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The OneMinutesJr project gives young people between 12 and 20 years of age from many corners of the globe the opportunity to express themselves, speak out and learn audiovisual skills to communicate across borders, languages and distances through 60 second videos.

The OneMinutesJr project results from the joint effort of the European Cultural Foundation, the One Minutes Jr. Foundation and Unicef, as well as other partner organizations. On their website, you can browse through years' worth of one minute videos from different countries, some sent in by individuals, others are results from workshops where youth are taught the skills to write, film and edit their ideas.

These short videos portray the concerns, ideas and dreams of youngsters from many different backgrounds, and give us a window into their daily lives. For example, from Poland, Ludmila Kierczak makes a video explaining who she is. To view the video, please click on the image below to go to the OneMinutesJr site.

In Bangladesh, Mobasshera Tarannum Adiba illustrates a couple of articles from the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the video, I want Freedom, she touches on Article 12: Children have the right to have their views heard and their voices should be respected and Article 16 which states that every child has the right to privacy.

From Mongolia, Tuvdenjamts (Tuvden) Altankhyag illustrates the right every child has to their own culture:

And in this next video, Simone Tonge from Antigua and Barbuda, exercises her right to freedom of expression in Confessions of a Female Adolescent:

Ibrahim Ide from Niger illustrates the right children have to a family that loves them and protects their rights in With or Without:

For more one minute videos, you can check out the main site for the project at TheOneMinutesJr.org or you can visit the UNICEF One Minutes Jr. Channel on Youtube to see many other 60 second videos created by youth on the topic of Childrens' Rights.

Today, my electrician Barun has a dual-SIM mobile phone - he tells me that one number is for his boss and the electrical shop which sub-contracts him and the second is for his ‘personal clients' that his company does not know about. This second business is growing, he informs me with pride, and soon he will no longer have to work for the electrical shop. His family, of course, can contact him on either number.

Mobile technology and low-cost mobile telephony options have empowered service providers like Barun to offer better services and enhance the reach of their businesses. The story is similar everywhere, across the developing world. A reader's comment on Brough Turner's post Mobile phone adoption goes crazy in Pakistan reflected this reality way back in 2005:

Another contributory factor…was the introduction of Calling Party Pays regime in late 2000 early 2001. Prior to the introduction of CPP, both the calling party and the called party were charged for airtime. Since CPP, only the calling party is charged. Consequently small traders and service providers such as plumbers / TV repairmen / electricians (whose services are in high demand) bought a mobile connection and were reachable throughout the day whether they were on call or in their shop.

However, the impact of the mobile phone is no longer restricted to connectivity alone. It has grown into a tool that enables, farmers,  small traders and service providers to take information-based decisions, thereby leading to their economic empowerment.

Thus, from the fishermen in Kerala tracking market prices and negotiating best deals for selling their catch the next day, to farmers in Andhra Pradesh using the mobile phones as business helplines to gain useful business development related information, small traders everywhere have woken up to the immense potential of mobile technology in helping them better their lives. And in this they are not alone. As Martine Koopman points out on her blog ICT4D in Zambia and Ghana, the story is similar in places like Ghana, for example. On a field trip to visit some farming communities living about 6km from Salaga, she observes:

Now they have seen the advantages of phones all of them would like to have one. They not only use it for accessing market information, but all their crops (yams, maize, ground nuts, vegetables, etc) are in the system. If market traders visit the village they have a better negotiating position. They also have contact with market traders in Accra and Kumasi by phone.

Apart from imparting business/market information, the impact of the cell phones can be felt when increasing cell phone usage helps to improve distribution efficiency and reduction in search-of-information costs as well as tackling price dispersions across local markets, as was seen in this study conducted in Niger.

In all of this, the end-consumer is also a beneficiary.  We get the benefit of convenience–from the basic facility of having an on-call service provider to ordering the fresh catch of the day from the fish-monger on his mobile, right up to using the virtual marketplace on our cell phones to buy fresh produce directly from the local farmer–in addition to enjoying competitively priced goods and products and services in the long run.

“Nimai”, thundered my mother, “get yourself a mobile phone. Otherwise, next time I am calling Barun.”

Mamadou Tandja, President of Niger since 1999, wants to amend the constitution so he can stay in office.

Last week, Tandja dissolved the National Assembly following a ruling by Niger's constitutional court that holding such a referendum would be a breach of his oath of office, and thus illegal. Monday, a demonstration in Niamey, the capital, turned violent when security forces fired tear gas on protestors, while in Dosso, 140 km to the west, protesters set fire to vehicles.  An array of opposition parties, unions and NGOs have announced massive demonstrations and strikes for June 7th.

It was difficult to find citizen media, blogs, or online forums within Niger discussing the referendum, however bloggers in neighboring countries like Burkina Faso and Chad are closely watching as events unfold.

tchad futur writes:

Ces derniers temps, dans la plupart des pays d'Afrique, les modifications constitutionnelles sont à la mode, se  réalisent malgré l'opposition des sensibilités socio-politiques et au gré des dirigeants.

