In the midst of the chaos unfolding in Iran in the last few weeks, particularly today, it is increasingly necessary to recognize the larger social issue that encompasses the chaos: the suppression of the Iranian people and the blatant disregard for the needs and wants of the majority of the population.

Since 2005 and the initial election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian people were promised change and reform–socially, politically, and economically. According to an article in the New York Times dated June 15th, 2009, authors Bill Keller and Michael Slackman stated that “By playing to the Muslim world’s feelings of victimization by the West and hatred of Israel, [Ahmadinejad] won adulation on the Arab street even as Arab leaders often disdained him, and that in turn earned him credibility at home.” Instead of bringing the change he promised, Ahmadinejad perpetuated the already strenuous relationship with Western countries, particularly the United States, and the UN in addition to driving the country into unemployment and social and economic unrest.

With the 2009 elections came a chance for real change, for the people of Iran to stand up to four years of passive aggressive dictatorship and to elect a new leader to fulfill promises to lead the country in a forward direction. When Ahmadinejad won a second term, the country called for a review of the voting process and claims of widespread corruption to fix the election in Ahmadinejad’s favor ensued. Protests and violence soon followed.

Whether the election was fixed we may never know but the truth is, there is a bigger issue here and it goes much deeper than a rigged election. The chaos currently surrounding the nation only highlights the severe sociological turmoil the country still faces as well as the mistrust, angst, and injustice that weigh heavy on the hearts of those who are forced to live amongst this every day. This election was the people’s chance to regain their right to peace and prosperity and as one supporter of opponent Mir Hussein Moussavi observed, “I don’t think the middle class is ever going to go out and vote again,” according to the New York Times article.

There is a silver lining in this cloud of deceit, corruption, and injustice, however, and that is the incredible courage and will the people of Iran have demonstrated. As Steve Schippert, blogger for ThreatsWatch.org, puts it: “We in the West may hope for revolution and the self-liberation of a freedom-starved Iranian people. But we must also fully understand the amount of courage required for the unarmed to rise against the armed and brutal.” We couldn’t agree more.

To read the full New York Times article, click here.

To read more about ThreatsWatch and to see a pretty amazing picture, click here.

It’s that time of year again to enjoy cocktails, appetizers, and the creative art of talented people from around the world. This year’s event, like last year’s, will raise money for GlobalPotential and their biggest program: Coupling underserved youths in the New York City area with a similar demographic group in a small village in the Dominican Republic. The program aims to provide these youths with the skills they need to improve both the community in the Dominican Republic and their own communities.

Because of its tremendous success, the program is sending 4 times more students this year to the same village in the DR, which provides 4 times the opportunities to otherwise underprivileged students. Please come to support a great cause! This year there will be an auction as well as music from various DJs.

Where: This year’s event will be hosted by the Artbreak Gallery in Williamsburg, 195 Grand St. on the 2nd floor. Between Bedford and Driggs Ave.

When: Friday, May 29th from 7-11 p.m.

Cost: Your hourly wage or $10 donation 

Directions: Take the L train to Bedford Ave.

www.artbreakgallery.com and visit Global Potential’s web site to purchase tickets ahead of time or make a donation even if you can’t attend: www.global-potential.org/events.

A recent report released by the International Institute of Environment and Development revealed some startling information about the inefficiency in a recent project in Africa that involved creating clean water supplies.

According to the report, and to an article in The Guardian by Annie Kelly, ”$360 million has been spent on building boreholes and wells that then become useless because they are not maintained or fixed when they break down. As a result, 50,000 water supply points are not functioning across rural Africa.”

Subsequently, more than half of the current boreholes are broken or not functioning properly, and the people expected to run and maintain these waterholes (those living in the villages) don’t have the means or the knowledge to fix them.

Says Jamie Skinner, author of the report, “There is no point an external agency coming in, putting in a drill-hole and then passing it over to the local community if they can’t afford to maintain it over the next 10 or 20 years,” he says. “There needs to be a proper assessment of just how much local people are able to finance these water points. It’s not enough to just drill and walk away.”

