Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor

P.J. Hendrikse

Solutions The exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt has many items to show a grasp of the depths of world poverty and ingenious ways to attack it. They include a 20-gallon rolling drum for transporting water, above.

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Published: May 29, 2007

“A billion customers in the world,” Dr. Paul Polak told a crowd of inventors recently, “are waiting for a $2 pair of eyeglasses, a $10 solar lantern and a $100 house.”

=====================================

Multimedia

Video

Tools for Better Living

 

Tomas Bertelsen

A pot-in-pot cooler that relies on the evaporation of water from wet sand to cool the inner pot.

Vestergaard Frandsen

The Lifestraw drinking filter, which kills bacteria as water is sucked through it.

 

One computer for every child.

Stanford Richins

A portable light mat.

 

=========================

The world’s cleverest designers, said Dr. Polak, a former psychiatrist who now runs an organization helping poor farmers become entrepreneurs, cater to the globe’s richest 10 percent, creating items like wine labels, couture and Maseratis.

“We need a revolution to reverse that silly ratio,” he said.

To that end, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, which is housed in Andrew Carnegie’s 64-room mansion on Fifth Avenue and offers a $250 red chrome piggy bank in its gift shop, is honoring inventors dedicated to “the other 90 percent,” particularly the billions of people living on less than $2 a day.

Their creations, on display in the museum garden until Sept. 23, have a sort of forehead-thumping “Why didn’t someone think of that before?” quality.

For example, one of the simplest and yet most elegant designs tackles a job that millions of women and girls spend many hours doing each year — fetching water. Balancing heavy jerry cans on the head may lead to elegant posture, but it is backbreaking work and sometimes causes crippling injuries. The Q-Drum, a circular jerry can, holds 20 gallons, and it rolls smoothly enough for a child to tow it on a rope.

Interestingly, most of the designers who spoke at the opening of the exhibition spurned the idea of charity.

“The No. 1 need that poor people have is a way to make more cash,” said Martin Fisher, an engineer who founded KickStart, an organization that says it has helped 230,000 people escape poverty. It sells human-powered pumps costing $35 to $95.

Pumping water can help a farmer grow grain in the dry season, when it fetches triple the normal price. Dr. Fisher described customers who had skipped meals for weeks to buy a pump and then earned $1,000 the next year selling vegetables.

“Most of the world’s poor are subsistence farmers, so they need a business model that lets them make money in three to six months, which is one growing season,” he said. KickStart accepts grants to support its advertising and find networks of sellers supplied with spare parts, for example. His prospective customers, Dr. Fisher explained, “don’t do market research.”

“Many of them have never left their villages,” he said.

GO HERE TO VIEW ALICE WALKER INTERVIEW

Alice Walker on “Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel”

As the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winners are announced, we speak with the first African American woman to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for fiction: author, poet and activist Alice Walker. She was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer for her novel The Color Purple. She was written many books since then. Her latest, just out, is called Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel. [includes rush transcript]

 

AMY GOODMAN: The list of winners for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize were announced Monday—among them, Sheri Fink, reporter with the nonprofit investigative news group ProPublica. She won the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for her story in collaboration with the New York Times Magazine on the urgent life-and-death decisions made by doctors at a New Orleans hospital when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, Anthony Shadid walked away with his second Pulitzer for his Washington Post series on the war in Iraq.

Well, my next guest is the first African American woman to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for fiction: author, poet, activist, Alice Walker, awarded the 1983 Pulitzer for her novel The Color Purple. She has written many books since then. Her latest, just out, is called Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel. Alice Walker, joining us here in our new firehouse—in our new Democracy Now! studios.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

ALICE WALKER: It’s so beautiful.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, welcome to the greenest TV, radio, internet studios in the country. It’s great to have you here.

ALICE WALKER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: And I look forward to speaking to you tonight at the 92nd Street Y in the public conversation. But Alice, this latest book, why did you call it Overcoming Speechlessness?

ALICE WALKER: I wanted to address what I feel is a real problem that we have in the last century, actually, or even before. And that is that things can be so horrible that people lose the ability to talk about them. And I had this happen when I was in college, actually, when I learned that the King of Belgium had decided that if the Africans in the Belgian Congo could not fulfill their rubber quota that he had imposed on them, he could order their hands to be chopped off. This was so appalling to me as a student, as an eighteen- and nineteen-year-old, that I couldn’t speak about it. I just—I put it somewhere that I left for many years. And I think this has happened over and over to people, that they encounter these brutalities, these atrocities, and they literally can’t talk about them, and so we don’t speak. But if we don’t speak, then there’s more of it, and more people suffer. So it’s a call to overcoming speechlessness.

