Stuff in the news 7/23/2013 – New Mexico

Ghost Ranch, Abiqui, NM – Image by M. Reddy-Hjelmfelt http://theredelm.com/

• The pending horse slaughter business now has an added obstacle of disposing of its wastewater. While they seem to have a workaround for that, there’s a lawsuit file that starts Aug 3rd, 2 days before their set to open. Bill Richardson and Robert Redford are purportedly signing onto the suit. Wastewater hurdle for proposed slaughter plant
• Hepatitis A Outbreak Linked to Townsend Farms Berries Now at 151 Sick – including 9 in New Mexico
• In a filing yesterday with the New Mexico Supreme Court, state Attorney General Gary King asked the 5-justice court to end the state’s ban on marriage equality, arguing that it violates the new Mexico Constitution. Read more
• (Dallas/Santa Fe – July 23, 2013) EPA is awarding $350,000 to the New Mexico Environment Department for supplemental brownfields funding. The money goes to a revolving loan fund to help the state fund shovel-ready projects to redevelop contaminated sites. Read more
• This is fun! Great to see tech skills development in students here… A Beginning Robotics Camp for students ages 10 and older will be held in Las Vegas Aug. 6-8. The camp is hosted by the New Mexico Engineering Resource Network, New Mexico State University, College of Engineering. – See more at: http://newscenter.nmsu.edu/9597/beginning-robotics-camp-offered-in-las-vegas/#sthash.Irb37fd1.dpuf
• And, speaking of tech in New Mexico, The University of New Mexico Hospital and Albuquerque-based telemedicine provider Net Medical Xpress have launched a telemedicine effort that will allow UNM doctors to help treat stroke and head trauma patients remotely in 25 rural New Mexico hospitals. Read more
• This is sad – I used to enjoy wandering through Peacecraft on Nob Hill in Albuquerque. Apparently it’s closed and, worse yet, its closure is affecting artisan women in New Mexico. If you’re hooked into the fair trade community and can give them business leads, please do so.

Stuff in the news 7/20/2013 – Social Good

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

• I haven’t yet followed the orgs in this list but the StayClassy philanthropy blog has put together a nice list of accounts for organizations that support persons with disabilities
• In a similar vein, there’s another reference I found that has Apps (and Maps) to End Sexual Violence
• I’ve just put the book being reviewed here on my Amazon wishlist:  Social Change Anytime Everywhere – Book Review. It looks like it will be really useful for non-profit communications work.
• If you’re working in the social good arena, you may be doing good works, but are you protecting yourself by having policies in place for yourself, as well as for your clients? Just Googling “social media policy” can yield some great stuff but I just ran across this today, so you might want to check it out: immediate future Launches a Step by Step Guide to Creating a Social Media Policy to Protect Company Reputations
• Most of us in the SMEM and social good world know this but Twitter does far more good than bad
• Well, this is interesting… while kids are fleeing Facebook in droves, this Study Finds Joining Your Teens On Facebook, Twitter Improves Relationship
• Mashable’s Social Good Summit is going international with meetups!  Social Good Summit Meetups Planned in 20+ Countries

Stuff in the news 6/24/2013 – New Mexico

Ghost Ranch, Abiqui, NM – Image by M. Reddy-Hjelmfelt http://theredelm.com/

• New Mexico now ranks 50th in child well-being, nationwide. Given that, I feel a need to clarify that there are 50 states and New Mexico is last.  New Mexico Drops to 50 in Nation for Child Well-being
• Reminder – the Santa Fe National Forest is closed, as of today, due to wildfire danger. KOB has a good list of what’s open and what’s closed across New Mexico. Be aware and be safe!
• Waking Times has an interesting article about the resurgence of Native foods, with a good portion of it focused on New Mexico pueblos’ efforts. Included is a reference to Declaration of Seed Sovereignty, which came out of Tesuque Pueblo’s Sustainable Food and Seed Sovereignty Symposium. Reference:  Putting the Culture Back in Agriculture: Reviving Native Food and Farming Traditions
• Check out the KASA video from New Mexico Magazine. You might want to pop out to the newsstand and pick up the July issue. Sounds yummy!

