Here is the rough cut of our first video produced as part of the collaboration.  It is still a rough cut (i.e. in progress) and we’d be curious to hear your feedback on the video as we continue to develop the final piece.

We look forward to your thoughts and ideas, and stay tuned for more…

Yes, that’s right, MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, failed to screen its Nepali peacekeeping troops for Cholera, then also failed to ensure that their waste treatment was functioning well.  They literally dumped contaminated sewage into a tributary of the Artibonite River, the longest and most important river in Haiti.  This has resulted in a massive outbreak of Cholera, leaving over a million people infected and thousands dead.

We are helping the IJDH and BAI pressure the United Nations to fix the problem that they caused.  This presents us with an interesting challenge: our opponent in this case is supposed to be the good guy!  We like and support the UN, and want to help it live up to its ideals.  So our goal is craft a message of accountability without painting the United Nations as a villain.   That would be counterproductive by alienating the UN, as well as the people whose support we, and more importantly the Haitian people, need.  It’s an interesting puzzle – we’ll show you what we come up with in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, here are some resources on the case, as well as some photos from our trip.

For additional press and resources on the legal case, please visit: http://ijdh.org/cholera-litigation#News Articles

Here are a few of the videos.  More to come.

Take a look at our video here, and some more info about Public Act 4 below the fold.

For more information about Public Act 4, take a look at this article in Slate/the Root, written by Judith Brownb Dianis, one of the Directors of our partner organization, the Advancement Project.

Also, some great coverage of the Benton Harbor situation on the Rachel Maddow show a few months ago.

I was very impressed with how social media saavy many of the organizations were.  One of the most exciting is the Women’s Resource Center, which is creating a powerful movement to push for change on a variety of vital issues, from gender-based violence to palliative care.

One of the most interesting activists we met was a photographer named Hayk Bianjyan, who is dedicating his live to preserving historic buildings in Yerevan.  Much of historic Yerevan is being torn down at an alarming rate to build modern – and often characterless – developments.  In addition, there is a massive human toll, as Armenia’s eminent domain laws remain quite draconian.  It is a huge tragedy, particularly for a city as ancient and beautiful as Yerevan.

Hayk took me to one of the last remaining historic buildings, which he has dedicated himself to preserving.  Take a look at the Facebook page dedicated to preservation of the building, as well as some photos that I shot there.

And take a look at this video featuring Hayk:

Vanessa’s initial encounter with the NY state health system took place in a clinic, where the fact that she did not have private health insurance did not go unnoticed. Her experience there was so traumatizing that the next time she sought medical care, her health issues had reached a much more dire status, with numerous complications to attend to along with the cancer.

However, Vanessa’s story does not end there.  In a twisted turn of luck, due to the severity of her colon cancer at such a young age, Vanessa was able to receive treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering, recognized as one of NY’s premier private hospitals.  When Vanessa was in the clinic, everyone was assigned a different color bracelet, which identified what kind of insurance that patient carried; Vanessa and her roommate had different color bracelets from those down the hall.  At Memorial, everyone had exactly the same ID bracelet, meaning the doctors, nurses, and everyone else had no idea whether she was on Medicaid or not.  All anybody knew was that she was a cancer patient.  Below, Vanessa speaks about the disparity in her treatment and what she believes needs to change.

Makoko is split into two halves – Makoko-on-Land and Makoko-on-Water.  When walking through the narrow streets, wooden bridges, and mazes of shops and houses, it impossible to tell exactly when the land ends and the water begins.  Puddles of water and much become more frequent, then suddenly you are surrounded by people in boats, and before long, you are in a completely water-bound world, with houses, shops, schools, transportation, all happening on the water, its people navigating the canals and open lagoos with the practiced ease of a people who have lived in these conditions for generations.

Amazingly, the neighborhood spills out into the Lagos lagoon and almost reaches the Third Mainland Bridge – a major highway in Lagos.  Thus, almost every Lagos resident has seen this mysterious place from their car, a mass of buildings built on stilts in the water, with a permanent cloud – the by-product of hundreds of fish smokers – lingering above.

Makoko, like many such communities in Lagos, is under constant threat of demolition by the Lagos government.  Places like Makoko are called slums – for some good reasons and some bad reasons – and are made to seem like interchangeable masses of squatters; congregations of misery that should not exist in an increasingly modern Lagos.

The picture, of course, is much more complex than that.  These two videos are designed to help people of Makoko, and their advisers at the Social and Economic Rights Action Center, protect their community.  The two videos take two approaches – the first is designed to educate the general Lagos public about the fascinating community in the middle of their city.  The second makes an economic argument against destroying Makoko, and tries to encourage Lagos legislators and government officials to think about Makoko in a different way.

The first:

And the second:

I find this statement captivating – a powerful articulation of why human rights are important, and the importance of humans in the work of expanding freedom and opportunity (ironically, something that is forgotten all too often).

The first is a series tentatively entitled “N-Map Voices.”  We shoot a great deal of footage in the context of N-Map projects, and we interview lots of courageous and articulate people who never make it into our final videos.  We’ve decided that these voices ought to be heard, this the “Voices” series on the blog.  Each post will simply contain a brief description of who the interview subject is, then one or more unedited sections of their interviews.

The second is a podcast and radio series called “The Big Idea.”  This project is not just blog-related, and will almost certainly get its own post in the near future, but I am mentioning it here to get it started.  It is basically an interview series profiling innovative human rights defenders and social entrepreneurs.  I have found that there is a narrative of decline and helplessness that permeates the media – from Fox News to NPR.  But from where I stand, I see a golden age of social enterprise and innovation, where thousands of people are implementing great ideas to improve the world and help their communities.  These stories are often untold – but they are fascinating, and the entrepreneurs almost invariably very smart and fun to listen to.

More details to come, but look for a pilot episode (or part of one) on this blog soon.