I walked in and sat down with a plate of cookies at a recent screening of the documentary, “The Rescue of Joseph Kony’s Child Soldiers,” produced by the Invisible Children activist group. This movie was about Uganda and opened my eyes to the implications of community.

As the movie opened with the words, “Invisible because … no records are kept of their numbers or age” and “Invisible because … their own armies deny they exist,” I quickly finished off the cookies because I knew I couldn’t get emotional with food in my mouth. As expected, the film made me want to cry out in anguish and sorrow. Was it really that good of a movie? The film prompted me, a financially struggling college student, to buy a t-shirt that I vowed to wear the crap out of as well as donate what cash I had on me.

The film revealed a single man rising to power in Uganda and leading a rebel army — the Lord’s Rebel Army (LRA) — which consists of abducted children from five countries surrounding Uganda. The LRA is made up of children as young as 5 years old. They are “abducted” (for lack of a more brutal word) from their homes and families and then indoctrinated into committing murder or, in other cases, used as sex toys. The leader of the LRA, Kony, who is now in his late 40s, surrounds himself with his wives and children, becoming virtually untouchable to outside forces.

To date, an estimated 2,000-plus residents and child soldiers have died in the conflict. To some people, statistics are simply numbers that do not register. Rather than slap in some numbers here, the important thing to realize about the statistics in this film is that the death rate is cringingly high, and the number of abductees is painfully high. It is basically genocide.

“Generations of Ugandan children have not known peace,” a mentor for Ugandan students said to the stunned crowd after the film. “If Bill Gates was killed as a child, where would you all be right now? Without the Wright brothers, many of us would not be here today either.”

The night’s atmosphere changed, however, when I went to talk to Jimmy, an LRA escapee-turned-college-bound Ugandan. The night suddenly changed from a sense of deep urgency and sadness, to extreme urgency and slight humor. As I approached, Jimmy was already in conversation with a blonde girl wearing sweats and a sweatshirt. Her head was cocked and she kept repeating, “uh-huh, uh-huh.”

Jimmy’s voice was low and gentle. I walked up to them and heard the girl say, “But, like, I don’t get it. I know he has a lot of people around him but like, at this point, can’t you just like shoot through them all to get to him?”

I looked at Jimmy, scared to see his reaction to this blatant comment. Jimmy was gracious, however, and explained generously in his soft, accented voice, “No one can kill Joseph Kony because they would have to kill children. And the children close to him do not turn against him because he is their father. Kony has become even more powerful ever since the president of Sudan has joined in supporting him.”

The girl nodded and gave some more “um hmms” and then said, “So is there, like, dancing areas in Uganda because I’m majoring in dance, and I would like really like to go there.”

Did she just say she wanted to vacation in the terrorized country of Uganda? The comment caught Jimmy and me off guard, but instead of getting angry, he laughed and said patiently that there are people and places in Uganda that are beautiful.

To differentiate myself from the slapdash comments from this girl, I asked Jimmy if he was going to continue touring with the Invisible Children roadies group after he enters college. He said he will hopefully continue raising awareness during his college years.

The girl interjected with, “College? Here at Columbia College Chicago?!”

“No…” Jimmy said smiling, “In my own country, Uganda.”

The conversation ended with Jimmy handing us fliers so we can “learn more about what the Invisible Children movement does,” because after that conversation, we obviously needed to educate ourselves. I realized how important it was to donate what I could so that I would not be just another American who watches inhumane atrocities on screen and then returns home to forget.

Later on, Jimmy said that America is the country that will save Uganda, according to Stacy Scott, who also talked to him after the screening. She is part of the Invisible Children Club at Columbia College Chicago, which hosted the event that brought the roadies of the Invisible Children. Jimmy pointed out that Europe and Asia are close to Uganda, yet the United States is the country actually donating money and calling for the salvation of the child soldiers and the demise of Joseph Kony.

At least Jimmy recognizes that not all Americans are dim-witted. To help the child soldiers and other victims in Uganda, you can donate or purchase merchandise from www.invisiblechildren.com. Also, for $35 a month you can pay for a Ugandan student’s education. This last suggestion perplexed me. Could I really shape a whole new population that shares the same values, rules and beliefs? The answer is yes. With $35 a month, one American can raise a community that values education, believes in helping others and teaches peace and not gunfire.

However, doing something for another fellow human being for the sake of being “good” does not interest many people. What I found gripping about the Invisible Children’s donation proposal was the idea that an American could help to create a civilization far away from towering skyscrapers and far away from our paper-doll society in which blatant lies dress up in suits and ties and disappointment comes wrapped in cute presents. I learned that we can help people who live far away from American soil, where  green paper rectangles are dangled above a swamp of ravenous piranhas as bait for an army of hollow, blind slaves.

We can create a community unlike the useless, lazy parasites of American neighborhoods in which jobless beer bellies, 40-year-olds still living with their parents, and bunny-slippered ladies with none or too much makeup are pitied by the many Goodwill stores they slink off to. All of these stores are conveniently located on street corners hundreds of miles nearer to town than the more appropriate discarding areas of the dumps.

With our support, Ugandans could create a new society and not model itself after capitalist America, where gifts are convertibles for speeding past slums and pocket cell phones are used for communicating hate. Instead, gifts are food, family, and friends to be thankful for everyday and not just on Thanksgiving. We could have a part in creating a country in which truth shines without having to be deciphered and disentangled from doubt. We could have a role in creating a nation where what counts, what really matters is what the residents hold dear, and it is all they have — all they really need. Let’s help make a land in which people can start surviving on ships: friendships and love relationships to carry them along. We could have a part in creating something in which time is not confining, manipulative and slippery but, instead, a guiding touch on the back. Uganda could be a place where they will feel back-breaking work, and know their place, exalted in breathing in and out the oxygen they earn. It could be a land in which the volume is always turned up on everything and people feel gratitude for life.

If we helped to alter life in Uganda in this way, with just a small monthly contribution to one Ugandan student, we would perpetuate a chain of peace-minded people on another continent. We could be the builders of a generation concerned not with getting filthy rich but imbued with gratitude.

Chicago’s handling of crime and education may, to some, leave much to be desired, but city officials are doing a good job on one front, according to University of Michigan professor and scientist Don Scavia.

At an speech held at the Field Museum on Oct. 7, Scavia commended Chicago’s proactive approach in addressing climate change in the Great Lakes region. In front of a crowd of more than 100 people, Scavia applauded The Chicago Climate Action Plan for its leadership role in responding to and helping to curb climate change.

“Your action plan is a model for many other cities around the country,” he said, adding that the University of Michigan recently launched a climate change adaptation center, based in part on Chicago’s model.

Scavia said people in the Great Lakes region tend to see climate change as something happening far away, “where the polar bears live or on the Gulf Coast,” not in their own backyard.

But that is far from the case, Scavia explained. Chicago and other Great Lakes cities have already seen and will continue to experience hotter temperatures, more intense storms, shifting of prevalent species and various structural damage and other effects of changing climate.

Yaiyr Astudillo-Scalia, a Chicago resident and science major at Northeastern Illinois University, believes people need to be made aware of climate change and the most effective ways of responding to it.  “Education is crucial,” she said.

Among other evidence, Scavia presented a study by the National Arbor Day Foundation showing that the last frost is getting earlier and earlier in the spring and the first day of fall is getting later and later. The growing season has extended and agricultural yields have increased in the last 100 years due to this warming, he said. Climate change in the Great Lakes region has meant water temperatures increasing at twice the rate of air temperatures.

“By the end of the 21st century, Illinois is going to feel like Texas and Michigan is going to feel like Arkansas,” he said.

There were a number of skeptics at the Field Museum talk, who stepped to the microphone to question the validity of the models and research regarding climate change.

But even if not all residents are believers, city leaders have demonstrated with the Climate Action Plan that they believe climate change is caused by human activities and needs to be taken seriously. The plan includes city agencies working with hospitals and community organizations to establish an emergency response plan for key populations most at risk during warm seasons. The plan also involves research to identify innovative ways to eliminate “hot spots” in the city’s infrastructure vulnerable to deterioration caused by increased floods, storms and higher temperatures.

Meanwhile, Astudillo-Scaila said residents should be more assertive about preparing for and demanding political action around climate change.  “We should not view politicians as supermen and superwomen by waiting for them to create solutions while we become victims in need of rescue,” she said.   “Communities should get together and create solutions to this problem.”

Lance Grande, senior vice president at the Field Museum, noted that especially with the degree of public skepticism, continued scientific exploration around climate change is crucial.   “As humans we wait until there is a huge crisis and then we agree with science,” Grande said. “You can only lobby on an issue like climate change, if you have the science to back it up.”

Written in large letters above the daunting timeline are the words: “Using fossil fuels has a cost we hadn’t understood — until now.” The rest of the museum’s temporary exhibit is devoted to explaining just what that cost is.

“For our generation, there is probably no more important scientific issue that we need to think about in our lives,” said Janet Hong, project manager for the Field Museum. “It’s not something to debate.”

The start of the dimly-lit exhibit, which runs through Nov. 28, explains the basics of climate change with an eight-minute video showing how increasing amounts of carbon dioxide, released from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases, have caused Earth’s average temperature to rise. The exhibit explains that the average rise, 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, can seem small because extreme changes in world temperatures, like those in the Arctic, are not seen in an average. But the seemingly small increase has huge consequences.

Large, rotating globes with Earth’s image projected onto them show visitors how average climates have changed using colors: shifting reds and yellows represent parts of the globe that are heating up fastest. Other globes demonstrate ocean currents and storm patterns, and how those, too, have changed on a global scale.

Much of the exhibit features interactive displays where visitors can get a hands-on understanding of what Earth’s rising temperatures mean for all living things, especially humans.

One display features an eerie diorama showing how much of Manhattan would be underwater if sea levels were to rise 10 to 16 feet, which would devastate New York and destroy many island countries.

A shocking but real specimen of a bony polar bear climbing over mounds of garbage teaches visitors the consequences of melting ice caps. Scientists believe that soon polar bears will run out of room in their native habitats and be forced to invade human territory.

Other displays focus more on plant life. Huge cross sections of trees dating back to 1772 are put under magnifying glasses with the rings labeled so viewers can understand what environmental factors, such as droughts or fires, caused the trees to die after almost 300 years. A diseased coral reef, pale and misshapen, was also re-created to show visitors the effect rising temperatures have had on oceans.

It’s not all bad news, though. The exhibit focuses heavily on simple ways people can make changes in their lives to reduce their carbon footprints. One of the highlights is a series of interactive touch screens that let users choose small actions like changing light bulbs to energy-saving Compact Florescent Lamps, driving less and planting trees, and then shows them on a large screen what the impact would be if large cities made the same commitment.

