"Killing Me Softly"
"Gone Away"
1971 soul to soul in Ghana
"First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" - Roberta Flack 1972
"First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" - India Arie & Roberta Flack
<br /><b>India Arie and Roberta Flack</b><br /><i>Uploaded by steelrain3. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.</i>
"Imagine"
The OMG Girlz are a singing group consisting of four girls ranging in age from 11-13. Two of the group’s members - Reginae and Zonnique - are the daughters of some pretty famous musicians: Lil Wayne and singerTameka “Tiny” Cottle, a former member of 90s groupXscape who is now engaged to rapper T.I. and stars on theBET reality show Tiny and Toya. The two other girls in the band are named Basha and Lourdes.
OMG Girlz featuring Ariel- Pretty Girl Bag
We have begun the search for the best short film scripts of 2010. The CSSC’s search begins with the launch of the official website redux and by issuing the renewed challenge to budding and seasoned scribes alike in the form of the competition’s mantra: “Short. Is. Better.” The CSSC will herald and reward the best and most successful writers of short film for the year with the ultimate prize: a professionally produced, live-action short film. Literary hopefuls will have until midnight January 31st, 2011 to pen, proof and bullet-proof their masterpieces. The competition is a chance for screenwriters to flex their creative juices for the industry judges. Entered scripts will pass the eye balls and litmus tests of entertainment industry pros (including producers, literary agents, actors, film crew, broadcasters, distributors and former CSSC winning alums), increasing the emerging screenwriter’s visibility and exposure in an industry where breaking in is never out of style. David Cormican, Producer and Founder of The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, reminds that the competition is open to writers of any nationality, from any country across the world. And so far as themes for writing your scripts are concerned Cormican reminds, “the sky is the limit. We don’t want to restrict the subject matter of the entrants. Just keep it short. I’ve said it before and I’m going to continue to say it: We live in a digital age with waning attention spans; brevity truly is the soul of wit. As long as you find the story, we’ll find a winner”, says Cormican. What’s unique about the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition is that there are many festivals dedicated to short films: their viewing, reading and work-shopping, but there are very few, if any, competitions that celebrate and reward the writers of these marvelous works with a fully realized production using professional crews and talent like the CSSC. Top prize is $2,500.00 CASH, an Apple iPad, a produced short film based on your script with in-kind services totaling $40,000+, the Writer’s Block Crystal Award and accreditation to attend the Yorkton Film Festival and Golden Sheaf Awards Gala. Competition hopefuls can enter online via the CSSC website using PayPal, Withoutaboxor via hard copy and snail mail. >via: http://screenplay-competition.com/We’re officially open for the 2010/11 script competition season
Cormican says “there is a unique function that the short film provides the entertainment industry, and it goes by the name: calling card”. The CSSC wants to give this brilliant introduction to the film industry to one lucky entrant. “What better ‘hello’ could a new writer hope for than their words living and breathing on the screen for producers, agents and film goers to see. The sad reality, though, is that a script is just a script until it is produced. That’s when it really crosses over and becomes a film. And that’s where the CSSC comes in to help create some cinematic magic. So, if you are still sitting around wondering if you should enter the competition or not, ask yourself the question: Do I want to be a part of the script industry, or the film industry? When you find your answer, we’ll be waiting”, says Cormican.
About The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC)
The Canadian Short Screenplay Competition, administered by Year of the Skunk Productions (Regina), and established in 2008, is the premiere script contest for short film screenplays. CSSC is the single-most competitive, prestigious, short screenplay festival in Canada, a champion for screenwriters everywhere and a launching pad for writers’ professional careers.
Naugatuck River Review
Contest
Announcing: Naugatuck River Review’s second Annual NARRATIVE POETRY CONTEST judged by National Book Award finalist, poet Patrica Smith!
Contest Submission Period: July 1st through September 1st
First prize is $1000 and publication in NRR
Second prize $250 and publication in NRR
Third prize of $100 and publication in NRR
All entrants will receive one issue of Naugatuck River Review.All poems will be considered for publication. Contest deadline is September 1st, 2010.
Three poems per submission.
