May 2012
5 posts
My top 10 tips for business travel
By many people’s standards, I travel a lot for work. If I count both bigger international and domestic interstate trips as well as travel within my own city and state for work, the amount of travel I do gets even bigger. And while most people wouldn’t count not leaving the city as business travel - I argue that when you have to cart yourself and your props to somewhere new - that is...
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Behind the beautiful forevers: Life, death and...
In my day job I talk quite often about the grinding nature of poverty, the sheer struggle of getting the basics that must happen Every Single Day. Food. Shelter. Water. Clothes. Sleep. Day in and day out, for people living in extreme poverty in informal cities around the world, this is their daily reality. It has always been a bit tricky however for me to really explain what this means to my...
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What I care about most today - not making babies
I have been writing less and less on the blog lately – obviously. Basically, this corner of my life has not been a priority lately, as I learn to fit in a more and more demanding day job, and try not to spend all my waking hours thinking, reading, and obsessing about development. I think it’s called work/life balance? Whatever the label, it is important to me that I don’t become so tightly wrapped...
April 2012
3 posts
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March 2012
7 posts
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You’re probably making money from war. Yes, you.
Do you have a superannuation fund of some kind? An investment fund for when you retire, which will hopefully set you up for a comfortable life-after-work? I do. It’s compulsory in Australia, and back when I was 24 years old (I’m 31 now), I had to pick a fund for the money my employer has to pay into a superannuation fund on my behalf.
When I was 24 I was very worried about how I was going to pay...
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“Most of us come into this world amidst a frenzy of pain and emotion and...”
– Samantha Nutt in her must-read book ‘Damned Nations: Greed, guns, armies and aid’
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What I hate about International Women's Day
It’s not popular to say this, but I’m ambivalent about International Women’s Day. The problem is that I wish we didn’t have to have one. I wish I didn’t go to work every day and advocate for the rights of women. It seems ridiculous to call at least half the world’s population a ‘minority.’ I hate it.
But what I absolutely love love love about...
“Probably the biggest change is going to come from the changed definition of what...”
– Steven Johnson on the future of reading. (via explore-blog)
Fascinating
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Goodbye to Berlin - What I'm reading now
I’m currently reading Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, which happens to be very timely, given I also visited the Mad Square exhibition at the NGV last weekend. I’m definitely getting a taste for how grim life was in Germany around the time of the two world wars. Grim grim grim.
The exhibition was very confronting, and if you’re in town I highly recommend going...
February 2012
9 posts
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Help me Walk In Her Shoes!
Help me Walk In Her Shoes
Readers of this blog will know I recently went to Tanzania and Ethiopia as part of my work with CARE Australia. It was a two week trip where I got to interview over thirty people, mostly women and girls, about their lives.
Every family I met was living in poverty, though some were worse off than others. The three most common frustrations people had were poor access to...
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“Unfortunately, many people believe the opposite—that money spent on development...”
– Bill Gates in his Annual Letter for 2012, which is a fab read on the latest innovations and priorities for development in poor communities around the world
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7 things you probably don't know about Ethiopia
I just spent eight days in Ethiopia and confess to not knowing what to expect. I was born in the 80’s and remember the famine then, and I work in development now, and know that drought and food security are frequent challenges for the country.
So I wasn’t really expecting to be blown away, but I was. And here’s why:
1. The lakes in the Rift Valley are incredible. Just...
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“A continent ages quicly once we come. The natives live in harmony with it. But...”
– Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa (in which he writes of his awful hunting exploits)
WatchNot too shabby a way to start the day
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Thoughts on my time in Tanzania
A typical family home in a village - Lindi, Tanzania
I’m waking up this morning to the beautiful sounds of chanting in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopa. It’s hard to believe I was sweating it up in Tanzania just yesterday - such is this crazy world of airflights and modern transport.
So, Tanzania. The land of Mt Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, and the Serengeti....
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I talk about overseas volunteering on the radio
I recently took part in an Triple J Radio ‘Hack’ program where they were looking into volunteering overseas.
You can download a podcast of the episode and hear just what I have to say about volunteering in orphanages and the problems with some short term volunteering posts.
The radio interview came about from a blog post I wrote - So you want to volunteer overseas? Read this first
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Dude, have you like, seen what's happening in...
Given I knew I was going to Africa for work this month (specifically Tanzania and Ethiopia, because we know Africa is not a country), I decided to load up my kindle with some Africa reading. This is how Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s book This Child Will Be Great made it into my head.
For those who don’t know, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the President of Liberia. She was also the first female...
January 2012
8 posts
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“I don’t know what a family is, how to define it, other than as a...”
– Eddie Perfect in his Letter to the Woman Who Changed My Life in Women of Letters.
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“Feminism, in my view at least, should not use the power of institutions,...”
– Eva Cox speaks out with her ever-intelligent mind on who gets to use the ‘f’ word. This is in response to the Melinda Tankard-Reist storm started by Rachel Hills which is leading to some nasty in-fighting among the ‘f’ crew of Australia.
For the record, I don’t think...