Le Niger, pays qui a donné l'exemple d'une bonne léçon de la démocratie avec  la réalisation de sa première alternance politique et démocratique, est  happé par ces révisons constitutionnelles au nez et à la barbe de l'opinion internationale.

So far, Libyan president Moummar Kadhafi is the only head of state to publicly support the referendum.  Both the US and Canada have spoken out against it.  tchad futur predicts France will stay quiet given the uranium deal the French company AREVA signed with Niger in January.

En Afrique, les révisions constitutionnelles ne font pas avec la volonté du peuple mais au gré des puissances étrangères, dont les intérêts doivent être garantis au détriment des valeurs démocratiques ou des droits de l'homme baffoués.

In Africa, constitutional amendments do not happen with the will of the people, but rather at the pleasure of foreign powers, whose interests must be protected, to the detriment of democratic values and human rights.

On Burkinabe news site LeFaso.net, Alain Saint Robespierre writes about Niger's “Constitutional Coup d'Etat”:

Dans cet imbroglio politique, une chose est néanmoins sûre : l’homme fort de Niamey ne reculera devient rien ni personne pour faire aboutir le projet de prolongation de son mandat à la tête du pays. Et là, pas du tout. Pour tous ceux qui croyaient le chef de l’Etat nigérien capable de faire machine arrière dans sa volonté de prolonger, au mépris de la loi, son bail présidentiel, l’heure est à la désillusion.

Nonetheless, in this political imbroglio, one this is sure: the strong man of Niamey will not retreat for anything or anyone in order to realize his plan to prolong his mandate at the head of the country.  For all those who believed the Nigerian commander-in-chief capable of moving backward in order to extend , at the expense of the law, his presidential lease, we are in the hour of disillusion.

In response, a reader named koudka writes:

Pauvre de nous africains ! il faut que ça change. le peuple nigérien ne mérite pas cela. quand je pense que il y en des chefs d’état qui estiment que leur pays ne sera rien sans eux alors que depuis longtemps qu’ils sont chefs rien n’a été fait.  j’ai envis de changer de planête tout simplement…

We poor Africans!  This has to change.  The Nigerien people don't deserve this.  When I think that there are heads of state who believe their country will be nothing without them, while in all the time they have been head of state, they have done nothing.  Quite simply, I want to change the world…

Laye, referring to former president Ibrahim Bare Mainassa's assassination, thinks Tandja is playing with fire, and ignoring history:

Comme quelqu’un qui m’a devancé l’a déjà dit, il y en a qui ont oublié ce que c’est que le Wankage. Et c’est clair qu’il y aura coup d’Etat au Niger, et très clair que Tandja sera tué. De tte façon il ne mérite pas mieux.

As someone noted before me, some have forgotten Wanke.  It's clear there will be a coup d'Etat in Niger, and that Tandja will be killed.  At any rate, he doesn't deserve any better.

And applauds those who are standing up to Tandja:

Bravo à l’Assemblée Nationale Nigérienne, à Mahamane Ousmane, à la Cour Constitutionnelle, au Président Guermakoye, à …, aux Nigériens !

Bravo to the Nigerien National Assembly, to Mahamane Ousame, to the Constitutional Court, to President Guermakoye, to…to the Nigeriens!

Traps:

Mr Tandja , ce qu’on a pas pu faire en dix ans on le fera jamais en deux ou trois ans . Il etait temps pour toi de t’en aller. Tu as insulte la democratie africaine. Mr Tandja tu aurais du donner le bon exemple a tes freres acrochards de pouvoir. Tandja . Vas t’en . Aller ouste .

Mr. Tandja, what you could not do in ten years, you will never do in two or three.  It is time for you to go.  You insult African democracy.  Mr. Tandja, you should have been a good example to your brothers holding onto power.  Tandja, get out of here.  Off you go.

Zen Water by darkpatator

First, the issue of providing clean water: we have the Amman Imman: Water is Life program which strives to bring permanent sources of water to one of the most impoverished regions in the world. Their work is focused on the Azawak Valley in West Africa, where water is unavailable 9 months out of the year, and with people dying of thirst, unable to find enough water to drink. In the next video in English, Amman Imman founder Ariane Kirtley talks about her experience in the Azawak region of Niger, of why she founded the program and how she has gotten students to join her cause.

Then, from Witnesses´The HUB special segment on World Water Day: VideoVolunteers in Mumbai show a segment on a water privatization project in the slums and which after being screened to the community had an important impact on the viewers, who then flocked to the government´s meetings of water to demand transparency in the process of privatization and costs, and which resulted in an improvement of the water distribution. The following video is in Hindi with English subtitles.

Last, from Mexico, many users from Jalisco have taken to posting videos denouncing the contamination of the Lerma Santiago river in El Salto and Juanacatlan in Jalisco, Mexico. The audio which accompanies the Buitron2611 video [es] of foamy waters and dead greenery is of people speaking out publicly about the government selling plots of land right beside the polluted river which has been connected to cancer cases, even though the government denies the health hazards. Imdecagua´s video [es] has interviews with cancer patients and family members of those diseased, and they all blame the polluted river for the cancer cases and other systemic diseases. It is known that factories and the city of Guadalajara dump their unprocessed wastes on this river, yet nothing has been done to regulate this. The foam that is churned at the waterfall that is right in the middle of the city is impressive, flying up in clumps that cover cars and illustrate how just living near the river can be hazardous to health. Even high school students [es] have ventured to produce their own example, where they show how people are using this foul smelling and oily water to irrigate crops and for consumption in spite of it´s polluted state. Following, the short video uploaded by aletapatio[es] where you can see the thick layer of foam that covers the river.

