People & Planet - Diary and Calendar 2012

[Partner Update] Super Tuesday to support EWB

People and Planet — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:43:37 +0000

Super Tuesday is Australia’s biggest visual bike count that provides reliable annual figures about bicycle commuting. On Tuesday 6th March volunteers across Australia will collect data that helps participating councils make good decisions about where to invest their funds in bike infrastructure.The best part is each person who successfully volunteers and completes the bike count can nominate a group or club to receive $50 as a reward for their work.One of People and Planet’s partners, Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB), is campaigning to get counters involved and nominate EWB as the recipient of the $50.

Super Tuesday is on 6th March from 7am – 9am, across Australia.

Registrations Open on Tuesday 17th Jan.

Get in early to claim your preferred count site!

To register visit https://www.bv.com.au/general/bike-futures/91079/

EWB works with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through education and the implementation of sustainable engineering projects. Common issues in the communities they work in include access to drinking water, sanitation, energy and waste systems.

Super Tuesday aims to answer two questions: How many riders are there? Which routes are riders using? Super Tuesday 2010 was the largest commuter rider count ever and we anticipate that this year’s count will be the biggest ever.

“Counting for Super Tuesday is so worthwhile, it combines two fantastic causes into one activity. Not only does it help us get better informed about bike usage and sustainable transport, it raises money for EWB, an organisation that is leading long term change in developing communities,” said Ian Cunningham, EWB staff member and past Super Tuesday Counter.

Let’s start counting!

More about Engineers Without Borders Australia: www.ewb.org.au

[Partner Update] Health Australia Tanzania

People and Planet — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:59:56 +0000

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND MARKETING OF THE DISPENSARY SERVICES AT MATUMBO VILLAGE

Health Ausralia & Tanzania is negotiating a new project in Singida Region, Tanzania which will run in 2012. The project will work in one village, Matumbo, and aims to increase usage of a new health centre (nurse-led clinic) by the Matumbo and surrounding communities. HAT visited this clinic in September 2011 and observed that the community were not using this important new facility.Our NGO partner in Tanzania has researched the problems and concluded that the clinic is currently underutilised due to

(a) lack of community awareness of what it offers

(b) lack of knowledge of the importance of various services offered by the health centre, such as malaria and HIV testing

The project will establish a village health committee and train them in health service governance. It will also provide refresher training and mobilisation of community health outreach workers. The community will be mobilised to contribute to health insurance arrangemnets, which will increase the clinic’s capacity to order more drugs and offer more community outreach services.

A pre- and post-project evaluation will be conducted, measuring changes in community use of clinic services.

For more information about this project, or how to get involved with Health Australia Tanzania, please contact Peter Larter on peter.larter@hat.org.au

Photo # 54 is… The Twilight Zone – Bangladesh

People and Planet — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:45:08 +0000

Children play on the beach on Narkel Jinjira, St. Martin’s Island, in the North East of the Bay of Bengal. With a population of just 10,000 people, St. Martin’s Island – Bangladesh’s only coral island – has recently become one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. However the United Nations Development Project has warned that unless those involved in the island’s unregulated tourism industry “quickly adopt ecologically responsible behaviour”, the island, which is home to “several species of globally threatened marine turtles as well as being a flyway and wintering site for migratory birds of the East Asian and Australasian region” will become further and irreparably damaged.

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Photographer: Yousuf Tushar (Bangladesh)

Photo # 53 is… Walk the Line – China

People and Planet — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:45:19 +0000

Migrant workers toil in Xiapu County, Fujian Province. China’s migrant workforce emerged in the 1980s partly because of China’s Hukou or household registration system and partly as a result of its 1970s economic reforms. By the end of 2006 there were an estimated 131.8 million migrant workers in the country, comprising 23 percent of the rural workforce.Migrant workers are paid low wages and often forced to work punishingly long days. Since housing subsidies, healthcare and welfare benefits are related to one’s residence status within China’s Hukou system, migrant workers are also largely excluded from the country’s social security system.

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Photographer: Xiaoyun Zheng (China)

Photo # 52 is… April Reflections – China

People and Planet — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:45:38 +0000

A mosaic effect is created each April in the flooded rice paddies of Yangshuo, Guangxi, which is famed for its unique juxtaposition of verdant mountains, clear waters, colourful paddy fields and exquisiterocks. While providing food for billions, rice paddy fields are estimated to produce around 20 percent of human-related methane emissions each year, with China’s rice fields producing roughly 5.1 million tonnes of methane annually. Although high, this figure represents an almost 70 percent reduction in China’s paddy related methane emissions since the 1980s when new agricultural techniques such as mid-season paddy draining were widely implemented.

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Photographer: Wong Chi Keung (Hong Kong)

Photo # 51 is… Comfort in Prayer – Bangladesh

People and Planet — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:45:58 +0000

Little Musha glances back during prayer at the Tonjimul Muslemin Yatimkhana orphanage in Chittagong where roughly 70 – 80 orphans live and study. Full adoption is proscribed in Bangladesh, where children comprise 41 percent of its 159 million people and where orphanages provide a vital lifeline to vulnerable children orphaned or abandoned by their parents. There are an estimated 400,000 Bangladeshi children living on the country’s streets, an extremely high number that is partly attributable to Bangladesh’s years of political strife and the disproportionate number of natural disasters endured by the country.

