Monday, August 18, 2014

Murphy's Law & Seeing Mrs. Murphy

For starters, if you haven't already, please read my last post.

Now, onto some new stuff that will give you an idea of what has been going on with me.

Right at this time, I'm just about to break camp at Krannert Memorial Library, which will be closing early all week.

I know that I'll be here until at least tomorrow, though my plans are to start to head back to Anderson either Thursday or Friday.

Although I'm having a wonderful time here on campus when the new bunch of freshmen are just starting to arrive for a few days of orientation before class begins, there are still some dramatic factors playing here that would fall under both the category of Murphy's Law and Seeing Mrs. Murphy (When it comes to the latter term, just read or watch the original Cheaper By The Dozen.).

I'll be writing more about my visit tomorrow and beyond, but I'm just going to ask you to click on the following two links, as they will tell you all you need to know for now -- and, likely, more than you WANT to know...

In The Right Place At The Right Time

Sometimes, There's Just No Stopping The Call Of Nature!!!

Enough said for now...

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A Rose With A Goal To Do Away With The Thorns!!!

Awhile ago, I was contacted on Facebook by a woman named Rose Kamunge who lives in Arusha, Tanzania on the continent of Africa.

She was seeking people to help her to bring about some major changes in how the local women and girls were perceived and, thus, treated.

She had already started to carry out this mission but knew that she would be needing far more help than what she currently had if the changes she wanted made were to become permanent.

Thanks to having the miracle of Internet access here in the 21st Century, this project has more of a chance of becoming increasingly real.

As of this post, I have written several things about this (including how others have picked up on the information from reading this and would like to find ways to participate), and Rose has come up with a couple of writings for sharing the overall situation and for getting started on putting an end to it.  I will share links to these writings at this time...

"This One's For The Girls"...

So, What Are We Going To Do About Tanzania?

Green And Serene In A Drama-Filled World

An Interesting Thing Happened On The Way To Tanzania...

Please Help Empower These Beautiful Women And Girls!!!

The following two links lead to pages on which I've pasted some information from Rose.  The information contained in the first document is a kind of overall story (with more details and descriptions of the needs) of what is going on over there, while the information contained in the next one is a sketchy game plan.


 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE MAASAI WOMEN EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM IN NGORONGORO DISTRICT.

FOUNDATION STEPS FOR THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVLOPMENT OF MIMUTIEIS BASED ON THE FOLLOWING STRATEGY:

This, as I've indicated,  is a post containing links to the beginnings of this movement going viral.  It will remain the same, as it will remind us of our beginnings and how far we've come.

In order to share updates, I have created another blog about empowerment.  It will not only contain updates about this mission but, also, will share other examples of how we can make the world a better place by simply blooming wherever we happen to be planted at any given time.

To get to this blog, please click here...

Thank you for reading this!

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Conceptual Framework For The Maasai Women Empowerment Program...


CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE MAASAI WOMEN EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM  IN NGORONGORO DISTRICT.



MIMUTIE  BASIC FOUNDATION DOCUMENT 001

August 2014














1:0 Introduction and background information on the overall situation
1: General Overview about the Maasai situation Ngorongoro.
The Maasai  are one of the few ethnic entities still holding on to the traditional lifestyle in the midst of globalization. Despite the traditional nature of the Maasai culture, it is not immune to the change process from internal as well as external forces in ecological, political, economic and sociological terms. The pace of change has been slow until the last decade when the effects of the liberalized economy in Tanzania began to have impact on the Maasai livelihood systems. The speed of socio-economic change process, among the Maasai of Ngorongoro has been accelerated by the forces of globalization.
This change process has serious implications for such a traditional community which has been sidelined by the mainstream development process for many years since independence. Women are more affected by  these processes by virtue of their marginalized position in the Maasai community where women are relegated to the lowest social position.
Such implications range from poor participation in the educational development process in the country which means externalization from participation in the political arena which has a consequence in poor representation. The sum total result of which is lack of participation in the policy formulation processes. Up to now there is no policy on pastoralism which is the mainstay of the Maasai livelihood system. Reluctance of the government to recognize and support the pastoral economy of the Maasai has resulted in the scale up of impoverisation of the Maasai community over the years. This overview description is applicable to the Maasai community across the board in Tanzania.




