May 15th, 2009 | by Coco McCabe
Miriam Aschkenasy and Oxfam Ambassador Emile Hirsch attend a community meeting in Mudzi, Zimbabwe. Photo: Nabil Elderkin / Oxfam America
In April, Oxfam Ambassador Emile Hirsch traveled to Zimbabwe with Oxfam’s Miriam Aschkenasy and Lyndsay Cruz to see first-hand Oxfam’s response to the cholera crisis that has hit the region.
Below, Aschkenasy, Oxfam’s public health specialist, writes about the second day of their five-day trip.
I am always so tired at the end of the day in Mudzi, a region in the northeast part of the country where Oxfam has been working on the cholera outbreak. After a two-hour car ride from Harare we arrived at the Pumpkin Hotel–the only hotel in this region. We settled in (Emile got the suite with the waterbed, and I got the one next door) and had some lunch: Eggs and sadza, a finely ground cornmeal boiled in water.
After lunch, we headed out to look at a bore hole–a narrow well drilled deep into the ground. Mudzi has hundreds of them. They’re the source of drinking water for many people in this rural region. This one was a half-hour-drive away on a bumpy, dry road–and when we arrived, we found hundreds of community members waiting for us.
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February 24th, 2009 | by Coco McCabe
Villagers work on repairing a broken well, known as a bore hole, in the Mudzi district of Zimbabwe.
I have just returned from Zimbabwe where a cholera outbreak has now sickened more than 80,000 people and killed more than 3,700 of them. Clean water and public health education are critical in fighting the spread of this disease. Oxfam and its local partner, Single Parents Widow(er)s Support Network, are providing both of those things. Below are a couple of audio blogs that capture some of that work.
In the first blog, public health educators are singing a song–one of several they use–to two large gatherings of villagers. The song is in Shona and it’s advising people who use the bush as a bathroom to properly cover their feces afterwards. The second audio blog tells the story of Ronald Marozva, an engineer who travels around rural Mudzi repairing the broken wells so many people depend on.
Cholera Song
Mudzi Water
December 30th, 2008 | by Coco McCabe
As 2008 winds down, we’re highlighting photos we think best capture Oxfam’s work this year. Here is one of my favorites–with an explanation why. More to come from others.
Loko Dadacha, photographed by Sarah Livingston
In this supposed season of joy, trouble fills our world: a cholera outbreak and widespread hunger in Zimbabwe, a food crisis in Afghanistan that’s threatening five million people, bursts of violence in the eastern provinces of Democratic Republic of Congo that have forced a quarter of a million people from their homes, a conflict in Darfur that has dragged on for nearly six years and wrecked the lives of millions of Sudanese—the list goes on. And that’s the killer. Where is the hope in this bottomless pit of suffering?
I think I know. Read the rest of this entry »
November 25th, 2008 | by Anna Kramer
Ntombizodwa Marufu carries water to her home in central Zimbabwe. Photo: Annie Bungeroth / Oxfam
The first headline I saw yesterday morning predicted a dire future for one of the world’s most troubled nations: “Zimbabwe may soon collapse.”
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma attributed this warning to former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and former US president Jimmy Carter, both of whom were denied entrance to Zimbabwe last weekend as part of a delegation from the conflict-resolution group The Elders.
“Zimbabwe may soon collapse.” For some reason, this particular phrase keeps ringing in my mind, even though I feel like I can’t even fully understand what it means. How can a whole country, all its infrastructure, just fall apart? What does that mean for the millions of people who live there? When does it cease to exist? And what is the threshold—the point of no return—when things can’t possibly get any worse?
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November 4th, 2008 | by Coco McCabe
I read with some alarm yesterday that the UN is warning about cases of cholera that have begun to appear among people displaced by the recent escalation of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On a field visit last March to the eastern provinces of the country, I got a hint of how bad that disease can be–especially in a place where many people don’t have access to clean water or adequate health services.
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