Some visitors have already taken steps.

“Oh, we use mass transit, cars with good gas mileage, those energy-saving lights, insulation, minimum-flush toilets,” said Janet Fouts, 68, who traveled to the exhibit from Springfield.

Saving our only planet won’t be that simple, though. The end of the exhibit emphasizes — with graphs, models and video— that a combination of conservation, renewable resources, nuclear power, natural gas and carbon capture is the only way to make dangerous climate changes into more manageable climate shifts.

Teachers Grace and David Barger, a couple who traveled from Tennessee specifically to visit the museum, said they are a minority in their town for believing in climate change. However, David Berger plans to lend his students traveling to Chicago his membership pass so they can learn about the effects of humans’ energy consumption on the planet.

“Maybe it will make them think about their world more,” said Grace Berger, 64. “Because it’s not our world anymore, it’s y’alls.”

The Field Museum, located at 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr., us open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. All access passes are $23-29 for adults, $19-24 for seniors, and $16-20 for children.

Minneapolis, Detroit and Indianapolis also among nation’s top 25 cities for buildings receiving Energy Star ratings.
Schools lead the Great Lakes regional efforts.

Click here to read more.

“The community is our extended family,” says A. Patrick Augustin, executive director of the Pan-African Association, “and the Pan-African Night is a community celebration where we acknowledge those who make an impact on our extended family’s life.”

Pan-African Night will be held Saturday, April 10 at the Levy Center, located at 300 Dodge Ave. in Evanston. The evening will begin with hors d’oeuvres and wine at 6:30 p.m., followed by ethnic dining and programming at 7:30 p.m. Performances will include traditional African dancing featuring refugee clients from the Pan-African Association, the West Indian Folk Dance Company, Ghanatta Internationale and DJ Mwelwa.

Tickets are $50 and may be reserved by contacting the Pan-African Association office at 6163 N. Broadway in Chicago or by calling (773) 381-9723.

These are the facts that we read in the news — but how much do we really know about what is happening in Haiti in the aftermath of this crisis? Can we trust the news reports now coming out of this long-forgotten nation? And what does it mean about the state of journalism that we have to ask these questions?

These questions were the topic of a heated debate Thursday evening at the National Association of Black Journalists’ monthly meeting. Mary Mitchell, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, joined state Sen. Kwame Raoul, Evanston Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti,and Patrick Brutus, co-founder of the Haitian-American Professionals Network to discuss media coverage of Haiti in comparison to other disasters.

Mitchell said she was disappointed with the immediate coverage of the earthquake, which she referred to as a disaster “unprecedented in this hemisphere.”

“We were really ill-prepared to tell the story because we had ignored Haiti for so long,” she said. “If you are not familiar with your beat, if you don’t know background, history or culture, you won’t be able to do your job.”

Jean-Baptiste said there was an imbalance in media coverage of Haiti because of who was telling the story.

“Here you have CNN, NBC and big stars like Anderson Cooper telling what they think is Haiti’s story,” he said. “It wasn’t until last week, when the black media arrived, that you got the projection of will and the resilience of the Haitian people. We need to tell our own story.”

Mitchell said the media couldn’t cover the story immediately because Haiti was off the radar for most journalists. She then held up the front page of the Sun-Times from the day after the disaster. On the cover was a story about Ron Huberman, chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools.

It wasn’t until two days after the tragedy that the media started their blitz, but with it came front pages plastered with pictures of death. It’s these horrifying photographs that upset Mitchell, who said showing pictures of “rotting, bloated, dead people is an injustice to journalism.”

“I was disappointed in all media outlets that ran pictures of dead bodies,” she said. “Covers of papers with pictures of rotting bodies, where is the dignity in that? We didn’t do it with Katrina, we don’t do it in a war zone, but in Haiti it seemed alright to show bloated, rotting dead bodies.”

Marielle Sainvilus, spokeswoman for Illinois State Department, said the media has ignored Haiti for so long that readers have been left ignorant and afraid of the unknown.

“Anything that was negative has been put on Haiti,” she said. “As a result, any time that Haiti came up in the media in the past was negative. Therefore Haiti became this pit in the media. As a result, now that this earthquake has happened, it has uncovered this Pandora’s box of complexity of this small island that nobody knew about.”

Mitchell, at the same time she criticized some media coverage, gave journalists credit for “getting up-to-speed so quickly.”

“Haiti is no different than any subject we cover. Someone has to have a heart for Haiti,” she said. “In the newsroom someone has to have a heart for the South Side and the West Side. Someone has to have a heart for Haiti, someone has to want to cover it.”

The panel agreed on one thing: The media hasn’t dug deep enough, and there are far too many stories to tell.

Sainvilus said this is the first time that Haiti is getting the media attention they deserve. She said the media can bring light to the issues and bring attention to the history and the culture and can help Haitians rebuild.

“I appreciate the media overkill that has been given to Haiti,” she said. “It has given Haiti a platform that they have never had in the media before, it has given a platform to Haitians who have never been portrayed in the right light.”

The Fair Trade movement advocates paying higher prices to producers and maintaining basic social and environmental standards. A product designated as “fair trade” also means the item was manufactured without the use of forced or child labor.

The resolution was first approved on Monday by the Chicago City Council Finance Committee, and was unanimously approved Wednesday by the full City Council.

At Monday’s committee meeting, Amy Ellison, co-chair of Chicago Fair Trade, held up a soccer ball that she said was made by child laborers in Pakistan. She noted that the ball had 650 stitches, and they were all sewn by hand.

In 1996, one-fourth of the labor market in Pakistan was made up of children, Ellison said, and the median age of the worker was 7. Since then, laws have been changed, but there is still much to be done in this area, she said.

“There is still a great deal of child labor making balls in Pakistan,” Ellison said. “Boys should be playing with balls in Pakistan, not making them.”

Noting that his family is in the business of making springs, Ald. Richard Mell (33rd) spoke in favor of the Fair Trade resolution.

“I really believe manufacturing is essential to the United States. I’ve watched as it’s been forced” to China and other nations, he said. “Some of our customers have said we should find a place in China to make springs — that China is the future.”

Mell said he strongly disagrees with this position.

“We’re seeing the erosion of the middle class,” he said. “You can’t get a manufacturing job now. Thirty-five years ago, if you lost your manufacturing job, you could walk two blocks and get another job. If we don’t realize we have to bring back manufacturing jobs to this country and enforce Fair Trade, we’re doomed to being a third-rate country.”

No one would assume that Mabouc was separated from his family when he was five years old in Sudan as people were dying all around him, or that he spent three years walking from war-torn Ethiopia to Kenya or that he was educated in a refugee camp, but that is how this well-dressed man spent his formative years.

Quiet, calm and slightly reserved, the handsome, dark-skinned Mabouc was very composed as he talked about the long journey that led him to Chicago.

Running for their lives

He was playing in a field with other kids from the Sudanese village of Kongor when his life was forever changed. Sudan has been ravaged by civil war more than once, and as Mabouc played with other village children, the war exploded into his life and separated his family. Tanks rolled into the area as shots were fired randomly and homes were set on fire.

“People were running in different directions,” Mabouc said. “Some of the children like myself were out playing in the field. We ran away from the fights in another direction.”

That group of people would keep running — running for safety, running for their lives. “We walked for several months,” Mabouc said, before the group ended up in a refugee camp in Ethiopia.

“In the camps, a lot of people had no parents,” including Mabouc. “We were put in groups,” he said. “Kids whose parents were unaccounted for were taken care of by the U.N. We were in camp for three years until war broke out in Ethiopia. We [then] walked for three years to Kenya.”

Mabouc said the group walked mostly at night, often setting up day camps in the forest, hiding for their own safety, as the various military groups who destroyed their village and many others would look for people in the daylight. Not everyone survived the long and treacherous journeys to Ethiopia and Kenya.

“Food was whatever we could find… leaves, anything,” said Mabouc. When asked about the availability of water, he said there was “not very much. If there were no rivers around, people would go without or drink whatever we could find… ponds, rain.”

Mabouc and the survivors among his group eventually arrived in northern Kenya, at a United Nations refugee camp in Kakuma. Mabouc said supplies were nearly always low, as the camp was built for a limited number of people, but continually received an influx of refugees, from Rwanda, the Congo and Somalia, as well as other refugees who had been forced to flee from Sudan.

Mabouc spent more than a decade in the camp. He said the camps had schooling set up for kids in kindergarten through high school. While Mabouc was educated in the camp, he got the chance to participate in drama.

“We did a bunch of plays,” he said. “We had professional writers who would write stuff, and we would perform them. We participated in national competitions in Kenyan schools.”

In the camp Mabouc learned English, which is taught in Kenyan schools. His native language is Dinka.

Throughout the long journeys to Ethiopia and then Kenya, and for much of his childhood, Mabouc did not know what happened to his family or even if they were alive. He left his parents and two older siblings behind when his village was raided.

Finally, in 1996, still not yet a teenager, Mabouc learned of their whereabouts. His family ended up in a camp in northern Uganda. The Red Cross had a system in which representatives went from camp to camp in an attempt to document the location of refugees in order to reunite families. Though he was not able to rejoin his family, Mabouc was able to see pictures of them.

Mabouc had some contacts with uncles and cousins who had been together since their arrival in Ethiopia, but through the efforts of the Red Cross, he learned that he now had four younger siblings. For the most part, the refugees in the camps and the people who had made the journey from Sudan to Kenya had become Mabouc’s family.

“I was able to connect with some family members… uncles and cousins. But mostly [it was] the guys. We were together since Ethiopian camp… we were together; we got to know each other. We were the family,” Mabouc said.

Brought to America, receiving little government help

In 2001 as part of a special program set up by the United Nations and the U.S. State Department, Mabouc was brought to America. He was 17 years old when he arrived in Syracuse, N.Y., that August. The group of refugees was settled in various locations in the U.S. and Canada and became known as “The Lost Boys of Sudan.” The group has since been documented in books and films.

Through the program that brought Mabouc to the U.S., he was set up in an apartment in Syracuse for three months. After that, it was up to him to pay rent and support himself.

The refugees received very little government support. They were assisted by some case workers, volunteers and community organizations. Syracuse doesn’t have a strong public transit system, so refugees like Mabouc were very dependent on the community organizations for rides to stores for groceries and basic supplies.

“Especially in the winter, it was very hard to get around,” Mabouc said. “I worked very hard to get my license,” which he received in 2002.