1:2  The context of Ngorongoro District
The context of this proposal is Ngorongoro district  which is one of the five Maasai districts in the country.
This district is unique and different from the other four districts on one fundamental account, that is conservation of wildlife. The district is part of the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem and is therefore the home of many species of fauna and flora. The World famous Serengeti National  Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation area where the Ngorongoro Crater is situated are one of the most visited tourist destinations in East Africa. These two wildlife sanctuaries  have made the government to focus more on wildlife conservation at the cost of pastoralism without regard to the reality that the abundance of wildlife in these areas which interfaces with the Maasai life in the villages is attributable to the nature of the Maasai culture which discourages use of game meat hence preventing killing of wildlife. Maasailand is the only place where wildlife have found a safe home and friendly environment. This is attested to by the peaceful co-existence of wildlife and livestock in the Masai villages in the district.                            
Due to this peaceful and friendly co-existence between the Maasai and wildlife, most of the areas now used for conservation like Serengeti National Park were carved out from Maasailand, a reality which has caused alienation of prime land for pastoralism. While wildlife grazes in the Maasai villages, destroying crops and killing their livestock without any compensation, the Maasai livestock are never allowed to enter into the Serengeti National Park  for grazing even during very hard times. This is one of the factors which increase the level of poverty in this community.
Ngorongoro district is unique and different from other districts because most of the land in the entire district has been legally declared as wildlife conservation of one form or the other.
In the Ngorongoro highlands which constitute 59% of the total district, there is Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. This area is governed  and managed by a government parastatal and yet there are over 80,000 Maasai living in this area. The Multiple Land Use is the model of management of this area. To balance conservation of wildlife and human development in this area remains one of the most challenging job in the area. The livelihood system of the Maasai in this area is strictly regulated by the NCA authority, impeding a natural community development process like in the other villages in Tanzania.
As if this is not enough, the remaining 41% of the district land area is yet governed  by another conservation legal framework. This area has been declared a Game Controlled Area with its restrictions on human development activities. This makes the entire district, a government conservation area where human development is hampered by conservation laws and policies. The overall impact on the socio-economic arena of the Maasai pastoralists is acceleration of general poverty.
Against this background, MIMUTIE WOMEN ORGANIZATION commits itself to put in place a women empowerment strategy to enable women to address challenges affecting their lives and their economic position in the community. Some of these challenges are caused by both internal and external factors and forces within the the Maasai cultural environment.
MIMUTIE WOMEN ORGANIZATION  strategically empowers the women through the following interventions through interventions in the areas of;
·        Cultural development of the Maasai pastoralists.
·        Improvement of the natural resource management through the use of the strategy of Community Based Natural Resource Management enshrined in the cultural framework.
·        Economic empowerment  by focusing on women empowerment and education of girl children.
This proposal is meant to enable ECEPA to implement the last component of its program.









2:0  PROBLEM STATEMENT

2:1   Cultural Context

It is not possible to understand the concept of community based  development process in the Maasai community without  a fair understanding of the cultural context .

 The social organization system of the Maasai  is based on the age-set system. Boys of one age group are initiated into one age set and undergo cultural training during the entire period of their worrioship which is ten years. At the end of this period, they become fully knowledgeable about their own culture. This is therefore the way cultural values are passed and perpetuated across generational lines. This applies only to boys only.

Women are not part of this ceremonial arrangement of cultural training. Girls  are not grouped into age-sets like boys. As they get married, they take the status of  the age-set of their respective husbands irrespective of the age.This is where the social marginalization of women begins in the Maasai society.

The patriarchal nature of the Maasai culture relegates women to the lowest social status and this marginalizes them from ownership of property and control of the same. This male dominated social arrangement works against women development. As a consequence of this, few girls are sent to school as compared to boys. This accounts for the highest level of illiteracy among women compared to men. This has been proved by various studies.


2:2  MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN FROM EQUAL PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPMENT


By virtue of the partriarchal social organization of the Maasai society, women have had few opportunities to access formal education. Hence illiteracy remains a major problem which also externalizes women from participating in leadership  and decision making processes in the socio-economic development arena.  This also accounts for poor participation of women in the political representation.
In the socio-economic arena, decisions in terms of planning and implementation of development activities are carried out by men. This whole process is responsible for the current social status of women which is characterized by economic poverty and political powerlessness.


2:3 POOR PERFORMANCE OF GIRL CHILDREN IN THE FIRST LEVEL OF EDUCATION

Statisticts demonstrate that in the standard 4  and standard 7 national examinations, girl children perform very poorly and in most cases drop out of school. The reasons for this can be listed as follows;

·        Poor status of the mother who in most cases takes care of the needs of her daughter.Fathers in most cases are not willing to support their daughters who are sent to school under the government pressure. For them, they want their daughters to fail so that they can be married off as soon as they come out of school.
·        Girl children who are mostly day scholars go back to their respective bomas where the cultural system encourages them interact with boys and participate in traditional dances. This makes them think less of education and do not even bother to do their homework.
·        Distance between school and the village can be 7 kms and children get tired walking to and fro without lunch. This discourages them to continue with schooling. They see this as the source of suffering rather than the source of happiness and hope.
·        Poverty of parents is also a factor. Some parents my wish to educate their daughters beyond the first level or even through the third level of education but they are constrained by poverty.
·        Poor quality of teaching environment in its entirety---few teachers, inadequate teaching materials, lack of books, etc.

