Changing The World Through Journalism

Lone Woman Candidate Eyes Presidency in Cameroon

In preparation for Cameroon’s October presidential elections, the lone woman candidate is campaigning throughout the country and encouraging women to vote. While her campaign has faced numerous obstacles – she was kidnapped in May – she is determined to give voice to women and minorities throughout Cameroon. With an ambitious economic and social agenda, many here believe she is just what the country needs.

BAMENDA, CAMEROON – At every stop Edith Kabbang Walla, 45, popularly known here as Kah Walla, is generating excitement among women nationwide. Walla is the only female candidate running for president in Cameroon’s October elections.

“The interest of women in politics has been aroused, but now we want their active participation,” Walla says during a recent visit to Bamenda, a city in northwestern Cameroon.

Walla entered the national political scene in 2007 and was named by the World Bank in 2008 as one of seven women entrepreneurs in Africa. She declared her candidacy in October 2010, and the Cameroon People’s Party endorsed her in April 2011.

Tracing women’s political participation in Cameroon, Walla says that women were the first group to carry out a public demonstration against colonizers in the fight for Cameroon’s independence. But she says that after gaining independence from France in 1960 and Great Britain in 1961, women’s participation faded into playing traditional roles within political party circles instead of taking on strategic positions, such as president.

“In 1992, a woman ran for presidency, but later joined presidential majority,” she says. “We saw another in 2004, but her candidacy was never accepted. So my candidacy is first to draw national and international attention as [a] woman candidate.”

She believes that her candidacy and her work in the field to get Cameroonians to register to vote have already had an impact on the community and on the way women view politics. If elected president, Walla says she plans to continue to integrage more Cameroonian voices into the decision-making process. Her three priorities are women, the disabled, and the linguistic and ethnic minority.

“These people have been left out of the decision-making processes in the country,” she says.

Food Insecurity Caused by Climate Change Affects Family Planning in Kenya

Experts and mothers say climate change is directly and indirectly affecting childbearing in Kenya. They say food insecurity caused by climate change hurts pregnant mothers’ and children’s health and is leading Kenyans to opt for smaller families.

NAIROBI, KENYA – It is early evening, and one of the fast food outlets in the South C Shopping Center in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is bustling with activity as hungry souls troop in one after the other. But Paul Mwangi, a taxi operator, says that no matter what he orders on the menu, he can’t spend less than 100 shillings, $1.10 USD, on a simple snack.

Mwangi says that food prices have risen dramatically because of environmental degradation and changes in the climate, which have led to weaker crop yields across Kenya.

“I did not know that it would affect us this way,” he says. “I went home to Laikipia in March thinking I would be able to plant. The land was dry. I made two return visits in April. Still, there are no rains, and those who had planted have just watched their crops die under the scorching sun.”

Mwangi says that rising costs across society – combined with ailing crops, which his family depends on for food and his wife sells in order to supplement his earnings as a taxi driver – make it hard to support a large family. He says he recently took his son shopping for school supplies, and the bill totaled slightly more than 3,500 shillings, $40 USD.

“Can you believe that was the bill for snacks, books, and things like soap and oil?” he asks. “The land no longer gives good returns like it did in the past. I can hardly sustain my family of four – two children, my wife and I.”

Mwangi says that because of the changing climatic conditions, he recently agreed to let his wife have a tubal ligation, a procedure that closes a woman’s fallopian tubes. He says this frees them from the anxiety of having more children than they can support.

Sri Lanka Aims to Improve Rights for Women Migrant Workers Abroad, Create Jobs at Home

Hundreds of thousands of women leave Sri Lanka each year to work abroad, as the government, nongovernmental organizations and foreign employment agencies aim to improve migrant workers’ rights abroad and create job opportunities at home. Women migrant workers reveal mixed experiences when it comes to foreign employment.

AMBATENNA, SRI LANKA – Rohini Jayalath, 42, left her home in Ambatenna in Sri Lanka’s Central province 15 years ago to search for a job in the Middle East in order to help her impoverished family.

Jayalath’s father died when she was 8. Her mother worked at a weaving center to earn money to support their family, but she died in 1993. With the responsibility of her siblings on her shoulders, Jayalath left Sri Lanka, where jobs were scarce, to search for employment abroad in 1995. A private employment agency helped her find a job at a factory.

“I did a job at a factory for about eight years,” she says.

She says she saved her earnings and moved back to Sri Lanka in 2003 to start a better life for herself and her family.

“I started a small grocery shop in my village with my savings,” she says. “Now I am so proud to tell that it is in a well-improved condition. Luckily, I could construct my own house without taking any loan.”

She says that in recent years, the Sri Lankan government has increased support for migrant workers.

“Now the foreign job seekers get more government intervention than we got earlier,” she says. “Government provides big support and facilities now. Foreign embassies have been established in almost in all the Middle East countries.”

She says that the government is also working to resolve other issues.

