Month: March 2017

For Pastor Mario Augustave it is not strange to see 50 children packed into a tiny classroom with chalkboards in hand and the hot sunlight streaming through the windows. In fact, he was the one who helped make it happen. Although this may seem like terrible conditions for students, being packed into a small room to learn math with 50 other children is the best these children can have in Haiti.

 

According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the total percentage of people who can read and write in Haiti above 15 years of age is 60.7% which is a far cry from other Caribbean countries which are 90% and above. These literacy rates are due to a limited amount of schools in the country.

 

For people like Augustave, education is one of the most important issues in Haiti to tackle. “Without the proper education of Haitian children, the country is continually left vulnerable,” Augustave says. “The children are the future, and an illiterate future is almost guaranteed to go nowhere.”

Children in the makeshift school in Haiti smiling for the camera.

And yet, it seems the Haitian government is not interested in the future of their nation.

 

“When I was growing up in Haiti, every school I knew was private. I didn’t think there were public schools in our country. I can imagine that it’s worse today,” said Adeline Francois, a current New York resident who lived in Haiti until 1994.

 

It is worse.

 

According to sionfondsforhaiti, the government is only responsible for 10% of schools in Haiti.  Haiti as a whole has only 15, 200 primary schools, of which 90% are non-public and managed by communities, religious organizations, or NGOs.

 

Community, religious organization, or NGO – run schools, need constant funding from those outside – usually United States and Canadian residents – to keep their schools running since they are non-profit organizations. Because they are so reliant from funding from the outside it is difficult for these schools to be properly functioning. Necessities like bathroom and plumbing is rare, school supplies like textbooks, notebooks, and pencils are of limited supply, and sometimes teachers cannot be paid; essentially doing volunteer work.

The state of the school that Mario Augustave and organization Voices For Haiti is managing.

“It is hard,” Augustave says. “But we are doing God’s work in Haiti. Right now I am going around churches in New York to collect funds to build a well at the school. People don’t think they are doing much by putting in a dollar, but to the kids over there in Haiti, it means the world to them.”

 

Discussion:

Avoiding problematic narratives in international reporting

The thing is, news is often—inherently—bad news. That just logically follows from the very definition of news.

So the question is: how do you report the news, but avoid falling into the trap of playing into these tired tropes/stereotypes of coverage?

How to Write About Africa as performed by Djimon Hounsou

Lara Logan’s Ebola coverage

.@60Minutes Tells us the Americans regard the Liberian support staff as heroes, but Lara Logan doesn't interview a single one.

— Howard French (@hofrench) November 10, 2014

How to Write About Pakistan

How to Write About the Middle East

Dismantling Visual Cliches in the Palestinian Territories

When Anti-Cliché Photos Turn Out To Be Clichés

Africa is a Country

Haiti Needs New Narratives

How to Report on Cuba Responsibly

Famine babies and crying war widows: unpicking the cliches of conflict photography

New Narratives: Africans Reporting Africa

“Africa Rising”

KONY2012

Ruddy Roye’s commentary on IG photo of naked schoolboy

The problem with photojournalism and Africa

Deconstructing the Visual Cliches of War Photography

Look! I’m Just Like Lawrence of Arabia

Assignments:

For Monday, read the prologue of Guns, Germs and Steel and write a short blog post (about 300 words) about how the history of your chosen country fits into the historical patterns discussed, and reflecting on how this history may shape some of the common narratives you sometimes see about these countries in the press.

Final draft of story #1 due next Wednesday, 3/15

Pitches for story #2 also due next Wednesday, 3/15 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1QCciJ6yTo&feature=youtu.be

This is the roughtests of drafts ever made. I haven’t used Premiere before so it took me a while to learn and I made a very small clip. There’s not much to judge.

I plan on doing voice overs, raising the volume of the clip overall, adding better transitions, and if I have time adding subtitles. Since I was able to learn how to use the basic tools by making this tool it shouldn’t take me as long as it took me with this one.

I’ll be using this information :https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/pisa2012highlights_6a_1.asp

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/

http://www.compareyourcountry.org/pisa/country/kor

 

During the presidential election, Donald Trump made disparaging comments concerning China, blaming the country for the global warming “hoax” and for pitfalls in American business.
Being #2 in the global economy, China is considered one of our most important economical allies but also one of our biggest competitors. The United States is China’s number one export market and China is third for the U.S. Would it be possible for these two countries to maintain a cordial business relationship with America under the leadership of President Trump?

