Village Community Banking (Preview II)
Village Community Banking in Tazania
Here is a another peek at some of my recent photos from Tanzania. These are from a project I was working on with the Norwegian Church Aid about Village Community Banking. I’m in the process of editing the photos and writing up the stories right now, the final report should be ready shortly.
“VICOBA is structured in such a way that poor people, especially those in the rural areas, are organized in groups and trained in various skills so as to build up their capacity to fight against poverty. VICOBA holds a strong belief that even poor people have skills, capabilities and abilities which when unleashed and utilized effectively can help them to attain and improve their economic development and social welfare.” – VICOBA.org
You can see some more samples from this VICOBA project here
Village Community Banking (Preview)- Tanzania 2011
I’m in Tanzania right now working on a few different projects with the Norwegian Church Aid.
Here is a small selection of images from my time here so far. These are from a photoessay I am putting together about VICOBA – Village Community Banking.
“VICOBA is structured in such a way that poor people, especially those in the rural areas, are organized in groups and trained in various skills so as to build up their capacity to fight against poverty. VICOBA holds a strong belief that even poor people have skills, capabilities and abilities which when unleashed and utilized effectively can help them to attain and improve their economic development and social welfare.” – VICOBA.org
I’ll be posting more when I get the chance, with more photos and more information about VICOBA and the beautiful people making it all happen.
The Effects of Climate Change are the Greatest Threat to Humanity – Oxfam
Oxfam’s recent report, Suffering the Science – Climate Change, People and Poverty, argues that the effects of climate change pose the greatest threat to humanity. The following are a few excerpts from the report, illustrated with some of my photos:
Flooding in the Philippines
The report combines the latest scientific observations on climate change, and evidence from Oxfam’s work in almost 100 countries around the world.
Mother and children on the streets of Bangladesh.
“Women living in poverty, who already face a daily struggle to survive, are being hit the hardest,” – Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada.
Flooding in the Philippines
A survey of top climate scientists, also published by Oxfam, said poor people living in low-lying coastal areas, island atolls and mega deltas and farmers are most at risk from climate change because of flooding and prolonged drought. The scientists named South Asia and Africa as climate change hotspots.
Drought in Tanzania
Growing rice in the Philippines
More people on the planet depend on rice than on any other crop. Rice plants react very quickly to temperature change: they show a 10% drop in yield for every 1ºC rise in minimum temperature. In parts of the Philippines, farmers have had to stop growing rice completely during the droughts caused by the ‘El Nino’ years, and river delta and coastal rice production has already suffered badly accross South-East Asia because of storms that overwhelm sea defences and salt-water intrusion into paddy fields.
Eating rice and fish in the Philippines.
An Asian Development Bank report warns that rice production in the Philippines could drop by 50-70 per cent as early as 2020.
Fisherman in Tanzania
Crops are only one part of the food story. Fish stocks are also endangered by climate change — threatening the loss of a significant source of protein and income for the 2.6billion people who get 20 per cent of their protein from fish. In many countries, dependence on fish consumption increases with poverty. In addition, 500 million people in developing countries depend — directly or indirectly — on fisheries for their livelihoods.
Fisherman in the Philippines
Both wild and farmed fish are threatened by a whole range of climate-driven problems — from raised sea levels and floods that damage fish farms on coasts and in river areas, to the increasin acidification of the oceans as a result of GHG emissions. A recent study suggests that 90 per cent of the food resources of the ‘coral triangle’ of the western Pacific will be gone by 2050, potentially affecting 150million people.
Health problems in Tanzania
In the last few months, several bodies including the Commonwealth countries’ health ministers have concluded that climate change is the greatest threat to health globally this century. The poorest and hottest countries will suffer the most. The loss of healthy life years as a result of global environmental change is predicted to be 500 times greater amongst poor African populations than amongst European populations. Climate change-driven alterations in patterns of disease and illness are already occurring globally, and 99 per cent of the casualties of climate change now are in developing countries.
Urban slums in Bangladesh
Rapid urbanization — which can be spurred by climatic factors as people seek new livelihoods in cities — brings disease with it. Urban sprawls often lack health infrastructure, and migrant workers may not be able to afford care and medicine. Some of the worst health statistics emanate from cities.
Escaping the heat in Tanzania
Small increases in temperatures hit human beings hard. None of us, no matter how well acclimatised, can do heavy work effectively above 35ºC or so. A couple of degrees higher than that, and our bodies soon get exhausted. Once core body temperature passes 38ºC, heat stress may set in. The body tries to cool down by sweating; dehydration may follow. People’s work rate slows. Ultimately, production and incomes decline.
Rice farmer in Bangladesh.
“Working under the open sky during summer has become nearly impossible in the past four years or so — for farmers and their cattle alike.” — Mir Ahmed, Bangladeshi farmer.
Getting water in Tanzania
Finding and transporting clean water is a central occupation in the working day of many people in developing countries, especially women. When a community is short of food, or suffering an outbreak of desease, there are immediate ways in which they can be helped. However, scarcity of water is a much greater problem. According to the UN Development Programme, over one billion people lack access to safe water today, and that number can only increase.
2009 is one of the most important years in human history. In Copenhagen in December, politicians will meet at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Climate Change Convention. This meeting will decide whether we face a future on a hot glowering planet, or whether we set a course for climate safety for everyone.
see the full report for more information and references.
IDP Awareness Day
IDP Awareness Day is an educational initiative to raise awareness about the plight of the world’s internally displaced people.
