Dreaming for the Earth – Féile Bríde Reflections

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A short report on “Dreaming for the Earth: Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change”, Afri’s 2013 Féile Bríde conference held on the 2nd February in Kildare

Walking on the Curragh
Walking on the Curragh

Afri’s 2013 Féile Bríde, “Dreaming for the Earth: Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change” was held in the new venue of the Osborne Centre, which is beautifully surrounded by a lake and native Irish trees.  This year the conference was aimed at tackling climate change, and opened with John Feehan, an expert on the Curragh, giving the history and uses of the Curragh, and then bringing the participants to the Curragh to explore the landscape for themselves.  John strongly encouraged locals interested in preserving this public space, to consider forming a taskforce to care for the Curragh, in particular, to tackle the rampant furze.

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Féile Bríde 2013: Dreaming for the Earth

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Feile Bride 2013

Féile Bríde 2013

Dreaming for the Earth: Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change

Saturday 2nd February, Osborne Centre, Kildare

The wonder and awesome beauty of our planet is also a reminder of her fragility, uniqueness and the urgent need to protect her. Our planet home is blessed with sufficient abundance to care for all but is increasingly reeling and groaning from relentless exploitation and abuse.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, describes his experience of seeing the Earth from space: “suddenly from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth…home.”

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Introduction to Abjata’s Blog

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I am 34 years old award winning journalist and development worker born, brought up and based in dry patched remote northern region of Kenya. Am a development worker, community educator, mobiliser, community journalist, activist and advocate for social justice.

I am currently working with non- profit development organisation, KENYA PASTORALIST JOURNALIST NETWORK. But my activism and community work started way back when I was a young boy after witnessing human rights violation, armed attacks, brutality among others that gave me courage and determination in empowering my pastoralist community.

I undertake many activities and work in northern Kenya and among them are: Human rights Education and awareness campaigns, Human Rights Defenders work and program, Human rights profiling, reporting and monitoring, Conflict resolution and management through mediation and traditional mechanisms, Peace education through community radio and traditional media like folklore, traditional dance, oral narratives, storytelling, non -violence means and education, Women rights education and campaign, Women empowerment projects,
Women radio listening project, Gender equality, Climate change

education and adaptation, Climate change projects like tapping clean solar energy, community food security program, Using indigenous knowledge in addressing climate change , Climate justice project, Anti-human trafficking campaigns, Refugee rights, Eradication of small arms and light weapons ,Health rights and education, Fighting environmental crimes and organised groups like terrorist outfits and armed militias, Rehabilitation of ex-combatants ,civic education and undertaking anti-corruption campaigns and education. Apart from above mentioned activities, I am a member of various national and international networks.

I was born and brought up in a village called Wagalla in Wajir, Kenya. One incident that happened on 10th, February 1984, changed my life and built my resolve to create change, educate and empower my community and building their capacity to attain social justice.

On 10th February 1984, contingent of Kenya army invaded Wagalla village and flushed the residents out of their homes to an empty field where we were subjected to severe beatings, women and girls gang raped by the army in full watch of the besieged residents, we were surrounded in the open field without food / water and under scorching sun.

In the Wagalla field people started dying of hunger, dehydration and severe bleedings from bullets wounds and gun butt injuries. After some days under siege some victims broke the cordon and snatched guns from the security men surrounding us in the field. Other officers panicked and started spraying bullets to the people and it’s here they
killed many people. Others managed to escape including me, while others were walking and dropping dead while escaping due to bullet

wounds and bleeding. I was saved by a brave and daring Italian Nun late Analina Toneli, who was rescuing escaping victims, and offering them water and first aid. She was killed some years ago by forces that executed and ordered the Wagalla massacre.

The security forces collected the dead bodies and dumped them some 200 kilometres for hyenas to feed on them.

This violation and armed attacks from politically instigated conflicts, raids, security operations in our village moulded what I am today and what I do today.

I started asking myself what will you do to address your community sufferings and offer them dignified and normal life built on social justice. This made me to start active activism at age of 16 years and fighting for my community and seeking education under difficult conditions so that I can get knowledge to change.

