February 6th, 2009 | by Coco McCabe
A herder in Ethiopia watches over his cattle in a parched pasture.
Caterpillars are crunching through the crops in Liberia. Twenty million migrant workers in China can’t find jobs. And in the US, the unemployment rate continued its upward climb to 7.6 percent last month when 598,000 more people found themselves out of work.
That’s the news that jumped out at me this morning and that I can’t help lumping together into a scary heap of headlines.
What have caterpillars got to do with migrant workers in China and factory hands in the United States? Read the rest of this entry »
January 20th, 2009 | by Chris Hufstader
After putting up my last post that included Nina Palomino, the young woman in Peru, I realized something: I have some video of her working at her loom, which you can see here. Read the rest of this entry »
January 7th, 2009 | by Chris Hufstader
With 2008 behind us, we’re highlighting photos we think best capture Oxfam’s work last year.
Here at Oxfam America’s headquarters we have all the writers sharing one small area of the office. It’s me and three women: Coco, Anna, and Andrea. I grew up with three sisters (one older and two younger…no brothers) so it is all rather disturbingly familiar. I know it is not easy to share an office with me, what with all the loud phone calls in my bad French and even worse Spanish. I therefore dedicate my best pictures of 2008 blog post to my office mates, because it I am constantly impressed by the hard work women do to eradicate poverty, here at the office and everywhere I go.
photo by Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam America
Last January I visited this pond in southern Ethiopia, where an ethnic Borena woman helped pass water up to the troughs for cows to drink. Oxfam America helped build this pond in a place called Gololcha, where more than 4,000 cows a day can get water during the dry season. Borena women are not routinely consulted about how to manage water resources like this one, but the men did not seem to mind this strong woman pitching in to the hard labor. With changes in rainfall patterns and scarce pastures in this area of Ethiopia, the Borena people will have to start encouraging women to take a more active role in creating ways for them to survive the dry times. Read the rest of this entry »
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