Oxfam America Blog

Photo: David Stubbs / Oxfam America

Sometimes it’s the small details that can make a photo compelling. In the above image from Peru, the visual beauty of the blue sky constrasts starkly with the reality of the subject matter: the barbed wire, chain-link fence, and plateaus of digging around a mineral mine in Cerro de Pasco, Peru.

Photo: Rebecca Blackwell / Oxfam America

Members of a village savings group in Mali. Rebecca Blackwell’s photo beautifully captures the graphic details of the vivid fabrics that the women are wearing, as well as this gesture of welcome and respect that the women use to begin their meetings.

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As a writer, I’m the biggest word fan there is–but I also appreciate the power of photography as a means for making an instant emotional connection. Beginning with the stunning Rankin photos from the Democractic Republic of the Congo that we highlighted in the January 2009 issue of our magazine, OXFAMExchange, it seemed like photography really came to the forefront this year, especially as a way to tell stories about the people behind our work. On that note, here are a few (very subjective) picks for my favorite Oxfam images from the year.

Loko Dadacha photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

Many unforgettable images come to mind when I think of my trip to Ethiopia earlier this year, but I especially like this portrait of Loko Dadacha, one of the most extraordinary people I met during my visit. You can really sense the great strength–physical and emotional–of this widow and mother of six from Gutu Dobi, Ethiopia, who is helping to lead her community during a time of ongoing drought.

Saving circle, Mali. Photo by Rebecca Blackwell / Oxfam America

Women from the Banakoro, Mali, village Saving for Change group–dubbed Sabougnuma, or “good deed”–hold their weekly meeting. I like how this colorful photo really captures the community spirit of the savings groups, where women work together to help each other save money and start small businesses.

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In August, I found myself sitting on the damp earth of Dida Liben, a once-flourishing pastureland in southern Ethiopia where animals, both wild and domestic, thrived. Today, it’s mostly hard-packed dirt, pocked with patches of stubby grass and thorny bushes—except where I was perched with a small gathering of local elders.

Around us, the grass had grown tall and thick, the result of an Oxfam-supported conservation effort that had set aside 275 acres of pasture and fenced it off with a bramble enclosure to give the land time to recover. And it had, gloriously—prompting the elders to luxuriate in the feel of the grass swallowing them, as it had when they were children. Even some of the wildlife was coming back—antelopes, rabbits, boars.

But a tinge of fear colored their reminiscences. What if someone were to see how good all of this had become—and take it away? That was the first thing Kotola Buyale, wrapped tight in a red shawl, wanted to talk about as we sank into the tall grasses to get out of the wind. What if? Read the rest of this entry »

Loko Dadacha. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

After two weeks away from the office on a personal trip to Japan, I came back today to find hundreds of emails piled up in my inbox. But once I plowed my way through the spam and the endless Outlook meeting invitations, I discovered something really exciting: a link to Oxfam’s new short video about how climate change affects poor people in countries like El Salvador, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and the US.

 This video holds a special significance for me, since back in August I was lucky enough to tag along as a crew filmed some of this footage in southern Ethiopia. In many ways, that trip (my first visit to Africa) is still very much on my mind: I can’t read an article about climate change without thinking about the striking effects of drought in those rural communities—and the amazing strength of the local people who are fighting back against the crisis.

One of those people is Loko Dadacha, a widow and mother of six who’s taken on a leadership role in helping her community prepare for droughts. Having read my colleague Coco’s stories about her, I have to admit I was a little bit awed by meeting Loko in person, not to mention impressed by her patience as a film crew and a crowd of Oxfam staffers followed her every move for an entire day.

“If you ask me what I wish… I would say I wish to see pasture growing, to have enough water. I wish to do things for myself—to be self-reliant,” says Loko near the end of this two-minute video. Her words really capture the way these communities are facing the massive changes in the climate: with toughness, determination, and incredible resilience.

Check out the video here:

Medhin Reda depends on rain to water her fields of teff and corn. Erratic weather has a profound impact on the well-being of her family. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

Climate talks in Copenhagen are just a few weeks away. Here at my desk in Boston, I’m hearing a growing urgency in the pitches from campaigners who have been working long and hard to get the United States and the European Union to own up to their responsibility for the future that is facing us all.

But what I hear louder, still, are the voices of the people I met in Ethiopia in August for whom changing weather patterns and increased cycles of drought mean failed crops, skipped meals, and deeper poverty. Read the rest of this entry »

Loko Dadacha walks up to six hours, round trip, during times of drought to fetch water for her family. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

Our water bill came the other day. It was about 100 bucks—a spike from the month before and it left us scratching our heads. Where did all that water go? We hardly know because here, with water, it’s easy come, easy go. Turn on the tap and it gushes—hot, cold, or just right. It couldn’t require less effort. Read the rest of this entry »

Terraces around the village of Ashenge have been built to help conserve the soil. Photo by Marc Cohen/Oxfam America

Marc Cohen is Oxfam America’s senior researcher on humanitarian policy and climate change. Here’s his account of a recent visit to northern Ethiopia where famine struck a quarter century ago.

Twenty-five years ago, Michael Buerk’s dramatic BBC footage from Korem, in northern Ethiopia, brought a devastating famine to the world’s attention. Tens of thousands of people had sought refuge from war and drought in the town. Every 20 minutes, a camp resident died from hunger and related diseases. Buerk called Korem “the closest thing to hell on earth.”

Last year, I traveled to Korem while working on a research project about decentralization in Ethiopia and how that affects men and women farmers’ access to services. My colleagues and I arrived in the town just as the regional Orthodox Christian patriarch was inaugurating a large new church; hundreds of people had turned out for the colorful ceremony. This celebration was a big contrast with the grim images of 1984.

But it was a meeting with Merzeneb Firkado—her first name means “honey from heaven”—that made me realize how much has changed for people in the Korem area since that terrible period. Read the rest of this entry »