As we see time and again, without fully considering the socioeconomic and political climates of the area a program is being introduced to, there is a diminished chance of the program being successful. It’s the equivalent of giving a man a fish instead of teaching him how to catch it himself. Eventually, the fish will run out and the man (or in most cases, the village) won’t have any means or skills to continue feeding himself. Enabling people by providing them skills is much more valuable than handing them something they can’t use, that will eventually run out.  

It’s a shame and a waste of money, time, and energy to implement these programs that have such great intentions and potential. If only these NGOs and non-profits took the time to fully evaluate the needs and abilities of the people and the area, our time, money, and energy would be so much better spent.

To see the full report, click here.

There has been lots of chatter lately about the Mexican drug industry and the increasing violence it has perpetuated, as word of an aggressive plan initiated by the new administration spreads. The increased violence has been fueled by the easy access to guns available in U.S. locations just over the border.

It’s only now that the problematic Mexican drug trade is receiving the attention it merits. Mainstream media are presenting the issue as a threat to our own livlihood, to our children, and to our general well-being. The truth is, the people of Mexico have suffered these same threats as a reality for many years, and much of it has received no attention at all. It wasn’t until our own safety and well being became compromised that the issue became the focus of so much attention. According to the article:

“Although barely reported in the U.S. press, citizens of Juárez (and other cities or towns) have accused the military of serious human rights violations since President Felipe Calderón launched his 2006 crackdown on narco-trafficking, including beating people for “confessions,” electrical torture, rape, and the practice of enclosing heads in plastic bags filled with water to simulate (or achieve) drowning.”

It’s hard to ignore the fact that we as a country play a significant role in the demand of the very drugs being funneled to the U.S., but that irony is rarely recognized. Without taking that into serious consideration, it’s unlikely that the war on drugs will ever be won. If we’re not willing to look at ourselves and take our share of the blame, it will be impossible to placate the violence, death, and illegal trafficking that plagues the Mexican-U.S. border.

“Mexico is right to insist that the U.S. truly acknowledge the extent to which its own citizens (and policies) create and sustain the consumer market for illicit drugs. There’s no getting around the fact that Americans have the highest illicit substance use and abuse rates in the world, and Mexican drug cartels are but the latest of our transnational network of ’suppliers.’ “

To read the full article, click here.

An article today on MSNBC details a four-year aid project, funded by the U.S., to help alleviate poverty in Kenya. The program provided fishing supplies and equipment to aid the local fisherman in increasing the amount of fish they were able to catch. It seems that the social and economic needs of this particular population were not assessed before the supplies were distributed and the program instituted. The nets and other supplies provided were not suitable for the fishermen and provided additional obstacles to their  livelihood, like trapping and killing whales and turtles, which in turn destroys the very ecosystem they depend on. According to the article:

The aim of the U.S. project was to help lift local people out of poverty, said Robert Buzzard, a USAID official involved in the initiative. But there were no studies to show how the kind of equipment supplied might affect the marine life.

“There weren’t environmental assessments year on year,” Buzzard acknowledged, saying USAID was “partly” responsible but also was dependent on local organizations to provide information.

The project did not provide the type of nets or long fishing lines — which catch fish without entangling other marine life — that fishermen requested, said Isaak Mwachala, head of one of the local fishermen’s associations.

This is yet another example of a program that was not properly executed and has actually introduced more problems than it ever intended. Without fully assessing the needs of the population and geographical area in which an aid program is intended, the potential for its success is drastically reduced, and these days, we certainly can’t afford one wasted penny.

Despite the billions of dollars we’ve poured into Iraq over the past few years, the social and economic status of the country remains bleak, as does the welfare of many of the country’s women.

Recently, Oxfam, an international aid agency, released a survey on the status of Iraq’s women and the struggles they face amidst a war-torn country. The results are astonishing, and while it is just a snapsnot of a few thousand women in five major cities across Iraq, it offers disturbing details about the struggles that Iraqi women face every day. Among some of the results:

• Nearly 25% of women had no daily access to drinking water & half of those who did have daily access to water said it was not potable; 69% said access to water was worse or the same as it was in 2006 & 2007
• One-third of respondents had electricity 3 hours or less per day; two-thirds had 6 hours or less; 80% said access to electricity was more difficult or the same compared to 2007; 82% as compared to 2006 and 84% as compared to 2003
•  Nearly half of women said access to quality healthcare was more difficult in 2008 compared with 2006 and 2007
• 40% of women with children reported that their sons and daughters were not attending school.