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Photographer: Wahid Adnan (Bangladesh)

Photo # 50 is… No Ticket to Ride – Bangladesh

People and Planet — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:45:41 +0000

Two women perch precariously between train coaches in an effort to conceal themselves from ticket inspectors on the Nazirhat to Chittagong train route in Bangladesh. Those who cannot afford a railway ticket are forced to travel on the rooftops of – or in junctions between – train coaches, a method of travel that results in many casualties each year. Yet in Bangladesh, where Oxfam Australia reports that 49.8 percent of people live below the poverty line, many passengers take this risk because they have no other choice.

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Photographer: Wahid Adnan (Bangladesh)

Photo # 49 is… Decisive Moment – Vietnam

People and Planet — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:45:20 +0000

Khmer Monks transport materials to repair the Wat Kompong Chray temple, or pagoda, in Trà Vinh Province in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta. Wat Kompong Chray is one of 141 Theravada Buddhist temples in the province and was built in 1637 but almost completely destroyed during the Vietnam/ American War. After 40 years of rebuilding, the temple is now a tourist attraction.

Many parts of Vietnam are still rebuilding after the widespread bombing during the war – 7 million tonnes of bombs were dropped on Vietnam during the decade of war from 1964 to 1973 – more than twice the total bombs dropped on Europe and Asia together during World War II.

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Photographer: Tran Viet Van (Vietnam)

Photo # 48 is… Human Traffic – Ghana

People and Planet — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:45:36 +0000

A child is smothered with kisses at the Freedom Centre, City of Refuge Ministries in Doryumu, Ghana. The centre was opened in 2007 to raise awareness of issues of child slavery, trafficking, and abandonment; to care for the region’s orphaned and abandoned children; and to liberate Ghana’s children from slavery and human trafficking. Child trafficking and slavery are particularly prevalent within the fishing trade in Ghana’s remote Lake Volta region, where an estimated several thousand children are kept in slavery having been sold by their impoverished parents to make ends meet. A reported 20 – 40 percent of Ghanaian children aged 5 – 14 either work through necessity or are enslaved.

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Photographer: Thomas Goldner (Australia)

Photo # 47 is… Climate Change Ground Zero – Bangladesh

People and Planet — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:45:29 +0000

With increasing world temperatures attributable to global warming, the changing shape of rivers and beaches such as this in Kattali, Chittagong, expose the harsh reality of the effects of climate change on Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest nations. Dubbed “climate change ground zero” by NGO The Asia Foundation, Bangladesh is already the country most affected by climate change and most vulnerable to further sea level rises which threaten to displace a significant proportion of the nation’s 162 million people. In Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, flooding is so frequent that rents for ground floor apartments are roughly a third cheaper than those for their first floor counterparts.

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Photographer: Shantanu Biswas (Bangladesh)

Photo # 46 is… Everything is Okay – Canada

People and Planet — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:45:42 +0000

A protester lightens the mood in downtown Toronto, Canada during protests against the G20 Leaders’ Summit on 27 June, 2010. Seemingly oblivious to the police presence behind him, moments later riot police began to crack down on the thousands of protesters surrounding the summit. Staged at a cost of $857,901,850, the 2010 G20 summit took place against a backdrop of global recession, with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggesting that the summit’s theme would be “recovery and new beginnings”. A reported 1,118 people were arrested during the protests, representing the largest mass arrests in Canada’s history.

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Photographer: Rob Fournier (Canada)

Photo # 45 is… Another Brick in the Wall – Palestine

People and Planet — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:45:41 +0000

Artwork and graffiti vie for attention on the barrier which separates the occupied West Bank from Israel. The wall’s construction began in June 2002, ostensibly as an Israeli self-defence mechanism against Palestinian terrorism. However in order to build the now 670 kilometre-long wall, swathes of Palestinian land were confiscated, annexing villages and rich agricultural land, cutting families off from each other, and facilitating Israel’s punitive West Bank blockade from 2007 onwards. The blockade has seen Palestinian wages plummet, unemployment levels stagnate or worsen and the ranks of the impoverished, living on just $1 a day, trebling to 300,000 since 2007.

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Photographer: Reyaz Limalia (UK)

Photo # 44 is… I Spy – Indonesia

People and Planet — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:45:59 +0000

A boy peers out of his house, which is made of materials gathered by him and his father during their work as scavengers, in a riverside settlement in Padang, West Sumatra. Indonesia is a country rich in natural resources and has recently experienced rapid urbanisation and economic growth but the spoils of those advances are not shared evenly. Poverty and a housing shortfall are the two most acute crises facing Indonesians, with the Indonesian Ministry of Housing estimating that an additional 8.1 million houses are needed immediately to sufficiently house its population.

