Zimbabwe - aid appeal

Child in cholera clinic - Oxfam

I'm now in Johannesburg, South Africa, helping to publicise Oxfam's appeal to raise £4m to help those affected and suffering from the effects of a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe.

Oxfam have been working in the country, rehabilitating water sources and distributing hygiene kits. We are now trying to scale up their operation to provide help to more than a million people, in view of the seriousness of the situation.

With hyperinflation, poor harvests and food shortages all taking their toll, it is estimated that there will be over 5.1 million Zimbabweans in need of food aid by January 2009. Some people are so hungry they are eating seeds that should be planted.

Oxfam rehabilitated borehole in Kotwa

Cholera, a water-born disease, continues to rise with the latest figures from the UN showing that it has infected 18,000 people and killed about 800 with many more deaths and infections are believed to have gone unrecorded. Cholera is now affecting nine out of Zimbabwe's ten provinces and is likely to spread further if, as expected, there are more heavy rains in the next month.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7787920.stm

BANGLADESH CLIMATE CHANGE FRONTIER STATE

Bangladesh - one of the poorest and most overcrowded countries in the world is also one of the most vulnerable countries to the negative impacts of climate change...here's why

Bangladesh climate change - in pictures

Bangladesh...often hit by weather-related disasters, like floods, cyclones ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/south_asia_climate_change_in_bangladesh/html/1.stm

Dhaka climate change rally

I blogged on this last week...but this is the video now posted on You Tube

Rangamati, Chittagong Hill Tracts, climate protest

Indigenous (or adivashi) communities were among people from Bangladeshs isolated south-eastern Chittagong Hill Tract Area taking part in a mass meeting to voice their concerns about climate change and the impact its having on their native forest lands.

Nearly 1,000 people, mainly indigenous groups, took part in the activity, which included local cultural performances.

Some carried banners calling for indusrialised nations to open their borders so that poor and vulnerable communities adversely affected by climatic changes and forced to move from their lands or climate refugees could find alternative and safer locations for their families.

Others held banners calling on the worlds richest countries to drastically cut their greenhouse gas emissions and compensate poor nations like Bangladesh. They urged financial help to allow communities to protect themselves from the negative impacts caused by rising sea levels, including unpredictable weather patterns and flash flooding.

Marginalised indigenous villagers in the Chittagong Hill Tract areas say weather patterns have become unpredictable and flash flooding has increased in recent years, causing land erosion and damaging their crops livelihoods.

People are already worried about climate change. It affects their livelihoods, said Arun Kanti Chakma, executive director of the Assistance for the Livelihood of the Origins (ALO), one of the event organizers.

Already cultivation is being affected, people are not getting good crop production because of irregular rainfall and sometimes very heavy rainfall, or no rain at all. Its become a big problem for us and people here are already among the most marginalized.

The climate change protest was organized by Oxfam and the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), an alliance of more than 150 civic groups, in the run up to the United Nations conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland.

Women wear G8 masks - call for help

They may not have heard the term "climate change", but these women workers - including those who try to make a living from breaking bricks to garment workers - who turned up at a rally in Dhaka, know all too well how changing weather patterns have been affecting their lives and those of millions of others in Bangladesh.

They donned masks representing leaders of the world's top industrialised countries - the G8 - and chanted out slogans “Protect our agriculture, protect our country, protect our lives from the damaging effects of climate change”.

In the last few years Bangladesh has seen an increase in the intensity and frequency of climate-related problems. But changing temperatures and patterns have meant that weather-related disasters have become less predictable and harder to manage. And that makes it harder for the poorest communities to prepare or respond to increased hazards.

The activity was the last of eight major events around the country, highlighting how climate changes have affecting individual communities living in different geographical locations.

The events were organized by Oxfam and its key partner, the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), ahead of the United Nations conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland, next month.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Bangladesh will eventually become one of the most vulnerable countries on earth because of the implications of climate change”, said climate change expert, Ahsan Uddin Ahmed, of the Centre for Global Change, one of the speakers at the Dhaka event.

“The magnitude of the problem is enormous. Not only for Bangladesh, but all the people affected by climate change, it’s a clear message: unless the world leaders decide to stop emissions now, many people around the world will become climate victims and climate refugees, this is unacceptable to us.

“The need for adaptation and adaptation financing is increasing day by day”, he warned.

climate rally in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, southwestern Bangladesh

Some of the indigenous women taking part in the rally and meeting

Indigenous (or adivashi) communities were among people from Bangladesh’s isolated south-eastern Chittagong Hill Tract Area took part in a mass meeting to voice their concerns about climate change and the impact its having on their native forest lands.

Nearly 1,000 people, mainly indigenous groups, took part in the activity, which included local cultural performances.

Local cultural performances were also on display in between the speeches
Some carried banners calling for indusrialised nations to open their borders so that poor and vulnerable communities adversely affected by climatic changes and forced to move from their lands – or climate refugees – could find alternative and safer locations for their families.

Others held banners calling on the world’s richest countries to drastically cut their greenhouse gas emissions and compensate poor nations like Bangladesh. They urged financial help to allow communities to protect themselves from the negative impacts caused by rising sea levels, including unpredictable weather patterns and flash flooding.

Marginalised indigenous villagers in the Chittagong Hill Tract areas say weather patterns have become unpredictable and flash flooding has increased in recent years, causing land erosion and damaging their crops livelihoods.

“People are already worried about climate change. It affects their livelihoods”, said Arun Kanti Chakma, executive director of the Assistance for the Livelihood of the Origins (ALO), one of the event organizers.

“Already cultivation is being affected, people are not getting good crop production because of irregular rainfall and sometimes very heavy rainfall, or no rain at all. Its become a big problem for us – and people here are already among the most marginalized.”

The climate change protest was organized by Oxfam and its key partner, the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), ahead of the United Nations conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland, next month

It’s the latest in a series of large-scale campaign activities across Bangladesh to highlight how climate change is affecting individual communities.