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Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars – Mother In Law by Cumbancha

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Image: Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars

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ExclusiveAmputations during the civil war and polio outbreaks have left thousands of people in Sierra Leone in need of crutches.

This year, to mark International Peace Day on September 21st, an innovative project will be distributing 10,000 pairs of crutches in a single day from various locations across the West African country. The event is being called Operation Rise.

Founder Lisa Schultz, who runs an online creative community called TheWhole9.com, was so moved by photos of Sierra Leone’s amputee soccer team she founded The Peace Project, which started as an international art competition about peace. When Lisa arrived in Sierra Leone to create “The Peace Wall,” she noticed many people in need of crutches.

“I was heartbroken to see so many men, women and children that were either crawling around on the ground or almost unable to move because they didn’t have crutches or because what they were using was so makeshift or broken down,” Schultz says.

She decided that something should be done and Operation Rise was born.

“I realized the incredible energetic shift and social and psychological impact getting 10,000 people on their feet on one day would have on the morale of the country. And I knew that to engage people worldwide in caring about a problem caused by a war that ended 10 years ago, we had to do something big that would engage their imagination,” Schultz adds.

She and her team went on to raise roughly $250,000 for Operation Rise from crowd funding, fundraising events, private donors, corporate donors and family foundations.

Sierra Leone’s civil war ended a decade ago and since then the country has been fairly peaceful. It remains, however, very near the bottom of the United Nations’ human development index. Providing decent, accessible and affordable healthcare is one of many challenges for the government. Reliable statistics are difficult to come by, but there are many thousands of people in Sierra Leone crippled by either war wounds or polio.

After meeting the country’s director of UNICEF on a plane, Schultz realized she needed further help from the organization to clear crutches and other mobility aids through customs and Sierra Leone’s Community Association for Psychosocial Services, a group that works with victims of the civil war.

“I know that being able to take care of oneself and one’s family is the first step to sustainable peace and that personal mobility is the first step in that,” she says.

To ensure the project is sustainable Lisa is putting in place repair facilities throughout Sierra Leone to provide a low cost way to manufacture crutch tips prolonging the lives of the crutches and the freedom and accessibility they provide for their owners.

Images: Lisa Schultz images by Stephen D. Lawrence, amputee soccer images by Pep Bonet/NOOR

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Thanksgiving is for lots of things – feasting on turkey or vegetarian alternatives with family, watching or tolerating football, and if you’re celebrating it in the U.S., contemplating the origins of the country. European colonists here learned and gained a great deal from Native Americans, yet not how to live in harmony without ownership and abuse of land.

Appropriately, all week the topic of land ownership has been heating up the blogosphere. Why? Contrasting concepts.

First, two tax breaks that make it easier, economically, for U.S. property owners to dedicate their land to a trust, thereby protecting it from potentially damaging development could expire if they’re not refreshed by Congress by the year’s end: The Conservation Easement Incentive Act; and the Rural Heritage Conservation Extension Act.

Second, there have been new reports circulating about the way protected lands are profitable, especially for nations that are growing or emerging in the “green tourism” market.

Russell Shay, the director of public policy for the Land Trust Alliance in D.C., an organization that lobbies for conservation-friendly policies, and solicits donations of private land to public trusts, nationwide, cautions free market enthusiasts: “The benefit of protecting natural resources should not be measured in dollars. Even if green tourism is important to the economy.”

In order to get people to protect land in the U.S., Shay says, financial incentives (like tax breaks) aren’t big enough compared to the money sellers here can get from a juicy real estate deal. The extreme example can be seen in Napa Valley, he notes:

“In Napa, you have the most valuable agricultural land. People prize the grapes grown there. The money an agricultural landowner could get there translates to about $45,000 an acre. But then people will spend $700,000 an acre or more to buy it for residential use, to build a house on it.”

Is Shay right, or can the worth of protected land in the U.S. be measured in dollars? Link, learn, and comment below!

BASIC READING:

“Investment in the protection of Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve is generating an annual of income of close to US$50 million a year, has generated 7,000 jobs and boosted local family incomes…” – A SustainableBusiness.com feature

“Brazilian states give 25% of the Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS) to cities. Some municipalities allocate 5% of these funds for environmental preservation projects…” – A story on Brazil’s green taxation practices via World Resources Institute

“Conservation easements allow a landowner to voluntarily sell or donate the development rights of their property to a not-for-profit land trust group. By placing land into a conservation easement, owners can continue to farm and hunt the land, but they forgo ever subdividing the land for residential or commercial use…But, it’s not for everyone.” – A A news item in NewWest.net by Dan Testa

FURTHER RESOURCES:

“An amazing 261 Representatives from all 50 states – including majorities of both parties – have signed on as co-sponsors of H.R. 1831! Senate legislation, S. 812, now has 38 co-sponsors”¦” – A news brief in Citizenlink.org

“There is [a] belief that there are some species of birds which are only found in Sierra Leone, and for which tourists could spend millions just to come and see”¦While other countries continue to make inroads into making tourism a profitable venture, we are yet to come out of our usual concept of tourism as a non profit endeavor.” – EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by Lora Kolodny.

Image: fmc.nikon.d40

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