  Patriotic Pig Roast

• The Legal Tender in Lamy is re-opening this week. To start out, they will only be open for dinner, Thursday through Saturday. Happy hour goes from 3-5pm and dinner goes from 6-9pm. Here’s the info:
  

  HOURS & RESERVATIONS

  Thursday, Friday, Saturday
  3:00 PM to 9:00 PMHappy Hour Served: 3:00 P – 5:00 P
  Dinner Served: 5:00 P to 8:00 P
  Reservations RequestedCall: 505.466.1650
  email: info@TheLegalTender.com
• I’ve heard this weather referred to as a new dustbowl many times. I don’t think it’s quite that yet but it surely is a drought and something about which we should be concerned. So, I will probably cross-post these sorts of things here and in the Wildfire entries, as necessary. 8 Images to Understand the Drought in the Southwest
• Check out historical photos of places around New Mexico – or even upload some of your own – at WhatWasThere.com. This idea came from Ann Arbor, MI and you can look virtually travel to places around the globe. Lots of fun.

Donate camping equipment to help Santa Fe’s homeless

Image courtesy of lkunl / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today, the Santa Fe Reporter published an appeal for people to donate camping equipment to the homeless people being displaced as The Interfaith Shelter closes its doors for the season.

Santa Fe Need and Deed is attempting to fill the void by issuing a call for tents, backpacks,sleeping bags, socks and hygiene items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap to help the newly homeless. They will accept all donated items at Christ Church Santa Fe (1213 Don Gaspar) today or any Monday between 1 pm and 4 pm.

If you have some camping equipment or toiletries available to donate, please drop them by Christ Church. Thanks!

Lead poisoning from battery industry reported in developing countries

Higher levels of lead found in children living near battery facilities

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (August 15, 2011) – Documenting the hazards of lead battery manufacturing and recycling operations in emerging markets, a study in the September issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene reports that children living near these facilities in developing countries had approximately 13 times more lead in their blood than American children.

The researchers, using data from studies published between 1993 and 2010 on environmental and occupational exposures from lead battery manufacturing and recycling in developing countries, also found:

• Workers in this industry in developing countries had approximately three times higher blood lead levels than battery workers in the U.S.
• Lead levels in the air inside lead battery plants in developing countries were seven times greater than the levels permitted by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“Children and workers in developing countries face significant risks of lead poisoning, which can cause lifelong health problems,” said Perry Gottesfeld, executive director of Occupational Knowledge International (OK International) and author of the study. “Without major improvements, we expect that lead poisoning cases will continue to increase as the industry grows.”

via eurekalert.org

Interactive Map Compares “Affordable” Housing in NYC Neighborhoods via @GOOD

In New York’s 2010 gubernatorial race, Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party made a lot of headlines. Despite being a total outsider and having nearly no platform other than the need for lower rents, McMillan still earned more than 40,000 votes, coming in fifth out of seven.

It’s not surprising that McMillan’s campaign resonated with New Yorkers. For years Manhattan and its outer boroughs have boasted some of the most expensive real estate in the world, and in June of this year New York’s Rent Guidelines Board raised the limit on rent increases, much to many tenants’ dismay.

Envisioning Development is here to help. A partnership between the Center for Urban Pedagogy, the Pratt Center for Community Development, and other policy and community groups, it seeks to connect affordable housing experts with citizens in order to make New York an easier place to live, especially for those with little to no income. Envisioning Development’s toolkit has a variety of resources, including a free book about affordable housing (in English and Spanish) and workshops that teach people about how zoning laws impact their neighborhoods. Most eye-catching, however, is the toolkit’s income map.

Coupling elegant design with census data, the map allows you to digitally visit every neighborhood in every borough of New York to see the income demographics. You can also click around to see what “affordable housing” means for each neighborhood. For instance, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, 43 percent of the residents cannot afford an apartment whose rent is $600 per month. On the Upper East Side in Manhattan, that number drops down to 2 percent. Toggling between the Upper West Side and Central Harlem, two adjacent neighborhoods, it’s clear that their proximity belies a vast gap between their income demographics.

It’s fun to look at regardless of where you live. But if you’re a New Yorker struggling with rising rents, it’s also important.

photo (cc) via Flickr user david_shankbone

via good.is

U.N. plan provides mobile numbers to poor

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 4 (UPI) — Millions of poor people will get mobile phone numbers under a plan between the United Nations and a private technology firm, U.N. officials said Thursday.

Three million poor people, the majority of them women, in Africa and South American will receive low-cost mobile phone numbers under the Business Call to Action initiative that enlists the private sector to help fight poverty, the United Nations said in a release.

Read more at upi.com

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Limpopo Goes Back to Basics to Fight Hunger

BuaNews (Tshwane)

South Africa: Limpopo Goes Back to Basics to Fight Hunger

Nthambeleni Gabara

17 July 2011

Matsila — A community farming project aimed at developing agricultural productivity and to ensure that fewer people in South Africa are food insecure has been unveiled in Limpopo.