At present, both countries are undergoing a major change in leadership. Under President Trump, the United States’ economic policies are sure to change. Trump has already appointed Peter Navarro as lead to the National Trade Council and has signed an executive order to get rid of the Trans-Pacific Partnership created by Obama. On the other hand, Beijing is shifting leadership as well since five of their Politburo leaders will be reaching the retirement age, leaving President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang to remain.

Trump has already expressed discontent with China’s practices during the election, stating that China purposely keeps their currency artificially low, labeling the country as a “currency manipulator.” In January 2017, he tweeted “China has been taking out massive amounts of money and wealth from the U.S. in totally one sided trade…”. Slapping The country with this label could give Trump an excuse to impose a higher tax (a proposed 45%) on Chinese imports but some economists, such as Lee Branstetter of Carnegie University, think this may be a bad decision.  He compares Trump’s proposed tariff to the tariffs supported by Republicans at the start of the Great Depression.  What followed was an increase in American tariffs that resulted in a global trade war.

The current status of trade between China and the U.S. is indeed an unbalanced one, with the U.S. at a disadvantage. The Nita States has an import tax of 2-3% while China’s is 3-9%. To put it simply, U.S. exports to China were only $116 billion in 2016 while imports from China were at $463 billion, putting the total deficit at $347 billion. Americans buy Chinese manufactured goods because the prices are so low.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the U.S. and China’s past trade relations have been rocky. The United States filed 23 complaints with the WTO against China overall and 14 during the Obama administration alone. The most recent accusation being the distortion of prices of crops by China making it difficult for American farmers to compete in global markets. This means that China’s “market price support” program causes an overproduction of wheat, corn, and rice. This undercuts the American market for exporting those crops and results in a loss of revenue for American farmers. President Obama claimed that this program breaks the rules set forth by the WTO.

There’s no guarantee that Trump’s proposal of higher tariffs will help the United States.  In addition to possibly triggering a trade war, it is the belief of many economists that American consumers will be the ones who ultimately will suffer. Retail prices for imported goods and their domestic substitutes would increase. This means costs for these goods could also rise. Production of such products can also be delayed, especially amongst bigger companies.

In an article by The Economist in February 2017, The Peterson Institute for International Economics does not believe a tariff would be positive for the United States. Their assessment finds that American private sector employment would decline by more than 4% by 2019, which would hurt American families living on modest incomes if Trump were to follow through with his threats. (The Economist, Nov. 2016, Daily Chart: A Trump Trade Agenda ).

Relations between the United States and China are not entirely negative.  According to Joseph Weed, Director of Communications of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, there is a rapid growth in Chinese direct investment in the United States. “This is a function of Chinese investment in existing U.S. companies, as well as the creation of ‘greenfield’ or new businesses; in both cases, this represents Chinese owned companies operating in the U.S. And providing jobs to American workers and business suppliers. In just a few years, this investment has grown to support more than 100,000 American jobs.”

“While there are issues of concern between the two countries, diplomatic relations continue to represent a productive working relationship. Both sides have areas of dissatisfaction but strong economic ties and areas of shared concern continue to encourage both sides to work together within the framework of the global community.”

100 Years Later, Scholars Remember Ukrainian Revolution

By Anne Ehart

Panelists at the Friday, February 24 “Ukrainian Statehood 1917-21: Institutions and Individuals” conference at Columbia University.

100 years ago today, Ukraine was in the midst of a struggle for independence from Russia. From 1917-1921, war was waged between Ukrainian independence and Soviet forces, resulting in the creation of the Ukrainian National Republic.

Today, Ukraine is once again butting heads with Russia, fighting off Russian military and pro-Russia separatist groups attempting to take control of Ukraine.

On February 24 and 25, the Ukrainian Studies Program at Columbia University commemorated the 100-year anniversary of the Ukrainian revolution with a series of panel discussions entitled “Ukrainian statehood 1917-21: Institutions and Individuals.”

“You are rich, if you live in America you are rich” repeated Andrew Nouri, 24, as we sat in the Athens Alliance-Relief center. Andrew, who has lived in Afghanistan his entire life up until last year, bases his view of America off movies, music, and celebrity tabloids. His youngest siblings, Dara and Daria, age 7 and 9, were the most intrigued by America. “I do not like Afghanistan,” Dara told me. “I do not like my home in Afghanistan, and I do not like now living in Greece.” When I asked them why that is, the younger of the two, Daria, responded “It is not America, and I just love America.” I listened to them go on about the wonder of America, a country to which they have never been. Even their studying of the English language is fueled by the hope that one day they will live in America. But does America live up to these expectations?

