*a consultancy that works with the not-for-profit sector on strategy development, campaign design, training and capacity building. Lena has extensive experience of working with NGOs both in Australia and internationally.*

Well that is wonderful. In that case Lena should be using her talents
to design a family planning programme for these women, for whilst
they are popping out 6 kids each on average, the problem will
only get larger and the next famine will be even larger. Given
that Australia donates 4 billion $ to foreign aid, none of it for
family planning in the third world, here is your chance Lena!

Make a difference, but don't blame everyday Australians.

We each have our own ways of responding to the dire fate of people starving, children dying on the roadside, the lack of world capacity to help provide long term solutions to the people of Somalia, and the other regions in drought crisis.

We may feel fatigued by the growing needs after earthquakes, floods, drought and the GFC. War and conflict is in many cases at the heart of the matter. While Climate Change is a reality, it is also in the background in the same ways the causal elements of crime itself is linked to the cycle of dispossession and poverty.

Never however will I be a by-stander to the events that are currently before us. To turn your back on the people of Somalia, Haiti, Pakistan. The Congo, Afghanistan, Europe and the Middle East only adds more burden to the problems we already have.

If I were to point a finger it is toward the politics of trade and the role of capital. It is difficult for me to see how we may ever achieve anything if as individuals we don't use what knowledge we have to push for change.

We must be part of the change.

I thank Lena Aahlby for writing something on the "CRISIS" in surrounding Somalia. While her emphasis is on the link between now and the future of Climate Change my own concern is on humanity. It is a crime to expect UNHCR to continue to cope, if we don't help to make the linkages connecting our role here?

I respond because it is important to make the starvation of so many visible. The larger populations per family has to do with their death rate and who are we here on our computers, in our comfort zone to judge.

Secondly, we will not ever protect the enviornment unitil we learn to protect people first.

It is distrssing to know so many are dying of starvation in Somalia and that there are so many in dire need throughout the world.

If only we, as a whole humanity could wake up.

http://www.miacat.com/

A couple of years ago I attended a local presentation by a group from our Corporate Affairs Department concerning incorporated associations. One of the presenters told us that there were about seventy different associations in Victoria who all had members from an African country which is presently in the grip of famine. He said that they all tribal and hate one another.

Until these people learn to live peaceably in their own country, how can we even start to give them any effective aid, when there is no effective governance and what there is, is largely corrupt.

Miacat, it is all very well having the sentiments that you do, but as stated by Jayb, if you don't let nature take its course, next time around, there will be even greater travail. These countries have to get their own acts together and commit to more effective use of any aid which they receive.

David

Lena,
The only problem there is re poverty is overpopulation yet so many are against doing anything about population control. Everyone is appalled at the poverty & starving but bring up the subject of population control & suddenly all concern about starving goes out the window.
We need to ask one single question. Do we really want to stop starvation or don't we ?

Miacat says:

<< Never however will I be a by-stander to the events that are currently before us. To turn your back on the people of Somalia, Haiti, Pakistan. The Congo, Afghanistan, Europe and the Middle East only adds more burden to the problems we already have.

<< I respond because it is important to make the starvation of so many visible. The larger populations per family has to do with their death rate and who are we here on our computers, in our comfort zone to judge>>

I cited this before, but it also holds some pertinence to this thread, and the sentiments expressed above—and (as you can see from the reaction of the refugee advocate in the piece ) it is something that is not often heard:

“Frances approached a refugee advocate to discuss her alarm over population growth in Pakistan, where in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake she'd witnessed something that disturbs her still. She'd helped a woman give birth to her 17th child by a husband with several other wives. But there was no more room in the tent. So the mother married off a 15 year-old daughter to accommodate the infant. A week later, Frances saw the new bride. 'It was the sight of a girl who had been raped. I've been haunted by the look of this girl, her bloodshot eyes, ever since.' When Frances raised her sense of helplessness with the refugee advocate, he put his hands over his ears.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/rocking-the-boat/story-e6frg8h6-1226088726434

The Horn of Africa has been a charnel house for decades.

I have heard the mantra of the activist “give a man a fish and feed him for a day, show him how to fish and he will feed himself for life”

Question – how many generations of fishermen do we have to train before they “get it”?

We have activists like WWF and Greenpeace ailing that the west is responsible for the rape of Africa

We have seen “democracy” and “independence” handed back to “Africa”

And now, a few more generations on, we are still training fishermen.

Why, in the half a century since the independence of the majority of African states are they not training their own fishermen?

When are the supporters of Greenpeace, WWF and all the other ram-shackle, economic cretins of activism going to get it

The West supports Africa as philanthropy, Africa, instead of rising to the challenges offered by independence has turned itself into a continent of cargo cults.

I will observe two similarities between the global poverty (especially as it appears in the Horn of Africa) and Anthropogenic Global Warming:

They are both big Cons on the pockets of private citizens of the west

They are both promoted by watermelon activists who demand to exercise dominion over the privately owned resources and choices of other people.

Self perpetuating Poverty in Africa; save the world from Global Warming –

Think of me as an “activist” for independence from the aspirations of Watermelon activists


PEST – “Most of whom hate volunteers;”

I hate no one

I simply resent ignorant twits with an inflated sense of self-righteousness often garnered from having managed to avoid doing a real job, who think they are entitled to criticize the views of those who do have real jobs and hold alternative opinions to those of PESTs.

I also understand DDT is a most useful resource – good for killing off malaria mosquitoes which breed in African swamps and other assorted PESTs