“More attention is being given to the problems faced by the migrants,” she says. “Training for the foreign job seekers [has] been given by the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau, which is very important.”

New Contract Erodes Family Health Care in Romania

Turbulent contract negotiations between Romanian family doctors and the national insurance organization last month left millions without health care. Although doctors eventually signed the contract after the elimination of some provisions, they lament other losses to family medicine here.

BUCHAREST, ROMANIA – Amalia Solescu, 67, a retired economist, says she visited her family physician last month to ask for the discounted medicine guaranteed to her by her medical insurance. But she says her doctor said no.

Surprised, she asked why. She says her doctor told her she had to buy it herself, despite the money she has contributed to the National Health Insurance Fund. But Solescu says she can’t afford the medicine that costs 30 euros, $45 USD, with her pension of 250 euros, $360 USD.

Worried, she says she then asked for an appointment with a specialist for her annual hypertension and osteoporosis treatments. But again, her family doctor denied coverage of her treatment. Increasingly alarmed, Solescu wondered, if the need arose, could she check into a hospital this year? Yes, her doctor said – but she’d have to pay for all the costs herself.

“‘It’s like you’re no longer insured,’” she says the doctor told her.

Solescu says she wished that the family doctors would hurry up and abandon their protests against the National Health Insurance House, the autonomous public institution that administrates and manages the national health insurance system. Because the parties hadn’t signed a new contract, she and her fellow Romanian citizens couldn’t access their health insurance.

But she says she empathized with the doctors’ plight as she remembered how she felt when the Romanian government threatened to cut all pensions a few months ago. So she went home without arguing.

Kung Fu Grannies Combat Rape in Kenya

As government, police and residents struggle to reduce rape incidences in Kenya, a group of grannies in a Nairobi slum is taking matters into their own hands. A local organization here trains elderly women to defend themselves against attackers.

NAIROBI, KENYA – Shanty houses made from rusted corrugated iron sheets line a lone tarmac road in Korogocho, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Garbage is strewn along the dusty sidewalks, and a herd of goats trots by, oblivious to their surroundings. Amidst the shanty houses stands a robust church made of blue corrugated iron sheets with its name painted in white: the Church of the Lord and Faith Healing Ministry.

A group of teachers left the state school system in Argentina in order to help thousands of dropouts return to their education. They developed a new model called People’s High Schools – which make education more inclusive and teach students to question government and social systems.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – It’s 7 p.m. on a Tuesday in July. It’s already night in Buenos Aires when Gustavo Santucho, 38, walks through the doors of the Atlanta football club, where a “Bachillerato Popular,” or “People’s High School,” called Dignity, operates. Chairs surround a rectangular table and will soon be occupied by students in their third and final year of school. Santucho’s movements are slow, as is the voice that tells of the journey that brought him here.

“I quit school when I was 16,” he says. “Then I got a good job, and I didn’t see the point in continuing studying. I always had good jobs. Well, if a good job is one in which you make money.”

He reflects with his hands folded on his legs. His hands don’t tell of a tough job. The smooth skin and clean fingernails open the question about his occupation that kept him away from his studies for so long. He says he worked with refrigerators in the seafood industry, but that eventually he decided he needed his diploma.

“I think what made me change was having a son,” he says. “I felt that I couldn’t tell my son that he had to study if I hadn’t been capable of doing it.”

He says he even inspired his wife to go to school, too.

“Today also my wife decided to come to the school, and it is good because this changes your mind,” he says. “We couldn’t continue together if she didn’t accompany me. To be sincere, I’m not the same that I was before I came here. I see life differently.”

Ugandans Clash on Polygamy as Parliament Debates Ban

As Parliament debates a bill that would ban polygamy, Ugandans express mixed views about growing up in polygamous families, though 28 percent of married women in Uganda are currently in polygamous unions. Some say the practice is natural, while others say it harms children and violates women’s rights.

KAMPALA, UGANDA – Tom Kasekende, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, says he grew up in a polygamous home in which his father had several wives.

“I grew up in a polygamous family,” he says. “My father had many wives, some of them I did not even know. I would just hear about them as a child.”

He says that his family was Protestant but that his father’s many wives would often engage in witchcraft in order to compete for their husband’s attention.

“They were always bewitching each other to get my father’s attention,” he says.

Kasekende says that as he grew up, he decided that polygamy wasn’t a the way of life he would choose. “Children in a polygamous marriage are not loved by their parents, especially the father, who is always moving from one family to another,” he says. “As a man, the women are always bewitching you and you even get confused.”

He says that polygamy may have thrived in traditional societies, when the cost of living was relatively low. But he says that the high cost of living and rising inflation here make large families less sustainable. He says that today, having multiple wives, all with their own children, breeds greed, selfishness and poverty in homes.