Limited to 50 lines per poem.
Do not put your name anywhere on the file submitted. There is a place for all your information when you register with Submission Manager.
Please pay the contest fee of $20 first through PAYPAL or credit card, then go back to the submission manager.
Submission fee includes a copy of the journal.
Electronic submissions ONLY will be accepted through our Submission Manager.
Close friends and students (current or past) of Patricia Smith are ineligible.Judge for 2010 Contest: Patricia Smith
A National Book Award Finalist, Patricia Smith’s fifth book of poetry, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press) chronicles the human, physical and emotional toll exacted by Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophic natural event with lasting spiritual and political impact. This much-anticipated volume is also the focal point of a new dance/theater collaboration between Patricia and Urban Bush Women dancer Paloma McGregor.Patricia is also the author of Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House Press), a National Poetry Series winner, the Best Poetry Book of 2006 on About.com, and a 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Paterson Poetry Prize winner; Close to Death (Zoland Books), Big Towns, Big Talk (Zoland) and Life According to Motown (Tia Chucha). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, poemmemoirstory, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, the Chautauqua Literary Journal, TriQuarterly, and other journals, and in many groundbreaking anthologies. Her poem “The Way Pilots Walk” received a Pushcart Prize, and is featured in Pushcart Prize XXXII: Best of the Small Presses. Recognized as one of the world’s most formidable performers, Patricia has read her work at venues round the world.
Love to read great narrative poetry?
Please consider a SUBSCRIPTION to Naugatuck River Review. Only $20 brings you two beautiful and delightful issues of the journal, filled with great narrative poetry. Go to SUBSCRIBE on the button above and order through Paypal or send a check to our P.O. Box. We will also accept donations. Thanks so much to all our poets and readers!This is a literary journal founded in order to publish and in doing so to honor good narrative poetry. Naugatuck River Review is dedicated to publishing narrative poetry in the tradition of great narrative poets such as Gerald Stern, Philip Levine or James Wright. We are open to many styles of poetry, looking for narrative that sings, which means the poem has a strong emotional core and the narrative is compressed. We publish twice a year, Winter and Summer.
Winners will be published in the Winter 2011 Issue of Naugatuck River Review.
All entrants will receive one issue of Naugatuck River Review.All poems will be considered for publication in the Winter 2011 Contest issue (Issue 5).
Naugatuck River Review subscribes to the principles laid out in the Contest Code of Ethics adopted by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP):
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to:
1. conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2. to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and
3. to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public.This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Annual Poetry Contest
Guidelines:
The annual Slipstream poetry contest offers a $1,000 prize plus 50 professionally-printed copies of your book.Send up to 40 pages of poetry: any style, format, or theme (or no theme), and a $20 check, bank draft, or money order for reading fee. Due to recent increases in the cost of mail, manuscripts will no longer be returned. Send only copies of your poems, not originals.
Send to:Slipstream Poetry Contest
Dept. W-1
PO Box 2071
Niagara Falls, New York 14301
SUBMIT ONLINE: Online submission is now available for those who wish to enter the Slipstream Chapbook contest via the web. This is for contest submissions only. For details, click here: ONLINE SUBMISSION FOR CHAPBOOK CONTEST
Simultaneous submissions are okay as long as you keep us informed of status. Previously published poems with acknowledgements are also acceptable. If you are sending us copies of your poems via mail, please provide legible typewritten or computer-printed copy only. Photocopies that are easy on the eyes are fine.
Everyone who enters the poetry contest receives a copy of the winning chapbook plus one complimentary issue of Slipstream magazine.
The winner of the contest is announced in late spring/early summer. The winner is featured prominently on the Slipstream website for one year, as well as in all Slipstream catalogs, press releases, and promotional materials.
Winning chapbooks are submitted by Slipstream for review by various national and international poetry/writing publications and may also be featured in the Grants and Awards section of Poets & Writers magazine.
