I'm the fashionista, travel-ista, budget-ista, hostess-extraordinaire-ista...I love big curly hair, natural beauty, reading, healthy living, recipes from around the world...and so many things inspire me....beautiful pictures, dreamers, visionaries, entrepreneurs, game-changers and...oh look, something shiny!
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
African Americans sitting outside wooden house, between 1870 and 1890 in Florida
(Source: jameslear)
Good News for Haiti: Gold! - Troubled nation starts digging for $20B fortune
What news for a nation blighted bypoverty,disease, and adevastating earthquake: Haiti is home to lucrative gold mines. And copper and silver ones too. Potentially worth $20 billion, the precious metal finds are already creating hundreds of jobs and new roads, theAPreports. What’s more, mining by US and Canadian firms should leave Haitians with about half the profits—an unusually high amount. But history shows there are pitfalls aplenty for Haitii to avoid.
Open pit mines—the world’s most common type—usually last for about 25 years, but leave decimated mountaintops, displaced communities, and environmental contamination. Haiti in particular is known for its corrupt government, and officials who would regulate the mines don’t yet exist. On the positive side, people like stone cutter Joseph Bernard, 47, are getting a paycheck and feeding their family. “I found a job, but many didn’t,” he says. “If more companies come, more people will work.”
What the fuck is that second bolded sentence? “Should leave Haiti with about half the profits”.
(Source: iggyjack)
During the Haitian embargo of 94-95, this woman carried me 5.8 km or 3.6 miles to school, 5 days a week. If it rained and she didnt have an umbrella or it was too small, she would take off her suit and hold it over my head, even if that meant she would be drained. For all the sleepless nights when I was sick, and the early mornings to get me ready for school. For all the sacrifices she made so that I could be who I am today, and all those long phone conversations when I was in college; for being my go-to-always there for me-never let me down-biggest cheerleader, I am forever in her debt. Being a mother is absolutely amazing, being a Haitian Mother, is downright heroic. Thanks mom! This has been a mommy appreciation post.
(Source: champagnelotus)
![theatlantic:
The Broken Kindle Problem: An African Aid Program Runs Into Trouble
Getting textbooks into classrooms can be expensive and challenging anywhere, all the more so in rural sub-Saharan Africa — where those textbooks are in direly short supply. In five African schools a non-profit organization called Worldreader is piloting a high-tech solution: a Kindle for every student. Though the initial cost is higher than a set of textbooks, it’s much easier to add new textbooks and offer a huge variety of content.
Worldreader has already distributed a thousand Kindles to schoolkids in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana, each already stocked with hundreds of e-books: everything from storybooks and “Easy English Learning for Junior High School” to Crime and Punishment. They’ve particularly worked to make books by local authors available, by establishing publishing partnerships with Ghanaian and Kenyan publishers.
But there’s some irony in the fact that the top item on the list of Worldreader books is a short story called “E is for E-Waste.” School children didn’t just get to read about e-waste, they got an unanticipated firsthand education in the delicate lifecycle of electronics. Over the course of the pilot study in Ghana, 40.5 percent of the Kindles broke. In their report (pdf) Worldreader called this breakage rate “unexpectedly high”; Andrew Webster of The Verge called it ”a surprisingly large amount.” […]
A broken Kindle is disappointing, yes. Expensive, yes. But unexpected? How could it be?
Read more. [Image: Worldreader]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3tataNhaO1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
The Broken Kindle Problem: An African Aid Program Runs Into Trouble
Getting textbooks into classrooms can be expensive and challenging anywhere, all the more so in rural sub-Saharan Africa — where those textbooks are in direly short supply. In five African schools a non-profit organization called Worldreader is piloting a high-tech solution: a Kindle for every student. Though the initial cost is higher than a set of textbooks, it’s much easier to add new textbooks and offer a huge variety of content.
Worldreader has already distributed a thousand Kindles to schoolkids in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana, each already stocked with hundreds of e-books: everything from storybooks and “Easy English Learning for Junior High School” to Crime and Punishment. They’ve particularly worked to make books by local authors available, by establishing publishing partnerships with Ghanaian and Kenyan publishers.
But there’s some irony in the fact that the top item on the list of Worldreader books is a short story called “E is for E-Waste.” School children didn’t just get to read about e-waste, they got an unanticipated firsthand education in the delicate lifecycle of electronics. Over the course of the pilot study in Ghana, 40.5 percent of the Kindles broke. In their report (pdf) Worldreader called this breakage rate “unexpectedly high”; Andrew Webster of The Verge called it ”a surprisingly large amount.” […]
A broken Kindle is disappointing, yes. Expensive, yes. But unexpected? How could it be?
Read more. [Image: Worldreader]
B SAMA: the belief that countries can leapfrog on economic and social issues...
the belief that countries can leapfrog on economic and social issues solely on the basis of technology seems optimistic. The poor can be frustratingly stubborn to an economist for failing to conform to a rational-agent model. Instead of expecting the poor to “do the right thing”, a better…
(Source: africaunchained.blogspot.com)
(Source: ironbutterfly17)
Charter School Teaching Nahuatl & Danza Faces New Criticism
The LA Times ran a story Sunday on Academia Semillas del Pueblo, a Los Angeles charter school teaching Nahuatl and Danza Azteca as part of its curriculum titled “LAUSD charter elementary with low test scores gets a reprieve.” The article mainly focused on how the school has narrowly avoided closure while setting the goal of making language and culture accessible to its students. However, towards the end, the Times quotes Judicial Watch, an organization that calls itself a “public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption.”
Here’s the quote: “The school ‘is not much more than a training ground for the Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest — by force or by ballot box — and return it to Mexico,’ concluded Judicial Watch…”
Why give such a misinformed group legitimacy, LA Times? Not only is there no such thing as a “Mexican reconquista movement,” but as pointed out in the article, such rhetoric has led to actual death threats.
Image: Juana de la Cruz Farias, a teacher at Academia Semillas del Pueblo, teaches Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico, to Anthony Rayo.
Photo Credit: Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times
Ms. Alves
(Source: superwhitegirlproblems)
(Source: irreleph-ant)
