Mozambique

Subject: Mozambique
From: Hyperabid
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 07:16 AM

I know this thread is flying something of a kite.

But bearing in mind up to 100,000 people are currently up to their armpits in mud in Mozambique, is there anything Mudcatters can do to help/show-solidarity with some pretty wet cold and tried people down in Southern Africa?

Hyp

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 01:24 PM

What would YOU suggest?

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 01:47 PM

Write a song, go out and sing it, share the information with anyone and everyone in the hopes that they will also care enough to show it. COntact the Red Cross, your government officials, etc., your church, synagogue, etc. about sending aid.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: lajka
Date: 03 Mar 00 - 01:47 PM

Well.... I´m going at least send away the clothes my baby grown out. Soap and toilettpaper are things they probebley needs. Maybe some rice too. I´m so glad that you thinking of them. It´s so easy just give a damn. eva

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: Escamillo
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 12:00 AM

Some years ago when France just gave a damn to all people down the Equator, and continued their nuclear tests in the Pacific, some people here in Buenos Aires started a campaign against French companies, something like a consumer's boicot. Lasted very few days, but the companies were really concerned (banks, supermarkets).
Will we see the day when ALL people stop buying cars, gasoline, expensive things, until every child/woman/man in the world receives at least a safe place where to build a home, and not be flooded or buried into mud ?
What would happen ? Will the owners of the power (in rich and ALSO in poor countries) look down and say "oops"? I guess they will.
Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: canoer
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 12:53 AM

Andres, I like your line of thought. What about just taking all their power away from them permanently? They're like this scrub tree on my fence line. Chop it back all you want, if the root's still there, back come the branches next year.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 06:46 PM

Collectively, not a lot - but as individuals, wherever we are there's going to be someone collecting money for a Mozambique appeal - Oxfam shops, church door collections, street collections, and we feed into that. And if it isn't happening where we are, we can make sure it does.

And in folk clubs we can remind people about this, either with a new song if we've got one, or with an existing one, telling people why we're singing it this time.

For example "Hard Times" Or there's any number of great songs about flood disasters in the American tradition especially.

And one other thing - there's the hunger site, (otherwise known, without blue clicky things, as http://www.thehungersite.com/) which, if you click on once a day, a couple of cups of rice will be donated to starving people somewhere, at no cost to yourself, thanks to an advertisement arrangement - and you can push that right now and make a donation (and every day when you go on the Internet). And then then you can copy the URL into your website, if you've got one, and into your "favorites" or "bookmark" , and add to your email signature, with a suggestion that the people you email about anything else should do the same.

It's not much, but it adds up - and it means there actually can be such a thing as a free lunch after all.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: GUEST,John Gray / Australia
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 07:11 PM

Yeah, I,m not unmindful of the miseries there but years of military / political coups and dictators emptying the treasury to buy weapons have given me a jaundiced view of these countries. Now, if they had spent some of that money on services & infrastructure some of the immediate needs could have been handled internally. This would have bought the rest of us time, to gear up logistically for emergency assistance, as well as giving us ( well, at least me )an unbegrudging mindset.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 07:20 PM

Have a look at the pictures, mate. And who do you think was selling them the weapons? And who was backing the former South African government in financing and organising the "rebellion" for years?

And you think the poor bastards hanging up in the treetops carry some kind of responsibility for all that?

Those are rhetorical questions, not questions seeking a n answer.

Just look at the newsreels.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: FlewRuby
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 07:29 PM

One of the newbies here -- FlewRuby from London. I second McGrath of Harlow's suggestions. Especially those about collections.

The main thing humanitarian aid organisations need to respond to an emergency such as the Mozambique floods is money. With money they can buy the things needed in that area, be it food, shelters, water and sanitation equipment, transport or to get the personnel onto site who can help. Unless a specific request has been put out for clothing or other items, sending these things in response to an emergencies appeal just creates more work for the agency who has to sort them. And a lot of bits get binned.

Even collections at folk clubs -- one place I used to go to had a 'beer box'. With every pint a person bought they put 20p in the box. By the end of an evening a good few pounds had been collected (sterling -- tho' I'm sure weightwise as well...) Every little helps.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: GUEST,John Gray / Australia
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 08:58 PM

Please look at my comment again McGrath. Nowhere did I say we shouldn't assist. I did two "tours" in Vietnam in the 60's so I well know the misery caused to the local folk by political corruption, either by internal or external governments. I was giving an "honest" appraisal of my thoughts. ( as per the other current thread )

JG / FME

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 09:23 PM

This might provide some hope & cheer:

Here is a picture of the baby who was born in a tree.

Here is a news story about her.

T.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: thosp
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 10:53 PM

American Jewish World Service American Red Cross Catholic Relief Services Lutheran World Relief UNICEF USA Homepage World Vision United States Volunteers in Technical Assistance CARE Doctors Without Borders Oxfam International World Relief United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

these org.s are involved with the relief effort in Mozambique --- you can find links to them at www.cnn.com

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: thosp
Date: 04 Mar 00 - 10:54 PM

so much for cut&paste

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 00 - 11:11 AM

Fair enough John Gray - you didn't say don't give, and I'm sure you will give. But it was that phrase "these countries" that got to me. It's like when someone says "these people." Everyone's got a particular history, and so has every country.

Mozambique was devastated for years by the occupying Portuguese, and that meant one drawn out "Civil War".

Then when the Portuguese pulled out, the old South African regime moved in, running a vicious "rebellion" with mercenaries and all, designed to destabilise the new government. And that meant another even more vicious and protracted "Civil War."

One President of Mozambique was murdered by the South Africans. (His widow is now Nelson Mandela's wife.) The country is filled with anti-personnel weapons.

I'm sure the Mozambican authorities have all kinds of things wrong with them, like the authorities in most countries. I've never heard anything to suggest that, given the circumstances, they are any worse than their opposite numbers on England or Australia. But they've had a cruel deal in Mozambique, mostly imposed from outside, so far as I can see. And none of it was down to the people who are struggling to stay alive right now.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 05 Mar 00 - 04:49 PM

to be frank, it a catastrophe the scale of which was equal to that in Mozambique, had happened in the country of my worst enemy it would not enter my head to think about whether they had an infrastructure geared up to handle such things- as dear Bod geldof would say -Just give us the f******G money!!!!

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: Lanfranc
Date: 05 Mar 00 - 07:08 PM

Do what you can, give what you can spare, and, whatever your God, pray for them.

Given the changes taking place in our world's climate, it is very much a case of "There but for the grace of God, go I" Who's next?

"Show me a country where the rivers ran wild Show me mothers drowning as they try to save their child Show me the starving who are just waiting to die And, there, but for fortune, go you or I, You or I"

I'm sure Phil Ochs wouldn't mind - improve on it if you can.

Subject: RE: Mozambique
From: Hyperabid
Date: 06 Mar 00 - 06:37 AM

Well, in reply to the Shambles comment, I guess I've done what everyone else as done and made a small cash donation.

I was just wondering whether any kind of "Folk for the Floods" or similar concept might...

1) Present artists with a forum to play

2) Raise some cash for people who frankly have gone from having nothing to having less than nothing

I know we're all flung to the four corner's of the wind on this forum, but I guess there must be some pockets of people close by to each other.

Hyp