To get the perspective of an Afghan American, I first spoke with Shah Haya, 70, who has been in this country for 46 years. “When I moved here (1971), it was the America I thought.” Haya told me, “There was so much opportunity to build yourself up. You could find work and study. Today, it’s not. Today it is limited and hard.” While many in Afghanistan still operate under a romanticized view of the Western world, he points out the discrepancies that have come to be. “You want to educate yourself,” he tells me, “but you cannot do that here, because of the price. So you have to work, you have to pay, you have to borrow money from the bank who will charge you all that you have.” Haya feels he has watched the country shift from one with countless opportunities of growth to one that sets traps to keep its people in debt. “And then, when you finish school, you have to pay all these bills, and you just work for companies, you don’t work for yourself. Education and healthcare should be free.” This now money-hungry country is not the one of opportunity and support that Haya expected and first knew. “If the government spent money on the right things, there will be change, good change. I wish one day I am alive to see these changes, but I don’t think so anymore.” Haya concluded.
Relating to the experience described by Shah Haya, a man by the name of Emde Mirza took the time to speak with me on America’s growing competitive nature, and how it has warped the country from what he expected. Bundled in a winter jacket, scarf, and hat, Mirza has operated his own produce stand for 4 years on 112th st. “I love the stand, but really there is not much other things for me to do” Mirza explained. Before coming to America 11 years ago in 2006, Mirza lived in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was under the impression that the American assists the pursuit of an education without the burden of unreasonable price tags. “You come to America, you study, and you can be Lawyer, Doctor, anything you want.” said Mirza describing his view of America prior to moving here. Mirza was surprised and to a degree, discouraged by the competitive and expensive nature within both Universities and the job market. “It is hard to do much else,” he reiterates while ringing up several customers, “but it is a good place with no crime.”

Exploring a different aspect of American expectation vs reality, I spoke with Sal Bahri, a man on an extended visit from his home in Afghanistan. “I expected more pride from where you are from. It is home to immigrants, but nobody keeps their culture after a while.” Recognizing America, and specifically New York City as one of the most culturally diverse and expressive places in the world, I questioned this assertion of Bahri’s. He went on to ask where I am from, not where I was born, rather where my grandparents were from, and their parents, he was asking for my heritage. Upon telling him that I am of Italian descent, but do not speak Italian, he responded “Yes, that is what I mean. Your parents did not keep the culture, the language, they did not teach you to keep it.” Bahri had expected America to be a melting pot of cultures around the world even more so than it already is. He was under the impression that there was not much of an “American-only culture” at all,but that all Americans strongly held on to the culture of their original heritage. “It is not too bad a thing, but worries me that I would lose my culture if I moved” Bahri added.
While discrepancies in expectations are widespread, nearly everyone I spoke to, in the same breath, made a point to mention their fondness of America. While America may not have streets of gold and the unparalleled opportunities of an easy climb to riches, it is still the home that many long for. It was Shah Haya who told me, “When i come to this country, I didn’t feel like I’m a foreigner. When i come to New York I was thinking that I fit with Americans. I don’t even feel different.”

The crowded waiting room was getting hotter as more people came in. They all looked inpatient. Small talks helped them to kill time until it was their turn to see a member of the Ecuadorian Consulate.

Most of them were there to get a document called “poder.” Poder (power) is a document that authorizes and allows Ecuadorian living in the U.S. to manage their property in Ecuador. When the document is signed anybody can sell as well as buy more property in behalf of the person who signed the poder.

According to Maria Ines Costa Vargas, the vice-consul of Ecuador there are more people sending the “poderes” to Ecuador compared to last year. “People are scared and they want to have a plan B,” said Vargas. “Almost all the poderes are for buying and opening bank accounts in Ecuador.’

Ecuador is the seventh worst economy in the world, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit. The movement the Ecuadorians are doing buying property, opening bank accounts and transferring money from American banks to Ecuadorian banks could help lift the economy up.

Last year in February a total of 373 poders were sent compared to 623 poders this year in the same month. Vargas said that last year all the poders were mixed either to buy or just manage their property, but this year all of them are either to buy or open a bank account.

Ecuador’s economy went down when the price of the oil collapsed from 94 dollars a barrel to 32 dollars a barrel. And Ecuador has an economy highly pendent on oil production and public spending. “People stopped spending money because the prices for everything went up,” said Jose Alveres. Alvares is a U.S resident who was in Ecuador six months ago. He said that the economy could be better if Colombians and Peruvians who come to work in Ecuador spend in Ecuador rather than sending it to their countries.

The earthquake that happened in 2016 affected Ecuador’s economy greatly. Leaving over 3 million in damage and killing 660 people. The already hurt economy began to show in every corner as people stopped spending more and companies were laying off employees left to right.