Mabouc’s struggles and the minimal amount of government support he received upon arriving in America are typical of what all refugees must deal with, though Mabouc at least knew English, something many refugees do not, according to Vanessa Parra, a spokeswoman for Refugees International.

“[Refugees] don’t have a lot of resources,” Parra said. “Each situation is very unique. It is very hard for people when they come here. It’s every kind of culture shock you can imagine.”

Mabouc was eventually able to speak with his mother on the telephone. At first, she didn’t believe it was really her son. He was also able to speak with his younger siblings for the first time.

“It’s very hard to establish that relationship on the phone with someone you’ve never met,” said Mabouc. “It’s hard to put your mind around a sibling you’ve never physically met.”

Moving to Chicago, making a difference

Mabouc moved to Bourbonnais, Ill., to study sociology at Olivet Nazarene University. Mabouc and other refugees face the same difficulties in paying for college as American citizens, including having to fill out the dreaded FAFSA financial aid application forms and relying upon student loans.

Mabouc later moved to Chicago, where he worked at the Pan-African Association. His job there was to help refugees and other immigrants from all parts of Africa.

Organizations such as this are essential to refugees, as government help is very limited in its scope. Assistance often comes from faith-based organizations, such as Catholic Charities, whose spokeswoman Kristin Ortman said creating self-sufficiency among refugees is their most important goal.

“I think the number-one issue is employment,” Ortman said. “Many times our staff and our many volunteers are able to offer job training and assistance in finding a job. So often [refugees] have many talents and job skills that they learned in their country. Our goal is to help them achieve self-sufficiency as soon as possible.”

Catholic Charities’ Refugee Resettlement Program helps refugees with basic life skills, such as learning how to navigate the public transportation system and how to operate basic equipment in their apartments. Their organization receives some government funding, but relies heavily on donations and the work of volunteers.

“I worked as a tutor for a family from Sudan, and they were very grateful to receive assistance from a local parish who found them and had taken them under their wing,” said Ortman.

Mabouc is still adjusting and settling into American life, living in Albany Park with two roommates who are also from Africa. His time at the Pan-African Association helped him meet people from all parts of the African continent.

Mabouc enjoys basketball and football, having attended a Notre Dame football game last fall and Chicago Bulls games in the past. He likes to play dominoes at home and listen to reggae music in Chicago bars and music venues. He recently started a new job for an organization that provides assistance to people in need in Chicago, though he asked that his new employer not be named, as he was unsure of their media policy.

Sowing the seeds of hope

Mabouc has had the opportunity to speak to various groups about his life’s journey. It was through a speaking engagement to a continuing education class of teachers studying genocide that he first met Oak Park teacher Karen Tokarz.

Moved by what she’d heard, Tokarz invited Mabouc to speak to students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School in Oak Park, where he made quite an impression on students and teachers alike.

“We were all in tears,” Tokarz said of hearing Mabouc’s stories. “Watching friends get eaten by crocodiles or having worms in your feet because you have no shoes… it’s heart-wrenching… it’s an unbelievable story of inspiration, an unbelievable story of survival.”

Tokarz said part of what amazes her about Mabouc is how he has coped with “not having the nurturing of [his] parents.” She noted that as the Lost Boys were re-settled in different cities all over America and Canada, “it was sort of an abandonment all over again.”

Though Mabouc said he “likes Chicago as a city,” he is no fan of winter weather. And despite his success at becoming self-sufficient in this country, Mabouc still thinks about going home and helping the people of his village.

He is volunteering his time with the Oak Park school district and working with Tokarz on her school’s “Exchange of Hope” program, in which students from Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School participate in a cultural exchange with sometimes impoverished or underprivileged students in other countries. They recently started a program in which the students will connect and share ideas with new friends in Southern Sudan.

Tokarz also said each of the ten schools in the Oak Park school district will be raising money to help Mabouc fly to meet his family in Uganda and then check out the conditions in his homeland in Southern Sudan. (Donations can be made to the Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School Service Learning Club.)

Mabouc hopes to raise awareness of the situation in Southern Sudan. The people in his home village have farmlands to return to, as property rights are ancestral-based and very important to the people of his region, but right now they lack the equipment and tools to work the land, leaving them financially unable to leave refugee camps and move back home.

“What I can really emphasize is to support the programs and to get to know the situation,” said Mabouc. “Any sort of small help can make a big difference. Getting a hoe or a rake to clear your land is a big deal and can save lives. People don’t have money to buy these things.”

In addition to the Exchange of Hope program, Mabouc is helping to develop a non-profit group called “Tools of Hope” to help families such as his be able to return to their homes and farm their land. He said he hopes Tools of Hope’s website will be live soon.

“He’s such a peaceful person,” Tokarz said of Mabouc. “He’s always just happy that he has another day. He’s not living with any kind of wealth. He’s dying to get back there and see his family and help Southern Sudan.”

For now Mabouc works hard at his new job, while dedicating what time he has to helping his native village. For the most part, he is too busy to dwell on the journey that brought him to Chicago, but he does recognize the struggles he has endured and survived.

“It’s tough, but I’m still alive. That’s the most important part.”

See also: Lost Boys of Sudan in Chicago, Exchange of Hope: Southern Sudan

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“It’s my job to clean up our water and keep pollution out of Lake Michigan,” says MWRD president Terrence O’Brien in the first TV ad of his campaign for County Board president (watch it on youtube). “It’s time to clean up Cook County.”

In fact, as Newstips reported last April, under O’Brien the MWRD (Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago) has resisted calls to disinfect wastewater for nearly a decade. In a letter to the Tribune last February, O’Brien claimed it would cost $2 billion; Newstips reported the US EPA’s estimate that it would cost at most $650 million, and perhaps as little as $250 million, over 20 years.

“Environmental groups believe MWRD is exaggerating the cost of disinfection as part of a strategy of delaying action,” we wrote, citing John Quail of Friends of the Chicago River.

Ann Alexander of the Natural Resources Defense Council pointed out that MWRD is spending millions of dollars on lawyers and experts in its effort to prevent the Illinois Pollution Control Board from implementing a recommendation by the Illinois EPA (endorsed by the city) to require MWRD to disinfect.

As far as “keeping pollution out of Lake Michigan,” here’s what we reported in August of 2003:

“During ‘extreme storm events,’ locks are opened and river system water is released into Lake Michigan. ‘There is undoubtedly bacteria from the waterways system getting into the lake,’ said [Laurel] O’Sullivan [of the Lake Michigan Federation].

“‘The overall quality of the water sent out to the lake would be much higher if they disinfected.’”

UPDATE: Last year we reported a ruling was expected by the end of the year. Alexander now says she has no idea when a ruling will occur, noting this “has set the record for the length of a rulemaking proceeding.”

The delay results from MWRD’s effort “to contest the obvious,” she said.

“They’ve presented multiple purported experts before the pollution control board to defend the proposition that pathogens in the water aren’t really bad for you.” That’s forced NRDC to spend time and resources “to prove that in fact they are.”

It’s a remarkable story that to date has gone virtually untold. Will O’Brien’s candidacy give it any currency?

Uncommon Ground’s eatery at 1401 W. Devon is the first restaurant in the country to have a certified organic rooftop farm.

Helen Cameron, owner of Uncommon Ground, said the Midwest Organic Services Association (MOSA) officially certified the farm in October 2008.

“Everything is done organically. All the imports are organic, and we are very dedicated to that process because I do not want to consume any herbicides, pesticides… anything I bring into the restaurant that is really not right,” said Cameron, as she ordered a cup of squash soup.

Cameron said the goal at the restaurant is to serve food “when it is at its peak, fresh and when it hasn’t been transported 2,000 miles.”

Cameron said she also wants to offer great hospitality, warmth, good food, good drinks, music and art.

“It all started 19 years ago at Clark and Grace in a tiny little 800-square-foot spot with me and my husband Michael,” said Cameron.

Cameron said she has always appreciated good food and that’s what pushed her into becoming a chef. For 15 years, she worked in the kitchen and helped to grow Uncommon Ground at Clark and Grace.

When the Camerons decided to open a second restaurant, they wanted to be able to own the building.

“When we found this place, it could not have been more ideal for what we were hoping to do here. It actually added so [many] more possibilities because we had this parking lot, and then we realized we had the roof,” said Cameron. “It was pretty much the idea of a farm right from the beginning.” The option of people dining on the roof was never seriously considered, she said, as the focus all along was “to really produce food.”

Cameron said she and her husband are using the rooftop farm as a testing ground to figure out the best way to produce food on a rooftop.

“We designed it, got help from the organic gardener, and had to have a structural engineer. It took some major doing to get it set up because there is a lot of weight up there, and it is very important to make sure that your structure can handle that type of weight,” Cameron said as she dipped the bread into her soup.

She explained that she fortified all the building’s bearing walls with big cement footers and exchanged the wood bearing beams with steel I-beams.

“Our entire farm is floating above the roof, and it is supported by steel,” said Cameron.

The deck is 2,500 square feet.

“The growing space is just under 700 square feet, which comes to about .015 acres,” said Cameron.

Cameron said the farm is trying to use heirloom varieties of vegetables, because it is important to preserve bio-diversity.

“I fully expect things to be an experiment for at least five years before we can settle in and really develop a farming pattern that works for us,” said Cameron.

Natalie Pfister has been the farm director at Uncommon Ground since September 2008.

“We grow lots of veggies and herbs. Mostly tomatoes, a lot of heirloom varieties, including Zapotec Pleated, Japanese Black Trifle and Prize of the Trails,” said Pfister.

The farm also grows cucumbers, squash, eggplant, lettuces, onions, garlic, corn, beans, peas, radishes, carrots, beets, basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, oregano, lemon balm and a lot of edible flowers.

“Our menu changes every week, either a day or night menu. The changes that we make reflect the season and what is available to us as locally as we can get it. So, basically we gear the menu toward what is available nearby,” said Cameron.

Customer Gannon Reedy, a junior at Columbia College Chicago, has nothing but good things to say about Uncommon Ground.

“I have been there three or four times, and the few things that I have had there were pretty killer,” said Reedy. “It’s quite expensive, but definitely worth the extra bucks. You get what you pay for.”

“The good food element, and buying food that has been raised sustainably or organically, is really important to me as a chef because the flavor is better, and the nutrition is better,” said Cameron, as she smiled at a mother and her young son who were seated by the fireplace.

“I think that when you are born, you are a natural gardener. We designed the farm thinking a lot of kids would be up there. It is very user friendly space, so it’s accessible to kids and also very easy for us to move around in there and work in there as well,” said Cameron.