Read more: http://www.globalpressinstitute.org/global-news/africa/uganda/ugandans-clash-polygamy-parliament-debates-ban#ixzz1Sj8lSHS6

In the Ethiopian coffee ceremony, the coffee is roasted, ground and served in front of special guests. The ceremony is such a sacred tradition that Ethiopians living in Kenya, who make their own coffee instead of drinking local brews, perform it for their families and guests to stay connected to their roots.

NAIROBI, KENYA  – Woizero Isul, 31, is a housewife from Ethiopia who lives with her husband and two children in one room in a large, modern flat in Kilimani, a leafy green suburb of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city. She says they plan to live in Kenya for five years before moving to Germany to join relatives who live there.

Isul barely speaks English, so her husband of seven years, who easily communicates in English, gladly agrees to translate.

“There are lots of Ethiopians living in this community,” she says. “They all seem to concentrate in this neighborhood, possibly why we have several Ethiopian shops, orthodox churches and restaurants such as the most popular, Habesha.”

Many Ethiopians who visit Kenya say that Habesha meals remind them of home because it serves “injera,” an Ethiopian staple food similar to flatbread.

She says that the house her family lives in has five bedrooms, but because of the high cost of living in a foreign country, she and her spouse pay partial rent for one of the bedrooms. The other four bedrooms and living room are rented by other Ethiopians or Eritreans. They share a common bathroom, toilet and kitchen area.

“It’s cheaper this way,” says Woizero Isul’s husband, Isul Bekele Sr., 34. “We would rather share a house with friends and family than live in the slums of Nairobi. We get additional help from our relatives now living abroad. We hope to join them in the near future.”

Read more: http://www.globalpressinstitute.org/global-news/africa/kenya/ethiopians-kenya-savor-their-roots-coffee-ceremony#ixzz1SdSANhDA

As Botswana studies its growing vulnerability to climate change, health risks associated with a changing climate have come to the forefront. Higher temperatures and less frequent and predictable rain have hurt crops and nutrition, which is essential for strengthening the immune system against HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Meanwhile, higher carbon dioxide levels are enabling the rapid spread of malaria to mostly women and girls.

SELIBE-PHIKWE, BOTSWANA – Segwabe Morathi, a retired religious minister, works as a farmer in a village on the outskirts of Selibe-Phikwe, a small mining town in eastern Botswana. He says farming is not easy in Botswana, where a semiarid desert means that the weather is unpredictable. A changing climate has only made rain more unreliable, he says.

Morathi says he has spent precious time ploughing his field with the expectation of more rains, but to his disappointment, the intense heat has consumed all the young seedlings.

Across the country, rain has become less frequent, while intense heat – tempatures can reach higher than 104 degrees Fahrenheit – continues to cause a multitude of problems for both people and industries.

Experts here say that malnutrition and undernourishment that result from unpredictable crop yields leave people with perilous health conditions, such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, even more vulnerable. One in four adults in Botswana is HIV-positive, giving it the world’s second-highest HIV-prevalence rate.

While rain in the south varies, Morathi says that the northern part of the country has received a lot of rain. He says that the area – home to the Okavango Delta, where a river empties into a swamp spanning 11,000 kilometers – is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, leading to more cases of malaria. Throughout Botswana, women and children are the ones who are most prone to malaria because they are the ones who search for food, fish in the rivers and transport tourists in their canoes.

Morathi says that Botswana has four regions – north, south, east and west – and that each has different weather, which makes it hard for the government to create a plan.

Read more: http://www.globalpressinstitute.org/global-news/africa/botswana/experts-link-climate-change-rising-health-threats-botswana#ixzz1SZ61laz3

Arranged Marriage Before Birth Diminishes Among Nepali Ethnic Group

The mangni tradition – the arranging of marriages for unborn and young children among family friends – has been prevalent among Nepal’s Tharu ethnic group since the 1940s. But these days the custom is waning as the younger, more educated generation begins to speak out

KANCHANPUR, NEPAL – Even before Phoolmati Chaudhary, whose name has been changed to avoid family conflict, was born, her parents had already arranged her marriage to a friend’s son.

Arranged marriage is a custom of Nepal’s Tharu ethnic group, which Phoolmati’s family belongs to.

Now, 15 years later, the teenager from Nepal’s Far-Western district of Kanchanpur says she became depressed when she found out about her engaged status as she now has a boyfriend whom she dreams of marrying.

“When I confronted my parents [and told them] that I didn’t want a marriage that was fixed before my birth, they didn’t listen,” she says as she draws circles on the barren earth with her bare toes. “They continued to pressure me [into the marriage].” 

The teenager says that the boy her parents arranged her marriage to began to follow her around and pressure her to marry him.

“[I have found out that] he has some bad habits,” she says of his drinking and gambling tendencies. “I don’t want to spend my life with someone like that. But my parents seemed to be worried about their promise to their friends and the society rather than my wishes.”

Phoolmati says that her family also doesn’t know she has a boyfriend whom she loves and wants to marry. 

“Should they come to know about it, I’ll be in trouble,” she says, her tone filled with dread and discomfort.