The former president Rafael Correa borrowed 1.5 billion from China in order to bring the economy back, but in exchange China asked that a 90% of oil shipments should go for them for the next few years. “Basically, now we belong to China if we don’t pay that money back,” said Alvares.

However, the election for the new president keep Ecuadorian in a hope that the economy will improve. Also, the many Ecuadorian who live in the U.S are contributing to the Economy by sending their money, buying houses, buying property and building. “More money will be circulating with all of these movements,” said Vargas. “They are going to open their own business and create jobs.”

Agata Poniatowski is a 21-year-old whose parents emigrated from Poland to escape communism before she and her brother were born. Though her brother was sent to Polish school when he was a child, she felt as if her parents “gave up” on teaching her the language.

Now, Poniatowski is taking small steps to learn the language. She asks her parents to text her in Polish and tries her best to respond to them in Polish. In her free time, she watches children’s shows with subtitles on, including a remastered version of Baba Jaga.

Poniatowski thinks that this could have been avoided if her parents sent her to one of the Polish schools located in New York City.

“I was really—I guess you could say a rowdy kid. I would always be crying and be upset. I didn’t like that ballet class was 40 minutes long.” Poniatowski said. “My parents probably were like ‘maybe not’ for me, but my brother had more patience, so they sent him and he learned how to read and write in Polish. Although he quit pretty shortly … but he did have the opportunity to read and write, whereas I’m trying to do that at 20 years old and it’s really difficult.”

Poniatowski recalled a moment when her cousin decided to test her writing skills by asking her to write down the word “lozko,” which means “bed.”

“I gave her a piece of paper with my idea of how to spell it and she just started laughing hysterically. I didn’t want for that to happen. I didn’t want to lose my communication with my family when I’m not in Poland, so I want to be able to text them, to talk to them,” Poniatowski said.

Polish schools are organizations that are often organized by Polish churches. Students who attend them usually take classes in four subjects—geography, history, literature and religion—for four hours every Saturday. In high school, the religion class gets switched to an ethics class.

TKTK Interview with Krystian Surdel, who goes in-depth on how the classes look like. The interview is scheduled for March 8.

For people like Poniatowski, Polish schools also help build one’s sense of cultural identity and connect to one’s country of origin.

“I’m Polish because of the culture that I have at my house, but I think that I would feel more connected to being Polish if I also had the ability to communicate with that side of my family, or read the newspaper or something like that. Actually know what’s going on in Poland. Not from The New York Times, but from a Polish magazine or Polish news. … Understanding politics or big words, that would be cool,” Poniatowski said.

Paulina Ekstowicz emigrated from Poland after she finished fourth grade. In an interview, she explained that her dad was the first to move to the United States and her mother decided to rejoin her father in order to earn more money and ensure that Eksowicz gets a good university education.

When they moved, Eksowicz was 11 years old. Her parents never sent her to Polish school, but she was able to remember the language by speaking Polish at home and watching Polish TV with her parents. In her free time, she also reads Polish books and listens to Polish music.

“I think they [Polish schools] are [helpful] to a certain extent, because you do get to make more polish friends and learn more about your own history and traditions,” Eksowicz said. “But I also think it’s very stressful, because it is like Saturday school majority of the time and it’s just another level of stress.”

TK some something

“If I had went to Polish school, I think that … maybe I would know what exactly is Polish culture rather than things I’m assuming are Polish culture,” Poniatowski said.

Bangladesh is one of the US’ most important South Asian allies. But in recent times, the Bangladesh government has experienced turbulence since acquiring independence from Pakistan, nearly 50 years ago. Following several militant coups since the early 70s, Bangladesh’s current government is officially a parliamentary republic headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. However, despite boasts of the country making social and economic improvements, there is an apparent corruption in the government’s relation with the press and labor rights.

MD Kashem, 59, was born in the capital city of Dhaka in 1958. He was 13 years old when the Liberation War occurred in 1971. Unlike his older brother Debesh, who was 20 at the time and in the army, Kashem was too young to take up arms. However, he had an active role in the war by helping bring weapons and food between camps.

The war ended in under a year and Kashem joined the military when he was 18. There, he got his bachelors in mechanical engineering and worked for the country’s air force. His wife, Shahida Begum, was a school teacher during this time and the two married in 1989. Six years later, they had a son, Rifat, and a decade later they immigrated after winning an annual lottery program which granted them a diversity visa to the US.