There are many more reasons for this problem but these are the most fundamental ones.


2:3 THE PROBLEM OF WATER

The Maasai community practices transhumant pastoralism
which means seasonal mobility of livestock to access water and grazing in a context where land is communally owned and used for pastoral production. For the pastoral economy to be productive, availability of adequate water is a necessity. But up to now, the problem of water ranks as one of the most important and critical problems which constrain socio-economic development of the pastoralist Maasai in the Ngorongoro district. This problem takes a high toll on the livestock during the dry season every year. Human beings share the same water with livestock and wildlife in many areas. The amount of calories and time expended by women who trek long distances to fetch water for their families are immense. More than 80 % of the people have no access to clean water. Safe water does not exist at all.


Foundation Steps...Based On The Following Strategy:


 FOUNDATION STEPS FOR THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVLOPMENT OF MIMUTIE IS BASED ON THE FOLLOWING STRATEGY:

1:0   Establishing a small office in Arusha for easy communication and networking . This is very basic for getting the organization off the ground and ensuring linkages and networking with likeminded organizations, individuals and government institutions.
2:0  Fundraising for the initial foundation investments for establishing office.
3:0  Development of a website where the organization can upload relevant information and data on the newly founded MIMUTIE WOMEN ORGANIZATION.
4:0  Lean staff of three persons(coordinator , program officer and secretary).
5:0  Development of strategic plan for three years timeline.
6:0 Organizational capacity development strategy for the staff to enable them become adequate to the tasks in their respective job descriptions.
7:0 Networking with local and international organizations and individuals who can support the efforts of the organization to implement its activities.
8:0 development of operational strategy based on the Strategic Plan.
9:0 Operationalization of the Strategic plan using the developed operational strategy
10:0 Fundraising as a continuing activities as the organization takes off the ground.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Keeping Up With Me On Charley Mock's 81st Birthday (August 9, 2014)

INTRODUCTION:  What you're reading below was originally written as a Facebook Note on my author page there.

However, I also wanted to put it into this format so that it will also be able to be read by people who aren't members of FB...

Today just happens to be the birthday of one of my high school principals.

It also happens to be the birthday of one of Anderson's neatest people, Paul Bickel, as well as that of a longtime friend and co-worker of my mom's, Martha Lee (both she and my mom now passed on).

The reason I refer to Charley Mock as "one of" them is that he was the head principal during my freshman and sophomore years at Markleville High School.  When we consolidated with Pendleton High School to form Pendleton Heights High School, he became an assistant principal.

It's hard to believe that enough time has passed to where he and I have reached our current ages!

When I listen to oldies stations such as

WERK 104.9 FM


I'm taken back to those days again.

If I had been told back then where I'd be in life today, I believe that I would have a very hard time believing it...Speaking of radio stations, I'm happy to report that

WEEM 

91.7 FM


is still going strong!!! 

I can remember back when it was a closed-circuit high school station that was broadcast only through PHHS' public address system for a limited amount of hours per day.  The call letters stood for With Encouragement from Ernest Miller (who became our head principal at the new high school).  Joe and Jan Moore (the June and Johnny Cash of speech teachers) were the ones who put their know-how into it in order to launch it, but even they couldn't have done this without the encouragement of Ernest Miller!!!Now, I can pick it up in AJ's Groovy Igloo just as I can WERK -- and for a greater distance as well!!!

Speaking of which...on my way back to Anderson from a recent road-trip, I stopped by PHHS for a little bit.  Even if what I saw going on hadn't been going on, I probably would have stopped there, anyway, as I find it wise to make stops to keep my radiator from overheating enough to totally kill my motor before I can get it replaced.

However, I stopped longer than I actually needed to for that purpose, as our band was practicing for Band Day.

I'm still perplexed why I haven't found any mention of them in relation to Band Day in the local news when they were so good (and I'm not just a prejudiced member of the PHHS Class Of 1971!) that they really should have placed in the competition.

All I know is that I heard them that day and really loved what I heard!!!

I thought that they were really great way back when, but they have improved incredibly with the passing years!!!

Anyway, I'm now trying to kill several birds with one stone:

1.  Wish my former principal (and others who were born on this day in various years) a very happy birthday and a great year ahead.

