Justice for all

This week, I’m really excited to feature SAWA Global, because I’m convinced their work is extremely important and yet not recognized enough.

I strongly believe that we have to empower grassroots leaders and allow them to tell their stories. Most of the biggest names of organizations, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs we hear of are Western-based: Amnesty International, Acumen Fund and Jacqueline Novogratz, the Save Darfur Coalition - to name a few. But although many Western-based organizations and people are doing great work, the truth is they also have the internet access and marketing skills to get the word out there about their work. But for every Western entrepreneur, there are hundreds of innovators in developing countries that are working hard to cause grassroots social change — but they are not being recognized. Though they may be some of the most bright, passionate, and hardworking change agents out there, many of these people just don’t have the connections and network that we in the Western world do when it comes to marketing themselves. This saddens me.

This is where SAWA Global comes in. Sawa connects local heroes to the world, quite simply:

Sawa empowers unsung grassroots leaders (Sawa Heroes) in the world’s poorest countries that have found innovative solutions to global challenges by documenting their projects with media tools and connecting them to a global community (Sawa Mentors).

SAWA’s local heroes have focused on critical social issues like poverty, neglected children and youth, public health, and the environment. In order to bring attention to the ways in which these heroes are transforming their communities, SAWA Global recruits and trains local videographers in the world’s 50 poorest countries. SAWA Video Journalists then identify local heroes and document these projects and initiatives via video - which are then profiled on the organization’s website. The SAWA Mentor program then allows anyone who is interested to work with the SAWA Hero, learn from their success and share their own skills and ideas to help the project succeed - thus connecting the local heroes with a truly global community.

So while you’re enjoying a relaxing weekend, spend a few minutes watching some of the amazing videos SAWA Global has created, and learn about the great work being done by grassroots entrepreneurs in the developing world. Here’s a great video to start off with:

If you have been keeping up with the news lately, I am sure you have heard of Roxana Saberi, an American journalist who has been imprisoned in Iran with a sentence of 8 years for spying for the US government. However, these allegations are said to be unfounded.

Saberi is a freelance journalist who has been living in Iran for six years. She’s worked for top news organizations like NPR and the BBC, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She has a diverse family background: her father is Iranian and her mother is Japanese. She was chosen as Miss North Dakota in 1997, and went on to get Master’s degrees from Northwestern and Cambridge.

Since I’m a current Northwestern student, I have to say I deeply empathize with her situation, and hope she is freed soon. I am sure the immense pressure on the Iranian government will help Roxana’s cause. After all, the campaign to “Free Roxana” has gained a lot of traction via Twitter, freeroxana.net, and the international news media. Most impressive, Iranian President Ahmadinejad made a statement that Saberi should be allowed to offer a full defense at her appeal. President Obama has publicly called for her release, expressing concern for her safety.

But why does Saberi get all the attention of heads of state and news media around the world? I say: because she is American. People rally behind her cause mostly because she’s American.

But what about Iranian people suffering under their government? Rarely is their plight so publicized, and rarely do Americans fight for the rights of an Iranian. Why is no one fighting for Mohammad Khamami, who has been sentenced to death by stoning by Iranian authorities? Oh, and how about two brothers - Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei - doctors specialized in treating HIV/AIDS, who were tried and sentenced in January for plotting to overthrow the Iranian government - but were not given a fair trial by international standards? Hmm…maybe it’s because their names are hard to spell, and of course, because they don’t have any connection to America. And US media would never talk about the fact that Iran has arrested and tortured many Iranians who attempted to visit the Ashraf Camp in Iraq in order to visit their relatives; women as old as 85 have been punished.

One positive development: Recently there has been a lot of support for 20 year old Iranian Delara Darabi, who has been sentenced to public hanging for a murder that occurred when she was 17 years old. At that time, her 19 year old boyfriend had forced Delara to falsely confess to the murder of a relative - to protect him from execution. Despite the evidence to the contrary, she’s on death row. The good thing is, her execution was postponed 2 months in part because of international pressure. Still, she has only 403 followers on Twitter, compared to Roxana Saberi’s 3602 followers. That’s a big difference. And the US news media definitely hasn’t written about her as much. Mostly because she’s not American.

Sure, it’s natural for people to support those they feel an affinity with — and Americans emphatize more strongly with Roxana Saberi. But this narrow-minded Western focus becomes a problem when it completely ignores the plight of local Iranians - and nationals of other countries as well. Saberi is lucky; she has the political connection to America and thus is having her voice heard. But most local Iranians are not so lucky to have such a network or such connections, and their problems get completely ignored.  Americans have a powerful voice and with that voice, can cause international outcry that can save lives. But inevitably, the US media selectively ignores many of those situations that don’t endanger Americans, leaving more marginalized populations to struggle alone just because they don’t have that connection to the US. Americans, along with the Western world as a whole need to look past their biases and understand that there is more going on than simply the abuse of one American journalist. With great power comes great responsibility, and this responsibility needs to be fulfilled.

So, Refugees International beat me to this topic, but I’ll put my opinion out there anyway, because I believe it’s incredibly important to understand.