AMY GOODMAN: We just got word that eight Red Cross staff have been kidnapped by an armed group in the eastern Congo. Seven Congolese and one Swiss national were seized on Friday afternoon near the town of Mai Mai [sic]—well, near the town of—in a South Kivu province by the Mai Mai rebels, this according to the Red Cross. You went to eastern Congo?

ALICE WALKER: I was in eastern Congo, and I met some women who were survivors of enslavement and sexual abuse that was so horrendous that it was a challenge to even hear it and even to see some of the damage. On the other hand, I found that by being there, I gave myself some comfort, because I wasn’t trying to see people at a distance and removing myself, my feelings from them. It was very frightening, because there were lots of soldiers everywhere and people who had been damaged by soldiers, you know, people who had lost limbs. And it was traumatic.

AMY GOODMAN: You began, though, by talking about Rwanda, and then you trace the violence to Congo. Talk about Rwanda.

ALICE WALKER: Yes. Well, in Rwanda, because of the killing of so many Tutsis by the Hutu and the—really a slaughter—

AMY GOODMAN: And you trace it back. You go all the way—

ALICE WALKER: Well, I went all the way back to, again, those Belgians, the Belgians, and before them, the Germans. They came into the Congo, and they decided that the Tutsi people, because they had larger skulls, were more like Europeans, and so they should be in charge of the Hutu people, whose skulls apparently were not as large. Anyway, they instigated this rule of one clan by the other, even though these people had been fairly peaceful living together for centuries. And after they had done this, finally, after many years of domination, a century or so, they left. But they left the Hutu in charge of the Tutsi. And so, eventually, the hatred that had been building over a long, long period erupted into genocide.

And so, I had heard about this awful thing that the Hutu Interahamwe people had killed 800,000 of the Tutsi people. And that again was so awful, I couldn’t really entirely let myself feel what it must be like to actually have your body hacked away from you, which is what happened to all of those people. But eventually, I needed to go there, and so I did. And what I found was, you know, that the Rwandan people have done a wonderful job of memorializing what happened, and they have also elected more women to help run the country than almost anywhere else.

But on the other hand, the soldiers and the murderers, a lot of them, just went into the Congo. And so, we went there, not following them, but because we wanted to see the Congo, which is incredibly beautiful. It is the most exquisite country. I had no idea. I mean, lakes and trees and, you know, just a wonderful place, except that it’s torn to bits by the war. And a lot of the people who did the killing in Rwanda are there, and they had been murdering and abusing the people terribly.

And so, one of the women that I talk about in my book is a woman who had been basically chopped up, and I find it hard to talk about it even now. But she survived, and she is now looking for her children, who survived, one or two of them. The Interahamwe people had shot her son and her husband, killed them. So it’s—you know, it’s a kind of violence in the world now that is truly unspeakable. I mean, that is the part of it, that overcoming speechlessness means speaking about what really is unspeakable because it is so terrible.

AMY GOODMAN: You go, in the book, from Rwanda to eastern Congo to Palestine-Israel.

ALICE WALKER: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: It was your first trip?

ALICE WALKER: To Palestine? Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What made you go?

ALICE WALKER: Well, I was actually mourning the death of my own sister, and I thought that, oh, she was, you know, much older, and she was sick, and she died, and we’d had a horrible five or six years before she died. And so I thought, you know, when she dies, I won’t be devastated. And I was completely devastated. It was so painful.

And I was out trying to deal with my own devastation, when I learned about a woman in Palestine, during the bombing, who had been—who had lost five of her daughters, and she herself was unconscious. And it just instantly connected me to her. I felt, what will this be like? Who will tell her? Who will tell this woman when she wakes up that “your five daughters are dead”?

And so I felt that I had to go and present myself to this situation and to be attentive to it in a way that I had started being many years before, except that at the time I was married to and then related to, in many ways, to a Jewish person who always said, well, if you see the Palestinian side, almost anything, you know, positive about the Palestinian side, then it means that you are anti-Semitic. And so, this was so shocking to me that it silenced me for a while. I mean, I said a few things, I wrote a few things. But I felt that I had left something undone. And I realize at this point in my life, and years earlier, actually, that there are things in life that call to us, and they’re ours to do. And this was one of the things that was mine to finish.

And so I went to Gaza, and I met with women who had lost everything, and their children, their houses. You know, I sat on the rubble, even though there was the phosphorus powder, because it was just overwhelming to see the injury and the damage that had been done to these people by the Israeli government. And I knew that it was my responsibility as a writer and as a human being to witness this and to write about it. I mean, why else was I—why else am I a writer? You know, why else do I have a conscience? I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you like to read a little from the book, Overcoming Speechlessness?