2.  Put something interesting on my Author Page by sharing this as well as sharing the last (to date) entry I made in my main blog three days ago that will keep you up a bit with me:


and -- (almost) last but not least -- share a page that will, surely, prove useful to residents of Madison County, Indiana (where we DO have plenty of bridges --with some of them bearing the name of former County Commissioner, Paul Wilson, who also used to be on WEEM way back at the beginning...):

3.  This page was founded by Kevin A. Powell, and it's called: 

Stolen From Madison County, Indiana


Please share it around!!!

Since I said (almost), I will close with a very important fourth bit of info...

4.  Please go to the following links to find out more about women who are being forced to live in the Dark Ages (or worse) here in our "supposedly" enlightened 21st. Century...

Rose Kamunge

https://www.facebook.com/rose.kamunge 

shared this tragedy with me, and I shared it with

Snoopy Puckett


who took the ball and ran with it...



The point is that we can all do something to make life better (or worse) than what we left it.  As was pointed out by Clarence The Angel to George Bailey in my very favorite movie of all times, It's A Wonderful Life, each life touches another life in some way or another!!!

This is my Author Page here at Facebook, and I would like to think that I'm using my God-given talents in this area to make the world better for my having passed here instead of worse.  I pray this is so!!! 

I KNOW that it's so with our wonderful local personmark, Larry Eugene "The CanMan" Van Ness who is about to get to the 10,000,000th tab he's saved for Ronald McDonald House since he started doing this back in 2003.  I can't say enough nice about him!!!

On that note, I'm about to shut up beyond sharing one more link with you.  This link will talk about some writers (me included), a couple of recording artists, and an adorable 67 year old man who collects cans and tabs, but put yourself in this picture as well and celebrate where you've been planted to bloom...


As another Anderson personmark (the late, great Jane Toner Scott) used to close her wonderful newspaper column...

...that's all for now...


Thanks, again, for reading!  

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Gathering My Thoughts...

Tonight is Wednesday, August 6, 2014, and I'm, once more, at Krannert Memorial Library and decided to write a post just to try to catch everybody up along with keeping some of my latest entries current, as they're still relevant.

Category CanMan

An Entertaining Surprise

Because I Was Craving An Orange 39 Years Ago Today...

How I Spent My (Initial) Summer Vacation Of 2014

Ebony & Ivory (An Open Letter To President Obama)

Red-Tape Rant

Of course, there are updates to some of these links -- such as Larry's getting even closer to reaching that 10,000,000 milestone than he was the last time I posted something there.  I have a lot of catching up to do about him.

Also, at this time, J.T. has changed his performance schedule at Frisch's to every other Tuesday evening instead of the first three Tuesdays of each month.

I've put posting about my initial summer vacation on hold for awhile, as I've, since that time, had more of them and am, in fact, on my third one now.  In short, I've been too busy to write about my vacation time due to taking vacations.

Now, these aren't actually ritzy vacations -- just different opportunities I've had to leave Madison County for both the purpose of a much-needed change-of-scenery as well as getting various things done.  To say that finances are rather tight for these little outings would be a gross understatement -- but, yet, I always seem to end up with everything I need, if not everything I might want.  When I have the chance to have limitless access to the Internet, I'll begin creating more installments.  For now, however, I'm mostly doing individual posts that don't run as a series.

Ebony & Ivory... and Red-Tape Rant are about frustrations with the powers-that-be.

Okay!  Having said that, I'm happy to report that the month of July contained a lot of serendipity and that this has been (so far) even more true about the month of August.  I feel as if I'm starting to turn a few corners, so this blog will be starting to get more regular entries in it -- that is, when I can find time to write and post with all that's been going on.

Actually, I've been writing and posting quite a bit, but my area of doing this is widely-scattered.

One thing I've discovered is that I've actually come up with some new writing ideas as an indirect result of my situation of being homeless and without my own computer.  That's all I'm going to say for now...

Okay!  I'll say one more thing about this:  It will be a travel-writing project on which I'll be working even after I have a roof over in my head that doesn't move around on four balding tires.  LOL  And it's a really FUN project!!!  Right up my alley, so to speak!!!

Earlier today, I finished reading a great novel that I was able to buy yesterday for only two dollars, and I was able to do this with my lymphedemic legs elevated after managing to practically kill them by standing up to use this computer for too long of a stretch.  I'm pacing myself now.  In a little bit, I'm going to be giving my legs another rest after signing off for the night from the Internet.

Not sure if or when I'll be online tomorrow.  Likely, later in the day, as the first part of the day will be involving apartment-hunting.  Please keep me in your prayers, love, and positive thoughts...