Before Leya Chede, 47, joined ActionAid’s adult literacy Reflect program, she would have been too shy to even meet a stranger coming to her house. Now she is an elected local councillor, representing women’s issues in the local government in the Palisa district in Kampala, Uganda.

Leya Chede photographed at her turkey rearing house with some goats.

The Reflect program in Uganda seeks to promote and protect the rights of those people who are marginalised and consequently are suffering poverty and its effects. In Uganda, Reflect has been used as a creative approach to stimulate social changes through long and short term anti poverty campaigns.

Literacy skills form the basis of the Reflect program, which is then used to educate its participants about food preservation and nutrition, health controls and measures for protection against HIV. It also empowered participants to influence the local government decision-making processes.

For example, together with other women, Leya identified a lack of good quality seed as a major obstacle to overcoming hunger and poverty in their community. With ActionAid’s support, the BUREDO Seed Bank was established.

This has given members resilience against the changes in climate that they are experiencing. Leya says: “At least we are able to harvest something because we were able to get better seed. We have all been affected by the drought but we are a bit better off.”

Leya had also joined an ActionAid community based farming group and was able to buy goats and turkeys which she now rears.

Chelimo speaking in 2009 ”My family haven’t been able to grow any food this year”

I’m currently in London where I’ve been attending the Annual Meeting of ActionAid’s International Emergencies and Conflict Team. In addition to reviewing how ActionAid responds to emergencies, particularly red alert emergencies such as Haiti, we have also been looking at some of the big challenges that face ActionAid such as climate change and how we work in conflict zones where we aim to do no harm and to maximise good. So to climate change which ties in nicely to last weeks policy dialogue in Canberra which was a joint effort with the ANU’s Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy and ActionAid and moderated by Ben Eltham from New Matilda.  A big thanks to Ben and the gang at New Matilda for getting involved and doing such a great job!! 

The dialogue centred on the impact of the Copenhagen Climate Change Talks on the world’s poor and we had a diverse crowd of students, NGOs, Academics and Government listening to a conversation between Lorraine Elliott from ANU, Maryjean Watt from the Department of Climate Change and ActionAid’s Country Director from Vietnam, Mr Phan van Ngoc who travelled from Vietnam especially for the event.  This is the first of four such events that we’re going to be running through the year at ANU with forthcoming sessions focusing on the Global Food Crisis, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) and the links between development, diplomacy and defence. 

So what did I get out of this dialogue….From ActionAids’ perspective Copenhagen can be viewed as a partial failure as its better that there was no deal in Copenhagen rather than a weak deal.  In our opinion the Copenhagen Accord is no deal and is simply an Accord developed by the rich for the rich. This Accord was “noted” at COP15 rather than “endorsed” or even “welcomed” (which are all wonderful diplomatic terms) and this means that the Copenhagen Accord has no status whatsoever outside of the select few countries that developed it and then agreed to it. 

In contrast the emergence of the BASIC (Brazil,/South Africa/India/China ) group at Copenhagen will have profound implications for international relations and it was noted that the lack of a bad deal was in some way due to the power and influence of this group. The hopes of the world’s poor may be vested in the ability of the BASIC group to lead the international community towards a just outcome at talks throughout 2010 which will culminate in Mexico towards the end of the year.

This was a great way to kick off our first policy dialogue and we certainly are looking forward to round two in May which will focus on the Global Food Crisis.

For children living in poverty or violence in India, running away can seem the only way out – but they often find themselves even worse off. Many end up living on railway platforms around the country.

A young boy seeks shelter on a railway platform in Bhopal, India.

Rohit (not pictured) ran away four years ago to escape violent beatings from his father. Now living at a railway station, Rohit faces violence from a number of people. Officers from the Railway Protection Force and the General Railway Police, shopkeepers, rickshaw drivers and older boys see these children as easy targets. Sexual abuse is all too common.

ActionAid launched Bachpan – meaning ‘childhood’ in Hindi to better protect the rights of children living on the platforms in Madhya Pradesh.

Bachpan has a 24 hour shelter where children can eat, sleep and come and go freely. The project has returned 551 runaways home since 2005 and has also reduced the number of children under the age of 12 living on the platforms.

Anderson, who is 16, picked up five-year-old Djimi Dauphin and ran out of his house when the earthquake hit. “I was playing with my other brothers and sister when the ground started moving. I knew what it was as I have heard of earthquakes before so I knew we had to run outside. I grabbed Djimi and picked him up and ran out. None of us was hurt even though the house fell down.”