IDP stands for Internally Displaced Person. IDPs are persons forced or coerced to flee their homes but whom, unlike refugees, continue to live within their country’s borders. They are often obliged to leave their homes as a result of, or in order to, avoid the effects of conflict, violations of human rights, and generalized violence. 26 million people worldwide currently live in situations of internal displacement as a result of conflicts. Although internally displaced people now outnumber refugees by two to one, their plight receives far less international attention. (see: http://www.internal-displacement.org/)
The following images are of a number of IDPs I met last summer in Tanzania, in these cases the IDPs were displaced in order to make way for large scale multinational gold mines:
Sheila is one of 258 men, women, and children, from Mtakuja village who were displaced in late July 2007 to make way for an expansion of the Geita Gold Mine. “We were invaded by administration police officers in the middle of the night, who shoved us out of our houses. We were not given even a chance to take our belongings,” laments Abdallah Abedi, a former village executive officer, “we were moved here like people in a war-torn country, and now we are all tucked into a small place like prisoners who have committed the worst of crimes.”
During the day most of the adults in the camp for the internally displaced people in Geita are away looking for work. Mwajuma stays behind to take care of some of the children. All 258 of the villagers were dumped in a one-room abandoned building in the middle of the night one year ago. The Christian Council of Tanzania and Norwegian Church Aid heard about their situation and have provided the group with the tents they now call home.
In an interview with the Norwegian Church Aid, Faida Gerald says, “we have lost a lot of things including our sense of belonging, clothes and other household materials. What hurts most is that they buried even already harvested crops, which we would have sold to get some income to buy food and take care of our children.” Their sense of loss is intensified by their feelings of betrayal by their own democratically elected government, as Faida contemplates; “I wonder what they have given to the government to subject us to all this.”
One week after this photo was taken the villagers were informed by the local government that they would be evicted all over again from their current campsite. No provisions have been made for them, however, and they have nowhere to go.
Rukindo lives in the IDP camp in Geita along with the other 258 Mtakuja villagers who were displaced to make way for the Geita Gold Mine. This picture was taken shortly after a court hearing in Dar es Salaam in their case against the company. Rukindo and three others had travelled 1300km to make their case. But they were never even given the chance to have an audience with the judge as the case was thrown out of the court after a suspicious meeting behind closed doors between their attorney, the judge, and the team of lawyers representing the company. In the unlikely event that they can afford to continue with the case, they will have to start all over again. Almost immediately after receiving this bad news, they received even worse news as a letter arrived from the local government of Geita informing them that the inhabitants of the camp were about to be evicted from the area they had been occupying for the past year. Once again, the displaced have to start all over again and try to rebuild what little semblance of normalcy they had attained in the past year.
The Tanzanian government’s Prevention of Corruption Bureau is investigating a corruption scandal involving the compensation for some 900 people who were displaced to make way for AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita Gold Mine in Geita. Mustafa is one of the complainants; here he is showing documents that state that he was promised over 60million shillings (55,000CAD) in compensation which he has never received. AngloGold admits that 875 people have not received the compensation promised to them, but they claim to have given government officials the money needed to make the payments in 1999 and blame these officials “in their lust for money” for the disappearance of the funds.
The home of the Luhanga family in Kahama. The Luhanga’s were among the thousands of families who had been forcefully evicted in August 1996 to make way for Sutton Resources’ Bulyanhulu Gold Mine, which was bought three years later by Barrick Gold. According to Barrick’s own report, Social Development Plan for the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine, there were anywhere between 30,000 and 400,000 people living in the area before the evictions. The company claims that the people living there were nomadic illegal trespassers. But the communities argue that some of the villages in the area had existed long before colonial days.
Twelve years later, allegations continue that during the evictions in August 1996 fifty-two artisanal miners were buried alive in their pits by company bulldozers. The issue has developed into a bitter international dispute involving local communities, NGOs, and the governments of Tanzania, Canada, and the World Bank. The company denies these allegations and maintains that “the way people left this site was in a peaceful, systematic fashion”, reports in the Tanzanian press at the time reported mass confusion, looting, robbery and bloodshed as people fled from police in riot gear. Numerous witnesses have testified in sworn statements that people were being beaten up by the police and were ignored when they told officers that there were still people inside some of the mineshafts as the bulldozers were filling in the pits.
In response to the companies’ and the government’s denials Melania, a Kahama resident, has been collecting these photos of people who claim to have witnessed the killings or lost loved ones during the evictions. “…This one was there when it happened … this one lost her son … this one went back afterwards to try and dig out his friends … this one lost her home and her grandchildren …”
Melania’s two eldest sons, Jonathan and Ernest were among the fifty-two miners who were allegedly buried alive during the evictions. The family owned the pit that they were working in at the time, so Melania lost her livelihood as well as her two children in August 1996.
Deogratios is the traditional witchdoctor, or medicine man, of the community. He was among the thousands of people who were evicted to make way for Barrick’s Bulynhulu gold mine. He remembers being forced from their home by heavily armed paramilitary forces only one day after the Minister of Minerals and Energy had issued an order giving the Bulyanhulu residents one month to vacate the area. Deogratios and his family had nowhere to go so for two months after being forced from their home they were living in the bush. During this time his wife became ill. But with their home destroyed, and without access to his medicines, the healer could do nothing as he sat and watched his wife die.
For more information:
Someone Else’s Treasure – Tanzania
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