Recently, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about the pirate situation off the coast of Somalia. Currently, 15 ships and 300 crew members are being held hostage by Somali pirates. On April 8, a group of Somali teenage “pirates” kidnapped and held for ransom the captain of an American container vessel. In a “successful mission,” the pirates were shot dead by U.S. Navy Seals. More recently, a Russian cruiser stopped three pirate ships off the coast of Somalia and detained 10 pirates. Yesterday, a teenage Somali pirate captured by U.S. forces and brought to New York for trial was ordered to face the court as an adult on piracy charges; he could be jailed for life.

True, people need to be held accountable for their actions. But the focus on punishing the pirates is wrong: political leaders, the international community, and the news media need to focus on addressing the underlying causes of piracy instead. These pirates were driven to engage in criminal behavior because of the poverty, lack of opportunity, and chaos in Somalia. What about the more important story: Somalia’s history, and it’s dire situation?

The media frenzy is wrongly focused on the issue of piracy because it’s sensational, news-worthy. What about everything else going on in Somalia? I don’t know if you’ve realized, but Somalia is a country. With a history, a long legacy. There’s a lot more to Somalia than just pirates. Somalia is a failed state, a humanitarian crisis - and piracy is just a symptom of this. In 1991, a civil war destroyed Somalia’s government, and since then the country has suffered famine and utter chaos. Somalia has split into several mini-states and does not even have a central government. The country is also being exploited by Ethiopia; since Ethiopia, backed by the US, overthrew Somalia’s government, the country has been consumed in anarchy. Somalia’s situation is even worse than that in Darfur. One third of its people are currently refugees. More than 3 million are dependent on external assistance. Piracy is a result of this horrible situation; people are driven to desperate measures in order to survive. In spite of this ongoing crisis, the entire media is focused on the few pirates who have been caught - not the millions dying of violence and poverty. Where are our priorities?

The severe international response to punishing the pirates is also unfair since it’s largely a reaction to the decades of exploitation Somalia has undergone at the hands of more powerful nations. For decades, the country’s long coastline has been pillaged by foreign vessels. Fishing fleets from around the world have long plundered Somalia’s rich waters; trawlers from places like South Korea, Japan, and Spain have fished illegally on the Somali coast. This has forced the country’s own poor fishermen out. Impoverished Somali fishermen lacked the advanced boats and technologies of their competitors, and were sometimes even shot at by foreign fishermen. Somalia - with all its chaos - has no way of monitoring its coastlines; it has no navy or coast guard. “According to another U.N. report, an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country’s coastline each year.” As a response, poor Somalis living by the ocean were forced to start defending their own fishing expeditions; the first pirate gangs emerged simply as a method of self-defense. They simply had no option if they were to survive.

The international community needs to understand that the problem of piracy isn’t something that can be solved by punishment or even worse, violence and war. If we want to end piracy, we have to attack the root cause of the problem - which is the overwhelming poverty and anarchy of the country. If we help the Somali people to establish a stable government, as well as help improve the overall quality of life in the country, perhaps they wouldn’t have to resort to desperate measures like piracy. And we need to shift media focus away from the pirates and onto the humanitarian crisis occurring in the state: there’s more to Somalia than pirates, and it’s time people realized this.

Here is a guest post I recently wrote for my friend Grace’s blog. Grace is featuring guest posts by fellow Gen Yers on the topic “What Inspires You?” in order to find out what makes Gen Y tick. I’m honored that she asked me to write a blog for her theme, and I am posting my response here. You can read the original post here. In the meantime, go check out Grace’s great blog, and the other inspiring blogs in her series.

Name: Akhila Kolisetty

Bio: Akhila is a 19 year old (soon to be 20!) undergraduate student at Northwestern University. She’s majoring in political science and economics, and hopes to eventually go to law school. She’s currently studying abroad for the year at the London School of Economics and absolutely loves London. She loves poetry, writing, chocolate, social media, political science and law, deep discussions, and learning about the world.

Blog: Justice for all Twitter: @freestallion

I started writing poetry at the age of 12 or so, after reading the autobiography of Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, given to me by my grandfather. My grandfather is incredibly intelligent. He has never left India, yet he has immense knowledge about the entire world. At a young age, I spent hours listening to his fascinating stories about history, science, religion, art, poetry, writing, and visionary leaders. My grandfather was my earliest inspiration. His guidance led me to discover writing and poetry. Since then, I’ve been in love with words. I love the power I have when I’m weaving words into poetry, when I see my haphazard thoughts come together cohesively to form something tangible, beautiful. I love the strength, emotional intensity, and symbolic depth that poems can convey.

To me, poetry is the ultimate expression of oneself. It allows one to put down on paper the abstract aches and longings buried inside – that simply can’t be conveyed through prose. I’ve been writing poetry ever since, and have even been published in a couple of literary magazines.

