Joseph Kony & Invisible Children: What is Responsible Advocacy?

I just shared a post on the topic above at the site that goes along with the book I'm co-authoring, Building a Better World: The Pedagogy and Practice of Global Service-Learning. Please take a look there if the topic interests you.

News: Be Optimistic = Live Long, Justice via Consumption?, The Education "Debate," Higher Education Relevance?

Particularly interesting articles today:

• Want to Live to 100? Try to Bounce Back from Stress on NPR adds credence to my long-standing theory that vigorous living, engaged living, and maybe even sometimes excessive living might just in its own ways also contribute to a good life lived long. OK, that's not really the article. But it does help explain why my Great Aunt Helen lived to 100 and also managed a whiskey or two every single night.  
• No Need to Volunteer or Engage - Just Buy is a book review in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The book takes up the important question of the limits of the "conscious consumption will change the world" - story. I haven't yet read the book.  
• Speaking of higher education and markets, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert has an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal today suggesting that instead of the conventional university model most students should be taught how to run a business. It is one of the most popular articles on the WSJ's most-emailed list right now, second only to "Obama Puts Taxes on Table," which of course is always going to be a #1 question among WSJ readers. I find it important because it calls attention to one of the many ways in which much of the general public seems to be currently dissatisfied with higher education. 
• And this brief editorial in the (sadly, no longer completely free) New York Times calls attention to something else I plan to write on soon: The Deadlocked Debate over Education Reform.  
• Finally, the 4th Annual Amizade Water Walks for Women's Rights in Pittsburgh and Morgantown were great successes this weekend, and got some excellent coverage in local press: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette front page and Faithburgh blog, The Daily Athenaeum (WVU), and the main Morgantown TV Station.  

From the WSJ article / Dilbert-creator column: 

And the #1 Social Justice Song Is....

We're not ready people. We're not ready for that kind of definitive victory. There are way too many excellent protest, freedom, and organizing songs out there. We'll have to keep sifting through the many suggestions you've been advancing. But for the moment, in honor of the Amizade Water Walk and all that it symbolizes, let me suggest Stand by Me as delivered by Playing for Change, an organization that pulls together musicians spanning the globe in common songs. They create a shared sense of hope and they raise money to increase children's access to music and musical instruments. Wicked Cool. Here's their most-watched video, which has more than 30 million hits:

Take a look and feel good about the world. Have great weekends. And props to all who are walking in or supporting this year's Amizade Water Walk. It's excellent work. Feel good about your efforts to change the world. They're making a difference. Catch you in a few days.

#4: Why I Hate John Mayer's Social Justice Attempt

Apparently some people find Mayer’s song inspiring, and it has even made it on to some otherwise great political / social justice song sites. But “Waiting, waiting on the world to change,” as the song goes is about as anathema to good work, democracy, progress, rights, hope, and the improvement of the human condition as one can get. This blog title – Journey toward Justice – is no joke. It’s a journey: improving rights and lengthening life expectancies is the product of human cooperation, collaboration, and effort (not waiting, fool). 

That effort takes many forms, and musicians have a role. Mayer could take cues from Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, the bizillion artists who have given voice to We Shall Overcome, or currently from Angelique Kidjo and Wil.i.am (immediately below), as well as from scores and legions of others. But instead Mayer is waiting – and beyond that he’s whining: “We see everything that's going wrong / with the world and those who lead it / We just feel like we don't have the means / To rise above and beat it.”

What? You can’t make a difference? You’re famous, fool. You can move mountains. My friends can manage to make the world change for whole villages. And we’re just average Joes. It’s true that sometimes celebrities’ attempts at good works are un- or under-informed -- but study-up. Often enough celebrities behave as serious and smart people with clear commitment to specific issues that they learn a great deal about. Excellent examples include George Clooney, Bono, Mariska Hargitay, and Matt Damon, who has been a driving force on water issues through the nonprofit organization Water.org.      

Interestingly, in Mayer’s video the waiting involves spray-painting as consciousness-raising (and at the end, just to be sure you know neither Mayer nor his boys are radicals, there’s a message indicating that all spray painting was completed on private property with permission). Now I’m waiting for Mayer to do something interesting. Here’s the thing: I deeply respect, value, and appreciate the role of musicians and other artists in consciousness-raising. Mayer sings (and then even paints!) so close to this idea, but the message we get is just wait. Just wait is blasphemy to the good citizens of the world who fancy themselves as working in the tradition of fundamental human freedoms, democracy, and universal rights.