According to its website, Uncommon Ground teaches urban agriculture classes to nearby Waldorf School’s third graders. In addition, the business has a weekly farmers market, hosts green room sessions and once a month holds an eco-mixer hosted by local green organizations to develop opportunities for networking and growing a sustainable community.

“Helen and Mike started to do green room sessions to bring community members together with local organizations,” said Pfister.

Last year Uncommon Ground began to use themes during the green room sessions, including alternative transportation, urban agriculture, kids green and gardening, and sponsored events by community partners,” said Pfister. The sessions are offered every second Thursday of the month.

“The market is a real big community connector,” said Cameron.

Brittany Eisner has been the manager of Uncommon Ground for six months.

“We have a lot going on here. We are more than just food. We try to get the community involved, especially in the neighborhood,” said Eisner.

Cameron is working for her certification from the Green Restaurant Association (GRA).

Kate McGovern of the Green Restaurant Association, based in Boston, said that the association prides itself on having the world’s largest database of green solutions for the restaurant industry.

“We have a point system that we work with. All of our standards are online, so it is very transparent, and that way when the restaurants come on board they know exactly what we look at,” said McGovern.

There are seven different environmental categories: Sustainable Food, Waste Reduction and Recycling, Water Efficiency, Sustainable Furnishings and Building Materials, Energy, Disposables, and Chemical and Pollution Reduction.

Cameron said there are some areas her restaurant really excels at and others that they need to take a closer look at.

“We recycle everything, and that’s a big deal. We also have thermal solar panels, which heat our water,” said Cameron. “What’s great about doing this is that it’s really providing me an education.”

Cameron also said that art and music are a big part of what they do.

Not only does Uncommon Ground have daily live music, it also has artwork that can be purchased.

“It is a community that I really support, and it is important that art stays in our world,” said Cameron.

One of her goals is to help others learn to do rooftop farming and grow food in the city. Cameron said she wants to “pass it along and be open to helping other people do what we are doing.”

Four mornings a week Yasmin winds her way down Whipple Ave. to the Albany Park Community Center. The second floor classroom is a global village of 26 students from 13 countries. Class starts promptly at 8:30 a.m. The diverse tongues quiet down and the teacher steps from behind her desk to give the class its first assignment. “Talk about the time that you moved.”

Yasmin grips a yellow pencil and spreads her red Nikes wide across the floor. She drags her desk across the blue and gray tiles to sit by a classmate, a polite refugee from Afghanistan. The wall a few feet away is lined with the English alphabet. K stands for King, a reminder of the preacher who once spoke in Africa about justice’s triumph. Sunlight beams in from a window overlooking Kimball Ave.

Yasmin’s first memories are of Kakuma, a refugee camp in northwest Kenya. It’s about 600 miles west of the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Yasmin says the camp was violent.

Roaming gangs and ripping bullets might rule the night. “I don’t remember Mogadishu. I remember Kakuma,” Yasmin says.

Warring Clans ruled the Somali capital. “Mogadishu all of the time fighting. No peace,” Yasmin said. The past is heartbreaking, it’s “sad,” she added.

Yasmin came to the United States on April 5, 2007 at age 21. Four days later she enrolled in English class.

One journey ends another begins

When a voyaging refugee arrives in Illinois, they’ve prevailed through humankind’s darkest nights. For Yasmin, and more than 1,400 other Somalis, the land of Lincoln offers safe harbor from the storms of famine and violence.

As Yasmin prepares for the Midwestern winter, turmoil persists in east Africa. A September report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says 530,000 Somalis are refugees, and another 1.5 million have been displaced from their homes. Public resources in the U.S. might be unimaginable to hundreds of thousand of African refugees, but Yasmin’s life will forever be linked to them, and to Somalia’s history that has forced millions to flee their homes.

Challenges

As coffee brews and break time approaches, teacher Lindsay Crammond paces between conversation groups. Yasmin understands how important education is, Crammond says. Yasmin’s life is a perseverance lesson. “This person spent 13 years in a refugee camp, you don’t learn job skills there. You learn life skills,” adds Crammond.

While the classroom is warm and welcoming, the U.S. economy is not. Like so many who have made it to the United States, Yasmin remains challenged by economic insecurity.

Yasmin met her husband in Africa, and they came to Chicago together. For Yasmin finding employment was challenging in her new country. “I looked for a job everywhere,” she said. Her husband found work pushing wheelchairs at O’Hare Airport. Trouble came when he lost his job.

The two decided to move. At one point she was in Minnesota looking for a job while he pursued meatpacking work in Nebraska. They talked on the phone but longed for each other. When Yasmin landed a part-time janitor’s job they reunited. “When I got this job I rent apartment so I told him to come back Chicago, and he come back, and he’s here right now,” she said.

“I am cleaning the offices,” said Yasmin, who has balanced work with school. She had to miss class once for work. Like a trustworthy friend, she came by class to let Crammond know the reason for her absence.

Many of her co-workers are Mexicans; she likes them, but wants more opportunities. She cooks at her apartment and finds sanctuary in study. “I want to write complete sentences,” she says.

She walks confidently through the school, wearing a brightly colored hijab, the traditional Muslim headdress. Occasionally she smiles, and in that expression a united and peaceful Somalia seems possible. “I think I will be a good writer; I think I will be able to speak English very good,” added Yasmin.

Fractured Somalia

David Shinn, former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia, said Somalia had no central government. He said the country, located 200 miles south of Yemen, had a U.N.-backed temporary government controlling a tiny part of Mogadishu. Two other militant Islamic groups control a larger part of the country, he said.

Scant media attention makes it difficult to understand what is happening in the country. “The problem, of course, is it’s very difficult to get into Somalia right now,” says Shinn, an associate professor of international affairs at George Washington University.

Shinn said relief agencies consider Somalia the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis.

He said the U.S. greatly reduced its humanitarian assistance after 18 soldiers were killed in October 1993. The “Blackhawk Down” incident led Western governments to shift troops and resources away from Somalia.

War, drought and exile continued. Attention shifted back after 9/11, and particularly since the anti-western Islamic Courts Union came to power in 2006. A recent food shortage might have made the inhumane living conditions into the grossly inhumane.

Hope for peace

Each new refugee brings personal sadness and heartache to the U.S. But, they may find hope, just as Yasmin did when her anchor dropped in a Chicago English class.

“When I come here I didn’t speak English well. But now I’m better. I hope I will be better than this,” said Mohamed.

The refugee who now has friends near the shores of Lake Michigan said, “I would like to go back someday and see my people.”

She hopes to see her homeland.

“If it’s peaceful.”

MORE ON THE BROADER REFUGEE EXPERIENCE

What it means to be a refugee

By Christopher Pratt

Pirates and warlords don’t rule in the U.S. but money matters in a big way. One refugee challenge is paying rent with a relatively meager sum they typically get from the government. “Refugee cash assistance is $243. And that refugee is facing $550 to $650 rent,” said Ed Silverman, the state’s refugee coordinator.

Last year the non-profit community in Illinois raised $1 million to ensure adequate services for refugees, said Silverman. Funding refugee resettlement is a constant challenge, but particularly in this recession, he added. Support from organizations like World Relief is important to the resettlement process, and their staff work is critical.

Silverman said more than 50,000 African refugees live in Illinois.

Most U.S. refugees depend on public aid to resettle. The Refugee Act of 1980 directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to work with non-profits and states to resettle refugees — people that the U.N. says have well-founded fears of persecution in their homeland.

Silverman began working in refugee assistance more than 30 years ago. “We are in a global community. People have a right to earn a living and provide adequate education for their children,” said Silverman.

The 1980 law was one of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s legislative accomplishments, added Silverman. Kennedy once said the country had a humanitarian- and a foreign policy-interest in welcoming refugees. In 1981 over 150,000 refugees resettled in the U.S. By 2006 it was just 42,000. The refugee law allowed the president to determine, on an annual basis, how many refugees could immigrate, and left Congress to decide how to fund the program. In recent years the refugee ceiling rose but funding decreased.

Frandsen was the winner of Brita’s Filter For Good green room contest, a national competition rewarding the college student with the greenest apartment with two tickets to Sundance.

“I developed my greenness on my own,” Frandsen said. The contest didn’t motivate this lifestyle change, it was instead a way for her to showcase her green lifestyle already in progress. “Usually it saves me money, and it’s just a matter of changing your routine.”

Frandsen has been living totally green since moving into her own apartment this year. She admitted that in the past having roommates hindered her from living in a totally environmentally friendly way, but now it is all simply habit. Her green lifestyle choices range from unplugging appliances to not flushing the toilet to getting rid of food scraps in worm composts and, of course, using a Brita water filter.

Her studio apartment lends a hand to her greenness by providing floor to ceiling windows which let in light throughout the day, even on cloudy days, eliminating the need to use electricity for light throughout the morning and afternoon. The furniture, found through dumpster diving, are colorful additions to the room, with a Japanese room divider and a bamboo plant over 3 feet tall adding artistic flair to the apartment. A drying rack used in place of a drier and two worm compost bins are reminders of the room’s environmentally friendly-nature.

“Things to me that I don’t even think about my friends are like, ‘how can you do that?’” Frandsen said. Once she discovered the advertisement for the contest on the sidebar of the Web site Pandora Radio, all her friends encouraged her to enter, knowing she already lived that way.

“Most of all we wanted to know what college students are doing because we know they are some of the leaders in making small changes,” said Lisa Ptak, the public relations representative for Brita, a company that promotes the use of their filtered water in reusable bottles instead of forcing customers to buy plastic water bottles. She said the main purpose of the contest was to reward students who are already engaging in a green lifestyle. Brita recently has been giving out $50,000 worth of eco-grants to further reward green college students.

“When Britt told me about the contest we rearranged her room, and I helped take over 50 pictures,” said Erica Ravi, Frandsen’s girlfriend and her plus-one for the trip to Sundance.

Entering the contest required a photo showcasing the green qualities of the room, as well as the creative decor, and a 100-word essay describing the actions taken towards a greener apartment. Once entered, 10 finalists were chosen and the overall winner was based on a voting process that took place on Filter For Good’s Facebook page.

According to Frandsen, she was one of the last to enter in order to ensure everything about her entry was perfect. The first day of the six day contest she was in second place until 7 p.m., and after that she never dropped down from first place. However, she never felt fully confident she had won until it was officially announced.

“There was never a vote tally so I never knew how close it was,” Frandsen said. “On Saturday night [when voting closed] it was like, ‘We won! Maybe…’”

The following Tuesday Frandsen got a confirmation call that she had won the trip as well as a Flip video camera and a Brita prize package, including a Brita filter, a faucet mount and five Nalgene bottles. She was then debriefed on her trip to Sundance and certain responsibilities she would have once there as contest winner.

