Controversial or Uncovering

A powerful piece of artwork that can be seen in a number of different ways, of which my personal views I will keep to myself. With a small amount of research I'm sure you can understand the topics the artist is trying to uncover within the image. However, a notable bias statement is the change in the facial expression. Perhaps a more suitable representation would be an unchanging expression to allow the reader to interpret the set of images for themselves. Nonetheless powerful, and moving. 

"Disparition" Yemeni photographer Bushra Almutawakel.

Land Grabbing: the transnational fight for water

Land grabbing is the acquisition of farm land from companies and governments on a transnational scale, with a particular interest in the global South. Countries which are wealthy but are food/fuel insecure have been searching for routes to address their insecurities. The scramble for land in Africa is becoming a noted commodity.

Saudi Arabia has a particular interest  in land grabbing due to poor water resources for agricultural purposes within their own country. This creates the the possibility of food and water insecurities on a continues basis. Saudi Arabia has acquired millions of hectares of land overseas to produce food in countries such as Ethiopia and the Philippines. 

Although it may seem, the value is within the land itself, it is actually for the water resource. Countries, such as India, are following suit after years of unsustainable irrigation systems which have depleted aquifers within a sub-continent!

The reality is that a third of Africa is already a water-scare environment and climate change is likely to induce further water shortages, This reduces access to water for already a water deprived society. Land deals in Africa are generally large scale, industrial agricultural operations that consume copious amounts of water that may not necessary been in supply.

The question I bid to ask from this.....is......is this the beginning of the water wars? It is predicted that by 2030 half of the human population will be water scare. UN studies project that 30 nations will be water scarce in 2025, up from 20 in 1990. Eighteen of them are in the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt, Israel, Somalia, Libya and Yemen. Once a country does not have enough of its own resource it seeks elsewhere for the supply.  Acquisition of transnational water supply may still be civil ..... however.......how long will this continue for? 

Water deprived countries generally share water resources with other countries, such as the River Nile. Further upstream, countries have a greater ability to govern the resource (dams), whereas, down stream the resource often becomes polluted and dwindling in supply. An example is the River Jordan which has a dry mouth into the Dead Sea due to over abstraction. The Dead Sea is receding in size  and causing fresh water aquifers to deplete along with it.

Will turmoil already set in the Middle East and North Africa worsen within the next decade due to water shortages.......hmmm........I wonder.....however...I don't want to jinx it.

To burden or Not to burden.

I was discussing the start of this blog with a very close friend of mine yesterday. He gave me a view point that I hadn't really considered. He wanted me to view the affect of acknowledgement of these social occurrences on my own well-being. He essentially raised the point of, how much emotional strain would I be putting on towards myself and what would the gains be by acknowledging other peoples circumstances?
Would it be better to be oblivious to the things you cannot change and save yourself the emotional burden OR do you make yourself aware, take on the emotional burden and realise that us, as individuals, cannot change what we see.....I mean we are not all Nelson Mandela's or Mahatma Gandhi's.

I think the generic answer is, most of us make ourselves aware, but we put up that emotional/physical buffer that allows us to switch off the TV, internet, newspaper or journal and carry on with our daily lives. Sooner or later that story you will have heard, be it on CNN/FOX/Sky/Al Jazzerra, would dissipate because the interest has died down........but it's still occurring and perhaps magnifying.

I count myself as one of the people who can't make a difference....yet.....I hope I may in the future but the odds are currently not in favour. But there are many of us who can, and are, making change to what has influenced them emotionally. These are people who have position in social/professional or cultural hierarchy OR those who have the will,intellect or stamina to create change. Those who have position generally fight for multiple causes, of which personal gain may be a dominate cause.......but this is not the case for all. Those with will, intellect or stamina may fight for an initial cause but often must fight the temptation for personal manifestations.

If I can't change what I see and hear, and neither can you (the 150 or so people who have read this blog).....what is the point to this blog then? Do I hope that a Martin Luther King, a Mother Teresa, a liberator is reading what I write and can cause change? ..........YES. Do I hope it will bring awareness of those who are trying to make positive change?.....YES. Do I believe that awareness is better than oblivious?.....YES. Will I make a difference to the lives of those I write about? ..............most likely not. BUT through writing this blog I am building up my own stamina, intellect and will to cause change.....and hopefully doing the same to those who read it.

I was told by close family members not to post my views and get myself into "unwanted trouble".....however we all have to start somewhere with voicing our opinions.....none of the people mentioned above became who they are and caused reformation of society by keeping silent.

I will finish this post with the statement that I have mentioned before: A collective voice is strong than one that is singular. 