Despite the American presence in Iraq, the majority of mothers rate safety as their number one concern. Mothers are constantly forced to decide whether to send their children to school or pay for that child’s healthcare.

Additionally, more than half of the widowed women surveyed stated that they were receiving no assistance from the Iraqi government. 

“A large majority of women surveyed were not receiving any state support and had become so poor as a result of the conflict that many could not afford to provide their families with clean water, electricity, food, an education and medical treatment,” the article states.

To read the full results, click here.

Through my work, and through reading, listening and conversing with colleagues during the past two decades, I’ve thought a lot about how the arts contribute to (or work against) building empowered, civically engaged communities. The paradigm shift for me came when I was able to look into the community, the neighborhoods of everyday people around me, and see a vast well of creativity, culture, art and history. I no longer saw a cultural void or vacuum needing cleaning up, educating or the importation of great art and the cultural canons.

I believe that people are more engaged when they’re respected for who they are and what they bring to the table. For cultural administrators, leaders and policy makers, it’s more than the half-empty or half-full glass perspective. Contrary to most cultural institutional practices, I think it’s about seeing opportunity to learn from the people around us, to foster exchange among them, to respect their cultural richness, and to nurture their creativity and talents. It’s not about devising better packaging and marketing strategies for the artists we decide will be best for the community.

Some reluctant arrivals to the “multicultural movement” have simply substituted the idea of importing or imposing western European cultural norms with a wider menu of great cultural accomplishments, a view that still denies the self-worth and the existing cultural resources of their constituents and neighbors. It’s not that masterful artistic achievements, Eurocentric or otherwise, aren’t worth experiencing, it’s that they’re more meaningful to those who have their own sense of cultural self and self-worth.

It’s about understanding that people are interested in the cultures of others and in great artists, but are likely to shut down or turn away when these works are brought to them with the attitude that they are superior to their own cultural experience. Respectfully drawing out the creative and cultural assets of each person, and of communities of people, is a first step to sparking an expansive cultural dialogue. How to do this becomes the challenge for meaningful community cultural development. And, while there are many excellent examples of this work with long histories and well-developed practices, there is but little awareness of this work within the cultural sector and next to none within the other fields or professions I mentioned. In fact, there is much misinformation, even hostility. However, I did find some rather remarkable exceptions, some of which I hope will be the subject of future writing.

In seeing the potentials in a community’s creativity, urban or community revitalization or renewal is a process of working from the inside out, not a process of clearing, removal or replacement. This “asset-based” community development approach is being adopted by an increasing number of community developers and organizers in both the U.S. and the U.K. Notable community art practitioners and some philanthropists have engaged in this practice for at least three decades.

Check out these links to two extraordinary artistic projects that depict the places we live, and present beautifully, and often heartbreakingly, the status of many of the world’s most destitute.

The first is an innovative project in Kenya that depicts the women of Kibera (click here for full article):

“Today, after more than a year of planning, 2000 square meters of rooftops have been covered with photos of the eyes and faces of the women of Kibera. The material used is water resistant so that the photo itself will protect the fragile houses in the heavy rain season. The train that passes on this line through Kibera at least twice a day has also been covered with eyes from the women that live below it. With the eyes on the train, the bottom half of the their faces have be pasted on corrugated sheets on the slope that leads down from the tracks to the rooftops. The idea being that for the split second the train passes, their eyes will match their smiles and their faces will be complete.”

The second (click here) is a photography slideshow project on communities around the world.

Many people think of poverty as simply a lack of income. Others extend the concept to lack of education and health facilities. However, as highlighted in the 2000 World Development Report, Attacking Poverty, economists like Nobel prize-winner Amartya Sen now emphasize a much broader approach.

Poverty is also:

• Lack of voice: people need avenues to express their needs or obtain redress.