If you want to read more about water issues and see more videos on possible solutions to this issue, at 1h2o.org you can see the aquaduct, a human powered vehicle which doubles as a water container and purifier and the lifestraw, a product which filters water as it is sucked, solutions that reminded me of the inventiveness that I had previously seen on the Playpump, a children´s toy which pumps up water to a reservoir as children play.

Lacking any stories of birth or labor, we’ll skip straight to one of our most important rites of passage – the union of two people in the ceremony of marriage. These observations of a village wedding come from Ramblings from Rhadikha in Burkina:

Not unlike in America, weddings are good times with wild and crazy dancing and acceptable public drunkenness. Unlike American weddings, everyone is invited. Those immediately involved go to the “mayor’s” house for the exchanging of vows and signing of contracts. That is the equivalent of the ceremony. No one but the bride, the groom, and their parents are expected to be interested in that part. There are no registries with china patterns and cutlery. Your gift is showing up and getting down. The party starts at sunset and ends when the roosters start cock-a-doodle-doo-ing. The bartender is someone’s underage cousin serving up home brewed millet beer in nature’s beer mug, a dried gourd. There is drumming, dancing, and chanting of the sort that one might see on the discovery channel.

Gorom-Gorom, Burkina Faso’s most northern major city (485 kilometers north of Ouagaodugou), is home to “Festicham,” an annual festival that boasts horse and camel racing and a local craft and culture exhibition. This year, Keith from Under the Acacias made it to the festival just in time:

We arrived late, during the second heats of camel races. The whole town seemed to be there, along with a couple of government ministers, accompanying police guards, and a bunch of Italians who apparently finance the whole thing. Dust filled the air, kicked up by hundreds of hooves of various sizes, and thousands of feet.

Let’s stay with Keith a little longer. After 15 years of electing to live in Gorom-Gorom without electricity, his “woodless construction” mud hut leaped directly into the 21^st century with the addition of electricity supplied from the town grid and a telephone link with an internet hook up, too.

After so many years of peace and quiet, these new additions take some time to get used to, reports Keith. After finishing his first blog post written and posted from home, he wonders whether “it might be time to leave Gorom-Gorom, and move somewhere a bit more remote…”

Stephen Davies, from Voice in the Desert, spent a little time in Ouagadougou late last year finishing up his last “tweaks” on the final installment of his children’s trilogy that takes place respectively in Oudalan Province in northern Burkina Faso (and home to Gorom-Gorom) and Niger. The first two installments include Sophie and the Yellow Cake Conspiracy and Sophie and the Locust Curse. Steven’s third book, originally titled Sophie and the Crooked General, has recently been renamed to Sophie and the Pancake Plot, he reports. The book is due out sometime in September 2008.

Because people live much closer to nature in rural Burkina Faso, death is constant companion. Charlie from Blooming Desert describes a loss from the animal world:

 “He's in a bad way, I'm afraid”, said Steve, carrying the patient across the bus station. Six hours of dust, fumes and bone-rattling on the road from Ouagadougou had clearly been too much. His head was limp, his whole body flaccid. We laid him out on the ground and a crowd gathered. Instinctively I stretched out my hand, gently laid it on his chest and prayed. As I did, he shuddered and took his last breath. It was a sad moment.

She reports that “the other seven French hens were fine and have been settling in nicely to their new accommodation.”

In a decidedly more sterile environment, Valentine from My So-Called Life in Africa explains how she dissected a frog at school. She knew she was in for a long day in Biology class when her lab partner asked to work on the largest frog of the litter:

Well, we started cutting and you know how some things are suppose to be juicy like a nice steak, and some things just aren’t? Well let me tell you this was extra juicy frog. Maybe that’s a good thing if you are French and like frog legs, but not if you are an 8th grader in biology class. After a few minutes of poking around in the frog’s leg, we found a gross white thread with a few pieces of black stuff clinging to it. I don’t even know what it’s called and don’t want to know because after having met it, I don’t ever want to again!

Finally, a Peace Corps volunteer, AKIA, traveled from Burkina Faso to Taiwan to observe her grandfather’s funeral. In AKIA-BLOG, she describes the funeral rites, which she says are a mixture of Buddhist and Taiwanese traditions:

Since he passed away, my relatives have been going to the temple to pay respects to my grandfather. Each morning, they go to bai4bai4. This involves burning incense and giving thanks or offerings and general respect paying. According to Taiwanese beliefs, he is ascending to the afterlife but he has not taken anything with him. Each morning, after paying our respects by burning incense at his soul altar, we burn paper flowers (the steps for him to reach the afterlife) and sacrificial money (money for the afterlife). Basically, my grandmother's apartment is reminiscent of a paper/origami factory.