The scarred children of Iraq.

This image is famous within Iraqi communities. It shows a boy
who draws his mother in chalk and sleeps.

Surveys conducted by UNICEF have found 800,000 to a million Iraqi children have lost either one or both of their parents. This figure however is a fraction of those growing up in the shadow of violence around 4 million. The sheer number of Iraqi orphans has created a social crisis. The country has no child protection laws and only 200 social workers and psychiatrists put together throughout the whole country. Many live in dark unconsolidated dwellings with no light, water or satisfactory sanitary. However, most are left to fend for themselves on the streets and end up being sold into prostitution, slave trade and wealthily foreigners on the black-market.

What can you do?........Not much is the answer. Despite on going conflict, adoption of children is not allowed by foreign nationalities. Under Iraqi and Sharia Law of Kafala there is no adoption permitted, only guardianship. The Iraqi Ministry of Labour and social Affairs will only grant guardianship to family members or friends who can provide for the child within Iraq of similar faith.

The reason for this post is to purely bring attention and awareness to a situation which is largely neglected and over looked upon. Perhaps the next time you consider giving to charity I hope you have these children in mind.

http://www.iraqiorphanfoundation.org/

Fundamentalism can happen on your front door. Fight it now, stop it in its tracks.

Fundamentalism is a global problem. Don't distance yourself from the occurrence purely because it's not happening on your front door. Fight fundamentalism in the Middle East and elsewhere before it arrives on your door step. Fight fundamentalism, not the religion.

Arsenic and Salinity in Bangladesh drinking water and agriculture

These videos are with regard to the drinking water found in Bangladesh. The issue of saline water coupled with arsenic contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh affects a population of 60 million people, almost the population size of the U.K. It's the largest mass poisoning ever recorded in history. How does this concern you:

1. Firstly appreciate the importance of pure water. Many of us, including myself, take for granted the ability to switch a tap on and receive water of good turbidity, temperature, and pure.
2. Rice paddies in the region are grown using water from the surrounding aquifers.....some of which are contaminated with arsenic. In the short term the health effects are minimal. However in the long term not enough research has been conducted to understand the true magnitude of the problem. Rice from the region is exported on a global scale.

Video on arsenic contamination 

Video on salinity and maternal health

Introduction to why I started this blog

I have decided to create this blog to voice out my views and opinions on particular occurrences that have struck me in a certain fashion be it good or bad. Having grown to an age that I am now (23), there are many things which worry me deeply about the world that we live in. I feel many of us don't believe it concerns us because we are detached from the occurrence either via a physical boundary (i.e land, sea) or an emotional buffer.

The fact is, you and I lead the life that we lead due to a very small probability. A small change in history could have caused a very different lifestyle for each individual today. This is essentially chaos theory and the butterfly effect. What I am trying to state is that it was luck, be it good or bad, that has given you the lifestyle you led and the local environment, cultural and economic stability that you live in. Your life could have been very different therefore don't detach yourself from reality of the world we live in. 

From here on this blog will represent life and hardships faced by different societies across the globe. Please excuse my english, I know its terrible and in some case many not make sense. However please try to look past my grammar and spelling and concentrate on the message. Thank you in advance and anything that you find interesting within this blog I urge you to voice it out yourself. The power of collective voices is strong and can cause change.

This blog will also represent things of interests and not just the hardships of life. :)

The benefits of Breast Milk and Sexism in the developing countries

I thought I would share this picture from my course as I thought it was quite thought provoking. This is a picture of a woman taken by UNICEF in Pakistan. Her children that she is carrying are twins, one boy (left) and the other girl (right). The woman was told she cannot feed both of her children on breast milk. The boy has been feed breast milk all his life whilst the girl was fed formula milk. The girl died after this photo was taken the next day. What does this picture show? Two things:
1. That breast milk provides more nutrients and is disease free than compared to formula milk mixed with depleted and inadequate water supplies.
2. The cultural sexism towards girls in the region. A girl will almost always be sacrificed for the life of a boy in the developing world. Even if she was to live, her life would be governed to serve the male dominated society.
So three things to learn from this:
1. BREAST IS BEST! If you can then feed your child or future child breast milk, it has far more nutrition benefits, prevents diseases past from mother to child, cost effective.
2. What you can do now....boycott the food companies with a large presence in the formula industry present in these countries with highly aggressive marketing strategies *cough* Nestle *cough*.
3. Appreciate your daughters or future daughters. For in another life, their world and way of life could have been very different. No one should be a sacrifice for another life and the decision (if there was to be a decision) should not be made on sex.