Jean-Bedel Bokassa cannibalizing for juju powers, a dark power intoxication, a negative energy spilled all over, an accessory of disaster. In Koku, there are no subjectivists or objectivists of hate – all are blurred, for in the final analysis, hatred will consume all Ghanaians, no matter one’s ethnic group, as the Rwandans’ hard realities tell us.

Koku’s hatred of Kufour reveals his mounting, misguided arrogance since he assumed the communication directorship at the Osu Castle, where power has gone into his tangled head and is tormented by his spiritual and emotional inadequacies. At an international conference on hate, held in Oslo, Norway in 1990, Vaclav Havel, the writer and former president of Czech Republic, who had experienced immense hatred under communist rule, revealed the psychology of individual hate, when he said, “…The hater longs for the object of his hatred” and that the classic hater has “serious face, a quickness to take offence, strong language, shouting, the inability to step outside himself and see his own foolishness.”

While Ghana’s on-going 17-year-old democracy may have brought out the likes of Koku from the cocoon of hatred into the open for resolution, democracy may not be the answer. The genocide that occurred in Rwanda, the civil wars that took place in Sierra Leone and Liberia and the paralysis of the Central African Republic were undertaken under some sort of democracy. In Koku, Africans do not want to remember that. It was the regional grouping Economic Community of West African States faith in dialogue that neutralized the clouds of hate that nearly destroyed Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry and Ivory Coast. What is the antidote to the likes of Koku? Hope. Spirituality. Culture. Education. Law. Integrity. Charity. Love.

Third Left is Adejoke Taiwo Fashion Show co-ordinator along with her Models

By Len Chan The Afro News Calgary

The Nigerian Canadian Association of Calgary hosted its 16th Annual Gala Nite celebrating the 49th Anniversary of Independence for Nigeria. This event was held at the Thorncliffe Community Centre. The theme for 2009 was ” Strength In Diversity”. The President of the Nigerian Association is Dr. Samuel O  Oluwadairo. The celebration always attracts a full house. With Nigeria being an oil producing Nation, many in attendance are employed in the energy sector. A lot of non-Nigerians over the years have been long time supporters and attend year after year. The Association also honored its past Executive and Trustees as well as doled out Scholarships to its young people who are or will be attending Post Secondary Institutions. Entertainment included performances by Amara Ubor Dance, Egwu Ubor Dance, Ikenga Masquerade and a Fashion Show by designer Adejoke Taiwo. Adejoke Taiwo, is a Fashion Buff behind the clothing line Alala a line that infuses African fabrics with contemporary design. She was also one of the contestants on Project Runway Canada and is a graduate of Ryerson University with a Bachelor of Fashion Degree. Alala is a noun in Native “Yoruba” Language of Nigeria and is defined as Dreamer. Adejoke also took part i the Oct 4-10 Alberta Fashion Week and her selection and exposure on Project Runway Canada shows just how talented this designer is. For the Nigerian Gala Fashion show, One can see the Nigerian style but also blended to North American needs for men and women. One can surmise that for professional workers, Adejoke’s designs can be worn for elegant office appearance and when the day is over the same fashion is like having ready made evening wear. For more information visit www.adejoke.com. For Humanitarian Charity the Nigerian Association also donated to INN FROM THE COLD to help organizations assist the homeless. The website for the Nigerian Association in Calgary is  www.nigeriansincalgary.ca.