January – April 2012
Acid Survivors Foundation, Islamabad, Pakistan
Los Angeles Times: Oscars 2012: Pakistani filmmaker wins for documentary on acid attacks
Obaid-Chinoy’s film, “Saving Face,” chronicles the struggles of acid-attack survivors as well as the efforts of a British Pakistani doctor who performs reconstructive surgery on women disfigured in such attacks. “We’re so very proud,” said Valerie Khan, chairwoman of the Islamabad-based Acid Survivors Foundation, a non-government organization that works to improve the prospects for justice and rehabilitation for victims of acid attacks. “This is an achievement by a Pakistani woman who is fighting for Pakistani women. So it’s highly symbolic.”
Los Angeles Times: Before and after an acid attack
The Acid Survivors Foundation, based in Islamabad, has estimated that as many as 200 acid attacks happen in Pakistan every year, The Times’ Alex Rodriguez recently reported. Her suicide comes less than a month after Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for a short film about acid attack survivors, “Saving Face,” saying she hoped that the crimes would end.
Pax Christi, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Aljazeera: Eco Toilets
Video interview with Daniel Tillias, Program Manager (starts at 2:40)
How an innovative toilet-to-garden process is turning waste into resource in Haiti’s camp for the internally-displaced.
Akili Dada, Nairobi, Kenya
San Francisco Examiner: USF professor honored at White House
The professor in the politics department at the University of San Francisco is also the founder of Akili Dada, a leadership incubator for girls and young women in Kenya. Earlier this year, the White House honored the Kenya native as one of 14 “Champions of Change” with roots in East Africa.
Carolina for Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya and Oruj Learning Center, Kabul, Afghanistan
CSPAN and Daily Caller: Bill Clinton: Supreme Court ‘should uphold’ individual mandate [VIDEO]
Rye Barcott, the founder of Carolina for Kibera, Sadiqa Basiri Saleem, the Executive Director of the Oruj Learning Center and Steven Knapp, the president of George Washington University were also on the “Power of Public Service” panel.
Oruj Learning Center, Kabul, Afghanistan
Ottawa Citizen: Women in Afghanistan have a champion in Ottawa
By day, Sadiqa Basiri Saleem is an international graduate student at the University of Ottawa, cheerfully weathering Ottawa’s chilly climate while studying for a master’s degree in organizational communications. Come evening, the 32-year-old closes her textbooks and turns to her passion, running Oruj Learning Center, a non-profit agency educating almost 4,000 girls in her homeland, Afghanistan.
Challenging Heights, Accra, Ghana
WBEZ – Chicago Public Radio 91.5: Child and youth trafficking in the U.S.
Worldview talks about U.S. child and youth trafficking with Kristin Lindsey, CEO of The Global Fund for Children and James Kofi Annan, founder of Challenging Heights, based in Accra, Ghana. They work with community members to end child trafficking and child slavery in Ghana.
Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project, Nyakagyezi, Uganda
Huffington Post: Grannies Revisit Motherhood Because of Uganda’s HIV Epidemic
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters around the world, such as The Global Fund for Children (GFC), we have changed so many women and children’s lives by providing medical care, nutritious meals, books, uniforms and clean water. In 2005, GFC helped us start a gardening program, which has grown into a 17 acre farm that feeds over 500 children at Nyaka and Kutamba Primary Schools. In partnership with Johnson & Johnson, GFC is investing in our long-term future and stability, thereby allowing us to reach more orphans and other vulnerable children whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS.
Big Brother Mouse, Luang Prabang, Laos
Forbes India: Making Merit In Luang Prabang
‘Protect Our Culture’ signs are everywhere in the city. Suitably exhorted, we headed to the office of Big Brother Mouse. It isn’t, as some could presume, a rodent reality show, but a unique publishing house (www.bigbrothermouse.com) that seeks to make books widely available. The literacy-centric organisation was born when American publisher Sasha Alyson realised he hadn’t encountered a single book during his travels through the country in 2003. Many Laotians have never read anything other than a textbook. The few that are available rarely make their way to the villages, where most people live.
