Justice for all

The earthquake that has just struck Haiti is a natural disaster of massive proportions, and it’s very difficult for us to wrap our heads around it. The current estimated death toll is 30,000 to 100,000 - which is a huge number. According to Tales From the Hood

And even at the low end of that estimate, it is still a big number. Typhoon’s Morakot, Ketsana and Parma, plus a tsunami in the Samoa Island Group, plus both of last Fall’s earthquakes in Indonesia, combined did not reach a death toll of 30,000.

According to MSF, there are no working hospitals in the country; the National Palace and other major government buildings have collapsed; many of the U.N. offices have been damaged and U.N. officials killed. My prayers go out to all those affected by this disaster. I cannot even really fathom the magnitude of pain these people must be going through.

What has impressed me is the extent this disaster has reverberated through social media channels. Through Twitter and blogging, people shared their sentiments about the disaster. Citizen journalism was at its best, with Haitians reaching out to provide news updates via Twitter despite chaos, confusion and damage to regular communication channels. People across the globe have, amazingly, been able to follow the developments practically in real-time. Earlier today Daniel Morel created a Twitter account, @photomorel, and posted a series of shocking high-quality photos depicting what exactly was happening in Haiti. @marvinady has also posted photos of the devastation; these were some of the first photos of the devastation. Hashtags #Haiti and #Haitihelp are being used to keep tabs on Haiti updates.

Social networking sites have provided something incredibly important that the New York Times or BBC simply cannot provide: a human connection. By following someone on Twitter and seeing their pictures, we feel closely connected to them. Social media, by connecting people, has allowed for an outpouring of empathy that simply isn’t possible through the mainstream media. We’re getting information as it happens from those suffering or witnessing this destruction. It’s not some abstract natural disaster - it’s happening to real people. People we can identify and follow on Twitter and via blogging. This intensely human connection is social media’s most powerful tool.

Social networks have also proved invaluable in gathering much-needed donations for relief efforts. Wyclef Jean took Twitter by storm and mobilized followers to donate to his Yele Haiti Foundation even before most NGOs started their relief efforts. Today afternoon, Yele was the #1 trending topic on Twitter, followed closely by the Red Cross at #2. Non-profits have creatively utilized social networks to make donating as easy as possible. The Red Cross and the IRC have both created ways for supporters to quickly donate $5 or $10 by texting to a certain number; these messages have been Retweeted, spreading like wildfire through the social web. These text message campaigns have been very successful, raising millions in the past couple of days (some are a scam, but these two are not — so do make sure you check out who you’re texting to).

This was truly a social media response, and I’m proud to see my fellow citizens working together to disseminate important news and ramp up donations. This is social media at it’s best: people collaborating and reaching out to do something good.

Immediate disaster relief is vital, but we can’t forget that the hardest work is yet to come. This earthquake will have a devastating longer-term effect on Haiti. Already a poor country, Haiti will suffer immensely from the aftermath: failed and broken infrastructure. It will be difficult to pick up the pieces and rebuild the country again. While I’m glad to see the impact of social media, I only hope the momentum lasts enough to provide continued support for future rebuilding efforts. So keep Haiti in mind even after a few weeks when the situation may not be all over your Twitter of Facebook feeds!

Here’s a quick roundup of some excellent posts to keep up with news on Haiti/figure out where to donate:

• Change.org War & Peace: Haiti Rescuers are Racing Against Time
• UN Dispatch: Haiti’s Coming Public Health Challenges &  Haiti Earthquake: The Day After Part II
• Helpful tips on what to do about Haiti and who to donate to, from an experienced aid worker
• Some background thoughts from Marginal Revolution: Why is Haiti so Poor?
• Aidwatch has a nice post on navigating the complex terrain of disaster relief
• Good Intentions are Not Enough: good post on wisely choosing NGOs to donate to
• Make sure you check out Haiti.Ushahidi.com for crowd-sourcing disaster map, news, info

My personal recommendation for donations is Partners in Health:

I wanted to briefly post these two talks, which I absolutely absolutely loved recently.

1. Shashi Tharoor, on India’s “soft power”

Click here to watch it (unfortunately TED won’t let me embed it for some strange reason).

Shashi Tharoor was elected to India’s parliament in May 2009, representing Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala as minister for external affairs. You can follow him on Twitter @shashitharoor - exciting if you’re a social media/politics nerd like me. In the past, Tharoor has worked with the UN as High Commissioner for Refugees, and on peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia (he came in a close 2nd behind Ban Ki-Moon in nominations for Secretary General!). I think it’s immmensely exciting that people like him are entering the Indian political arena, and I’m looking forward to seeing how his career pans out.

This TED talk is funny yet eloquent and it really puts a new “face” to India: the country’s soft power. Indian culture - everything ranging from Bollywood and soap operas to it’s cuisine, yoga, tech and software genius, the magic of the “IITs” and ultimately, India’s democratic values and history of pluralism is what is defining the country around the world - not just it’s economic miracle, or it’s poverty.

