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Africa Rise! 2020 – A FREE VIRTUAL FUNDRAISING EVENT

August 27th, 2020

Give Them a Hand Foundation and partners – Earth Rights Institute, Inc., the United African Congress along with Black Star News, Cool and Kosie Productions and the International Association of Applied Psychology – have been concerned about the poor health care infrastructure in most African countries for several years now.

The lack of dependable, easily accessible hospitals and medical centers has been put in the spotlight recently by the Covid-19 pandemic and spurred many well-meaning organizations to take action to help governments and the people in their fight against the pandemic.

As far as we know most of those organizations are providing masks and other PPE for vulnerable populations. Those are very much needed today. However, our coalition has decided on a project that will benefit the continent on a permanent basis and be able to address not only communicable diseases but those like malaria and yellow fever and also reduce the number of maternal and infant deaths that occur.

To realize this goal, GTAH and partners will host a virtual fundraising concert on 5 December 2020 to raise funds for the purchase of mobile clinics and to build medical centres in the more remote and underserved rural communities in the countries in Africa most in need.

In this first year of our effort, we will focus on a limited number of countries in each of the five regions of Africa. Note that a mobile clinic functioning from an anchor-base hospital can serve a number of villages within a wide area. They will also be equipped to facilitate telemedicine services.

Give Them a Hand Foundation, Earth Rights Institute (ERI), the International Association of Applied Psychology and The United African Congress (UAC), have a well-established history of hosting awareness-raising campaigns on behalf of Africa and the Diaspora. For example, ERI facilitated the creation of Eco-Villages in Nigeria, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory-Coast and Senegal. GTAH and UAC hosted a major awareness-raising forum and concert at the United Nations during the Ebola epidemic that plagued West Africa 2014-2015.

In addition, GTAH and UAC provided humanitarian relief for Hurricane Sandy victims in New York, Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans as well as for earthquake victims in Haiti. The collaboration continues to host an annual World Interfaith Harmony event in the United States of America.

CONCERT: The free virtual global concert “Africa Rise! 2020” has already engaged a number of top artists from the Caribbean, Africa, the USA and the UK. There will be stars from Broadway, Grammy winning tap dancers as well as a prominent dance troupe and familiar figures in cinema and fashion. In addition, we have brought on board dozens of sports stars from the world of football/soccer, cricket, the NBA, the NFL, and cycling.

EVENT TIMELINE AND DURATION: The date for the concert is 5 December 2020 for a duration of three hours.

LOGISTICS: The concert will be broadcast and live streamed on several platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, African digital streaming channels and other social media outlets.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND DONATIONS: The concert will be interspersed with appeals for contributions, interesting features about Africa, and educational material. Donations will be made via mobile phone and website payment platforms as well as through direct interfaces during the live broadcast of the virtual show.

ORGANIZERS: Event conveners will be supported by a multi-talented team of music producers and authorized streaming providers with technological capacity to access rural community participation, and global viewers and donors.

GLOBAL TEAM:

Gordon Tapper, Founder, Give Them a Hand Foundation

Annie Goeke, Earth Rights Institute

Mohammed Nurhussein, Chairman, United African Congress

Stephanie Evans, Give Them A Hand Foundation

Judy Kuriansky, International Association of Applied Psychology

Milton Allimadi, Black Star News

PROJECT TO STOP THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 IN SOUTH KIVU, DRC

August 27th, 2020

GIVE THEM A HAND FOUNDATION, UNITED AFRICAN CONGRESS, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, HOPE AND HEALTH VISION:

PROJECT TO STOP THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 IN SOUTH KIVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

The four organizations named above collaborated in the development of a pilot project to help stop the spread of Covid-19 in the community of Nyabibwe in the Territory of Kalehe, located in South Kivu, DRC. Supplementary objectives were to stimulate economic activity in the communities and to provide psycho-social and educational support for the people. The pilot project commenced on 20 June for one week.

GTAH, UAC and IAAP are all based in New York State but worked with Hope and Health Vision which is an NGO based in the DRC and also accredited in the United States. Hope and Health Vision, headed by Jean-Marie Bazibuhe, had psychologists and social workers on the ground as part of the team who would follow the steps the coalition outlined to implement the program. In New York the team comprised Gordon Tapper, Founder of GTAH and President of UAC, Dr Judy Kuriansky, Professor of Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University and representative of IAAP at the United Nations, and Stephanie Evans, Director of Education at Harlem Hospital in Harlem, New York, and Executive Director of GTAH. The project was financed from the personal funds of Gordon Tapper and Judy Kuriansky, with a contribution from United African Congress.

The project called for hiring women to sew 4,000 masks on their machines to the designs and standards established by WHO. The masks were to be distributed to approximately 2000 adults, male and female, preselected by the staff on the ground. The occasion of distributing the masks also served for educating recipients on the sanitation measures they needed to adopt in order to protect themselves from the infection. In addition to being trained in good sanitation practices they were also given psychosocial training intended to help them build their resilience in the face of an infection that was causing much fear and panic in the communities. The sanitation and the psychosocial information was provided by carefully crafted infographics and by the well-trained, qualified staff.

As this was a pilot project, persons who had come to receive masks and who also received training, were asked to fill out a questionnaire that sought to understand their fears and beliefs and responses to certain situations. The individuals were to return to the distribution/training center at the end of the week to provide feedback and to respond to a post-event questionnaire.