Ser Paz, Guayaquil, Ecuador
Featured in a documentary shown on Al Jazeera English. Watch the trailer: “The Gangster’s Granny”
Aware Girls, Peshawar, Pakistan
Voice of America (VOA) Urdu: Aware Girls [VIDEO]
She is fearless and passionate. This is the first impression you have of Gulalai Ismail, the young activist from Pakistan who started her work for the protection of women rights at the age of sixteen in one of the most conservative areas of the country i.e. KPK province. This story introduces Gulalai Ismael and her work on the women issues. Gulalai is the founder of an organization Aware Girls that consists of girls only staff. Including gender empowerment, equal opportunity, domestic violence and peace building Aware Girls is working on multiple projects which focus solely on women issues. The HIV AIDS project of Aware Girls is being funded by The Global Fund For Children which hosted Gulalai Ismail recently to introduce her work to a group of Americans in Washington DC.
Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, Delhi, India
India Today: Indian NGO Chintan chosen for first US Innovation Award
Chintan, and Indian NGO, has been chosen for America’s first Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls, for training and organizing wastepickers and eliminating child labour from recycling. To be formally announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday, the award is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Associação Excola (Ex-Glue Sniffers Association), Rio de Janiero, Brazil
British Airways Highlife: British Airways and Comic Relief’s work in Rio de Janiero
At the age of seven, Joelma was fending for herself on the streets of Rio de Janeiro — her parents in the Santa Cruz favela where she was born could no longer support her. She witnessed rapes and abuse, drugs were rife, she begged for food and had her first baby while still a street child herself. Today, at 27, she’s telling me her story as she braids hair in a brightly coloured salon in the centre of the city. Her life has been turned around by Associação Excola (Ex-Glue Sniffers Association), an organisation that works with women and children living on the streets, helping young mums learn new skills to enable them to keep their kids safe.
Step Up (“Verkh”) Moscow, Russia
The Moscow Times: Russia Struggles to Reform Soviet-Era Orphanages
Vikenty, now a 22-year-old graphic designer, started attending school at Verkh, an energetic nongovernmental organization in Moscow that offers education and life training. Its name means upward, so it is literally a step up for children who know little of life beyond the closed world of Russian children’s homes and who otherwise risk drifting into unemployment, poverty or crime.
Synapse Center, Senegal – 2009 Sustainability
Financial Times: African focus: Improved employment prospects crucial for stability
NGOs have an important role to play in unlocking the potential of African youth, says Ciré Kane, director of Synapse Center, a Senegalese organisation that helps young people find work or establish businesses. While Mr Kane speaks with pride of the 5,600 young people his organisation has helped in the past nine years, he says the government must do more to cut the bureaucracy that makes it difficult for many gifted young entrepreneurs to turn bright ideas into businesses.
Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), New York, NY – 2008 Sustainability
Forbes: Girls For Sale! Changing The Conversation On Exploited Kids In The U.S.
In the United States, the average age of entry into prostitution is 13 years old. British-born Rachel Lloyd, advocate and activist, was herself a victim of what’s known as commercial sexual exploitation at the age of 17 while living in Germany. By 19, having survived attempts on her life by both her own hands and those of her pimp, she escaped.
Nonprofit Quarterly: Minn. Foundation Becoming National Model Against Teen Sex Trafficking
For broader context on the issue, the foundation points to a New York-based nonprofit, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), as an example of current work supporting girls and young women who are trafficking victims (New York has had statewide anti-sex trafficking programs in place for years).
Komisyon Fanm Viktim Pou Viktim (Commission of Women Victim to Victim) (KOFAVIV), Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Huffington Post: Haiti Earthquake 2 Years Later: Nonprofit Makes Progress Fighting Sexual Violence In Camps
Heavy raindrops pelted Sherlie Christophe’s tent at a Port-au-Prince, Haiti displacement camp two months after a 7.0 earthquake rocked the island. Without warning, the tattered scrap of a door to Christophe’s makeshift home fluttered open. A man trying to seek refuge from the spring storm wanted in.
Li, Li, Li! Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Huffington Post: Haiti Earthquake Aftermath: Charities Tackle Illiteracy In Country’s Slums
For the thousands of children living in crowded, decrepit tents, there’s little protection from sexual violence and terrorizing nightmares. Karshan worries about how these kids sleep at night, but she knows that Li, Li, Li! Read Haiti at least helps to ease their anxiety.