Their parents were in the market selling food and were able to get back to the house after a few hours to be reunited with their children. “We are living on the street with sheets to sleep on and sheets over us. We went back to our house to try to find something to save, but there was nothing left.”

Anderson and Djimi’s parents have recently returned to work in the market – they were able to get supplies to start work again. But the children cannot try to get back to a normal life as all schools are shut – either because they were damaged in the earthquake or because the teachers are unable to work.

Learn more about ActionAid’s response in Haiti

Whilst banks around the world are back in the black and back to paying massive bonuses to their executives, millions of poor people around the world are reeling from the global financial crisis which has been caused by their greed.

ActionAid is supporting the call for a tiny tax on the bankers, a “Robin Hood Tax” that takes from the rich to give to the poor. A .05% tax on global financial transactions by banks and other financial institutions like hedge funds would raise billions to assist people affected by climate change and extreme poverty. In Australia we all pay a GST of 10% on practically everything we buy, so why shouldn’t the banks be paying a tax on their transactions?

Such a tax would only be applied to the wholesale financial markets so for example you wouldn’t be taxed if money was being sent to relatives overseas. The tax would be based on a system where “the more you trade the more you pay” so the biggest institutions whose wealth skyrocketed before the global financial crisis would pay most of the tax. As the financial crisis has led to millions more falling into extreme poverty, the banks and other financial companies that caused this mess should be coughing up the money to help them find a way out of extreme poverty.

A growing number of economists (amongst them Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs), many in the financial sector and high profile business types such as Warren Buffett and George Soros are calling for the tax. This is because it’s an easy tax to collect and would have little impact on the financial services industry if it’s designed correctly. In many cases it would require little more than changing a few lines of computer code to collect the tax from computerised bank transfers. Lots of countries already tax financial transactions and the G20 has requested the IMF to review the proposal for a tax.

The global financial crisis has created the perfect storm and the time is right to introduce a financial transactions tax. The G20 provides the perfect forum for these discussions and a growing number of G20 governments are supporting the idea. We have written to Wayne Swann urging him to consider this proposal and ActionAid demands that the Government of Australia works with other G20 members to agree to a plan to implement a global financial transaction tax at the G20 meeting in South Korea in late 2010.

The most amazing stories of strength, courage and perseverance amongst the most challenging and difficult of circumstances in developing countries usually come from women. This story from ActionAid in Ethiopia really struck a chord with me so I thought I’d share it.

In the village of Nadugne Agam there was no water locally and the women had to carry it from the river, bent double, in back-breaking, 25-litre heavy-duty containers strapped to their shoulders.

It took almost an hour to walk there. Then they had to dig in the dry river bed until water seeped through the stones. That could take another hour. After that came the stagger back to their village, an agonising two hours, or more. For one woman, one day, this proved too much. When she reached her wattle-and-daub hut she lay down, exhausted. Her thirsty child was waiting. He asked for a drink. Get it yourself, she said, and fell asleep.  When she awoke she found that the child, as he tipped the container, had spilt the water. Enraged, she took a stick to teach him a lesson. She beat him so hard that he died. Tragically many children died this way but it wasn’t the only ill-consequence of Dalocha’s terrible water shortage. “At the river, we drank the same water as the animals drank and defecated by,” said Byaznlegn. “We got dysentery and diarrhoea; many children died. We spent so much time fetching water that we had little time for growing crops to feed our families. The children could not go to school because they had to help their mothers fetch water or stay at home to mind the house and the little ones.”

When one women suggested they should cap a spring which rose seven kilometers away, and pipe the water to all the local villages, the men smirked. “They said that women would never manage such a complex project,” Bichol said. “They said, ‘Let the women try and when they fail we’ll take over’.” But the women, with training from ActionAid, made a huge success of the enterprise. They added more boreholes, until there were eight across the area, each with its own pump and a generator. And they capped the spring, which produces 23 litres of water per second, and pumped it to the top of Gafat Hill into a 60,000-litre reservoir tank. From there it flows, gravity-fed, in four directions, through a 70-kilometre network of pipes.

With the water came much else. The women, who initially had been afraid even to come to village meetings – so low is the status of women in Ethiopian society – became emboldened by their success. They constituted the majority in the water project’s 178-member general assembly. All 16 members of the executive board are women. They demanded health services such as vaccination, and took over the fight against malaria, running a programme to spray the walls of local houses and distribute insecticide-charged bed-nets. They started a small savings scheme. They participated actively not just in community meetings but have become a force on the local and district councils.