“Brittany will be doing updates from Sundance with her Flip cam, and the footage will be shared on the Filter For Good Web site and the Facebook page,” Ptak said.

“I think [Frandsen] deserved it, but I think she could have tried to be more green,” said Daniel Burg, a student from Idaho who got fifth place in the contest. “I think it’s cool to bike everywhere and not use water bottles, but you need to have more.”

Malia Griggs, 20, a student from Columbia, S.C. and the third place contestant, wishes Frandsen the best of luck on her trip to Sundance and doesn’t feel upset that Frandsen beat her. Unlike Burg, she felt Frandsen was going above and beyond with some of her green choices.

“I was really impressed by the stuff people were doing,” Griggs said. “I was glad to know there were other people who were interested in the environment.”

The schedule of films playing at Sundance was recently posted, and Frandsen will be picking out films as part of her preparation for the trip, hoping to see two a day for the four days she is there. Once in Utah, Frandsen will have access to all things Brita, including the Brita Green Room where the filmmakers and stars will wait to be interviewed for the Sundance Channel.

“Ideally, I want to finish my Web site and hand out business cards for it there,” Frandsen said, taking advantage of the fact that she will be a film student at a major film festival.

Frandsen is grateful that Brita acknowledged her green living and encourages others to do the same.

“It’s pretty simple and you can do as much as you want to,” Frandsen said. “It’s as simple as just adding the step of unplugging the computer after turning it off.”

The Sundance Film Festival will take place from Jan. 21-31 and Frandsen’s videos from Brita’s Green Room and the streets of Park City will be on Brita’s Filter For Good Web site at www.filterforgood.com.

Okanovic, now 21, is a University of Illinois at Chicago student studying psychology. Her experiences in Bosnia and beyond have shaped her in ways many students her age could not imagine.

“When the soldiers came, we went into my friend’s basement,” she said.  “I remember hearing a bunch of shots. My mom took my hand and said, ‘if someone approaches you just pretend you are really scared. Do not say a word.’ This is how my mom passed us off as the other side.”

Okanovic was born in 1988 and grew up in Velika Kladusa, a town in Bosnia by Croatia, only a few years before the Serbian and Bosnian war broke out in 1991.

According to her, the Serbian government’s goal was to keep Yugoslavia together in one country. However, the individual countries wanted out. Slovenia was the first country to declare independence followed by Croatia. Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia were the only countries left.

“Serbia was already mad that these countries broke off,” she said. “It is really hard to distinguish who is Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian because we lived in one country. The only way they could differentiate between the three was through religion. If you were Catholic you were considered Croatian, or if you were Orthodox Christian you were Serbian. If you were Muslim you were Bosnian.”

Tensions only escalated, however, when Bosnia attempted its break from Serbia.

“Serbia said, ‘If they don’t want to be with us why don’t we just wipe them all out’,” she said. “That’s when they did a whole genocide against Muslims and Catholics.”

Velika Kladusa went untouched while the war intensified, but residents knew it would not be long before troops made their way in.

“We knew Serbia was going to come in and kill us,” she said. “Our leader said, ‘Don’t touch my people, we’re going to help you in return.’ My town was known for betraying its own country because of that.”

This deal stated people from Velika Kladusa would join the Serbian forces and fight against Bosnia, and in return Serbia would not touch them.

When the larger war with Serbia ended, the rest of Bosnia declared a mini-war on her home town, and this is when her war experience truly began.

At the age of five, she remembers staying at a friend’s house where they heard troops were approaching to attack the city.

“There was a whole fleet of people running toward Croatia,” she said. “I remember holding onto my mom’s hand while all around us were grenades and gun fire.”

While running toward the refugee camp, she saw a man on a white horse who was shot through the chest and collapsed onto the ground.

“I was five at the time,” Okanovic said. “I didn’t have the mental capacity to comprehend the danger of it.”

She and her mother, Mina Okanovic, arrived safely to the refugee camp, which she described as a row of chicken coops, and stayed there while her father, Esad Okanovic, and uncle, Asko Okanovic, fought in the war. The conditions in the camp were unsanitary and overcrowded.

“All these people were piled in there,” she said. “There was a forest where everyone used the bathroom, and when you changed someone had to hold a blanket in front of you.”

After four months, the refugees heard Velika Kladusa was safe, so Naida Okanovic and her mother went back to their unrecognizable neighborhood.

“Houses were blown up, windows were shattered, and gunshot holes were in every building,” she said. “It was a complete disaster.”

They were far from safe, however, because the troops came back to Velika Kladusa. She said the town started running toward Croatia again, but her mother stopped at the border and told her she was not going to run away from home any more. Mina Okanovic was able to pass them off to soldiers as the other side by bluffing names.

“Could you imagine that,” Naida Okanovic said. “A woman in a country where women are seen as powerless taking her daughter and walking through a burning town. That’s when I saw who my mom truly was.”

Mina Okanovic said this was one of the scariest moments of her life.

“Sometimes you have to do certain things no matter how scary they are in order to survive,” she said. “I kept thinking I needed to keep a brave face on.”

Asko Okanovic on the other hand, who stayed at the refugee camp, was given a visa to come to America and eventually sent application papers to the Okanovics.

They came to America in June 1996 and stayed near Kenmore and Thorndale on Chicago’s North Side.  They received food stamps and welfare for the first three months and were also enrolled in English speaking classes.

“It was hard [moving] because Bosnia was all I ever knew,” Esad Okanovic said. “I had to leave behind the soil of my ancestors to come to a different country where I would forever be a foreigner.”

The most memorable part of immigrating for Naida Okanovic was when she started school, which would foreshadow her future academic successes.

“I didn’t know a word of English,” she said. “On the first day the teacher handed out a worksheet with math problems. Because I was forced to be ahead by my mom because she wasn’t sure when schools would be open, I was the first to finish and to get a 100 percent. That’s how I fell in love with math.”

When she was in fourth grade she met her current best friend Amanda Pilipovic, 21, a student at Northeastern Illinois University, who previously lived 10 minutes outside Velika Kladusa.

“If we stayed in Bosnia we would have gone to the same high school,” Pilipovic said. “She came here before me, so she knew English better, and she would help me out.”

Like the Okanovics and other Bosnian families, education was a big factor for moving to America Pilipovic said.

“My parents are all about school,” Pilipovic said. “If you don’t finish school you’re going to work at McDonalds. That’s what I hear every day. It’s a guilt thing. We came all this way just for you, so don’t let us down.”

In September, Henry Ford Power House Charter High School opened its doors.

Power House High is located inside of the Charles H. Shaw Technology and Learning Center. The public charter school is the result of a $40 million rehabilitation and the adaptive reuse of the Sears power plant. The project was funded by tax credits for historic buildings and new market tax credits, according to Kristen Dean, executive director of the Homan Square Community Center Foundation, which owns the building.

“Our school is part of a historical site,” said Power House principal Kophyn Alexander. “We are a green school, one of the few in the city of Chicago.”

Throughout the school building, the team of architects implemented energy-saving features including geothermal walls and retrofitted historic windows. The school also includes a planted “green” roof, low-flow toilets, solar-powered sinks and energy-efficient skylights.

“Power House High is designed to be a LEED Gold, highly energy efficient building,” said Dean. The foundation partnered with the Henry Ford Learning Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating public schools in public spaces. Their goal was to design an exemplary school that prepares students for college and careers.

The school is home to 260 freshmen and sophomores, 30 more than originally planned, according to Alexander. The plan is to add another grade each year until Power House High is a four-year institution. The school is open to all Chicago students, selected by lottery if there are more applicants than seats. Applications for freshmen, sophomores and juniors for the 2010-2011 year are now available in the office.

“I think that my school is special because it used to be a part of a very important industry,” said Power House sophomore Regan Taylor. “Sears is still around but I know it was even popular when my parents were my age.”

The project began in January 2007. The process of renovating a 100 year-old power generating station into a contemporary, LEED-certified high school had its difficulties. However, the developers were “undaunted,” according to the project website.

Power House High’s design was based on the award-winning Henry Ford Learning Institute located in Dearborn, Mich., a national cultural attraction founded in 1997. Now, a Chicago school shares the same mission to educate students academically and prepare them for the global community of the 21st century.

“It was a complex process to see what use that type of building could serve to the North Lawndale community,” said Rose Grayson, an associate at FARR Associates, the principal designers of the project.

The building was set up for every room to tell a different story. The Great Hall, an area for both students and other members of the community, still houses the original 40-ton gantry crane and rail system from the original power house.

A project that started off as a mission to put an empty building to use turned into a recovery of a place that now contributes to North Lawndale’s youth and their futures.

“Power House High School is truly a power in the community,” said Alexander. “It provides collaboration with teachers, students and the community. It’s a place where everyone can benefit.”

Drums pounded and trumpets blared, as signs emblazoned with messages such as “No Coal” and “My Air Is Not For Sale” were passed among protesters who gathered during a chilly morning at Jackson and Adams streets.

Mobilization for Climate Justice, the organizer of the event, describes itself as a “network of organizations joined together to build a North American climate justice movement,” according to its website. The protesters marched about a half mile around the Loop, handing out tickets to businesses they say are responsible for climate change.

Hooshi Daragahi, 73, of the Loop, said, “The military is the greatest pollutant of the earth. Coal is a very dangerous pollutant. [The United States] has to invest in developing green energy [to] finance and help the smaller countries and poorer countries develop their own green energy.”

Protesters rallied against multinational companies they called “climate criminals,” including JP Morgan Chase, Midwest Generation, the Chicago Climate Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. The Chicago Climate Exchange is the first, and biggest, carbon trading institute in North America.

Photo by Jennice Dominguez

Seth Jensen, 31, of Madison, Wis., said he was hopeful that protests like this one would enact global policy change. “Those that have the purse strings…it’s going to take the willingness to make that investment,” he said.

“On a grassroots level it’s going to take all of us. For me that’s salvaging material that otherwise is going to waste like compost to grow food. [This rally] is a vital step,” Jensen said.

Jensen noted that the march marked the 10^th anniversary of the anti-globalization rally in Seattle against the World Trade Organization in 1999. The rally was also organized to draw media coverage to the climate summit meeting in Copenhagen this week.

“We’d be living in such a different world if the WTO had become what it was meant to be,” Jensen said.

Jessy Johnson, 19, is a student at Loyola University. She said she felt compelled to come because the world needs “a whole shift of consciousness.”

“People need to start realizing what we do has an effect on the environment,” Johnson said. “Money can’t just fix everything.”