Since then, my love for writing has led me to be a reporter for The Daily Northwestern, my university’s newspaper. I loved journalism, but after a while it felt so cold and objective to me. I couldn’t inject my personality, my opinions, or my passions into my articles. And so I stopped after a year, realizing I could never commit to journalism. I’ve also always had blogs, but until a few months ago, they were mostly private and served as online diaries. For the first time, I recently began writing about issues I am passionate about – like human rights – on my public blog, Justice for All. I find blogging more fulfilling than journalism. It allows me to write about topics I care about engagingly and passionately. And at the same time, it’s allowed me to jump headfirst into social media, meeting like minded people and learning so much more about important issues.

Still, I feel like writing doesn’t allow me to make enough of a difference. Rather than simply informing people about the challenges we face, I want to do more. I want to actively do something to change our world. I am inspired by leaders, activists, and organizations that are passionate, talented, and truly innovative. I admire Muhammad Yunus for turning traditional finance on its head and creating a world movement for microfinance, allowing poor people access to loans for the first time. I admire Karen Tse, a lawyer who has started a nonprofit called International Bridges to Justice, which works to end torture in the developing world by training public defenders. I admire NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof for bringing to our attention the things that we have to care about: war, famine, genocide, poverty. I’m inspired by organizations like the ACLU, Human Rights First, Equality Now, and Legal Aid who work tirelessly to protect human rights and civil liberties. I believe strongly that law is an effective tool for social change, because it can really empower people. And I want to be a part of this. It is a way to combine my love for writing – since law involves so much writing – with my desire to better the world. And so, I will continue to be inspired by writers but also human rights activists. Someday, I hope to pursue both passions together – and I hope my inspirations will help me forge my path ahead.

Photo Credit(s): moleskinart and With Love & Such

Nicholas Kristof is holding a competition called Win-a-trip, where an American college student will be selected to accompany Kristof on a reporting trip to Africa. This will give the student an invaluable opportunity to learn about issues and controversies in the developing world, travel with Kristof and learn from his vast experience, blog about the trip and have their voice heard on the NYT, and see with their own eyes – perhaps for the first time – malnutrition, lack of clean water, disease, poverty, conflict, violence, pain.

But one response from a student last year caught my eye. She argued that she refused to apply for Kristof’s contest because she thought there was too much negative coverage of Africa already; the world knows about Africa’s problems, its poverty, its hunger.

Americans don’t need any more stories of a dying Africa. Instead, we should learn of a living one. Kristof and his winners should investigate how it is that Botswana had the highest per-capita growth of any country in the world for the last 30 years of the twenty-first century. Report on the recent completion of the West Africa Gas Pipeline that delivers cheaper, cleaner energy to parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Tell us about investment opportunities in Nigeria’s burgeoning capital markets.

I agree and disagree. I disagree that we should no longer cover the “negative” aspects of what’s going on in Africa, because reporters aren’t responsible for spinning the stories. They are responsible for telling the truth of things as they are - and this means the good, the bad, and the ugly. Journalism is a mirror of reality, and the reality today is that there are vast problems on the continent. No wonder we hear negative stories every day - it’s not the media, it’s the truth. Instead of blaming the media, we have to take it into our own hands to change the underlying reality, which is the actual problem.

But I agree in another respect. There is enough negative coverage, but there isn’t enough constructive, inspiring negative coverage. There is a lot about war, famine, death, destruction. And there is a lot written objectively, which is, after all, the reporter’s job - to be a watchful, neutral eye, and to tell both sides of the story. This coverage is of course necessary. But it makes readers think, “There is so much pain in Africa, and I really don’t want to see any more of this because there is nothing much I can do. It is too painful to think about so let me just tune it out.” The current, objective news coverage isn’t enough. It encourages fatalism and disheartens the public without offering hope.

In addition to the negative and positive coverage out there, we need a more human face to reporting. We need news coverage that is hopeful and inspiring, that gives readers a reason to care, to give, to get involved, to learn - to fight for something bigger than themselves. We need more columns like Kristof’s. The reason I love Kristof is that he argues for something and gets people engaged; he challenges readers to not just read about atrocity, but to get fired up about it. True, there is already so much written about Africa. But Kristof’s column, I think, brings a fresh perspective to it. Other columnists focus on policies, politics, governments. But Kristof, plain and simple, writes about the people. He brings the news down to earth. He tells stories about peoples lives, about individuals’ pains, heartaches, struggles, and dreams. He gives the reader a personal connection with a human trafficking victim in Cambodia, a child soldier in Uganda, or a microfinance borrower in India. By weaving the magic of personal stories, struggles, and triumphs, he gives readers a glimpse of actual life in the developing world - and by doing this, he is going far beyond the typical “negative” coverage we see.

After all, why is it that countless news stories about war and destruction don’t affect us - but one movie, Slumdog Millionaire, shocked and horrified so many? We’re desensitized to the typical news media, because it reduces people to nothing more than numbers. Pages and pages of death. But inherently, it’s when we hear the personal stories of men, women and children across the globe that we realize: we are all the same, and a teenager just like me shouldn’t be suffering just because she was born somewhere else. And somehow, this personal connection is all the more powerful than a bunch of statistics - it makes us tap into something deeper, and allows us to realize that we are all connected far more profoundly than we can ever imagine.

And that’s what we need to see more of.