Water has brought two social revolutions. “We send our children to school, that’s the big change,” said Bichol Tselela. In Dalocha school enrolment has risen from 15pc to 71 per cent, thanks to a combination of the children now having the time to go to school and the government’s abolition of school fees for those under 15, a move made possible by the freeing of cash after the scrapping of Third World debt by the G8 at Gleneagles and elsewhere. Two of the villagers have even sent children to university. The second major change is in the “women’s work” business of fetching water. “Now we have boys sharing the work equally with the girls,” said Bichol. “About 5 per cent of the men are doing it regularly, as a matter of routine. And in the dry season, many men will go when there is a long queue while the women prepare the food. It’s a very big change.”

“We have all started vegetable and fruit gardens which produce an income for us,” she said. I earn enough to buy oil, sugar, clothes and fertiliser.” When she could expand the garden around her house no more she built a new bigger mud-hut house on the other side of the village square. She and her husband Ibro constructed a storehouse for their produce. Then she built a house/shop in Dalocha town and rented it to a tradesman.

What had she done with her new money? “We bought a bed; before we slept on the floor,” Nuria told me. “And we bought separate utensils and plates for guests, some small tables and some ornaments. We are very happy now.”

It makes you wonder whether you really need that Plasma TV to make you happy doesn’t it!!

It is three weeks since the devastating earthquake hit Haiti and the Government of Haiti estimates that nearly 200,000 people have died, 250,000 people have been injured and a further 500,000 people have lost their homes.

This is the first emergency ActionAid has been engaged in where our own staff have been directly affected. One of our staff members lost his wife and children whilst others either lost close family members or had to rescue their loved ones from the rubble. Many of our staff members homes were destroyed and even those who didn’t lose their homes are living in tents due to damage to their homes or as a safety measure due to recurring aftershocks.

The ActionAid team undertook initial assessments within 48 hours after the earthquake on our Port au Prince development area. Those assessments indicated that the communities of Mariani, where we had been engaged in long term development work were hugely affected and there were 9,000 people living in nine camps. We have now distributed food and essential supplies to these people and we will be aiming to reach a further 11,000 people in the next week.

In addition to responding to these immediate needs we are working to ensure that poor people in Haiti are involved in decision making processes in all activities that are being designed to help them. We are working with our partner organisations in the camps to create local committees (that ensure that the most vulnerable will also benefit), prevent violence against women, organize local distributions, and ultimately empower these displaced people to claim their human rights in the disaster response.

In addition to our work in Haiti, ActionAid has been closely monitoring the international community’s response to the disaster. It was particularly gratifying when the IMF bowed to pressure from activists and the media and converted their $100 million emergency loan into a grant, removing all conditionalities that are attached to emergency loans.

Thank you to all of our friends and supporters who have been contributing to our emergency response appeal for Haiti. We thank you for your generosity and for enabling ActionAid to work with the people of Haiti to find solutions to this human tragedy.

Donate to ActionAid’s Haiti appeal

I’ve just received an email from ActionAid International’s  head of communications, Sarah Gillam, in Haiti talking about how tragedy sometimes brings out the best in people.

A woman makes her way through the rubble caused by Tuesday's earthquake in downtown Port-au-Prince. PHOTO: Moises Saman/Panos/ActionAid

I’ll let Sarah explain this herself. Below is what she wrote in full…

People’s heroics are shining through here in Haiti with the sheer effort complete strangers are making to help one another.

Take ActionAid’s head of finance in Port au Prince, Jude Jean Baptiste. He was on the phone to his wife when the earthquake struck. “Honey – get under your desk,” he shouted to Elizabeth – then the line went dead.

Filing cabinets toppled over in his office and accounting ledgers fell off the shelves.

Jude said he got out of ActionAid’s building and after checking everyone was safe ran to the bank where his wife worked.

“I arrived at the back which was still intact but when I went to the front where my wife worked – I was devastated.

“All three floors had collapsed into a heap of rubble so I ran to where my wife’s office would have been and shouted for her.

“Her boss answered from under the rubble and pleaded with me to get her out. She said Elizabeth was really close by and was ok.

“This really small guy tapped me on the back and offered to help. We tore at the rubble to make a space and then he went in and literally pulled this woman out.”