Many other heinous acts perpetrated by armed militia like abduction of young girls to act as their comfort women in conflict zone, militia inserting gun butt and bottles in women victims private parts and gang raping devastated my upbringing as it was happening in my village and surrounding areas on daily basis.

All these atrocities, heinous acts, human rights violation, gang rape as tool of humiliation and embarrassment and the number of people killed in state sponsored massacres, armed conflicts, security operations and extra judicial killings made me to pursue journalism and use media in educating my people and give them platform of knowledge and information generation, sharing, dialogue and circulation and also I pursued development studies to initiate community developments, offer counselling and build my community capacity in fostering change and usher development.

Traditional Birth Attendants in Garissa, Kenya, now using Solar Lamps

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Abjata Khalif, from Afri’s partner organisation, the Kenya Pastoralist Journalist Network, writes about the introduction of solar powered lamps to assist in the work of midwives in Sankuri in Kenya.

Abjata Khalif (right) presents a solar powered lamp to a midwife in Sankuri, Garissa, Kenya.

Hasna Muktar, a traditional birth attendant in remote far flung Sankuri village in northern Kenya prepare her ‘’traditional delivery room’’ ready to offer deliveries services, behavioural change education and other consultation to pregnant women in the village.

Sankuri village is 300 kilometres from main Garissa town and the area has poor communication and transport network forcing residents to use donkey carts and camel to ferry patients to hospitals. The journey takes seven days to main Garissa town and most patients die on the way before receiving medical attention.

The mode of transport and duration it takes to main hospital is not favourable to women experiencing labour or are ready to deliver. The seven days journey is a recipe for obstructed delivery that causes fistula and mother and child death.

But Women in Sankuri have their set of rules and guided by cultural beliefs that traditional birth attendant has the prowess to offer good abdominal palpation , offering ‘’traditional ante natal care and safe delivery services without hassle of going to Garissa hospital and in hand of midwives serving many women at ago.

As the scorching sun set in the horizon, group of eight heavily pregnant women walks into Hasna expansive compound housing her ‘’delivery room’’, consultation room and traditional training room where she educate both pregnant and other women on behavioural change and family planning.

Her traditional facility is built with sticks and grass and the only source of water is from shallow well and no running electricity to light the facility that offered safe deliveries for last twenty five years. Continue reading “Traditional Birth Attendants in Garissa, Kenya, now using Solar Lamps” →

Vuvuzela Protest: Climate Change Blows!

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Climate Change Blows!Stop Climate Chaos Protest

24th November: 1pm at the Dáil, Kildare Street

Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan prepares to travel to Durban in South Africa for the UN conference on Climate Change at the end of this month. Stop Climate Chaos want to send him off knowing climate change matters to people.  Come down to the Dáil on Kildare Street, Thursday 24th of November at 1pm and join the call.

 

Afri is a member of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition.

Climate Change Bill not a priority for Government

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Press release, 4 November 2011

The Justice and Peace organization Afri has expressed dismay at the announcement by the Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan that a Climate Change Bill will not be a priority for the Coalition Government. As Ireland reels from the latest experience of extreme weather events, severe flooding at least partly attributable to climate change, Afri spokesperson Joe Murray said he found it almost incomprehensible that Mr. Hogan could deem the issue not to be a priority.

Mr Murray pointed to the near hysterical reaction of farming and business groups when such a Bill was previously proposed as a clear indication of who dictates policy in Ireland on this issue. “It is clear that Mr. Hogan’s environmental policy now constitutes an abject surrender to these vested interests of industrialized farming and big business, underlined by his decision not to impose statutory targets for emissions reductions,” said Mr Murray. Continue reading “Climate Change Bill not a priority for Government” →

Impressions from Hedge School 2011: Climate Change, Conflict and Famine

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Saturday, 1 October 2011, Kimmage DSC, Dublin 12

Christine Nalubega

The 2011 Afri Hedge School took place in Kimmage Development Studies Centre (KDSC) in Dublin for the second year running.  You can watch a short film of the highlights from the day, made by Dave Donnellan, by clicking here!

