poverty reduction

The NILE African Development organisation (NAD) and African Achievers International Award (AAIA) Team wishes to invite everyone to start nominating for the 2011 African MDG Achievers International Awards.

The African MDG Achievers International Awards is a not for profit program managed by The NILE African Development organisation a not-for-profit organisation. The awards mission is to generate greater understanding of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to galvanize public support for their achievement, and to honor exceptional efforts to achieve the goals.

The NILE African Development organisation (NAD) wishes to invite everone to tell their stories about Africa of which we shall be able to air some of them in our Radio program Africa Matters.

In Guguletu, South Africa, a woman named Linda provides care for eight children who have no home of their own. Linda knows each of the children’s stories, ages, and names.

Except for one.

Linda can’t tell you the name of one of the girls, because she hasn’t spoken since arriving at Linda’s home with no documentation or other information. Though physically healthy, the child remains silent. Linda worries that she was previously literally locked up alone somewhere.

The African Achievers Awards aim to:

Recognise, grow and nurture exceptional African individuals, groups, companies, institutions etc to enable them to achieve the greatest possible impact in their communities and also inspire more African people to become engaged in improving and create positive stories about African people in the media. These Awards are to demonstrate that there are people within our communitiesstill achieving and are good role models. These awards are intended as incentives for many people in reaching their future GOALS.

June 26, 2009, Washington, DC: "You are sick and it is the weekend. You have a fever and you're sweating and vomiting so you fear you have malaria. You need medical attention. All the money you have is what is in your pocket, a total of $3.59. You never went to school so you do not know how to read or write. You live in the Kibera slums."

If you recall, last month I shared a post from OneWorld US to help choose the "OneWorld Person of 2008". Well, the results are in and while the OneWorld community did not choose an African, they DID choose a social entrepreneur who is devoted to helping Africans "move themselves out of poverty". Now they are asking the community to engage in a dialogue with the winner. Post Your Questions to Social Entrepreneur Martin Fisher. (Pamela Adoyo, who works on HIV/AIDS in Kenya, came in a close second. Congratulations!)

I, Ogwal Francis, was in a poor family of Abeja Village in Amolatar District, Northern Uganda. My parents were peasant farmers and depended mainly on subsistence farming which was carried out on a small piece of land. Our area had poor infrastructure such as school, hospital, road and shelters. Above all, our family had only one grass thatch house and lacked regular income. We sometimes slept without food or have meals once a day.

I am starting a blog post to gather my favorite blogs that participated in the Blog Action Day on Poverty yesterday. Tens of thousands of bloggers participated - many in and dealing with Africa. Please feel free to add your favorites below as well.

It's Blog Action day and this year bloggers around the world are you uniting in one common cause: making noise against poverty. Does it help throwing more cluster into cyberspace? I doubt it. The poor will still be poor at the end of today and the rich will be richer. Do we splash logos, banners and pictures of emaciated children across the screens because we sincerely believe it will help or because it makes going to sleep easier?