From Breakthrough president and CEO Mallika Dutt: Jason Russell and Invisible Children know that a powerful story can change the world. But by characterizing essentially all Ugandans as either war criminals or helpless victims, the massively viral KONY 2012 manages to flatten its subject rather than deepen it. Which is to say: it fails the [...]

March 13, 2012 by Mallika Dutt | Tags: Africa, betty bigombe, homepage, Invisible Children, jason russell, Joseph Kony, kony 2012, storytelling, Uganda | Comments Off

An elusive French artist known to the world as “JR” has come to be synonymous with larger than life street art that makes bold statements about freedom and identity in cities around the world. His work, which has been called “pervasive art,” comprises of  enormous black-and-white photographs of people who are surviving abuse, conflict, violence [...]

October 25, 2010 by ishita | Tags: 2011 TED Prize, Africa, artist, Bill Clinton, Bono, Brazil, Cambodia, Favelas, French artist, guerilla art, india, Israel, Jamie Oliver, Jr., new york times, Palestine, pervasive art, photography, street theatre, TED, Women Are Heroes | Comments Off

Original post on Causecast Guest Post by Lance Bangs, director of The Lazarus Effect, premiering tonight on HBO. In July 2007, I’d seen a Vanity Fair article about HIV/AIDS treatment in Africa, and was moved and inspired by the transformations described in Alex Shoumatoff’s story The Lazarus Effect. Two years and many conversations later, I [...]

May 24, 2010 by crissy spivey | Tags: Africa, AIDS, Causecast, HBO, HIV, Lance Bangs, The Lazarus Effect | Comments Off

On December 7th, people from across the world U.S., Sweden, Cypros, Lesotho, and more taped “All You Need is Love,” together to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. But you can still add your voice, which in turn raises money. If you have a little bit of performance fever and like to do things [...]

December 18, 2009 by crissy spivey | Tags: Africa, All you need is love, b-listed, b-the change, Global Fund, HIV/AIDS, Starbucks, Starbucks Love Project | Comments Off

We think World AIDS Day should not simply be one single day, but should be on our minds every single day.  Like many other causes we try to highlight with one day or even one month (we’ve clearly digressed.) But continuing on the topic of World AIDS Day, like many of our posts from yesterday, [...]

December 2, 2009 by crissy spivey | Tags: Africa, Alicia Keys, b-activists, b-listed, contest, december 1, Keep a child alive, World AIDS Day | 1 Comment »

Did you know that approximately half of all new global HIV infections in the world today are occurring in people between the ages of 15 and 25? This is why the folks at Africa’s Children- Africa’s Future (AC-AF) launched the u+me=we program in 2006 to work with children in local schools in Canada and Africa [...]

December 1, 2009 by ishita | Tags: AC-AF, Africa, Africa's Children-Africa's Future, AIDS, Canada, children, Gita Jaffe, u+me=we, World AIDS Day, youth | Comments Off

Along with being a renowned actor in film and television (I’m sure there are some West Wing buffs reading this), Martin Sheen has become known for his activism, be it anti-war efforts, his support of the rights of Latinos in the US, or his non-profit environmental organization. For his newest endeavor he provided the narration [...]

November 16, 2009 by ishita | Tags: Activism, Africa, barrios, Cinema Libre Studio, documentary, Latin America, Martin Sheen, Philippe Diaz, poverty, Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, slums, solution, The End of Povery, The West Wing | Comments Off

Born: October 29, 1938  Claim to fame: A member of the Council of Women World Leaders, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is a symbol of empowerment and strength for women worldwide as she overcame odds and opposition to become the first woman to be elected head of state in Africa on January 16, 2006. In 2005, she founded [...]

October 29, 2009 by ishita | Tags: Africa, civil war, Council of Women World Leaders, education, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia, Peace, President, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Woman President | Comments Off

Read this devastating post by our friend Women Advocates: http://bit.ly/CuNLh Children as young as 10 are selling their bodies and having babies in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital Abidjan (and elsewhere in Africa) as a result of exchanging sex for money. They do so, so they can have money for food. One 15 year old girl [...]

June 25, 2009 by rachel | Tags: Africa, Cavoequiva, child slavery, Côte d’Ivoire, ivory coast, sex slavery, women advocates | Comments Off

I love chocolate. However, after reading this article today on Change.org I am going to try and make a conscious effort to buy only Fair Trade Certified cocoa products. Here’s why: Many chocolate companies, including Hershey (the largest in North America), use cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast to make their products. The Ivory Coast [...]

June 24, 2009 by rachel | Tags: Africa, change.org, child slavery, chocolate, cocoa, fair trade, hershey, human trafficking, ivory coast | 1 Comment »