A member of Loyola’s Student Environmental Alliance, Johnson added, “I think good things have been done when people come together.”

Joe Dick, 56, a sports photographer from Wheaton, darted in and out of the crowd, snapping pictures of the signs and the organizers.

“I have two sons coming up and they need a decent world to live in,” Dick said. “Coal is the dirtiest energy we have. We have other options, so why don’t we use them? Wind, geothermal, solar… clean coal? No, I think [clean coal] is an oxymoron.”

Dick, a member of the international environmental group Greenpeace, said he receives no compensation for his photography. He documents organizations like this one because he sympathizes with their efforts.

“I use the pictures just to promote our cause,” he said. “That’s all I need.”

A Chicago Climate Exchange representative refused to comment on the rally when contacted by phone Monday.

The academy is in its second school year this fall, with 50 children each in kindergarten and first and second grades.

Events on tap at the school in October and November offer a glimpse of what it means to develop young students as “global citizens.” On Oct. 20, teachers held an event to share their recent experiences in Tanzania as part of a United Nations-sponsored international organic gardening program. In November, the school will host a solar panel installation celebration, part of a larger project to power much of the building by the sun.

Ippel’s work caught the eye of the Obama administration, which invited her to visit Sept. 22-24 to tour the White House organic garden, meet with U.S. Department of Agriculture officials and brainstorm with staff at Sidwell Friends, the school attended by the president’s daughters.

Ippel is thrilled with how her students and colleagues in the education field have responded to her ideas, which include yoga and organic food as a regular part of the school day. But being different and wanting change isn’t always the easiest thing.

“We are very different from other schools,” said Ippel. “It takes a lot of energy to create change, and we are very passionate about the school, but it is very hard when you are trying to be innovative.”

She said it was originally very difficult to convince people to support the International Baccalaureate curriculum for students in Archer Heights, on the Southwest Side of Chicago just north of Midway Airport. Most of the school’s students come from the surrounding neighborhood of nearly 13,000 people, about 53 percent white and about 43 percent Hispanic (as of 2000). The area is also known as the center of Polish culture and the home of the Polish Highlanders Alliance of North America.

The school works hard to involve parents and the community. The PTA is planning an Organic Planet and Earth Day for next spring in which the community and school students and staff will come together to pick and enjoy food from the garden.

“We are working with a neighborhood that just has phenomenal parents and is a great community,” said Ippel.

Audrey Becerril, whose daughter Normandy is in kindergarten, attends her daughter’s class every Wednesday, taking part in the yoga herself.

“She likes it,” said Becerril. “It’s good for her and it is good for me.”

Anyone can apply to attend AGC by filling out an application, getting a number and waiting for the lottery. Once a student is accepted through the lottery, all their siblings are also automatically accepted.

The Chicago Public Schools funds AGC at the same per-pupil level as other schools. The school must raise funds for all its extra projects and programs, including field trips, yoga, organic gardening and world languages. Organic breakfasts and lunches made on site are part of every school day.

“At the beginning it was hard to get the kids to buy into the healthy foods,” said kindergarten teacher and school co-founder Meredith Polley. “A lot of them never had some of the food like the Swedish meatballs or salads with apples and walnuts in it.”

Students learn about the world by communicating with students in other countries over email and Skype and through hands-on lessons about their teachers’ travels. When Ippel went to Washington, D.C., she kept in touch with students and did a slideshow when she returned home.

“I met with Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan at the USDA to share with her the exciting work that AGC is doing, with regards to organic school meals and the environmental sustainability curriculum integration,” said Ippel. “I also had the opportunity to visit the White House organic gardens, kitchen, composting and honey bees with (Chicago) Chef Sam Kass, and had the opportunity to learn more about the inspiring work within the Obama administration to support local food systems.”

Day in and day out, a lot of time and energy goes into making the kids “global citizens” and seeing that they become better all-around people, not just students, according to Ippel.

“Everything we do starts with understanding ourselves and our community,” said Ippel. “We want to connect the kids globally.”

Because of one lecture at GreenTown, you may see changes to your neighborhood’s recycling program, or even the start of composting sponsored by your local government. City engineers from Chicago and at least seven suburbs attended a lecture by the man behind Toronto’s program for diverting refuse from landfills. GreenTown planners consider it one of the best in the world.

Geoff Rathbone, General Manager of Solid Waste Management with the City of Toronto, told the room of waste professionals and curious people that Toronto’s single-family homes and apartments now divert 65 percent of their household waste from landfills.

By comparison, Chicago diverts about 12 percent of its waste—via actions like recycling, reuse and composting—according to representatives of the Chicago Climate Action Plan. Enacted by city government a year ago, the plan’s goal is to reduce the city’s contribution to global climate change and brace for its impacts. It hopes to divert 90 percent of Chicago’s waste from landfills by 2020.

Lofty goals are achievable, Rathbone said, because his city’s residents started diverting that much waste “almost overnight.”

How did the word spread so quickly in Toronto? The city hired about 40 students to pair up and knock on doors. The students visited all 500,000 residential units in the city in a couple months’ time, and the rest is history.

The city’s composting operation is done in several stages, Rathbone said, and some steps have to be done outside the city because of the strong smell they release.

“Eighty percent of our efforts are directed at odor management,” Rathbone said.

But because the finished compost can be sold to generate additional revenue for the city, the operation only costs about $45 per household per year. The city had been spending $75 per household per year to put the same material—food and yard waste—into a landfill.

Toronto is on the verge of tapping even greater potential from its compost.

Rathbone said tests have shown that if the natural gas released during the composting process were put to use, it could power the entire fleet of more than 300 waste removal trucks. The plan may soon be implemented, he said.

In a question-and-answer session following the lecture, one woman said she had worked at a Chicago restaurant and witnessed recyclable waste continually being thrown in the garbage.

“The majority of restaurants and bars in Chicago do not recycle at all,” she said. “It’s frustrating.”

Rathbone appeared to sympathize, saying that restaurants under 5,000 square feet are eligible for the Toronto’s free recycling program.

The GreenTown conference was hosted by Columbia College Chicago as an outgrowth of its campus-wide Critical Encounters theme last year, entitled Human / Nature.

—

Toronto’s three big secrets to a successful waste-diversion program:

• Creating logical economic incentives, such as charging people by the volume of garbage they can throw away and providing composting and recycling removal for free.

• Providing free bins to families who subscribe to the city’s waste diversion/garbage removal service. (A set of bins cost the city $25, while a garbage subscription is $200-$400 a year, depending on the size of garbage removal requested.)

• Allowing people to use regular plastic shopping bags as liners for compost bins.

• Limiting garbage pickup to every other week. (Compost is picked up weekly.)

-Credit: Geoff Rathbone, Solid Waste Management Services, City of Toronto

• Friday October 16 at 7 p.m.
• School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• Columbus Auditorium
• 280 S. Columbus Dr.

The present moment is pivotal on two levels: in the aftermath of its June presidential election, Iran has seen the largest political upheaval in the three decades since the revolution; and just last week the U.S. and Iran engaged in breakthrough discussions on Iran’s nuclear program. Are these two historic developments related? How should the peace movement make sense of them? Are antiwar activists in the U.S. tuned into what the democratic movement in Iran is thinking and saying about the current situation?

This event is sponsored by:

8th Day Center for Justice | American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – Great Lakes Region | Buddhist Peace Fellowship (Chicago Chapter) | Chicagoans Against War & Injustice (CAWI) | F Newsmagazine | Fellowship of Reconciliation – Chicago Chapter |  In These Times | Logan Square Neighbors for Justice and Peace | Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture | Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) | National Iranian American Council (NIAC) | No War on Iran Coalition | SAIC Liberal Arts Department | SAIC Student Activists | North Shore Coalition for Peace, Justice and the Environment | North Suburban Peace Initiative (NSPI) | Truthout | Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Time Magazine on Bhopal disaster

Drinking from the lakes might not be such a good idea. Twenty-five years ago, a Union Carbide (UCC) plant leaked deadly poison gas into the night air that killed thousands of people and animals in Bhopal and its neighboring areas. Thousands of other people who lived through the worst industrial accident in history still suffer from its effects.

Twenty-five years later, the second generation of children born in the area suffer birth defects. Since then, Bhopal has been a center of protests and campaigns which have been joined by many people from across the globe. The Bhopal chemical plant was operated by UCC and an Indian subsidiary, UCIL. UCC is now owned by Dow Chemical Co. “Media reports indicate some additional clean-up activities have been started, halted and then resumed at various times by the state in the intervening years,” according to Tomm F. Sprick, Director of the UCC Information Center. There have been allegations of corruption and profiteering in India regarding the clean-up, and there is continuing litigation around the site and clean-up.

On July 13, 20 Bhopal activists, including Sathyu Sarangi, managing trustee of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, showed up at Dow headquarters near London, to share their new “product” with Dow executives, only to find the executives had fled.

The product is bottled water from Bhopal. The attractive, yet toxic product, was developed by the Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Yes Men, a notorious couple of social activists who practice “identity correction.”  Pro-bono help came from the top London creative design firm of Kennedy Monk.  The effort highlights Dow’s continued refusal to take responsibility for the disaster according to the protesters.

Toxic water from Bhopal, bottled on the 25th anniversary of the worst industrial disaster in history.

B’eau-Pal’s label reads: “The unique qualities of our water come from 25 years of slow-leaching toxins at the site of the world’s largest industrial accident. To this day, Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) has refused to clean up, and whole new generations have been poisoned.”

For more information, visit bhopal.org.

Union Carbide and Dow have posted statements, but controversy about the clean-up remains. Dow received a letter from 27 US lawmakers including  Sen. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). The group endorses the International Campaign for Justice and its demands that Dow meet its civil and criminal liabilities in Bhopal.

The letter states that “Dow Chemical bears legal responsibility for the actions and inactions of the operators of the Bhopal factory. Beginning in 1967, Union Carbide dumped thousands of tons of toxic chemicals in and around its Bhopal factory. A host of international organizations and independent investigators have concluded that Union Carbide was responsible for inadequate technology, double standards in safety and emergency-preparedness, and reckless cost-cutting of security systems at the plant.”

Mr. Sprick, spokesman for UCC, responding to our e-mail regarding the Bhopal industrial accident, the legislative letter, and the July 13th protest, stated that “numerous unsubstantiated claims and comments being made by some individuals and organizations do nothing to improve the victims’ plight.”

