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...