ALICE WALKER: I’ll try. I don’t have my reading glasses, but I can do my best.

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe “It Feels Familiar”?

ALICE WALKER: OK, yeah. Alright. Oh, where is it? Where is that, Amy? I don’t see it.

AMY GOODMAN: “It Feels Familiar.” Number seventeen.

ALICE WALKER: OK, I think we might—

AMY GOODMAN: Right there.

ALICE WALKER: Oh, yeah, I’m sorry.

“It Feels Familiar.”

“One of the triumphs of the civil rights movement is that when you travel through the South today you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate. This is the legacy of people brought up in the Christian tradition, true believers of every word Jesus had to say on the issues of justice, loving kindness, and peace. This dovetailed nicely with what we learned of Gandhian nonviolence, brought into the movement by Bayard Rustin, a gay strategist for the civil rights movement. A lot of thought went into how to create ‘the beloved community’ so that our country would not be stuck with a violent hatred between black and white, and with the continuous spectacle, and suffering, of communities going up in flames. The progress is astonishing and I will always love Southerners, black and white, for the way we have all grown. Ironically, though there was so much suffering and despair as the struggle for justice tested us, it is in this very ‘backward’ part of our country today that one is most likely to find simple human helpfulness, thoughtfulness, and disinterested courtesy.

“I speak a little about this American history, but it isn’t history that these women know.” These are the women, the Palestinian women, I’m with. “They’re too young. They’ve never been taught it. It feels irrelevant. Following their example of speaking of their families, I talk about my Southern parents’ teachings during our experience of America’s apartheid years, when white people owned and controlled all the resources and the land, in addition to the political, legal, and military apparatus, and used their power to intimidate black people in the most barbaric and merciless ways. These whites who tormented us daily were like Israelis who have cut down millions of trees planted by Arab Palestinians, stolen Palestinian water, even topsoil. Forcing Palestinians to use separate roads from those they use themselves, they have bulldozed innumerable villages, houses, mosques, and in their place built settlements for strangers who have no connection whatsoever with Palestine: settlers who have been the most rabidly anti-Palestinian of all, attacking the children, the women, everyone, old and young alike, viciously.”

AMY GOODMAN: Alice, I wanted to go back to March 2009—

ALICE WALKER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —when you were in Gaza, to a video of you there.

ALICE WALKER: It’s shocking beyond anything I have ever experienced. And it’s actually so horrible that it’s basically unbelievable, even though I’m standing here and I’ve been walking here and I’ve been looking at things here. It still feels like, you know, you could never convince anyone that this is actually what is happening and what has happened to these people and what the Israeli government has done. It will be a very difficult thing for anyone to actually believe in, so it’s totally important that people come to visit and to see for themselves, because the world community, that cares about peace and cares about truth and cares about justice, will have to find a way to deal with this. We cannot let this go as if it’s just OK, especially those of us in the United States who pay for this. You know, I have come here, in part, to see what I’m buying with my tax money.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Alice Walker in 2009, interviewed by my colleague here at Democracy Now!, Anjali Kamat. When you look back at you walking through the rubble of Gaza, your thoughts?

ALICE WALKER: My thought is that I am so glad I was there. I am so glad that I managed to gather myself and present myself to this situation, because it is my responsibility, you know, as a person, as an elder, as someone who cares about the planet, who really wants us all to thrive, you know, or just survive. This is a very thorny issue, and it takes all of us looking at it as carefully as we can to help solve it. It’s not that it’s impossible to solve. But what will help a lot is the insistence by all of us on fairness and on people actually understanding what they’re looking at.

AMY GOODMAN: You say that the Middle East solution is beyond the two-state solution, and you also talk about restorative justice.

ALICE WALKER: Yes, I do, because I believe in restorative justice. I think we could use that here. I mean, I don’t feel great about the past leaders here not being brought to trial, actually, you know. But if we can’t have trial, we could at least have council. I mean, but to let people, any people, just go, after they’ve murdered lots of people and destroyed a lot, is not right. It destroys trust. So—what was the rest of the question?

AMY GOODMAN: And you believe in a one-state solution.

ALICE WALKER: Oh, the one-state solution. Yes, I do. I mean, when I think about my tax money, and I think about, well, you know, given that I’ve already given, and we as a country have given over a trillion dollars to Israel in the last—since, I don’t know, ‘48 or something, but a lot of money that we could have used here, where would I be happiest to see, you know, my money spent? Well, I would be happy seeing my money spent for all the people who live in Palestine. And that means that, you know, the Palestinians who are forced out of their houses, forced off of their land, should come back and share the land, all of it, including the settlements. You know, if I am going to be asked to help pay for settlements, I would like to be, you know, permitted to say who gets to live in them. And I would like the women and children, the Palestinian women and children that I saw, I would like to say—take them by hand and say, “You know what? Look at this. We built this for you. You’re home now.”

AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, her latest book, Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel. We will continue our conversation tonight at 8:00 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City at 92nd and Lex. And we will play portions of that here. We’ll also post on our website Anjali’s entire interview with Alice Walker in Gaza last year.

THE USEFUL DELUSION OF BEING INDEPENDENT

Hama Tuma

Without going deep into the not so negligible difference between an illusion (more of a perceptual problem) and a delusion (concerning belief despite facts to the contrary) it is safe to state that most of Africa suffers from the delusion of being independent fifty years after some 18 African countries allegedly gained their "independence" from Colonialism which was a tricky monster if there ever was one.

Colonialism came with the Bible in one hand and as the Africans bowed to pray the white man took the land and their alleged freedom (at least from being colonized by a foreign country). Colonialism played many tricks on gullible Africans and its most damaging joke was to declare that it has left (front door exit) while actually rushing back in through the back door (neo colonialism using the black bourgeoisie). The puppets wearing black masks, denounced so bitterly by Frantz Fanon for one, were quick to declare that formal independence (flags and a native government that played the puppet role to the hilt) was actually the real thing while the delusion was being promoted as actual. A national flag, a black oppressor in a Mercedes Benz and a Rolls Royce, palaces and corrupt and hedonistic existence for the few and Africans were expected to hail this as freedom and salvation. Those who said the Emperor was actually naked and that colonialism has continued in a new garb (with the old stink in place) were quickly silenced. Belgian and CIA agents collaborated to have Patrice Lumumba murdered. Freedom fighters Um Nyobe, Felix Moumie and later on Mondlane, Machel and Cabral were gotten rid off in one way or another. Pan Africanists with a strong anti imperialist stance were made victims of foreign engineered coups as in Ghana and Nkrumah. Colonialism never left but wore a new mask, Africa was doomed as the traitors had a field day selling the whole continent without any scruples or qualms.

The one party state that was the darling of the West fleecing Africa through a corrupt and malleable strongman (Mobutu is a good example) went against any notion of democratic governance. Rebellions were bound to erupt here and there and the colonizers had to spread again the virus of what Nyrere called "tribalism"and is nowadays referred to as "ethnicism", the "Ethnic assaulting the Nation" as Samir Amin put it in a book. Africa's desire to consolidate nation states broke against the iceberg of ethnic assault and the division helped carry the goal of the rapacious West to its zenith. (Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union were also to become victims of this sponsored ethnic or nationality assault). Worse still, even the ethnically or nationally cohesive people like the Somalis succumbed to the virus, divided on clan levels and are still going on with their carnage no matter what. Yet, we must admit that, fifty years on, the delusion of independence is no more a big problem--we all know few African countries are really independent. Actually, the two countries that had never been colonized, mainly Ethiopia and Liberia, are also fine examples of dependence and neo colonial servility. Liberia was handed over to freed American slaves and these imposed their corrupt rule over the "natives" with the help of America and North American companies like Firestone rubber company and when the jury of revenge came (via the Samuel Doe coup) it was indeed violent (Tolbert and many ministers were summarily shot). Liberia was not independent in the 19th century and is not so now either. Ethiopia was never colonized (maybe the Ethiopians read the Bible before the white man and were not duped to close their eyes and pray) but the regimes in power for more than seventy years were/are puppets of foreign powers (USA and the Soviet Union) and Ethiopians have never realized their dream of democratic governance. This is not to say that there was little difference between the colonised and the not colonized (perhaps there is some in the psyche and type of wounds) but it is to assert that colonialism did not leave, not ever, but stayed on with more fangs and new garbs. As I said, colonialism is a tricky monster.

Like it can even change colour and appearance given the fact that China is now busy replacing the old and known plunderers. As a Young Turk plunderer, China seems to have little or no scruples other than fiercely pursuing its own national interests but it has learnt the moves and gives lip service to the "delusion", the flag and the false belief in a non existent sovereignty. Buttering up our ego, telling us we are rich and proud when we are poor and miserable and they are taking away our wealth and backing our killers (Beshir, Meles, Mugabe, etc). In reality, the assault on our pride and self respect has been so strong that most of us have succumbed to self hate (a bonanza for the skin lightening product manufacturers for example) and lack of self confidence. We claim that partaking wisdom at the feet of the white man is all, we speak English or French and we are wise and we know it all (as opposed to the "ignorant" majority that doesn't), and our salvation can only come from the good will of the new colonizers. The pathetic souls who pray "Our Father who art in the White House" are good examples of this malady. The dependence and absolute lack of belief in the strength and power of one's people is very damaging especially in light of the real situation in which there seems little hope of achieving meaningful social change peacefully. And yet, it is sadly true that the armed rebels claiming to fight for our liberation have turned out to be murderous thugs ( Renamo, RUF, LRA and others), lumpen guerrillas if you want. Our misery is compounded; colonialism is dead but long live colonialism is not a dead cry.