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The Ivory Coast (Republic of Côte d'Ivoire) remains the world's leading cocoa producer. In Cote dIvoire, child slave labor is the main labour force, which has made Cote dIvoire notorious for its production, exportation, and harsh child slave treatment. Child slave labor is inexpensive and easily attainable. This makes it the primary choice for the cocoa harvest. Child slave labour has not only crowned Cote dIvoire as the top producer and exporter in cocoa but has also made it the reigning champ in harsh child treatment. The slaves lack the opportunity for education, leaving them in a life of poverty. Specifically 66% of child cocoa workers in the Ivory Coast did not attend school and About 64% of children on cocoa farms are under age 14. To this day the children of West Africa are trapped in desperation and slave labour.The horrendous conditions under which children must toil on the cocoa farms of the Cote d'Ivoire are even more jarring when the facts are juxtaposed with the idea that much of this cocoa will ultimately end up producing something that most people associate with happiness and pleasure: chocolate. The connection serves to illustrate that the existence of misery in one part of the world and joy in another part are no longer divorced as nations are connected together in a globalized web of trade. Thus, the pleasure that people from various nations around the world are deriving from these chocolate confections could possibly be at the expense of child slaves in Africa. The problem of child slavery then is not simply a faraway abstraction with no immediate implications for anybody else except those who are directly affected, but rather it is an issue that everybody around the world should be concerned about and demand action to eradicate.
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Category: Human Rights
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Watch this documentary. Vote against child labor and end human trafficking: www.thedarksideofchocolate.org "Since 2001, chocolate consumers around the world have voiced their concern about child labor and trafficking on cocoa farms in West Africa. Despite millions of dollars and tons of public relations campaigns over the years, the worst forms of child labor and trafficking continue to occur in the cocoa supply chains of major US chocolate companies like Hershey, M&M/Mars and Nestle." From: www.unionvoice.org Spread the word, change the WORLD! |
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Henriette Gneza holds a cocoa pod near the village of Boko, Ivory Coast, where in 2005 a group of women created an association of coffee-cocoa producers. (Photo by: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images) Conscientious consumers’ search for ethically sourced and manufactured products has expanded beyond diamonds, coffee and clothing to sweeter terrain: chocolate. After years of pressure, multinational candy companies are finally beginning to embrace the “ethical cocoa sourcing” movement—but to what degree and effect remains a matter of debate. Labor activists say manufacturers’ commitment to the seals of approval adorning chocolate bars is dubious, and the standards themselves are flawed. Since the late 1990s, labor-rights organizations have been pressuring food companies to verify that their chocolate is not the product of child labor or slavery. Eighty percent of the world’s cocoa, the main ingredient of chocolate, is produced by millions of growers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, according to the nonprofit CorpWatch. In 2001, eight members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, including industry leaders Mars and Nestle, signed the non-binding Harkin-Engel “Cocoa Protocol” that committed the companies to eliminating the “worst of child labor” in West Africa. Participating manufacturers were supposed to have met the international agreement’s standards by 2005, but hundreds of thousands of children continue to work on cocoa plantations in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, according to a 2009 Tulane University study of the cocoa industry. But last year, Mars and Cadbury announced their commitment to “ethical sourcing.” Mars, which makes Snickers and M&Ms and had $30 billion in global sales in 2008, has partnered with the Rainforest Alliance (RA) to ensure its entire cocoa supply—100,000 tons—is “sustainably produced” by 2020. Mars’ Galaxy candy bar, popular in the United Kingdom, began bearing the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ green seal this year. The New York-based RA’s sustainable agriculture standards forbid child labor, except when children are part of the farm owner’s family. But critics say RA standards aren’t tough enough to change an industry still rife with “blood chocolate,” and are instead a cheap way to tap into the ethical consumer market without a substantial change in business practices. Kyle Scheihagen, founder of the online advocacy group Stop Chocolate Slavery, says that since 2005 most large companies have