“She was screaming in agony with a broken leg but she was alive.

“I then shouted to my wife – if you are far away tap once but if you’re close by, tap twice. She tapped three times so I knew she was really close.

“I asked the guy if he would go in again for my wife but we were getting big aftershocks and he got nervous.

“He disappeared with my torch so I started taking off my clothes to see if I could get into the space and rescue my wife.

“Other bank workers stopped me going in saying you’ve got two children – you’ve got to look after them. I was despairing.

“At about 11pm, this angel appeared at my side again with my torch. He said he’d tried to rescue his niece but she’d died. He said he wanted to rescue someone else that day.

“He prayed before he went in and was in the hole for about an hour. There was a terrible after shock and I shouted to him to come out. He didn’t speak to me the whole time he was in there, just passing rubble out.

“Eventually I could see a light and he appeared followed by my wife. She got out without a scratch on her.

“But when she stood up and looked at the building she burst into tears, thinking about her friends. She thought she’d been on the third floor but she’d fallen all the way through to the parking lot and landed under her desk. It saved her.

“I took her home and went back to the bank to see if we could find her friends. We pulled another woman out two days later.

“I feel really proud of my country. People have worked together to help one another. It was only yesterday (Friday) that any official relief efforts started. There have been isolated cases of looting but it’s not widespread.

“The UN estimates 100,000 could be dead but we’ll probably never know the exact figure.

Jude with his wife

Under these trying circumstances, ActionAid is planning to deliver emergency releif – including basics such as food, soap, shelter and fresh water, to up to 20,000 people affected by the quake. Just as importantly, we’ll also be delivering psycho-social care for people traumatised by the disaster.

You can help us reach more people by donating through our website or calling our Sydney office on 1300 66 66 72.

The true extent of the disaster in Haiti is becoming clearer by the hour with initial estimates that over 50,000 have lost their lives while up to 3 million people have lost their homes and livelihoods.

Reuters/Eduardo Munoz, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Amongst the devastation and loss of life there is still uncertainty over the fate of some ActionAiders working on our Haiti programme. Our thoughts are with them and their families.

We have a well established program in Haiti where we have been working for the last 15 years and we expect that our response will assist 20,000 people during the next few weeks before we provide longer term assistance to help re-establish livelihoods.

While the details of our longer-term response will be worked out in coming days and weeks, a central principle that will guide us is the need to “build back better” and supporting communities to develop their own action plans to ensure that they are less vulnerable to similar disasters in the future.

Tragically we have a lot of experience in dealing with these types of disasters and many lessons have been learned from our experiences in Haiti and other countries.

We know that the poor are the most vulnerable to earthquakes as their houses and livelihoods will have been destroyed: women and children are the most vulnerable of all.

It is critically important that we respond to the needs of the most vulnerable and at this moment we are flying in members of our International Emergencies and Conflict Team to assist our Haitian colleagues to do just that.

Our assistance will target the immediate needs of the most vulnerable and will include the provision of water, food, shelter and other immediate needs such as soap and sanitary products for women. From this point we will begin planning our longer term approach to ensure that people are able to re-build their lives.

In Australia we’ve spent the last 24 hours linking up with ActionAid’s International Emergencies and Conflict Team (IECT) to get an early indication of the scope of the disaster and how we should respond.

Our people in Sydney are on the phone with our NGO colleagues in Australia to assess how other NGOs are planning to respond and to ensure that we are working together rather than tripping over each other.

There will be a teleconference for all Australian NGO’s and the Government’s Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) later today to get an early indication of the Australian Governments response to this disaster.

In the meantime we’ve launched an appeal for the people of Haiti. You can learn more about our response and donate to the appeal on our website.

For updates on the situation and our response, you can also follow the ActionAid Australia Twitter feed @ActionAid_Aus.

As always thanks so much for all of your support, commitment and encouragement, we really appreciate it – especially at times like this.

Below are some photos from Haiti showing the horrible scale of the destruction from AlertNet:

Reuters/Eduardo Munoz, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Reuters/Eduardo Munoz, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Reuters/Eduardo Munoz, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Reuters/Eduardo Munoz, courtesy www.alertnet.org

Manju Bai works with manual scavenging in the village Akyia Dev in Madhya Pradesh in India. She is part of the Garima Campaign, but not yet liberated.

PHOTO: FIROZ AHMAN FIROZ/ACTIONAID