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The poverty puzzle - again
Yesterday I posted about an incredible book I just read called “I Shall Not Hate” by Izzulden Abuelaish. It’s incredible because it was written by an incredible man who, despite everything, still manages not to hate. But this post isn’t about the book, except to say go read it. What I want to talk about is what the book motivated me to do. After reading the book, and gaining a much greater insight...
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The one book we should all be reading
As I (figuratively, of course) turned the last page of the book ‘I Shall Not Hate,’ I felt an instant urge to to shout to the whole world the importance of reading it.
I wanted to buy copies for my friends. Have talked about it to my boss, my boyfriend and my sister.
And I’ve made a kiva loan today to a Palestinian business woman.
All thanks to the eloquence and sheer...
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My very first
It has (finally?) happened - I am now the owner of my very own e-reader, thanks to a very well chosen birthday gift.
To see if we like each other, I’ve been testing it out while on holidays. Jasper Jones (which I paid just $3.63 for!) is my very first kindle touch book, and it’s beginning to look a lot like true love.
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2011 - the recap
So 2011 was a big year, yeah? The Arab Spring. The death of notorious dictators. The East Africa Famine. More natural disasters. The continued evolution of social media. Climate Change. It seems like it’s all happening.
Back in my own little corner of the globe, I’ve experienced a seismic shift too:
I fell in love, am in love, and am loving it
I stayed in one city
I found a job...
December 2011
6 posts
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My latest link love - get your links here!
BREAKING: Kim Jong II, the North Korean Dictator, has died.
HIV/AIDS impacts women and girls differently to men (and boys) - the ways in which the impacts differ are organised into neat little row of easy to read dot points
Hillary Clinton has addressed the UN about defending the rights of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) people around the world. It’s an amazing moment in history and...
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“Four years out from the deadline set for the Millennium Development Goals, not a...”
– Dereck Rooken-Smith is the Assistant Director-General for the Office of Development Effectiveness.
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“The evidence suggests that the truth lies in the in-between: Microfinance works...”
– Leah Stern asks What do we really know about microfinance? The answer - it works for some people, some of the time, and is not the silver bullet it’s made out to be.
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“The collapse of the News of the World is partly the result of a new...”
– Owen Barder on how twitter and new media are impacting politics. Fascinating.
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Living with HIV in PNG
Sylvester Pokona is just 38 years old, but has the life experience of a man much older. A survivor of the Bougainville crisis – the civil war which gripped Bougainville in Papua New Guinea from 1988 to 1990, all the events of his life since then have been impacted by the conflict, including his status as a person living with HIV.
Since finding out his HIV positive status, Sylvester has become...
November 2011
9 posts
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Take a walk through a Dhaka slum with MSF
Take a walk through a Dhaka slum with MSF and explore their incredible Urban Survivors site more. This is communications excellence in action.
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Famine War Drought (FWD)
Take a minute to explore the first ever communications campaign by USAID - FWD - this Horn of Africa thing is serious! So too is the need to garner support for spending precious domestic dollars overseas in our GFC world.
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The latest - International development in 7 links
· What are young chinese thinking about? – I recommend starting from the 3rd one down.
· What did Live Aid do? (Or Ethiopia and drought 1984 vs 2011)
· Visualising Hunger Around the World – takes a little bit to load, but only a few seconds to see what’s going on with people’s tummies in certain regions around the world.
· Mixed messages: communicating the...
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“Unlike national markets, which tend to be supported by domestic regulatory and...”
– Dani Rodrik in his book The Globalization Paradox commenting on the flaws of globalisation. Very pertinent in GFC world.
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“I remember not long ago hearing Picasso and Gertrude Stein talking about various...”
– Gertrude Stein in The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas
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The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, by Gertrude...
Now reading: The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein, based on the magical inspiration of Woody Allen’s latest, Midnight in Paris. I’m suffering from the very nostalgia Woody warns us of…oops.
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Bringing clean, safe water to remote shores in PNG
You know you’re headed somewhere off the beaten track when you strap on a life vest and jump in a small boat for a four hour journey across the open sea. As a somewhat nervous seafarer, I couldn’t help but look up at the skies, willing the grey clouds away. I was bound for Nissan Island, a remote coral atoll located 110 kilometers off Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea.
I was visiting...
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My hiatus, explained in pictures
I’ve been gone. Here’s why.
A beach holiday
in a bungalow
with a birthday
and my beautiful sister’s wedding thrown in.
This. Is. Love.
October 2011
5 posts
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Children are not tourist attractions
I know I keep banging on and on about orphanages, but it’s for good reason. Really. And if you don’t believe me, spend a little bit of time with this campaign supported by UNICEF to teach you how to be more child safe on holidays. A good place to start is to not visit an orphanage.
Just in case you don’t make it as far as their website, here is there guide on what not to do...
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5 things I learned in Papua New Guinea
As I sit on my lounge, stereo on, nursing my post food poisoning belly, I’ve decided to capture 5 things I learned about Papua New Guinea
1. Remote takes on a whole new meaning in this country of islands, atolls, and almost inaccessible mountain ranges. Lack of phone and internet access, no roads in or out, and expensive plane and/or boat journeys means much of this country’s...