produced only a few certified products to accommodate a small consumer demand. At the same time, Scheihagen says, they make their profit by “selling bad [exploitative] products. That just seems like a cynical approach.” Labor organizations are dissatisfied with manufacturers’ moves, because “ethical sourcing”—a phrase chocolate companies use to market their products—doesn’t guarantee the better labor practices that are part of official “fairtrade” certification, which occurs though the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations (FLO) International and its 23 member agencies. “ “Fairtrade” and RA-certified products offer the same appeal to some consumers, but their production and content standards are very different. RA products are only required to contain 30 percent “certified content”—meaning that the majority of the product does not reach the organization’s standards. “Fairtrade” products must contain 100-percent certified content, and guarantee a minimum price to producers. RA has asked its producers to scale-up their products to 100-percent certified content, but has not established a deadline. “We didn’t want to have a 100-percent requirement and be a deterrent to large companies,” says RA spokeswoman Abby Ray. (RA’s board of directors includes an executive chairman of Pinnacle Foods and an ex-CEO of Kraft.) “There are some fundamental problems with Alliance guidelines,” says Tim Newman, an International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) spokesman. RA does not require unionization of workers, and several RA-certified cut-flower farms have quashed workers’ attempts to unionize, he says. (Ray says that workers on RA-certified farms have “freedom of association.”) Newman also faults RA for not requiring workers to be paid a living wage (instead RA-certified farms can be paid a wage comparable to surrounding farms). Newman says that RA standards don’t “provide a lot of incentive for a company to scale up” to better standards. Mars and Kraft did not respond to requests for comment. Global labor rights researcher and activist Jeff Ballinger criticizes the certification model of both RA and FLO, saying if they really want to stop longstanding abuses like forced child labor, they need to pressure local governments to enforce laws, not just check up on farms periodically. “They aren’t [bulletproof] practices by any means,” Ballinger says. “Pressuring governments is the way to go.” ===================================
The U.S. ambassador to Ghana recently announced that since January, the U.S. has been importing much more cocoa than ever thanks to two new processing facilities built by ADM and Cargill, one of the top five global processors of cocoa beans. U.S. cocoa imports are expected to increase, too, as American businesses are busting down the door asking for new contracts in the impoverished country. In the past year, there's been 100-to-200 percent more requests from Americans seeking to do business in Ghana, the second-largest producer of cocoa after the Ivory Coast. This means small farmers in Ghana, which along with the Ivory Coast produce about 60 percent of the world's chocolate, will be pushed to produce more cocoa. Unless they are protected under Fair Trade contracts, rampant exploitation and slavery of workers will most likely continue. About 3.6 million West African children work on cocoa farms, many of whom make very little to no pay while under horrific conditions, according to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). This dire situation has led some to refer to cocoa produced in these regions as "blood chocolate." According to a January report by the International Labor Rights Forum, chocolate companies like Mars and Cargill, which process 400,000 tons of cocoa each year, "have been able to control initiatives meant to eliminate forced, child and trafficked labor in West Africa’s cocoa industry." More cocoa corporation consolidation has only further pressured farmers to keep costs low. Efforts by the U.S. government and labor rights groups have largely failed to improve conditions, according to a 2009 Tulane University study. What have American chocolate companies like Hershey's and Mars, the world's largest chocolate manufacturers, done to help? They've established certain initiatives and their own sustainable guidelines, but after nine years of such self-defined and self-monitored (read: unregulated) initiatives, little has changed. British companies Nestle UK and Cadbury have justly adopted Fair Tradecertification for their chocolate, and deserve our applause. Sign our petition telling U.S. candy companies that they need to do the same. Photo credit: Zapstratosphere via Flickr Jean Stevens is a freelance journalist based in New York whose work focuses on issues relating to sustainable food. >via: http://food.change.org/blog/view/tell_mars_cargill_and_hershey_to_stop_using_... ============================================