• Lack of empowerment; people need the resources and authority to take charge of programs meant for their benefit.

• Lack of good governance: people are worse off when officials are corrupt, unresponsive to local demands, and unaccountable.

Seeing in this light, local empowerment is a form of poverty reduction in its own right, quite independent of its income effects.

Sen lists five dimensions of poverty:

Political space

Economic space

Social space

Transparency

Protective security

He views poverty as deficits along these five dimensions, which limit the ability of people to develop their capabilities and function as empowered persons. Poverty reduction, broadly defined, requires processes that help people improve their capabilities and functioning, which enable people to take charge of local affairs instead of being supplicants before higher authorities. CDD aims to create such processes, with safeguards to provide voice to groups traditionally excluded from the decision-making process such as women and ethnic or religious minorities.

Economists now accept that communities have considerable capacity to plan and implement programs, which has often been cloaked by a lack of empowerment (see Box 1.) Vibrant community structures constitute social capital, a much-neglected asset that can yield high economic dividends. CDD aims to build on social capital by harnessing community participation, and also to improve social capital by strengthening incentives for participatory development.

Social funds and other similar funds were created to channel emergency money to needy communities. The immediate success rate of these schemes was high. They showed that participation by beneficiaries in projects meant for them could improve project design, implementation and outcomes. However, such projects remain almost totally dependent on outside financial support, and this reduces local ownership as well as sustainability. A recent book on Latin American social funds (Tendler and Serrano, 1999) suggests that these have significant limitations.

In a recent internal analysis of World Bank projects in Africa, 75 percent of projects with some level of community participation were rated satisfactory against 60 percent for all African projects in 1994-97. So, Africa has a comparative advantage in community-based projects.

But while 75 percent of such projects were rated satisfactory, only one-fifth were rated sustainable. Why? Because they were almost totally donor-financed; they were temporary programs, not embedded in permanent institutions; their scale and geographical spread was very limited. While they provided for some beneficiary participation, they were typically earmarked for specific sectors and did not empower communities to set priorities or manage projects. This was a significant shortcoming: it deprived communities of the chance to exercise real choice and build skills through learning by doing. Communities and local governments had no guaranteed sources of revenue, and little or no power to raise local resources.

info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/…/209162/CDD_Africa_vision_Final.doc

Speaking of the importance of recognizing gender differences, as Makhete discussed in the below post, Oprah’s South African school has drawn much attention since its opening a few years ago–both positive and negative. Aside from the recent scandal, the concept of the school has been both scrutinized and praised since its inception.

The school, a $40 million private boarding center featuring state of the art facilities including yoga and art studios, has been a blessing from an educational standpoint, says Gene Sperling, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations. Sperling is quoted in a Christian Science Monitor article as saying:

“I think it’s very important for people to recognize that the lack of education for both boys and girls is a crisis in Africa…But the benefits of girls’ education, in terms of improving health, women’s empowerment, and family well-being, probably does make girls’ education the highest-returning social investment in the world.”

Similarly, there is published research that dictates the benefit of improving education for girls, as it increases per capita income and improves female health, lowers fertility rates and HIV, as well as infant mortality. In other words, when women are educated, they are less likely to contract disease or get pregnant, and they are more likely to contribute positively to the workforce and provide for their children.

Statistically, less than half of southern African girls remain in school. Because of extreme poverty and disease, many are forced to drop out before reaching the secondary level to take care of their families, and contribute to the family income.

While Oprah has no doubt recognized in a positive way the need for long-term funding to support girls’ education across South Africa, she has been criticized for instituting such a high-profile, exclusive school and I can’t help but agree. Forty million dollars could have gone a lot farther than 50 acres, and it seems the money could have been used to build some sort of educational system or series of schools that would benefit many more girls. It could have also been used to improve existing schools across the country.

It can be argued that the school is too exclusive and advanced for the needs of the world that these girls will be returning to after they graduate. These girls are coming from the poorest of the poorest areas of South Africa. How will they really benefit from knowing yoga poses? Will art classes really provide viable life and work skills these girls need to support themselves and their families?