In regard to the “polluter pays” issue, he stated that “The law applies to those who owned and operated plant sites. The Bhopal site was owned and operated by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), a separate, publicly traded Indian Company. With the approval of the Supreme Court, Union Carbide sold its interest in UCIL in 1994 and UCIL was renamed Eveready Industries India Limited — a company that continues to operate in India today and is the company that was involved in the tragedy.”

The Bhopal tragedy lead to widespread changes in how hazardous chemicals are manufactured in the U.S., India, and many other countries, as well as changes within the chemical industry regarding how it manufactured hazardous substances. UCC managed to avert a hostile take-over and sold many profitable units, divesting itself of all pesticide business in 1986. In November 1994, the Indian Supreme Court allowed an Indian company to buy the assets of the Bhopal plant, and UCC donated $20 million to a charitable trust, and put $54 million into construction of a new hospital and clinics.

In February 2001, UCC, formerly the third largest multinational U.S. chemical company was merged with Dow Chemical Co. in a deal worth 11.6 billion dollars.

Mr. Sprick asserted that “…with regard to Bhopal litigation in India, all the key people from Union Carbide India Limited — officers and those who actually ran the plant on a daily basis — have appeared to face charges, which were reduced to a misdemeanor status. Neither Union Carbide nor its officials are subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian court since they did not have any involvement in the operation of the plant. Therefore, it would be totally unfair to bring criminal charges against them.”

The Indian Supreme court initially quashed all future litigation against UCC and its employees but in 1991, following a change in government and the Supreme Court, the criminal case was reopened. the $470 million out-of-court settlement was upheld, and criminal charges were brought against UCC’s Warren M. Anderson and senior employees of UCIL. Following legal proceedings in India and the United States, the case in the United States was dropped from American courts, but a of 2002, court cases against Anderson and the UCIL officials are still being litigated in India, according to Themistocles D’Silva, in The Black Box of Bhopal.

Mr. Sprick added that “[W]ith regard to the protests, they are wholly misdirected and are inappropriate since, Dow never owned or operated the plant, which today is under the control of the Madhya Pradesh state government. Dow acquired the shares of Union Carbide Corporation more than 16 years after the tragedy, and 10 years after the $470 million settlement agreement.” Apparently the protesters see this differently.

Dow runs scared from water | The Yes Men.

Here is a documentary video on Bhopal with interviews of policemen, doctors, and victims of the gas leak.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lingering pain (news.bbc.co.uk)
• The Yes Men Fix The World (freshcreation.com)

Part Two: ChicagoTalks’ urban affairs series

May 27, 2009 – Seventeen years is the average amount of time it takes for an immigrant to legally come and live in the United States. For some, it’s 17 years too long.

Louis, who didn’t want his last name revealed because of an expired green card, came to the states 14 years ago with his brother Mark from Manila in the Philippines. When he arrived at O’Hare Airport, the first person to see him was his father.  Louis, then 17, hadn’t seen his father in ten years and didn’t know whether to shake his hand or hug him.

“We had been separated for so long and I didn’t know how to say hello to him,” Louis said. “It took us about a couple years to get to know who our father is.”

Louis, now 31, lived with his father while becoming acclimated to life in America. Louis’ mother stayed in the Philippines because his parents had briefly separated at the time. Today, both of his parents are once again together living in a Chicago suburb. He recalled that he and his father formed a better adult-to-adult relationship once he finished college at the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago.

Some families, like Louis and his brother, get the luxuries and joys of reuniting with their loved ones. But others may not be as fortunate. Many apply to become citizens. And yet many still wait.

“The 17 years to wait is just too long,” Louis said. “Distance with your family is tragic. These are lost years which, hopefully, you can get back once you are settled here.”

Illinois has the eighth highest illegal immigrant population in the country. The 2000 U.S. Census revealed there were nearly 30,000 Filipinos living in Chicago.

Many Filipinos come to the states as tourists, migrant workers and as students. But once their visas expire, it’s time to return home. Those who stay,  are here illegally. Many of them hide from the Immigration and Naturalization Services and become T.N.T., a Filipino term that means “in the hiding.”  According to Jerry Clarito, founder and executive director of the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE), over 280,000 undocumented Filipinos are living in the U.S. today.

The issue of immigration reform is one of the biggest obstacles facing many immigrants. Anna Guevarra, an assistant professor of sociology and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that now is the right time to push for reform legislation.

“We have a good administration but we really need to push for the Dream Act and get the students who are really committed but who don’t really have the path to do that,” she said. “There are a lot of undocumented Filipinos that are here to work, as are many immigrants. So if they are given the resources and the pathway to citizenship and permanent residency they can really do the work they want to do and contribute to our economy.”

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM) is legislation reintroduced in congress by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and others.  It would help children who were brought into this country as undocumented immigrants. The act would give these children every opportunity and right to a higher education. Students would also be given in-state tuition.

Leo, who did not want his real name used, immigrated to the states with his parents and his sister over three years ago. So far, they say they have lived good lives, have gone to school and made plenty of friends in the process. Leo’s sister Amanda, 21, finished nursing school and is currently working as a nurse on the North Side of Chicago. But Amanda could no longer be a dependent under her mother’s working visa once she turned 21. This also prevents her from renewing an Illinois Driver’s License.

Amanda, who also asked to have her name changed, could now face possible deportation because she is out of status. Right now her options are to go back to school on a student visa, get married or go back home to her native hometown Cebu, in the Philippines’ Visayas province.

Like Amanda, Leo could be facing possible deportation. At 19, Leo is still considered underage and a dependent covered by his mother’s working visa until it expires next year. As a student, Leo and his family didn’t want to apply for a student visa because tuition rates for international students are about six times higher than native students, he said.

“It’s so expensive to be an international student,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t want one. Also students with student visas have to go back home once they finish school. That’s not what I want to do. I love it here.”

Like his sister, Leo has limited ways of staying here. For him, it’s marriage, military or deportation. “I am willing to do anything and everything to stay here,” he said. “I love life here in Chicago. I love the people, the diversity.”

AFIRE executive director Clarito is the son of Filipino immigrants.  He recalled his own immigration experience.

“At that time, my father was already a U.S. citizen,” he said. “So I came here as a legal permanent resident until I became a U.S. citizen. So I know the experiences of people waiting from the Philippines to be connected with their family. That is one of the reasons we are fighting for a change in legislation because there is about 17 years of waiting for families to get together.”

Part of AFIRE’s mission is to build the capacity of Filipino Americans community to defend constructive social change through popular education, Clarito said.

AFIRE Chicago is about immigration and their goal is to work for the reform of the immigrant Filipino community. Many of the undocumented workers in the U.S. have been waiting for a long time. AFIRE Chicago aims to protect immigrant rights as working people.

Guevarra said that many Filipinos who do come to the states end up working in jobs for which they are overqualified. In other words, she believes that many Filipinos are underemployed.

“So many of them are being funneled into low wage jobs because that is the only opportunity being given to them,” Guevarra said. “And many of them are highly skilled professionals who are teachers, doctors and nurses.  However, because they are out of status they’re not able to tap into their skills.”

Circa-Pintig, a Filipino cultural theater group in Chicago has been highly involved in immigration rights among Filipino Americans in the community. Circa, which stands for Center for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts, gives immigrants the opportunity to be here according to membership director Levi Aliposa.

“We use the arts as a powerful tool reflecting the collective experiences, struggles and dreams of immigrant communities in America. Immigrants need to know how to feel safe so they can come out of the shadows.”

Louis, who is also a member of Circa-Pintig, said that the group only has a few American-born members. Most are first generation. The group has also put together a number of plays that dealt with immigration issues.

“There are a lot of stories within our own membership,” he said. “The immigration issue is something present with us.”

When discussing the views on the U.S. immigration issue, Clarito likens them to Matthew 15:40, a Bible parable about the sheep and the goats. The verse reads, ‘When I was thirsty, you gave me drink, when I was hungry, you fed me.’

“Jesus says, ‘whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me,’” Clarito said. “That is the connection of the parables in the Bible. We usually don’t think of the undocumented or the people who are oppressed. Jesus says that you have to do something for them.”

“We need to show the immigrants who come here to not be afraid,” said Clarito. “They are righteous people. The earth does not belong to us, it belongs to God.”

Feb. 10, 2009 - Gloria Campos and her three-month-old son were the only members of her family to board the last Red Cross plane out of Nicaragua during the revolutionary war in July 1979.

Campos, then 21, was the daughter of a high-ranking government official, who also owned a cotton farm and electricity generators. Since her father worked for President Anastasio Somoza, there was a target on his back.

"All the guerrillas (Sandinistas) the people that were in the mountains were coming into the city of Managua. And of course they were happy because they were celebrating. I think that that was the only time in my life that I have learned and felt defeat. It was not pleasant," said Campos, now 51, who now lives in Murphysboro in southern Illinois.

Nicaraguans would engage in a civil war for the next 11 years. The FSLN left-wing guerrillas, known as the Sandinistas, came to power and they fought against the Contras supported by Somoza. The Somoza family had controlled the government from 1936 until the 1979 revolutionary war.

The Sandinistas, the socialist government, fought the U.S.- funded, anti-communist Contras during the Regan Administration. The Sandinistas were funded by the Soviets and Cubans and they stayed in power until 1990.

Campos is one of more than 61,000 refugees that have come from Latin American and Caribbean countries such as Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, El Salvador and Colombia since 1975, according to the U.S. State Department. In 2007, only 2,981 refugees were admitted into the United States from this region.

Campos recalled the day she left Nicaragua. She boarded a plane at the airport and her baby was sick with an E. coli infection. All she took with her was her passport, clothes and formula for her son. She hid $50 in her pocket so they guards wouldn't find it. "My purse was taken away," she said.

A guard also took a knife and opened the seal on a can of baby formula

"(He wanted) to check if I had money in there," Campos said.

Campos said when she was at the airport that people rushed to get into her plane, and that some of them were shot by the guerillas. "They were killing to get in there," Campos said. "There was a rush, someone said. Run! Run! Run! Get in there."

It was an unpressurized cargo plane. Campos said she was freezing, and she tried to keep her son warm by holding him close her body as they flew to Guatemala.

In Guatemala, she only had permission to stay for 30 days. Campos was married and her husband was studying in Mexico, where he was waiting for her. She tried to apply for a visa to go Mexico without success.

Campos said she stayed with family friends in Guatemala, and got a visa extension for another 30 days. She got in contact with an old family friend, whose father used to be a congressman and the Nicaraguan ambassador to Guatemala, and had still had diplomatic connections.

"I told him that I'm stuck. I cannot get into Mexico, because the Mexican government is not allowing any Nicaraguans to go across the border legally," Campos said.

Then she received a phone call in the middle of the night.