Cocoa farmers in West Africa – growers of the main portion of world cocoa supply – are distant actors in a weird rumble over prices, which recently hit a 33-year peak, achieving the highest prices on record since 1977. The proximate cause of the record price is speculative activity by commodities traders, especially a particular hedge fund, Armajaro of London, which recently shocked financiers by actually taking deliver of physical cocoa. The financial drama has masked a fundamental shift in the pricing of one of Africa’s most prized outputs. Cocoa is essential in the manufacturer of chocolate and producers, who are largely clustered in the neighboring countries of Ghana and Ivory Coast, have long failed to form a cartel to drive up prices, much in the same oil producers (OPEC) do. In economic terms, cartels can make sense, rewarding owners of a relatively scarce commodity. Common and concerted action is often required for a cartel to take hold. When governments try to form cartels – say, to fight back against traders in the world’s big cities – they must hew to the same script. In the case of Ghana and Ivory, such common action has never been possible. Since independence in 1957, Ghana’s government has closely controlled the sale of cocoa, essentially nationalizing the crop through a cocoa board that acts as a single selling agent on the international market and prices on farmers who by law must sell their crop to the government. Ivory Coast, by sharp contrast, has long permitted farmers to sell to anyone, on the open market, at any price they can fetch. The result is that farmers in Ivory Coast gain more money from their cocoa than farmers in Ghana; it also means that official production in Ivory Coast is boosted by smuggled cocoa from Ghana. The cartel of international cocoa buyers – chiefly America’s ADM and Cargill and Zurich-based Barry Callebaut – all of three of whom exist in close cooperation with a small group of global end users, concentrated in Europe and the U.S. – benefited greatly from the schism between Ghana and Ivory Coast on cocoa policy. Lower prices were the result. For decades even, Western companies, and consumers, benefited from ultra-low prices of raw cocoa, which fueled the expansion of cheap chocolates in groceries and sweet shops. The days of inexpensive cocoa are unlikely to return. One expert told the Financial Times on July 30 “If you consider the fundamentals, I’d tend to say prices won’t fall. There’s no fundamental reason why cocoa should become cheaper.” And that’s not because of the changing practices of commodity traders. Demand for cocoa is already high, China (largely chocolate-free today) represents a new frontier and cocoa supply is stagnant, so a re-evaluation upward of cocoa has occurred. The benefits to African farmers should be significant over time. Unlike some other crops, new gardens can require years of planning and labor. Existing trees are subject to blight and aging and must be worked intensively to maintain yields. When I visited Ghana’s cocoa-growing region a year ago, I was struck by the prosperity of farmers I met but also the relative inflexibility of growing cocoa. Expansion of output is hard to achieve. Inputs, such as fertilizers, are expensive and are used less than they should be by non-organic growers. New trees take years to reap fruit. Field labor is surprisingly costly. Producers also fear a glut; they can benefit from stagnant production too. Ghana’s independence leader, Nkrumah, once dreamed of setting cocoa prices in Accra and Abijan, not in London or Chicago. A producer cartel proved impossible, and cocoa farmers in West Africa suffered. Now a “market cartel” has emerged. West African cocoa farmers, and their families, should be cheering. Capitalism, so often the instrument of their oppression, is now working dramatically in their favor. >via: http://africaworksgpz.com/2010/08/02/markets-at-long-last-deliver-for-west-af...
NEWS » JUNE 25, 2010
Certifying ‘Blood Chocolate’
Activists question the candy industry’s commitment to ending cocoa industry child labor.
By SARA PECK
Eighty percent of the world’s cocoa, the main ingredient of chocolate, is produced by millions of growers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, according to the nonprofit CorpWatch.
Sara Peck, a spring 2010 In These Times editorial intern, is a Northwestern University student studying journalism and political science.
More information about Sara Peck
Tell Mars, Cargill, and Hershey to Stop Using
"Blood Chocolate"
Last week I wrote about a fresh commitment from European Union members and several other countries of the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) to make the $10 billion abuse-ridden cocoa industry more sustainable and fair to workers (the U.S. was still conspicuously absent from this organization). Today comes newsthat this agreement will largely be wishful thinking until the United States, the largest consumer of cocoa, signs on to such agreements or guarantees its chocolate as Fair Trade.
Related Action
Markets, at long last, deliver for West Africa’s cocoa farmers
Chocolate Production
How Chocolate is made from Raw Cocao beans.
I don't know the original source, it was from a very old video tape from almost 30 years ago.