At least other artists dreaming after an as-yet-unimagined tomorrow paint us some kind of picture, like Cat Stevens’ (now Yusuf) Peace Train (which he did a sweet rendition of for Muhammed Yunis’ Nobel Peace Prize Award) and Billy Bragg’s Waiting for a New World Order. (By the way all of you out there who think “social justice” or “activist musician” is precisely equal to “totalitarian commie,” listen to the equal abuse Bragg hands out to the far ends of the political spectrum).

Of course it’s not surprising that Mayer’s song suggests what it does. We seem to have been struck (in the United States and many other places around the world) with an irrational and unfounded assumption that somehow the miracles we see all around us (basic human security, individual rights and respect for diversity across cultures and genders, 300 million people getting along pretty well across a whole continent, water when you turn on the faucet, public education) are not the product of cooperation, collaboration, and individual sacrifice for purposes that are bigger than ourselves: purposes like improving the human condition.

To bring this closer to home(s), Pennsylvania and Arizona are advancing massive cuts in education budgets. I know there are strong contingents emerging and organizing in Pennsylvania to put pressure on the state government to continue its investment in our shared futures by better funding education. Some students, for example, recently put together this video:

That’s what strong democratic (small d) states do: invest in their citizens’ human capital and tax them at reasonable rates later to continue to pay for the ongoing investment in the future. In Arizona I have students telling me that they’re going to have to pay more for college  and that their four-years of funding doesn’t match the five-years of schooling they’ll need with the planned schedule cuts and lack of class availability, but there’s no strong organizing. Perhaps they’re waiting, waiting for the market to take over their lives more completely.

Wherever you are, speak up for education. It’s something many generations of Americans have taken for granted. And it only exists if Americans work together to make it happen.

Beyond the explicit political sphere is the strong nonprofit and volunteerism sector – and the place I was really referencing above when I asserted what my friends could do. This is why the water walk is so phenomenally important. We’re not waiting for the world to change. We’re making it happen, in clear and considered cooperation with community organizations half-way around the world. These small efforts: organizing, cooperating across cultures, people donating, people walking – extend lives and give women and children a chance to get an education or work rather than constantly returning to the daily drudgery of gathering water.

Register and walk this weekend. If you can’t, donate. Don’t wait. Change the world for families in rural Tanzania, right now.    

Really. Donate. Just $25. It’s a world-changer.  

OK, thank you for reading. Now I must admit: I’m flummoxed, flabbergasted, confused and maybe just a little bit maligned – I keep hearing from people via individual emails, etc., about the blog but I have no comments and few followers and I would absolutely love more of either. I’d love to hear your song suggestions that have yet to make the list. (Tomorrow we will have the Best Social Justice Song Ever, in celebration of Amizade’s Water Walk, but in the days that follow I’ll continue to post enough to follow the due course of this fun little exercise in social justice song). I also remain generally curious about your thoughts, feedback, etc. OR, OR, OR – tell me how much you really love John Mayer and why he’s amazing, or re-post, re-tweet, and share how your share my considerable consternation with the whole unacceptable notion of “Waiting, waiting on the world to change…”  

Walk, Experience, Make a Difference: 4th Annual Water Walk for Women's Rights

The bottom line is this: Amizade has a wonderfully strong and successful water access program implemented in cooperation with nonprofit partners in rural Tanzania. The materials involved in this collaboration are funded largely through annual citizens' events: water walks for women's rights. People of all ages register, carry a bucket of water, and walk over a course in solidarity with women around the world who have to undertake the task daily. All proceeds support the water initiative, which ultimately saves lives, provides opportunity for education, and improves economic development.

Please register for Amizade's 4th Annual Water Walk for Women's Rights or simply make a donation to support Amizade's literally life-saving work with water in Tanzania. Also, please spread the word. Tell more friends. Make it a family day. Get the good people you know out there-walking the Walk. Post this, tweet it, otherwise announce, invite, cajole and coordinate your friends. That's how citizens' efforts become movements that make a difference - and the water walks keep growing in just that way. Thanks to you.

This year's water walks are coming up on next Saturday and Sunday in Pittsburgh and Morgantown, respectively. If you'll forgive the journey and the narrative, I have a bit more to share about how we got here, why water access is so important, and how we know Amizade's efforts are working.