The Matsila Community Project, which is situated in Matsila village under the Makhado Municipality, was officially launched by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Sunday.

“The interesting part of this project is that it will not only provide jobs for the local people but it will also provide food to residents. We want government to be the main source of procurement of this project.

“As government, we are very proud to be associated and be part of this successful and well-run project, and we are hopeful that it will go a long way in addressing poverty and hunger in our communities.

“We will sign agreements with other government departments so that they can support the project by buying products as another way of sustaining the project,” said the minister.

She urged residents to make their project grow from strength to strength. “We also urge you to develop vegetable gardens in your backyards, schools and clinics in order to fight hunger.”

Joemat-Pettersson further committed to help the project with tractors.

The launch was part of the build-up to the main celebration of Nelson Mandela Day in Giyani stadium on Monday. Joemat-Pettersson got her hands dirty for 67 minutes collecting, grading, sorting, cleaning and packing eggs.

She was also joined by Limpopo MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture, Joyce Mashamba, MEC for Agriculture, Pinky Duba, and executive mayor of Vhembe, Florence Rumani and Makhado mayor, Mavhungu Luruli.

The packaged eggs were donated to orphans, children with disabilities and the poorest of the poor in the community.

“This is the project which the community must jealously guard against any form of criminality and other ways of derailing it … This project is thriving, it is visible and you can feel it.

“As the provincial leadership, we will be closely evaluation and monitoring this project because we don’t want it to become a white elephant,” said Mashamba.

Her sentiments were echoed by Duba: “We are going to establish a market for this project at an international level and we want to roll-out similar project across the province. We are really proud of what it is happening in this village. This project is also playing a central role in uniting villagers.”

Luruli had this to say about the project: “We’ve since established a committee to work with villagers, but we want to give credit to the visionary traditional leadership of this area for uniting residents to establish this project.”

Through the Matsila Community Development Trust, the project received a whopping R54 million to fight food insecurity over the next three years.

Read more here: allafrica.com

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Limpopo Goes Back to Basics to Fight Hunger

BuaNews (Tshwane)

South Africa: Limpopo Goes Back to Basics to Fight Hunger

Nthambeleni Gabara

17 July 2011

Matsila — A community farming project aimed at developing agricultural productivity and to ensure that fewer people in South Africa are food insecure has been unveiled in Limpopo.

The Matsila Community Project, which is situated in Matsila village under the Makhado Municipality, was officially launched by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Sunday.

“The interesting part of this project is that it will not only provide jobs for the local people but it will also provide food to residents. We want government to be the main source of procurement of this project.

“As government, we are very proud to be associated and be part of this successful and well-run project, and we are hopeful that it will go a long way in addressing poverty and hunger in our communities.

“We will sign agreements with other government departments so that they can support the project by buying products as another way of sustaining the project,” said the minister.

She urged residents to make their project grow from strength to strength. “We also urge you to develop vegetable gardens in your backyards, schools and clinics in order to fight hunger.”

Joemat-Pettersson further committed to help the project with tractors.

The launch was part of the build-up to the main celebration of Nelson Mandela Day in Giyani stadium on Monday. Joemat-Pettersson got her hands dirty for 67 minutes collecting, grading, sorting, cleaning and packing eggs.

She was also joined by Limpopo MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture, Joyce Mashamba, MEC for Agriculture, Pinky Duba, and executive mayor of Vhembe, Florence Rumani and Makhado mayor, Mavhungu Luruli.

The packaged eggs were donated to orphans, children with disabilities and the poorest of the poor in the community.

“This is the project which the community must jealously guard against any form of criminality and other ways of derailing it … This project is thriving, it is visible and you can feel it.

“As the provincial leadership, we will be closely evaluation and monitoring this project because we don’t want it to become a white elephant,” said Mashamba.

Her sentiments were echoed by Duba: “We are going to establish a market for this project at an international level and we want to roll-out similar project across the province. We are really proud of what it is happening in this village. This project is also playing a central role in uniting villagers.”

Luruli had this to say about the project: “We’ve since established a committee to work with villagers, but we want to give credit to the visionary traditional leadership of this area for uniting residents to establish this project.”

Through the Matsila Community Development Trust, the project received a whopping R54 million to fight food insecurity over the next three years.

Read more here: allafrica.com

‪How Sanitation Can Save the World‬‏

via youtube.com