Hi Vijay. Welcome back and thanks for sharing interesting news about your trip. I feel I know you better since that letter.
You mention fishing, and that prompts me to introduce you to my friend Samwel who lives near Lake Victoria and is also concerned about declining fish stocks. Sam was at First Thursday today, and his concerns featured strongly in our chat.
You can see the full chat here in the worknets archive. However is it quite hard work to read all through a two hour chat, so I have also saved it as a google doc here, and I have written some notes there explaining who is in the chat and what is going on. I hope you will be able to see it okay. (Please let me know if you have any problems.)
As well as being in the chat room today, Sam sent an email to the yahoo group he leads in Minciu Sodas.
I copy it below so you can see if you have other overlapping interests. everything in Minciu Sodas is in the public domain so it is fine to share it widely.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Samwel Kongere <jambita1@yahoo.com>
Date: 2009/10/1
Subject: [mendenyo] Our Protein is gone, What can we do?
To: Mendenyo Men-denyo <mendenyo@yahoogroups.com>
Dear all Social Community changers,
Why Rusinga Island community can’t get the abundant Fish (Tilapia) they used to have as their staple food and economy earner as before? May be; because of too much pressure of fishing and fishing trends in the Lake Victoria, the second fresh water lake in the world, which was rich with fresh water Fish; which formed the staple food to the populace living around here.
The fisherman has become a real peddler and a hunting wanderer, without control of order, out of moral due to poverty; Families can’t have food on top of their tables due to unplanned empowerment strategies laid by the inhabitants, government, and law enforcers.
To me sustainability can come through empowerment and lasting peace. Poverty is the worst and the enemy of survival and conflict. It is really immoral to have economy for a minority while large swathes of population languish in abject poverty. Such wants gives birth to groupings that seek micro change without clear cause and often violently. These hovels deprived state, most of the population falls prey to diseases and pandemics such as the HIV and aids, a hungry and disease prune populace is a powder keg that nudging to rise up.
Programmes like micro-finance society, fish farming, and local community tourism (responsible), agriculture that seeks to inject money directly are the way forward. They known to engender development projects they are most needed. Others that seek to empower women and youth economically have proved runaway successes in placing food on the table and dousing one more reason for upheaval. To me, this one of the millennium development goals agreed upon by the governments’ world over.
Grassroots’ initiatives whether by community, governments, specialist, experts, groups, or donor inspired ones, like non governmental organizations have added to the outreach to community level? Definitions of micro developments are as many as there are on the planet. But one thing is certain; as one says, cessation of conflicts, and provision of basic services like water, food (security and livelihood), shelter, security, literacy, gender equity, child rights etc. Form the basic and the lasting cornerstone of a world without food on the table’. It is not gainsaid, it must be researched from history to the present state of socio-economic, from political legacy, infrastructure etc.
Trainers of trainees programmes which are said at higher levels but not implemented at the grass root village! It should mandate to review law, laws relating women, public order, security, auctioneers, court brokers, and more so to children; especially the physically challenged’ For one children are considered a special and marginalized group in the society despite the 17.6 million of them constituting to 50 percent of the population.
Why must I and other community life changers engage on a particular set of group of the populace (Children/ youth and women)? I had volunteered in a child and family development programme a NGO for 8 years taken to short courses on nurturing the children and development of families in general. I read that’ ‘the children act defines child abuse as anything that causes, physical , sexual, psychological, and mental injury to a child, but not restricted to parents, emotional states, child caregivers, and general populace (1982)
According to International Labour organization who trained me two weeks on most vulnerable children (MVC) and micro business start ups, According to ILO- Four million school-age children work to make ends meet; this is an abuse; also in the Kenyan Society children and women are viewed as property by extension, this has made them to vulnerable mistreatment and abuse’ whether they have food or not; is a matter of their own survival’.
Samwel!
Social Community Network/Information Coordinator,
Suba/Mbita-Kenya
'Aliving hope is desire' When it is socially lived!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
i look forward to your next letter, and to introducing you to more people here.
Pam