Four years ago, I led the first of several university student groups on a community-driven development course in rural Tanzania through Amizade. The students and I learned several things. First, we helped an amazing local women's rights organization, WOMEDA, chronicle the fact that women walked an average of 26 miles to receive its services. The group subsequently got a small grant through USAID, and more women were therefore afforded basic rights protections like the right to hold property.

Second, we understood on a visceral level the cycles of poverty that Columbia University Professor and former director of the United Nations Millennium Project Jeffrey Sachs discusses in his book The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.  That is, we came to see and more clearly understand the daily drudgery that dominates life in much of the developing world. Witnessing the challenge of everyday life brought us to a third conclusion that is ultimately backed up by significant data from the United Nations Development Program: water matters. Access to water is fundamental.

People who can access water easily have more time to work and to attend school. The United Nations Development Program indicates that investments in clean water supply yield an average return on investment of $4.4 dollars of growth in gross domestic product for every $1 invested. In other words, clean water is a catalyst. When people do not need to walk hours for it, they spend time in other productive activity. And when people have clean water, they avoid regular debilitating sicknesses that come with water-borne diseases. In fact the UNDP concludes that investments in safe water and sanitation are more closely linked to human development than is true for any other development intervention examined, including education, health care, and access to energy services. From experience what is perhaps even more compelling is knowing how hard women and children (it is mostly women and children) work for water, and how unsafe that water often actually is. See the photos to get a glimpse of both the struggle and the poor quality of available water.

These three insights: the importance and strength of WOMEDA, the ruthless challenge of cycles of poverty, and the fundamental status of water as a building block for living, learning, and working moved us to action. After the course, several of the students and I were part of organizing Amizade's first Water Walks for Women's Rights. They took place in Pittsburgh and Morgantown in April of 2008. (Archive: video promotion for year 1).

The proceeds from the Water Walks led to clear outcomes in Kayanga Village, where Amizade works. These outcomes include water tanks for gravity-based water harvesting systems on homes (pictured below) as well as (later on) village-scale water system development through cooperation with Mavuno, a local community-based development organization.

Each of the tanks you see above was connected to a gravity-based water harvesting system constructed of metal gutters that directed water off of the home roofs and into the water tanks. Cooperation with Mavuno and WOMEDA ensured that the tank recipients received the necessary training on how to ensure water in the tanks was purified before drinking. What began during a course in the summer of 2007 led to the first water walks in 2008, which led to the summer 2008 purchase and installation of several tanks like the ones you see above. Along the way, Amizade was fortunate to become a recipient of a grant through the All People Be Happy Foundation, which ensured that Amizade could continue to build its capacity to address water access issues in cooperation with partners in Tanzania. 

As is true with all growing movements, these efforts built on themselves. More and diverse Pittsburghers and West Virginians took part in the walks, more tanks were purchased, and eventually Amizade found itself cooperating with Mavuno on a village-scale water project, pictured below. 

Why? All because a few people decided to organize, take steps to get others involved, and spend a few hours on Saturday (or Sunday in WV) enjoying the excellent spring weather in Pittsburgh and Morgantown while making a vital difference for women and children in rural Tanzania. Walking does make a difference. The pictures above make that clear. What is more, Amizade and its partners in Tanzania continue to improve upon the work they do together (check out the summary!!!). The most recent family-size tanks were constructed with all local materials. And the Chonyoyo Village tank pictured above now supports water access for more than 300 school children. 

Kids can go to school, women have the chance to work or attend school as they wish. You can support that access by registering for this year's Amizade Water Walks for Women's Rights now. If you can't walk this year, please show your support with a donation to Amizade. You can specify your donation to go 100% toward the Tanzania water initiative if you wish. 

Be sure to check out this creative video on water access prepared for this year's walk: 

 

As you'll see, the video was created by a Duquesne University student, which begs the questions: Will WVU, Pitt, Duquesne, or the general public have the most water walk participants this year? I'd love your feedback on this and other questions. 

I've gotten a couple individual messages since returning to the blogosphere, along with a few book suggestions, which I hope to catch up on. Please post thoughts, comments, or questions below, and feel free to message me. Also, if you decide to become a follower or click on any one of the Facebook, Twitter, Email this, etc., buttons below I just might blush and I might also continue this blogging experiment beyond a month of occasional late-night effort. Upcoming topic possibilities: cross-country travel and a pick-up full of justice, education in the United States, and an ode to Colorado. Once again, your suggestions are appreciated.