2. Chimamanda Adichie, on the danger of a “single story.”

Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, and I really want to read her books at some point. To quote her profile:

In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

Adichie’s newest book, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with a corrupted context in their home country, and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.

This talk is absolutely brilliant, talking about how assuming a “single story” of Africa - that it is a continent of poverty, war, and disease full of people needing to be “saved” by the kind White man - is so misleading. True, there is poverty and war in Africa, but this is only part of the story; stereotypes are not necessarily wrong but they are incomplete. By getting to understand all the stories behind a country, a continent, or a people, we gain a true appreciation of them and acknowledge our common humanity. One of the most brilliant talks I’ve seen and I’ve totally quoted it in fellowship applications already… Enjoy!

I know — this post is coming really late in the day (it’s 7:30 pm!). I haven’t had a free moment all day, in between assignments, classes and activities. But seeing as how this blog is all about contributing to a brighter world…I felt it would be a travesty if I didn’t sit down and write something for Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change. So, better late than never. Right?

I used to be a huge environmentalist in high school. Somehow that passion died down a bit as I became more interested in…people. People are easier to relate to than something “abstract” like the environment and biological conservation. Global warming is such a HUGE problem. But because it’s so huge, it’s very abstract. It’s very hard to grasp how switching off the light, using less water, turning down the heat, and taking public transport to work is going to help in the grand scheme of things. I try my best to be environment friendly, but I’ll admit — it isn’t easy to make such habits part of your daily routine when you don’t see much of an end result from your actions. It’s difficult to quantify the exact effects of global warming on people’s lives. So, I think this leads some people to give up on trying. Or to forget about these little things on a regular basis.

Part of the challenge is putting a “human face” on global warming, and that’s the next step we need to take. Thinking of global warming as an abstract problem that will affect us only years from now is misleading. Global warming DOES have a human face, and it’s destroying people’s lives at this moment — not sometime in the far off future.

And it’s developing countries and poor people that are hit the worst. In fact, an estimated 150,000 people die every year due to climate change. And the worst thing is that the poor - who individually contribute less to climate change than we in the developed world do - are hurt the most by it. They are more vulnerable to natural disasters due to poor housing and health conditions. Global warming increases the likelihood of contracting life-threatening diseases - especially as warmer weather allows malaria-bearing mosquitoes to survive in a wider range of areas. By 2030, climate change might result in 90 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa! Meningitis, dengue fever and diarrhea all might increase due to global warming.

And that’s not all. Poor countries are more prone to flooding. And global warming dries out farmland- a severe problem in Africa since 2/3 of the continent is composed of desert or dry climate. There is also more unpredictability in weather patterns overall, with more severe and frequent floods and droughts. Agriculture is one of the main means of livelihood for people in developing countries, and it is severely affected by climate change.

I know this is all very depressing. But the good news is that the environmental movement has exploded in recent times. A few decades ago, no one was talking about it — now, everyone and their mother wants to “go green.” Good for us. But now, it’s up to us to ensure that “going green” isn’t just another short-term fad — we have to keep the movement going until we make significant progress on climate change.

I’ll leave you with an inspirational project that I have written about before, and think is a superb idea. Face the Change, which is aiming to highlight the human face of climate change:

The goal of Face the Change is to mobilize support to tackle climate change by highlighting its social impacts. By putting a human face on global warming, we aim to elevate the current debate on science and energy policy to one that includes key human rights issues of natural disasters and forced migration. The web-based platform will primarily use video and other multimedia to document the current and future impacts and facilitate a global dialogue with the intention of shaping policy. To reach communities without widespread access to the Internet, we will run a pilot project using cell phone Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) to raise awareness, rally and gather feedback from impoverished communities whose homes and livelihoods will be directly threatened by rising seas, drought and other climate change related effects. Cell phones are the windows to the world for many in developing countries, but their potential as a medium that informs under-represented people and allows them to participate in debates is far from realized.

Just like Face the Change, there are tons of other groups and organizations working on climate change issues - from the grassroots level to the international policy level. We just have to do our part to contribute to the movement and ensure it doesn’t fade out — and I think there is hope for future generations.

The last time I saw my grandmother she didn’t know who I was. She kept staring and me and my mom, and she was thinking so hard, it was as if I could see gears turning in her head. But, each time she tried, the gears would stop, her memory would fail her. There may have been a flash of recognition in her eyes at some point, but if so, it was so fleeting that it went unnoticed. Later that day, she refused to eat her pureed dinner and fell asleep at the table. The last image I have of my grandma is her tiny little body curled up sleeping in her nursing home bed.

My grandma had dementia, which like Alzheimer’s, steals your memory bit by bit, and eventually makes your body forget to do important things like eat. Watching her suffer, seeing her memory deteriorate more and more each time I saw her, was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. She used to be funny, vivacious, warm, and caring before the disease robbed her of these things. My family and I consoled ourselves with the fact that, after a while, she had no idea what was going on. But, it didn’t help much, because we knew. Aside from sadness, one of the most frustrating feelings I had was that of helplessness. I kept wishing there was something I could do to help her…and then I learned about the Memory Walk. I already knew about the Alzheimer’s Association because of a special group my grandma had attended in her community. Trained professionals ran activities for people suffering from dementia, and gave their caregivers a much needed break.