In all, Kashem and Shahida have lived most of their lives in BD and have seen firsthand how the country’s news media operates. Kashem, who now works in a uniform store in Jamaica, Queens said that: “The main news channels say only good things about the government- especially the [free channels] on TV. You rarely hear about bad things and the government in the reports.” He also noted that while all news channels weren’t actually all pro-government, almost all channels demonstrate clear biases by promoting certain political groups while antagonizing others.

This coincides with a February 2016 article by BBC profiling Bangladesh’s media. In the article, it was reported that the two largest news broadcasters, Radio Bangladesh (BB) and Bangladesh TV (BTV) were “state-owned and government-friendly”. Additionally, in 2014 and 2015, the government reportedly took direct action against the press after several radio and TV stations broadcasted programming deemed “harmful to the image of law enforcement agencies, which impeded state security.” Following this, a nationwide ban on all broadcasted material fitting this criteria was issued in 2014.

“It’s not like how it is [in the US], when you see Trump arguing with [the news media],” Kashem said. “In BD the government and the news never fight because they are the same thing.”

Kashem’s son, Rifat agreed with his father and added that, “Other than extreme cases and disasters, you won’t get a lot of coverage about the problems happening inside- especially if the government might be involved.” Referencing the disastrous collapse of a textile factory in April of 2013, he commented on how news of the incident was portrayed differently in Bangladesh vs. other countries. Two of Rifat’s aunts and several of his cousins lived in the same district of the collapse. They were a safe distance away from collapse, but in the weeks following the disaster, coverage of the incident appeared to be portrayed differently in the BD news media.

“Right after it happened I remember speaking to my aunt about it and her telling me that the news was calling it a ‘terrible accident’ and that no one expected it to happen. Then I read about it online and saw that apparently the building had cracks in it and the [factory owner] was arrested for forcing people to go in to work.”

In recent years there have been several other disastrous events that occurred in Bangladesh’s large textile industry. The pattern calls to issue another facet where the government is suspected to play a part; the rights of workers. Following the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse, The BBC published several articles examining the ties politics has on Bangladesh’s massive textile industry and consequently, the conditions and treatment workers are forced to endure.

“I sacrificed a privileged life for this country and I don’t regret it at all.”

At the start of the 2016-2017 school year, Sherri Feldman, a 19-year-old from Bayside Queens, chose that she was going to take a ten hour flight to Israel to serve in a Country that she was not born in.

Although the United States has abolished their military draft, it is still common in other countries around the world to have draft enlistments for citizens when they reach a certain age or if it becomes necessary during pressing times of war. The State of Israel, is no exception to this draft. Due to the constant ever growing tensions that lie in the Middle East, Israel has a constant draft law, which states that once Israeli citizens reach the age of 18, they are required to serve in the military for a minimum of twelve months, and the duration varies depending on age and gender, according to Nefesh B’Nefesh, an online draft service based in Jerusalem.

From the outside looking in, people can have the tendency to carry a bit of animosity in regards to Israel’s drafting of young citizens to train and fight in their military, feeling as though these draftees are being forced to risk their lives for a cause they might not want to fight for.

However, what may come as a shock, is that a large percentage of IDF soldiers are not born Israeli Citizens.

According to Lieutenant and IDF Spokeswoman Libby Weiss in an interview in 2014, Israel has one of the largest number of Americans serving in its military, reporting close to 1,000 Americans serve in the IDF.

With this information, a constant driving question is, why? Why do these American citizens voluntarily choose to serve in a foreign country?

“I was raised by Israeli parents so I was constantly exposed to the culture,” said Feldman, who enlisted in the Winter of 2016. “We’re not a religious family so we weren’t really heavily involved in the Jewish Community but every holiday we either spent with family or our Israeli family friends.” Sherri is still in training, and is learning to be a combat medic.

“What I love about it is the fact that this job shows the other side of the military that doesn’t kill but rather heals.” Sherri then went to describe the long process that is required to join the IDF. Things like IQ testing, leadership testing, and physical aptitude testing are all part of the two year process in becoming an IDF soldier.

When asked to describe in one word why she serves in the IDF, “passion” was immediately the word she chose to utilize.

“As a lone soldier, girls I’ve gone through basic training with in my course are always asking me if I have a place to stay for the weekend and have Shabbat dinner,” said Sherri. “The diversity in this country reminds me of New York. We all have family that come from different countries and that mix is basically Israeli culture.”

Sherri revealed that it was always a childhood dream of hers to enlist, but wasn’t sure she’d ever to through with it until she graduated high school.

When asked how what country Sherri identifies with for her nationality, she explained that she identifies with Israel because it “feels like home”.

“Israel is home to every Jewish person regardless if they are Israeli, or religious. It’s our indigenous homeland.”