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The Power of the Rising Development Generation Africa


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Kids learn media, other skills from anti-violence group
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

TO ENGAGE MORE children in media and be able to create mini production
units even in poor communities, Plan International partnered with Anak
TV over the summer to train up to 200 youths aged 9 to 17 in photography
and radio and video production.

Plan International advocates for schools free of corporal punishment,
bullying, discrimination, peer pressure and other forms of aggression
through its units throughout Asia, as presented in the United Nations
Study on Violence Against Children.

full article
<http://newsinfo. inquirer. net/inquirerhead lines/nation/ view/20080601- 140032/Kids- learn-media- other-skills- from-anti- violence- group>

June 11, 2008 | 6:22 AM Comments  0 comments

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Untitled
Related to this project: TIG Press Club

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

In a scene on a popular Benin TV series, a farmer named Codjo puts his wife out on the streets because she kept asking him for more and more money to buy groceries. But then, when he goes shopping by himself, Codjo discovers that prices have indeed doubled.

He laments having driven away his wife.

This fictional sketch is being played out in reality with the rapid rise in prices of basic foods in the capital Cotonou and other towns in Benin over the last six months.

"Compared to November 2007, prices are between 20 and 50 percent higher," said Claude Allagbe, director of commerce at the ministry of the interior.

IRIN found vendors in Cotonou selling a kilogramme of salt for 450 CFA francs, up from 250 CFA francs in November. Rice was selling at 450 CFA francs per kilo compared to 300 CFA francs and palm oil had leapt to 900 CFA francs from the earlier price of 500 CFA francs.

The psychological impact these price rises have had on families is palpable.

In Attogon, a village near Cotonou, market sellers are saying that it is now common to see men accompany their wives to market to check and compare prices.

At Glodjigbem, another village 35 km from Cotonou, elders said they recently had to calm the local mechanic who had flown into a rage at his wife's requests for more money.

Everyone suffers

The price rises are adding pressures at many levels of society. "The price of some products have increased even beyond the reach of people who work," said Anselme Amoussou, a teacher.

For Etienne Badou, a member of the Consumers Defence League in Benin (LDCB),
"the fissures within families and the society are more apparent in urban than rural areas but in fact they are much worse in rural areas where people are poorer".

The highest rates of nutritional deficiencies in Benin are in the rural north in the districts of Malamville and Karimama. But in total some 33 of the country's 77 districts are "at risk of food insecurity" according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

WFP says that 23 percent of Beninois children under five show signs of moderate stunting and 11 percent of children suffer from severe malnutrition.

Tax solutions

On 30 April Benin's government announced that it would undertake a series of measures to alleviate the price rises.

On 1 May, the tax levied on domestic and imported products to pay for social services called TVA (Taxe sur la Valeur Ajoutée) was suspended for rice, flour and other staples.

However the measure does not appear to have worked. "There were some problems with applying the policy change," Allagbe, the director of commerce, said.

The problem, says Beninois economist Rhetice Dagba, is that there is no way for the government to ensure that traders pass on their tax savings to consumers. "To apply this policy it would be necessary to go to every market and rigorously inspect the price of every good," Dagba said.

Self-sufficiency

Another measure to alleviate high food prices that Benin's government is pushing is food self-sufficiency which agriculture minister Roger Dovonou said would require the more than doubling of current production levels.

As in others African countries, Benin's agricultural policy for the past three decades "was "to encourage cash crops for export to the detriment of food production," according to Dagba, the economist.

The new policy of food self-sufficiency will take time to implement, she added.

Cereal reserves

Another shorter-term solution is dumping food reserves. "Cereals the government keep in reserve have been released onto the market," the director of the food reserve, Irene Bio Aboudou said.

Her hope is that as supplies increase prices will go down.

But the measure is costing the state more than 35 billion CFA francs (US$83 million), according to government statistics. And so far prices have kept rising, one housewife told IRIN spoke while she was shopping in the market.

"My family are finding it harder to live on what we can afford," she said. "They make me feel that I am at fault. That I am doing something wrong."

May 22, 2008 | 3:09 PM Comments  0 comments

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Untitled
Related to this project: Taking the Millennium Development Goals to the People Programme

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

An elderly woman sits under one of the few scrawny trees in a parched landscape as she and 8,000 other displaced people wait for aid workers to begin handing out some 100 tonnes of flour, salt, sugar, and cooking oil.

The woman's name is Hawa Brahim and the displaced site is Koloma, near the town of Goz Beida in Chad's southwest. Brahim said that she has no idea how the food arrived here. "They bring it; we eat it," she says. "All I know is that back in my hut I have ten hungry mouths that need feeding," she said. More than 50,000 tonnes of international food aid finds its way to this remote region each year to feed hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians. But how does it get there?

The process starts by identifying the need then designing a food aid package, requesting donations, purchasing the food, transporting it, assessing its impact, reporting back to donors and doing it all over again.

At each stage there are complications, Moumini Ouedraogo, WFP deputy country director in Chad said. "People don't understand how it works, not even our partners," he said. "(They think it is as if) you walking into a shop and buy a few cans [but] it's not like that at all," he said. "It's a very long process." The time it takes between when a donor decides to donate food and the moment the recipient receives it can take more than one year.

May 22, 2008 | 2:54 PM Comments  0 comments

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Related to this project: Taking the Millennium Development Goals to the People Programme

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Dear Colleague:

Alliance Library System, in cooperation with LearningTimes, will offer a one-day online conference exploring the possibilities of using virtual worlds to teach history and to promote its appreciation. The conference - entitled "Stepping into History: Exploring the Past through Virtual Worlds" - will be held entirely in the virtual world of Second Life on June 10, 2008. "In-World" online attendance at the conference is limited to 60 participants, however you may also choose to attend via the virtual classroom simulcast.

The cost is $45 USD per person. Registration is available at the website:

http://www.steppingintohistory.org

The highly interactive experience will include "field trips" into historical locations that have been created in Second Life. We will explore 19th century America, where participants will meet Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln; Virtual Harlem, to hear live music from the Jazz Age/Harlem Renaissance; and Renaissance Island, for a Shakespearean play in a replica of London’s Globe Theatre. Everyone will discuss what they have experienced with simulation creators and other conference participants.

The conference will continue with a panel discussion with a variety of experts and a late afternoon photo workshop. The program concludes with a period ball at the Lincoln era White House.

For more information and to register, please visit http://www.steppingintohistory.org .

And to keep up with LearningTimes activities in 3D Worlds visit:

http://www.learningtimes.net/3D