Abjata Khalif

The theme was Climate Change and how this has impacted on developing countries resulting in famine and wars. Abjata Khalif, a pastoralist from Kenya, spoke about how climate change has affected pastoralists in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and in particular how the current famine in the Horn of Africa has caused great hardship for many, resulting in a surge in refugees and other social problems. Continue reading “Impressions from Hedge School 2011: Climate Change, Conflict and Famine” →

Afri Hedge School 2011

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The programme for the 2011 Afri Hedge School includes a talk by Kenyan Pastoralist, Abjata Khalif, on famine, climate and conflict in the Horn of Africa, followed by an examination of how we can tackle the problem of climate change in Ireland by climate scientist John Sweeney.

The 2011 Hedge School consists of a selection of workshops, hedge planting, and beautiful African music! The day promises a stimulating engagement with the issue of climate change in the world and especially how it impacts on developing countries. Lunch will also be provided.

When? Saturday 1st October 2011, 10am – 4pm

Where? Kimmage Development Studies Centre, Whitehall Road, Dublin 12.  For directions on how to get there, please click here.

How much? €10 (or €5 for students/unwaged)

You can download the brochure here to book on: Hedge School 2011

Tutu congratulates Afri

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I want to express my solidarity with, and support for, Afri on the occasion of their 35th anniversary. I am proud that Leah and I have been Afri’s International Patrons for more than 25 years. I first came to know Afri when they invited me to a conference in 1982, which I was unable to attend because my passport had been confiscated by the Apartheid government of South Africa. However, I took up that invitation two years later in 1984 and visited Ireland at Afri’s invitation during the inspiring anti-apartheid strike by young workers in Dunnes Stores in Dublin. That strike was a unique and inspirational act of international solidarity by young people in Ireland and I continue to thank them for their contribution to the struggle for freedom in South Africa. I also commend Afri for the support which they gave to the strikers, including arranging for me to meet them as I went to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

That strike became a template for Afri’s work in the succeeding years. They have continued to be involved in education, awareness raising and campaigning on a wide range of issues from opposition to the dictatorships in Latin America throughout the 1980s to their support for communities affected by the activities of Multinational Corporations today. I have been impressed, for example, by the way in which Afri supported the Ogoni community in the Niger Delta before, during and after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues, and how they have linked this struggle to that of the people of Rossport in the West of Ireland who are currently facing threats to their health, safety and environment by the multinational consortium which is seeking to extract gas in that region. Afri is admirable in that it has never shied away from making the difficult but necessary local global links.

Afri continues to work on a range of other challenging issues: such as support for the lifting of the blockade of Gaza; highlighting the dangers posed by global warming, climate change and peak oil; and campaigning against the ongoing obscenity of the global arms trade, costing more than 1000 billion dollars annually while a billion people in our world suffer from hunger.

Afri is a small organisation with a global reach, whose creativity and imaginative approach give it an ability to punch above its weight. Afri represents a dissenting voice that sometimes goes against the grain, an extremely important role in society, especially at a time when the dominant approaches have brought us to a situation of grave inequality and crises. I reaffirm my support for Afri, my congratulations on their 35th Anniversary and my belief that organisations like Afri are now needed more than ever and that they should be supported and encouraged by all who believe in democracy in Ireland and beyond.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu congratulates Afri (PDF)

Famine Walk 2010 – ‘Hunger in a World of Plenty: Sowing Seeds of Hope’

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Afri would like to thank the hundreds of people who joined us on a wonderful sunny day for our 22nd Annual Famine Walk from Doolough to Louisburgh on Saturday, 22 May.

The walk leaders Justin Kilcullen of Trócaire, Felicity Lawrence, writer and journalist for the Guardian, and Jo Newton of the Irish Seed Savers Association opened the event with short reflections on the walk theme: Hunger in a World of Plenty: Sowing Seeds of Hope.

The various speakers outlined how the injustices that led to the Irish Great Famine continue today in terms of unequal global food distribution and the way in which multinational companies increasingly control agriculture and the food processing system, while small farmers and food producers struggle to survive. A linking thread was that food insecurity will continue and intensify today unless we tackle issues such as loss of biodiversity, global warming, corporate control of food production, and the patenting and aggressive marketing of genetically modified seeds.

Afri Famine Walk 2010 from Dave Donnellan on Vimeo.

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