This is not a post about Spring and happy times. Yet it is. Nearly 300 women and children have been returned from Boka Haram. Mentally traumatized, physically debilitated they are not well. But they are back, and now they have a chance to recover. The story is not over. Families were torn apart and are not yet reunited. But it is a start.
THE STORY IS HERE, at least as much as has happened so far. There is still so much that needs to be done.
In contrast, HERE IS A STORY of a woman who saw a problem with the Sudan, and has developed assistance for the orphans there, and for the problem of human trafficking. This woman has been attacked, and survived to make a difference. Her goal is to help raise a generation of peace makers.
After the stories of hopelessness, of harm directed at others, of people choosing to go forth and cause trouble, or stay home and drink imported water, these stories are a ray of light.
What have you heard today to give you faith in people?
Mona Karel Author 
Heard a great story the other day – not about an individual but about a group of individuals who banded together to save their village. This is from a talk by Dr. Vandana Shiva, an environmentalist who works on world hunger problems. She told about this group of women from a horribly impoverished village in India. Monsanto has done a good, good for corporate profits, job of taking over Indian agriculture. Farmers there (for a variety of reasons) have been tied to Round-up Ready seeds and all the expensive chemicals necessary to grow them. A huge problem is that the seeds are patented and Monsanto won’t let the farmers save them from their harvest to plant the next year’s crop and so they have to buy more, setting up a cycle of debt. (A leading cause of death for farmers in India is suicide because of debt.)
Anyway, these women, with help of a few international organizations, decided to change things. They got non-patented seeds, worked together and learned how to compost and other things to do without the expensive chemicals that had drained all their profits. It took a few years but they learned how to do very profitable agriculture. The village has become almost wealthy, enough so that these women, who had had nothing, now have the time and money to travel to around to other villages like theirs and pass along what they have learned to lift other farmers out of the corporate-imposed debt cycle. Made me so happy to hear it. One small step….
P.S. Another 150 women and girls have been rescued from Boka Haram slavery. The Nigerian army has finally seemed to have gotten it’s act together. It’s such a pity that it took so long.
P.P.S. Another good story this week was that the men who tried to kill Malala Yousafzai (because, as an 17-year old girl in Pakistan, she insisted that she wanted to go school) were finally convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It took a few years but I guess even Pakistan can’t ignore a Nobel Prize.
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In spite of so much ugliness there is good…SO MUCH good…in the world. Not all men stand against women…many of them stand in front to protect or at the side for support.
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