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Photographer: Ramdhani Rusdi (Indonesia)

Photo # 43 is… In the Balance – India

People and Planet — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:45:23 +0000

Women from a Mandu Gypsy tribe collect and transport drinking water in Mandu, in India’s Madhya Pradesh state. Having been founded as a fortress in the 10th century, and once called Shadiabad or “the city of happiness”, Mandu now lies in ruins. International NGO WaterAid suggests that only 11 percent of households in Madhya Pradesh have access to piped water, with 48 percent of households obtaining their water from hand pumps and 36 percent from dug wells. Each year 1.4 million children worldwide die from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and insufficient sanitation, equating to 4,000 deaths per day or one every 20 seconds.

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Photographer: Prasanta Biswas (India)

Photo # 42 is… Strangers No More – Israel

People and Planet — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:45:18 +0000

Shortly after Strangers No More – a film about the Bialik-Rogozin School in Tel Aviv, which educates the children of migrant workers and asylum seekers – won the Academy Award for Best Documentary short in 2011, the Israeli government announced that it would deport many of the school’s children. Forming part of a governmental drive to deport all of an estimated 250,000 illegal immigrants by 2013 in a bid to preserve its Jewish character, Israel’s migrant workers are not legally allowed to have children. On 18 March 2011, in solidarity with the children facing deportation, Bialik-Rogozin’s students joined festivities around the Jewish festival of Purim in Tel Aviv.

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Photographer: Nicky Kelvin (UK)

Photo # 41 is… A Punt on Bamboo – Vietnam

People and Planet — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:45:02 +0000

A man travels home on a raft made of bamboo poles in Hué, central Vietnam. Vietnam is the world’s 4th largest producer of bamboo, a growing source of industrial products with a variety of positive ecological, social and environmental benefits. Products made from bamboo are becoming increasingly popular as replacements for more environmentally-destructive forms of furniture, flooring and construction materials.

Where trees take decades to grow and can only be harvested once, bamboo plants grow new poles every year. Bamboo production also provides income to remote communities in Vietnam, helping to reduce the deforestation and minimise slash-and-burn agriculture for other crops – key environmental problems in Vietnam.

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Photographer: Nguyen Duc Tri (Vietnam)

Photo # 40 is… The Guardian – Saudi Arabia

People and Planet — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:45:58 +0000

A small boy plays with his sister – too shy to show her face – in Mena, Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia. Gender roles in Saudi Arabia are dictated by Islamic, or Sharia Law, which imposes severe restrictions on women, including the requirement that a women’s entire body – except the hands and eyes – must be covered in the presence of men. Women are also segregated from men in all public places Saudi Arabia – a practice that has been compared with Apartheid since most public buildings and universities must have separate entrances for men and women. A patriarchal guardianship system means male guardians also determine whether and where a woman may work, study, marry, or travel.

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Photographer: Najwa Abdul Ilah Marafie (Kuwait)

Photo # 39 is… The Ship Breakers – Bangladesh

People and Planet — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:45:48 +0000

A ship is destroyed and its materials are recycled within one of Chittagong’s ship breaking yards. Although ship breaking used to occur in the United States and the United Kingdom, a majority of ship demolition now takes place in developing countries due to lower labour costs and more relaxed environmental regulations. Despite ship breaking’s environmentally devastating effect on the area’s coastal region and marine life, in 2011 the Supreme Court of Bangladesh agreed to allow ship breaking yards – which are worth $1.5 million a year to Bangladesh’s economy – more time to meet stricter environmental and safety regulations, ignoring calls from activists for an immediate moratorium.

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Photographer: Mohammad Ashraful Huda (Bangladesh)

Photo # 38 is… Make Do and Mend – Belarus

People and Planet — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:45:58 +0000

A man repairs an antiquated Russian car on the outskirts of Mogilev, Eastern Belarus. The United Nations Development Project reports that although less than 1 percent of Belarus’ population lives in extreme poverty, a significant proportion falls ‘into the low-income category’ with almost 20 percent of Belarus’ people ‘living on less than the minimum subsistence budget’. Following a brutal crackdown on opposition political parties and protesters during the late-2010 Belarus Presidential elections, Belarus was widely criticised by the international community and in 2011 became the subject of widespread economic sanctions by the US and European Union.

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Photographer: Mihail Mihailovich Kopychko (Belarus)

Photo # 37 is… Maasai – Kenya

People and Planet — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:45:57 +0000

Maasai tribespeople talk, sing and dance around a bonfire within the Maasai Mara National Reserve in South Western Kenya. According to Survival International, Maasai “move their herds from one place to another, so that the grass has a chance to grow again; traditionally, this is made possible by a communal land tenure system in which everyone in an area shares access to water and pasture. Nowadays Maasai have increasingly been forced to settle, and many take jobs in towns. . . . Most of what used to be Maasai land has already been taken over, for private farms and ranches, for government projects, wildlife parks or private hunting concessions. Mostly they retain only the driest and least fertile areas.”

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Photographer: Miguel Candela (Spain)