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It had started off simple enough.
Two weeks ago, still relatively new in my position as a Northeast Regional Coordinator with AIDemocracy, I spent a few hours trawling through Social Edge and twitter. With an eye on global development and security, my goal was to discover what was being done already in the non-profit world, who was doing it best and who among these folk were the most open to collaboration.
I made a number of new friends: the people at Acumen Fund, Water Charity (not to be confused with charity:water), Be Unreasonable, Sangam India, CORD and Open Society Institute were fantastic right off the bat– They were engaging, interested and human. It was like a Utopian first day at school.
In the context of my new job and projects I had in mind, I needed to know what was being done in terms of technology support for non-profit outreach and education services. One name that came up regularly was Ken Banks, founder of Kiwanja.net
I had heard of Kiwanja in passing before, but didn’t know much about it’s main project FrontlineSMS, otherwise known as \o/ (Which, btw, is a design based on this fantastic visual here).
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Before this Saturday, I had no idea who Ken Banks is as a person, and was as wary as a product of post-post-colonialism can be of anybody who does “non-profit work” in “Africa”. I was afraid I might run into yet another individual who’s working to “save Africa” just because that’s what Bono, the UN and everyone else is talking about right now.
[And if this is something that bothers you, Aid Watch has a great post on the issue here.]
I sent an email to Ken, one of those self-introduction/basic outline of project/can we chat sometime emails. You must remember that I moonlight as a writer: after all my experiences writing lit mag queries, I was prepared to face rejection or silence.
A guest post by Patrick Cox, Global Peace & Security Advocate, University of Dallas, TX
When I had inquired into participating in my university’s International Day Festival, I discovered from the Office of International Student Services that I might very well be the only Persian on our small, private liberal arts university campus. I have yet to come across anyone else from a Persian background, so I guess my university has half of a Persian. Located near the Dallas Cowboys’ Texas Stadium in the suburb of Irving, the University of Dallas is a far cry from the consciously cosmopolitan atmosphere that I had been accustomed to at Boston University in my undergraduate years.
Held every spring in the center of campus, the International Day Festival is a meeting of cultures and a chance for members of the university community to explore other countries and their cultures and ethnic foods. This year, the Festival boasted booths with student representatives from Thailand, Latin America, Africa, India, the Arab World, and more, and it happened to fall on the day before Norouz, the Persian New Year. So, on March 19th, I packed my car with books on Iran, my laptop, an Iranian flag, Persian sweets, handcrafts, artwork, and other eye-catchers for the booth and headed to campus.
Guest post from Karen Jernigan:
The situation in Israel/Palestine today has become a mainstream media target. With Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to Gaza and the announcement of new U.S. policy to give $900m in Gaza reconstruction aid verses the $300m to Israel, America is watching and waiting to see how this policy shift may help to promote President Obama’s commitment to fair representation and multilateralism.
At The University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Affairs, a film screening and discussion of the American Media Foundation’s feature, “Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land,” led to a debate of the current administration’s dealings with regard to the recent Gaza incursion. It has been obvious that American media has sought to protect U.S. ally, Israel, in covering the situation from a pro-Israeli stance. In the film, Noam Chomsky and other notable scholars and media representatives relay the issues of linguistics and choice clips that our media utilizes to capture and frame the situation in Israel/Palestine. Here at DU, professors Nader Hashemi and Mary Morris agreed on the fact that there is not a strong Arab representation in America or in Palestine for the Palestinians. This allows for American media to convey the situation as they have. Additionally, this film was produced in 2004, Israel is our nation’s strongest ally, and since 2004, mainstream news networks have sought to communicate a much more fair documentation of the conflict.
