Overview...

What started as an awareness raising and ethnographic styled walk through Sierra Leone, this site now details the encounters of a not so academic academic who spends more time occupying Wall Street and squats than a university...

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Desperation

Will this be as high as we get?


 As we speak an epidemic is surging through west Africa.  it is spreading incredibly quickly and has no cure.  Ebola is leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake and is only a matter of time before it spreads beyond "the dark continent" and into our living rooms.  As most people that read this blog know, I spent some time there and helped to set up a community based organization called "aibia".  The name for this came from playing with the Chinese words (bo ai) for "universal love", a concept espoused by Mozi nearly 2500 years ago in ancient China.  It would seem like a simple concept, to create a political and economic system based on a universal caring and respect for all human beings, a system based on us viewing all others as if they were our brother or sister, mother or father, husband or wife.  Would we let our sister go hungry?  Would we let our mother die of Ebola?  No we would not.

I want to see this building that we started be completed...    


We are building an office and community center for our organization.  A structure intended to be a place for us to have meetings, voice grievances, create and incubate businesses, teach both marketable and enjoyable skills, arts, computers, etc.  A place for people to go engage with others and build community.  

But this will never happen if everyone working on it, or that could use it, dies.  And that is where we are headed right now.  An entire population of people is at risk of death.  Ebola carries with it a 90% fatality rate and is transferred simply through human to human contact.


Basically, we need to pay attention.  We need to realize that we can make a difference both with Ebola and in helping marginalized people gain a voice in their own lives and for their communities. Please help by donating even the smallest amount.  Just click on the donate button on the right hand side of this website and we will transfer the money in bulk amounts so we can save money on transfer fees.  Please help.






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