Trust in Education (TIE) is supporting those Afghan girls by building schools and supporting after-school programming in art, science and physical education.  They tackle with work on a grassroots level, their Afghan staff working directly with the local population, and that is why I decided to work with TIE.  Without much infrastructure or overhead, a substantial percentage of dollars donated directly impact programming on the ground.  My work with TIE put a face on their projects, most for the very first time.  I visited projects and villages, documenting the organization’s current work as well as the condition of schools and classrooms in target areas.  Traveling to remote villages, unannounced and anonymous, witnessing the girls’ enthusiasm underscored for me the great risk the students and teachers take everyday, and the passion and dedication with which they push forward from the repressive Taliban-era to modernity.

The Turkana people are pastoralists, living with and by their animals.  They move their herds and manyattas with the weather, following the rains, which provide their livestock water to drink and grass to graze.

The world is changing faster than the Turkana people.  Borders have been drawn, wars fought, and in the past decade, even the climate has changed.  The last great drought they remember in 2001. And since that time, they haven’t seen rain the way they once did, what was once forest and green plains, is now desert.  Spartan rains have left the soil parched and cracked, rivers and vegetation dried, and life is a struggle.

The past year has been the worst, over ten months without a single drop of rain.  The Turkana are surviving solely on the international community, their only water coming from the few bore wells and with most of the livestock having starved to death, the only food is international aid.

The Amazon is also home to over 300 species of mammals, 1,500 species of birds and 300 species of reptiles, with an average of 120 new species discovered each year.  She is as impressive as inhospitable, and we humans cling to her shores in stilt villages to protect again the floods.  Each year, when the rains come, her waters rise and fall with the rains, up to 30 feet, inundating thousands of square miles.

Right now is the time of flooding in the Amazon Basin, and last week I made my first visit to photograph and write a travel story for Traveler Overseas Magazine.

I returned to the US a different person, older, much wiser, more confident and with a part of me now tied to a distant village in Africa, a way of life and a family who had taken me in as their own and loved me.  I finally returned to Senegal last month after 12 years to visit my family and was welcomed with open arms.  They had moved to a larger town, my brothers and sisters had grown up and had families of their own, and though the time had passed, I felt like I had never left.  Here are some scenes of my latest trip.

A land of snow, rock and ice, dramatic landscapes, unpredictable weather, and turbulent seas.   I had always dreamed of visiting Antarctica, and yet, not until I saw her did I know that I would be back at any and every opportunity.

Goma, DRC

Voix de la Paix took the project one step further, screening Pray the Devil Back to Hell to women leaders and holding a two-day workshop in Kinshasa, Goma and Bukavu.  Abigail Disney, Leymah Gbowee and Alissa Everett traveled to the DRC to show PRAY to diverse  women leaders such as nationally elected government officials, heads of women’s associations, church leaders, policewomen, soldiers and activists.  It was the first time women leaders across all sectors of society had come together to discuss the state of their country, region and individual lives.

The women discussed the strengths and weaknesses of their current womens’ movements and created strategies for future growth.  They also confronted prejudices within their own communities, as one slender, soft-spoken women in Kinshasa roared, “You women in civil society: you are doing violence to yourselves.  You do not work together.  You only look after your own interests.  It is not until you stop the war of women on women that you will have any chance of ending the war at all.  We must end this conflict and begin to work together!!”

]]> http://www.alissaeverett.com/2010/10/words-from-the-drc/feed/ 0 http://www.alissaeverett.com/2010/05/voices-of-peace-the-workshops/ http://www.alissaeverett.com/2010/05/voices-of-peace-the-workshops/#comments Mon, 10 May 2010 23:21:03 +0000 Alissa http://alissaeverett.com/blog/?p=302 May is here and it is time.  I will be holding workshops with Abigail Disney and Leymah Gbowee, from Pray the Devil Back to Hell.  From seeing the film a year ago, proposing to Abby that we bring the film to eastern DRC, meeting with women leaders and holding preliminary screenings to see if the atmosphere was right, we are finally at holding workshops, strategy sessions really, with women leaders, activists, female politicians, police, army, humanitarians and journalists in Goma, Bukavu and Kinshasa.

If you don’t know this film you should.  Click here for the trailer – Pray the Devil Back to Hell

It is a powerful, important documentary piece, not only on an under-reported women’s movement, but it is one of the first pieces of its kind to shine a true light on African women.  Most media portray African women as victims, suffering, illiterate, dirty, barefoot, pregnant with a bucket of water on her head.  This film shows the other African women, the intelligent, articulate, groomed women who are up to something in the world.  These are true faces of African women with spirit, dimension, dignity and pride.  They are strong and very able.

Me with Goma ladies from the “Voices of Peace” workshop.