Radical Chocolate by Eti Peleg
Short film about The Grenada Chocolate Company, a tree-to-bar organic chocolate-making cooperative on the fine cocoa-producing Caribbean island of Grenada
BOUNCING CATS film trailer
<p>BOUNCING CATS film trailer from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.</p>
Uganda has been called one of the worst places on earth to be a child. In the South, children face the threat of poverty and disease. In the North, these threats are enflamed by a brutal, mindless war inflicted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (L.R.A.) that has divided families, displaced millions, and led to the abduction and mutilation of tens of thousands of children resulting in the deterioration of identity and culture. Bouncing Cats is the inspiring story of one man’s attempt to create a better life for the children of Uganda using the unlikely tool of hip-hop with a focus on b-boy culture and breakdance. In 2006, Abraham “Abramz” Tekya, a Ugandan b-boy and A.I.D.S. orphan created Breakdance Project Uganda (B.P.U.). The dream was to establish a free workshop that would empower, rehabilitate and heal the community by teaching youth about b-boy culture. Based in Kampala, Uganda, B.P.U. has recently expanded to include permanent classes in Gulu, Northern Uganda. Abramz teaches classes three times a week to more than 300 kids from all parts of the country. Many of the children are homeless, victims of war and poverty, and few can afford proper schooling yet they walk from miles away to attend the B.P.U. classes. As Abramz says, “This is where many people’s pride is. It’s a skill that no one can take away from us.” Crazy Legs, one of the founding members of the seminal Rock Steady Crew visited Uganda after receiving an invitation from Abramz to teach b-boy classes. What he discovered upon his arrival was both heartbreaking and inspiring. Traveling throughout Uganda, from the southern slums to the war-torn North, Crazy Legs encountered a passion for hip-hop and desire to learn amongst the most squalid conditions. Bouncing Cats follows Abramz, Crazy Legs, and Breakdance Project Uganda on a journey to use hip-hop culture for positive social change. The film features narration by Common and interviews with Mos Def, Will-I-Am, and K’Naan.
Op-Ed Contributor
Slumdog Tourism
By KENNEDY ODEDE
Published: August 9, 2010
Wesley Allsbrook
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.SLUM tourism has a long history — during the late 1800s, lines of wealthy New Yorkers snaked along the Bowery and through the Lower East Side to see “how the other half lives.”
But with urban populations in the developing world expanding rapidly, the opportunity and demand to observe poverty firsthand have never been greater. The hot spots are Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai — thanks to “Slumdog Millionaire,” the film that started a thousand tours — and my home, Kibera, a Nairobi slum that is perhaps the largest in Africa.
Slum tourism has its advocates, who say it promotes social awareness. And it’s good money, which helps the local economy.
But it’s not worth it. Slum tourism turns poverty into entertainment, something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. People think they’ve really “seen” something — and then go back to their lives and leave me, my family and my community right where we were before.
I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.
When I was 18, I founded an organization that provides education, health and economic services for Kibera residents. A documentary filmmaker from Greece was interviewing me about my work. As we made our way through the streets, we passed an old man defecating in public. The woman took out her video camera and said to her assistant, “Oh, look at that.”
For a moment I saw my home through her eyes: feces, rats, starvation, houses so close together that no one can breathe. I realized I didn’t want her to see it, didn’t want to give her the opportunity to judge my community for its poverty — a condition that few tourists, no matter how well intentioned, could ever understand.
Other Kibera residents have taken a different path. A former schoolmate of mine started a tourism business. I once saw him take a group into the home of a young woman giving birth. They stood and watched as she screamed. Eventually the group continued on its tour, cameras loaded with images of a woman in pain. What did they learn? And did the woman gain anything from the experience?
To be fair, many foreigners come to the slums wanting to understand poverty, and they leave with what they believe is a better grasp of our desperately poor conditions. The expectation, among the visitors and the tour organizers, is that the experience may lead the tourists to action once they get home.
But it’s just as likely that a tour will come to nothing. After all, looking at conditions like those in Kibera is overwhelming, and I imagine many visitors think that merely bearing witness to such poverty is enough.
Nor do the visitors really interact with us. Aside from the occasional comment, there is no dialogue established, no conversation begun. Slum tourism is a one-way street: They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity.
Slums will not go away because a few dozen Americans or Europeans spent a morning walking around them. There are solutions to our problems — but they won’t come about through tours.