"Gloria don't ask questions, just go to the Mexican embassy," the voice said. "They will give you a visa so you can be reunited with you husband."

Campos said the next morning she took a taxi to the embassy, did not ask questions and said, "I'm Gloria Pereira Campos, they told me to come over here to get my visa."

Campos boarded a plane for Mexico that same afternoon where she reunited with her husband. He got a job as a chemical engineer for a sugar cane company.

They saved up enough money to plan a vacation to Carbondale, where her parents had settled when they fled Nicaragua. The family knew then Sen. Paul Simon who encouraged them to apply for political asylum, which they received.

Campos became a U.S. citizen in 1995 and now runs a small cleaning business. She also is active in Illinois Republican politics in Jackson County and is the Illinois chairperson and Midwest representative of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, a political organization that promotes involvement of the Hispanic community.

Angel Garcia, the president of the Chicago assembly, has known Campos almost five years.

"You would think that someone who had to flee her country for political reasons would be adverse to political activism. Gloria does not retreat from politics. She engages the political arena. Gloria has been more active than native born citizens to the point that today she is the Midwest leader of a Hispanic political organization," Garcia said.

Vicenta "Vickey" Miller from southern Illinois is on the board of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women and has known Campos over 15 years. Miller has witnessed all of the hard work Campos has dedicated to politics during their many adventures traveling the state together. "What Gloria has to share is immensely important, people can learn from her life experiences especially the Hispanic community. Friends admire all her efforts and hard work she has dedicated to volunteering for this country, not only nationally, but also in her community. She is an outstanding speaker, and shares her talents and mentors others to become leaders," Miller said.

Campos added, "To the Latino community it is important for us to speak up. We have a voice. We don't need to whisper anymore. We can talk. We chose the United States to be our country. We have chosen the American flag to be our flag. We need to participate in the democratic process and embrace the concept that politics is in our lives daily."

Campos returned to Nicaragua to visit with her family for a theater dedication in León to her mother in January 2004.

"I saw the volcanoes and the lake, all green - the land of poetry, music and no army on the streets. I knew I was OK. It is a beautiful country but for many years we were a family with out a country, without a flag," Campos said.

Campos described her heart as triangular shaped like Nicaragua, but she said it is colored, red, white, and blue.

Categories:
Global Politics Public Social Issues
Tags:
illinois immigration refugees

Jan. 19, 2009 – In a recent story, we noted that

A group of Illinois students will embark on a once
in a lifetime trip on Sunday to witness a piece of history – the
inauguration of the country’s first African American president.

The “Witness to History Bus Tour,” organized by Clarence Davidson at the Chicago-based Center for Community Advocacy,
will take approximately 25 students from around Illinois on a free
4-day bus trip to Washington D.C. for the Inauguration on Jan. 20.

Here is a schedule of events before and during the inauguration. If you can’t join them, here are a couple of ways to be part of the Inauguration as if you were there:

• Join the group in Columbia College Chicago’s library, where they will be streaming the event on big screen.
• NPR’s novel electronic “InaugurationReport”.
• Check out the St Louis Today’s collection of inaugural speeches and the word cloud analysis you can do with them.

• Thanks to Community Media Workshop for all these suggestions:

  January 19, 20
  A Martinmas
  celebration with performances, education, service projects and fun,
  Monday, January 19, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ($8/$5 children); all-day Inauguration Day.

  Monday, January 19

  Korean Americans answer the Inauguration Committee’s call for
  community organizations to hold activities for a national day of
  service on King Day. The Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, Korean American Women In Need, and Korean American Community Services.

  People’s Inauguration culminates the Camp Hope
  vigil with a King Day rally to “reclaim our democracy” in Federal Plaza
  at 4 p.m. Also at Federal Plaza, at 1 p.m., women and children will
  hold a silent vigil for peace and justice in Palestine. (Camp Hope’s Kathy Kelly recently reported from her peace witness on the Gaza border.)

  Tuesday January 20

  Moveon has a listing of dozens of inaugural events throughout Chicago. Some highlights:

  
  9:30 a.m. – Workers Education Society gathers to discuss, watch the Inauguration at the Unity Center, 3339 S. Halsted.

  
  10 a.m. until – Silver Room,
  1442 N. Milwaukee, is open for large-screen viewing of inaugural events
  all day; holds its monthly current events forum and discussion at 7
  p.m.; the party starts at 9 p.m.

  
  10:30 a.m. – Inaugural celebration at the Lutheran School of Theology in Hyde Park.

  
  5 p.m. – Lil’s Something Cool Cocktail Lounge, 8022-24 S. Cottage, celebrates.

  
  6:30 p.m. – IVI-IPO Inaugural Party at Lake and Union Grill, 666 W. Lake.

  
  6:30 p.m. Leadership Academy Inaugural Dinner and Celebration at Oak Park and River Forest High School.

  
  7 p.m. THERE Lounge, 8235 S. Ashland, rings in the new administration.

  
  7 p.m. Milton Township Democrats hold a No-Hunger Ball — admission
  with a bag of nonperishable groceries for the Milton Township Food
  Pantry — at the Theosophical Society, 1926 N. Main, Wheaton.

  
  7 p.m. – Veterans celebrate at the Montford Point Marine Association, 7011 S. Vincennes.

  Immigrants gather to watch an immigrant’s son sworn in at Casa
  Michoacan, 1683 S. Blue Island, starting at 9 a.m. Groups participating
  include the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights,
  CONFEMEX (the federation of Mexican hometown associations), Federacion
  de Clubes Michoacanos and SEIU. (ICIRR members are also participating
  in an national immigration rights mobilization in Washington D.C. on
  January 21.)

  Seniors Rock Pioneer Gardens and Pioneer Village Senior Homes
  in Bronzeville holds “a celebration that many did not expect in their
  lifetimes; some residents are 80 and 90 years old. Balloons, noise
  makers, patriotic top hats, flags, music, food, Obama attire,
  red-white-and-blue punch…We will rock the house.” 3800 S. King, 11
  a.m. 708-533-6558 (or )

  Writers Congress Twenty poets read from works published in the
  new anthology, “Writers Congress: Chicago Poets on Barack Obama’s
  Inauguration,” published by the Poetry Institute at the Depaul University Humanities Center. DePaul Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield, 6 p.m.

  Salim Muwakkil lectures at the East-West University with a
  provocative topic: “President Barack Obama: Progressive Pragmatist or
  Political Dupe?” at 7 p.m. (reception at 6:30) at EWU, 816 S. Michigan,
  fourth floor auditorium.

  Sounds of Hope The Morse Theatre holds an inaugural celebration featuring jazz supervocalist Dee Alexander starting at 6:30 p.m. — and at 7:30, the premier of “Sounds of Hope” by Chicago-based Uruguayan composer Elbio Barilari and renowned percussionist and bandleader Kahil El Zabar.
  The 45-minute jazz composition, which features 20 musicians,
  “represents a new time of hope” as well as “the structure we need to
  reach our future, a structure made out of diverse elements, a
  reflection of our society, and the capability of improvising new
  solutions and new visions,” according to the composers. (Read Howard Reich’s preview). Admission is free.
  

• Localize your experience with twitters throughout the day on January 20, 2009 by Ben Calhoun and  Natalie Moore who will be in Washington for the inauguration.

• The Chicago Public Radio site has  Steve Edwards’ interview with Check Please! executive producer David Manilow where Manilow tells Steve about an episode that never made it off the cutting
  room floor, starring a certain guest from Hyde Park-then Senator Barack
  Obama who he overshadowed his fellow guests.

  You can catch the full Check, Please! episode
  Friday night at 8 p.m. on WTTW/11. 

• The Presidential Inauguration Committee: http://www.pic2009.org/content/home/
• CNN: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/
• MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27721638
• PBS: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/white_house/inauguration2009/
• HULU: http://www.hulu.com/inaugural-speeches
• Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/

• Other ways to look back at Obama before
  he was “President-elect Barack Obama.”

• Time magazine featured photos that Obama’s college friend Lisa Jack took when
  the two were freshmen at Occidental College in L.A. (Obama later
  transferred to Columbia University).

• The  car he leased from 2004-2007 for sale on eBay. Check em out.

Categories:
History & Preservation New Story Politics Social Issues
Tags:
community inauguration obama

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama in 3D: Photosynth to Crowdsource Synth of the 44th Presidential Inauguration (Rick Turoczy/ReadWriteWeb) (techmeme.com)

A coalition including Food and Water Watch, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, and the Council of Canadians is concerned that while the compact bans large-scale diversions of Great Lakes water, it provides exceptions for bottled water and for water labelled as “product.”

The compact, ratified by eight states with a parallel agreement backed by two Canadian provinces, would prohibit large diversions and set uniform standards for water use in the Great Lakes basin. It was approved by the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent on August 1, but House approval was postponed after U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) issued requests for comments from federal trade agencies.

Stupak questioned whether allowing diversions of Great Lakes water as “product” would subject the agreement to international trade law. In recent years corporations have used trade agreements to overturn local environmental protections.

In a letter (pdf) to the U.S. trade representative, Stupak cited his concern “that ratifying the compact could allow Great Lakes water to no longer be held within the public trust, but instead be defined as a product for commercial use.”

The coalition has met with members of Congress to press for an amendment to legislation approving the compact which would remove the bottled water exception and establish that the Great Lakes are held in public trust, said Sam Finkelstein, a Chicago organizer for Food and Water Watch.

While it may be too late for an amendment, he said, the coalition has found support for an effort to insert language of congressional intent affirming its goals into the bill’s conference report, perhaps followed by an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act.

The Alliance for the Great Lakes, which worked with Great Lakes governors in negotiations over the compact, argues for prompt ratification, said Joel Brammeier.

“The Great Lakes Compact is the product of many years of negotiation and reflects the consensus of the Great Lakes basin on how to product and conserve these resources,” he said. “This isn’t the time to be arguing finer points.”

He added: “States have every right and authority to regulate the use of their waters for bottling within their own boundary.”

Finkelstein said “the exception was added because of pressure from companies like Nestles and Coke.”

“The fact is the Great Lakes are a shared resource,” he said, and while “it’s true states have the power to enact legislation on bottled water, the purpose of the compact is to create standards across the board.”

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation has battled a Nestles Ice Mountain bottling plant in Mecosta County originally projected to use over 200 million gallons of water a year. Efforts by MCWC and others including Clean Water Action and the Sierra Club to include more stringent rules on water exports in state legislation ratifying the compact were unsuccessful. Last month Michigan became the final state to ratify the compact.

The U.S. House is expected to consider approval of the compact in September.