Oxfam America Blog

Jonathan Coley stands outside the office of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Jonathan Coley is a CHANGE leader for Oxfam America and a student at Samford University. Here’s his account of a recent visit to Immokalee, Florida, where many of the nation’s tomatoes are grown—and often picked under grueling conditions.

When you’re enjoying your sandwich or burrito at lunch, do you think about the hand that picked your tomatoes?

Despite working in one of the most dangerous industries in the United States, the average farm worker earns just $7,500 a year with few benefits and no overtime pay. Children as young as 12 work in the fields.

I knew many of these facts before I traveled to Immokalee, Florida, recently for the annual gathering of the Student/Farmworker Alliance. However, I was not prepared for the realities I confronted when I walked the streets of this little-known Florida town. Read the rest of this entry »

Boulders litter Verapaz, El Salvador, following heavy rains that triggered landslides last weekend. Photo by Tjarda Muller

Oxfam America’s Tjarda Muller lives in El Salvador where torrential rains last weekend caused widespread damage. She visited one of the hardest-hit communities, Verapaz, yesterday. Listen to her report: VoiceMessage1

Corn will be in short supply this winter in many indigenous communities in Baja Verapaz. Photo by James Rodriguez/Oxfam America

As promised, here is an update on Oxfam’s plan to help the people I met in Guatemala described in my last post: You can read about our work with Gloria Gonzalez’s organization ASECSA here.

It will take more than whatever rain fell from the recent passage of a tropical storm to turn around the super-dry conditions in Guatemala. Winter is essentially here, but hopefully next year, in the absence of the El Niño phenomenon, there will be better rains. If we can help these families survive the winter, they will need seeds and fertilizer so they can plant in the spring. With so many families facing food shortages this winter, they will require all their strength and resources to survive.

The resilience of Guatemalans is impressive. After all the wars, discrimination, and tragedy, the indigenous people keep fighting to survive, and they will not succumb to malnutrition without a struggle. Read the rest of this entry »

The year before I came to graduate school in the United States, I taught English and Social Studies at my old high school in Bombay. On the first day of teacher training, our impassioned headmistress Ms. Shirin Darasha, opened with, “There are three things you need to know about being a teacher. I want you to remember these every day as we start the new school year: Encourage, encourage, encourage.”

CHANGE alumni reunited in Boston earlier this month. Photo by: Cheryl Colombo/Oxfam America.

To encourage means to impart courage; to embolden; to give support to; and to foster. Oxfam America’s youth leadership program, the CHANGE Initiative, lives and breathes this value. You can see it in the faces of the 50 or so college students who come to Boston every summer for leadership and advocacy training, which prepares them to promote social change on a local and global level. They are scrubbed full of hope and excitement, and their energy to make a difference is palpable in how they respond to and engage with Oxfam staff during the week-long intensive training. To date, CHANGE has trained nearly 550 students from over 200 campuses.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week, campaigners dressed as the G20 world leaders took to the streets of Pittsburgh, dressed as — who else in that football-loving town — the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Oxfam asked that the G20 leaders protect poor countries, which have been struggling to respond to the global recession, high food prices, and the impacts of climate change.

 “Home is where I want to be. Pick me up and turn me round.”

Those are lyrics from an old Talking Heads song. They’ve been stuck in my head the last few days as my husband, John, and I have been driving around the greater Boston area looking for a new house.  You see, when we bought our 800-square-foot condo four years ago, there were just two of us. But with the arrival of our daughter, Olive, earlier this summer we’ve quickly run out of room.

Now we’re looking for a place twice as big. And we’re debating what’s most important to us. Do we move to the suburbs for the schools? Or to stay in the city for the restaurants and shops? Do we want an old house with character? Or a gut renovation that’s move-in ready?

The more we see, the more confused we get. But yesterday, after looking at yet another place that was great but not quite perfect, I had a thought. No matter what type of building we choose, and no matter what the town or neighborhood, we’ll be happy. We’ll be together. And that’s what matters most.

That realization got me thinking about the many homes I’ve been invited into over the years while traveling for Oxfam. Whether tiny rooms or sprawling complexes, constructed of wood or tinder block, with tin or thatched roofs, they have all been modest by American standards. But each had a family that tended to it with loving care, hanging portraits of ancestors and gods on the walls, sweeping out every bit of dirt, and preparing elaborate meals for guests.

In southern Ethiopia, Loko dadacha built her house, with the help of neighbors. The latest fad in her village of Gutu Dobi has been to paint the outside walls with decorative patterns. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson.

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Cotton famers load a truck in Sibirila, Mali. Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/Oxfam America

The first time I went to Mali, about five years ago, I met with a group of cotton farmers just a few hours east of Bamako. It was near the harvest time, and you could see the white dots on the scrubby little plants all over the countryside, but there was not much optimism among the farmers in the cooperative I visited that day. Most of them reported that they work all year, sell their cotton to the government agency that exports all the cotton grown in Mali, and after they pay back their loans they don’t usually walk away with enough to make it worth the effort. Some years they would get just about $100. A relatively good year was $200 or $400.
Farmers in Mali told me they only grow cotton because they know their government will buy it from them for cash, which they need for health care, school fees, and other expenses. They can also get fertilizer from the government on credit — if they use it to grow cotton.
Read the rest of this entry »