In 2007, I participated in the Memory Walk for the first time. My boyfriend and I were in Washington, D.C. for the semester, so we did the walk there. The route was around the National Mall. We started fundraising at the last minute, so we weren’t able to raise as much as we would have liked, but being able to contribute to an organization with a mission to end Alzheimer’s made me feel like I was finally doing something. My grandma passed away in July 2008, so last year, I walked in her memory in New York City. I worked hard to raise as much money as I could, and by walk day, I had raised more than $500. In a few weeks, I’ll be walking for the third time. After reaching out to co-workers, friends, and family, I had already surpassed last year’s total with more than a month to go.

One of the Memory Walk slogans is, “We’re on the MOVE to end Alzheimer’s.” It’s so easy to delete the e-mails you get from friends who are raising money for causes they believe in. It’s easy to think that because you can’t contribute much, you might as well not contribute at all, or that you won’t because you don’t have a personal connection to the cause. It may seem easy to convince yourself that you’re just one person and you can’t really make a difference. But, what if everyone thought that way? What if no one ever took initiative, always assuming someone else would take responsibility? What a scary world this would be. I am on the MOVE to end Alzheimer’s because, I may be one person, but I can make a difference. I refuse to sit by and do nothing. I believe that there will one day be a cure, and if I can save one family from going through what my family went through, even if I never know it, then everything I’ve done will be worth it. After all, we can’t just wait for change to happen; we have to be the change.

The Changemaker

Sam works in Marketing for online ad network, CPX Interactive. She blogs on a wide variety of topics from friendship, to grammar, to life lessons, at Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates. She loves writing, watching football, making new friends, and ice cream, among other things. Sam is big on appreciation, and she would really appreciate your support of the Memory Walk. You can donate here.

You can also catch her on Twitter @sameve!

I’m always getting to news late on this blog, because I constantly have things I want to say. So although this post refers to a news story from last week, I still feel a need to write about it - because it has haunted me ever since I read it. Last week the New Yorker published a moving, beautifully written feature about Todd Willingham, an innocent man arrested and put to death in Texas for killing his own children through arson.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Todd Willingham woke up in his house to find it on fire - he ran downstairs to try to save his children, but couldn’t get inside their room. About to pass out from the smoke, he stumbled out of the house, unable to help his kids even though he was desperate to do so. Soon firefighters arrived but even they were unable to get to his kids in time. He was completely devastated - he loved his children.

However, arson “specialists” soon investigated his house and apparently found clear signs that the fire had been set on purpose. Willingham immediately became the primary suspect and soon others began testifying that he was a bit “crazy.” He was imprisoned and it seemed clear that he deserved the death penalty. The only problem: no one had really found a motive.

Here’s the saddest part. Over a decade later, a woman began corresponding with Todd privately and began looking into the case. She found so many flaws — people’s testimony had changed over time and some of the witnesses were clearly unreliable. Then she sent the fire records to an expert scientist who found that the previous investigator had not been an arson expert and had made a lot of unwarranted assumptions. It was concluded that the fire had been set off accidentally. Todd was found to be innocent just before his execution and the evidence was all there — but the Texas courts refused to commute his execution. He was executed anyway, even after found to be clearly innocent.

If nothing else, this strikes me as a clear reason to abolish the death penalty. The death penalty doesn’t allow for mistakes, but the problem is that the US justice system IS rife with mistakes. So if you’re wrong, you have just killed an innocent person. Here are some shocking statistics from The Innocence Project, a great organization working to exonerate wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing:

• There have been 242 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.
• The average length of time served by exonerees is 12 years.
• The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions was 26.
• 144 of these 242 people were African American. Clearly there’s something wrong going on here.
• Since 1989, there have been tens of thousands of cases where prime suspects were identified and pursued—until DNA testing (prior to conviction) proved that they were wrongly accused.
• Eyewitness misidentification testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. At least 40 percent of these eyewitness identifications involved a cross racial identification. Studies have shown that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own (I find this really interesting).

Beyond this, there are so many of the other arguments - that it costs so much more to put someone to death than to imprison them for life, and moreover that it really has little impact on deterrence of future criminals. There have been studies documenting this. So why put people to death anyway? It doesn’t make sense to me.

But beyond this, what this article made me think is that if such huge mistakes are made due to inadequate research…who else is slipping through the cracks of the U.S. justice system? Public defenders are completely overburdened with cases. They are often unable to dedicate enough time to each client. How many of these clients are put in prison for crimes they did not commit? How many people are unable to afford a lawyer, and thus lack adequate representation — like Todd Willingham? How many people are given long sentences in prison while they require shorter ones? How many people are imprisoned when they really need rehabilitation — and then come out even MORE hardened by jail? It really makes you wonder; the system is in dire need of reform, and yet little attention seems to be given to the issue..

Image credit: New Yorker