It is of course possible to contend that we should be left alone with our delusions. It is probable that if one takes one's hell as a paradise then the suffering may appear less (illusion). Ethiopian say if we call it life dwelling in the graveyard may be comfortable or warm. The perspective matters. If the poor man does not drink butter in his dream he would have died sooner from constipation is another favourite saying in Ethiopia. Delusion plays a role. Instead of a white Bwana governor we have a black native oppressor--is there no difference? Isn't it better if we delude ourselves that there is a difference especially when we cannot find an iota even using a magnifying glass for investigation? Less expectation, less frustration. More delusion, less pain. The bastards have not left (blood diamonds, blood Coltan, a whole continent plundered without mercy) but why not delude ourselves that they have? Viewed from this angle, the delusion of independence makes our graveyard feel warm. We all know we live in a "cold" continent so why harp on it and shiver when we can embrace our delusion and sweat from the imagined heat?

 

HAMA TUMA

HAMA TUMA is an Ethiopian writer/part time poet and political activist who has written satirical books both in English and Amharic.

Sade Perform “Sweetest Taboo” x “BabyFather” On Dancing With The Stars (Video)

April 14, 2010 by Verse  
Filed under TV

3 Comments

Sade appeared on the Dancing With The Stars show yesterday to perform their classic “Sweetest Taboo” and their latest single “Babyfather”.

Sweetest Taboo

Babyfather

One reason why I love old movies so much

By Sergio, on March 28th, 2010

This sweet clip is from the “pre-code” 1933 Paramount comedy International House with W. C. Fields and the great Cab Calloway singing one of biggest hits. No explanation necessary.

The 2010 Autumn House Poetry and Fiction Contests

Guidelines for the 2010 Autumn House Poetry Contest

Since 2003, the annual Autumn House Poetry Contest has awarded publication of a full-length manuscript and $2,500 to the winner. The 2010 judge is Claudia Emerson. The postmark deadline for entries is June 30, 2010.

• The winners will receive book publication, $1,000 advance against royalties, and a $1,500 travel grant to participate in the 2011 Autumn House Master Authors Series in Pittsburgh.
• The deadline is June 30, 2010.
• We ask that all submissions from authors new to Autumn House come through one of our annual contests.
• All finalists will be considered for publication.
• The final judge for the Poetry Prize is Claudia Emerson.
• All full-length collections of poetry 50-80 pages in length are eligible.
• If you wish to be informed of the results of the competition, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
• Autumn House Press assumes no responsibility for lost or damaged manuscripts.
• All entries must be clearly marked “Poetry Prize” on the outside envelope.
• Twenty five dollar handling fee (check or money order) must be enclosed.
• MANUSCRIPTS WILL NOT BE RETURNED.
• Send manuscript and $25.00 fee to:
  

  Autumn House Press
  PO Box 60100
  Pittsburgh, PA 15211

   

The Iowa Poetry Prize

Eligibility

The Iowa Poetry Prize, open to new as well as established poets, is awarded for a book-length collection of poems written originally in English. Previous winners, current University of Iowa students, and current and former University of Iowa Press employees are not eligible.

Manuscript

Manuscripts should be 50 to 150 pages in length. Put your name on the title page only; this page will be removed before your manuscript is judged. Poems included in the collection may have appeared in journals or anthologies; poems from a poet’s previous collections may be included only in manuscripts of new and selected poems. Manuscripts will be recycled; please do not include return packaging or postage.

Publication

The winning manuscript will be published by the University of Iowa Press under a standard royalty agreement. 

Submission

Manuscripts should be mailed to:

The Iowa Poetry Prize
University of Iowa Press
119 West Park Road
100 Kuhl House
Iowa City IA 52242-1000

Submissions must be postmarked during the month of April.

A $20 reading fee is payable to the University of Iowa Press Poetry Fund. We consider simultaneous submissions but ask that you notify us immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Only the winners will be notified. The results will be announced on our website in the summer.

>via: http://ow.ly/1tVYN#