The third pillar of the project involved the installation of five handwashing stations located at key gathering points. They were provided with soap in the handwashing process and taught the proper way to wash their hands after touching objects in public or inadvertently shaking hands.

The date for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the pilot project has not yet been determined but will possibly be towards the end of September. At that time, the results will be released to community leaders, the NGO community and to the international agencies working in the DRC. Should the results prove to have had a positive effect on the people, by altering their behavior and reinforcing their ability to protect themselves from Covid19 and other contagious diseases, we will be seeking funding so as to enable us to support a much larger segment of the population of DRC.

It should be noted that while we cannot at this time provide the results of the pilot project we can say that there were several persons, adults and children, who turned out over a five day period and were very excited to be a part of the project.

SITE PHOTOS

Crowds of people eagerly awaiting hand-washing demonstrations:

Installing water barrel for hand-washing station:

Hand-washing demonstration:

Explanation of infographic on good sanitary practices:

Assistance and explanation on proper wearing of masks:

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) Negotiations

June 29th, 2020

Gordon Tapper, GTAH Founder and current President of the United African Congress, joins with UAC Chairman, Mohammed Nurhussein MD, in an appeal to the African Union to facilitate negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and the Sudan with a view to finding a peaceful resolution to the matter of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that Ethiopia has constructed and is getting ready to begin filling. The Blue Nile, which is almost entirely in Ethiopia, is the main source of the River Nile and Ethiopia has built a dam to provide water for agriculture and to provide electricity on a massive scale. Egypt, on the other hand, believes that the dam will seriously affect the flow of water into their country and has expressed the possibility of resolving the matter militarily if Ethiopia does not agree to fill the dam over a period of at least 15-years. Such eventuality needs to be avoided and mediated dialogue is the desirable solution.

2017 World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

February 20th, 2019

(see photo gallery below)

The World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

United Nations, Conference Room 4: 22 May 2017, 3:00 – 5:30 PM

“Cultural Diversity as a Driver of Economic Growth”

The United Nations General Assembly, in December 2002, declared 21 May each year to be the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. The day provides an opportunity for us to deepen our understanding of the values of cultural diversity, to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms and to encourage, amongst other things, a balanced flow of cultural goods and services and increase mobility of artistes and cultural professionals.

On this day in 2017, the Give Them a Hand Foundation (GTAH), the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and the United African Congress partnered with the Permanent Missions of Jamaica and Ethiopia to the United Nations to host a conference at UN Headquarters in New York to celebrate cultural diversity and to promote it as a driver for economic growth in countries with multi-cultural populations. As 21 May 2017 fell on a Sunday, the World Day event was held on the following day, Monday, 22 May. It was a day of torrential downpours which threatened to keep attendance to a very low level; however, the event went ahead with a respectable number of persons in the audience.

After an introduction and welcome by Gordon Tapper, President of GTAH, H.E. Ambassador Courtenay Rattray, Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the United Nations, made the opening remarks then handed off to the co-moderators, Milton Alimmadi of Black Star News and Judy Kuriansky of the IAAP.

The programme was divided into four parts, namely: Country Perspectives, Diversity and Peace, Science and Art, and Tourism.

Ambassador Mahlet Haiku of Ethiopia spoke about the challenges of governing a country with more than 100 ethnic groups and languages and how the present Ethiopian Government was approaching the task.

In the segment on Diversity and Peace, the speakers included Ms. Marie Paule Roudil, UNESCO Representative at the United Nations, Dr Hanifa Mezoui, Senior Advisor in the Office of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Ms. Jennifer Rajkumar, Director of Immigrant Affairs and Special Counsel in the Office of New York State Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Ms. Rajkumar’s remarks were of great interest to the audience as most persons there were immigrants or had family who were recent immigrants. Ms. Rajkumar advised on practical steps that immigrants who were facing certain problems in NYC and the United States could take to resolve many of their problems.

In the Science and Art segment, HRH Princess Nisreen El Hashemite spoke about the programme she had instituted in Iraq and internationally to help girls who wanted to enter the field of science.

Ms. Grace McDonald spoke about the importance of art in the development of young minds and how the project that she was a part of, Project Art, was playing a role in inner city communities in New York City in keeping young people engaged after school hours. She mentioned that the Project Art programme was now well recognized nationally and that other States had asked them to set up the project in their cities as well. The New York Public Library had given Project Art space in some of their facilities to teach art to kids.

Grimanesa Amoros, a world-renowned artist of Peruvian heritage living in New York City, spoke of how she incorporated aspects of her culture into her work.

The first speaker in the Tourism segment, Mr. Sarbuland Khan, Senior Counselor of the WTO in New York, spoke on how interest in “other people’s culture” was one of the main reasons people chose to travel to many world destinations.

Diana McIntyre Pike travelled from Jamaica where she is the president of “Countrystyle Community Tourism Network” and founder of “Villages as Businesses’”. The thrust of her speech centered on how rural communities with no beaches or other obvious tourist attractions can organize themselves, in partnership with prominent all-inclusive hotels, to offer a different view of the country through organizing lunches with a typical Jamaican family, or an evening in the village pub or a tour of some unique or quirky notable points in the village. She emphasized how local communities can share in the financial rewards of tourism through offering visitors a slice of traditional life.

Ms. Mine Anlar, Director of the Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, showed videos depicting Turkey’s cultural heritage and World Heritage Sites.

Dr. Judy Kuriansky made the closing remarks.