Meet God's Gift

The first thing that anyone asks when they meet this young man: is that your nickname or something. But his real name is God's Gift Achiuwa. The native Nigerian's father is a minister, so the first name he chose for his son is a reflection of the family's religious beliefs. God's Gift Achiuwa is a 6' 9” forward for the Erie Community College basketball team. Coach Nwora discovered him at an annual camp the coach runs in Nigeria and brought him back to Erie, Pennsylvania.

The bruising power forward is making sure he is known for more than just his name. He is averaged 13.1 points, 13.5 rebounds and two blocked shots per game as a freshman, earning third-team All-American and leading Erie to a 27-2 record.

He also excelled in the classroom, earning a 4.0 Grade Point Average in the fall semester and a 3.8 in the spring semester. Division One powerhouses such as Kansas, Pittsburgh, St. John's and Tennessee are among the schools that shown interest. He is a bit on the raw side, but the talent is there and playing in the U. S. has helped him. And Coach Nwora said he is still training like the season begins tomorrow. God's Gift Achiuwa doesn't have a nickname, though his teammates sometimes call him "Gift" for short. For a kid as gifted as Achiuwa on the court and in the classroom, it's a fitting name.

Serena Williams Opens Second School in Kenya

Serena Williams, the world's #1 womens tennis player, made a whirlwind 3-day trip to Kenya in late February. The trip included the opening of the Serena Williams Wee Secondary School, the second such school in her name in that African nation. The school is located in the remote village of Wee, east of Nairobi. This is the second school she’s opened in Kenya with help from computer giant Hewlett Packard. Serena opened her first school in 2008. Oprah, you're lagging.


Just a couple months ago Serena was all over the news for her rant against a line judge in a tennis match and the media was calling for her head. But where is the main stream media when not only Serena Williams, but any athelete does anything positive?

The tiny village of Wee was a beehive of activity as Serena and her entourage arrived in aboard helicopters to preside over the grand opening. Hundreds of school children and their parents turned out to receive the celebrated star player which they only hear about in the media. The greatest moment of the event came when Serena was decorated as an Akamba woman amid song and dance.

Wee students, having heard of a popular joke that Serena’s roots are in Western Kenya due to her imposing physique, impressed the visitor with a rendition of popular songs from the region like mwana wa mama apepetanga (mama’s girl is a star dancer). The children sang: “Serena we like you, Serena we love you, Serena come dance with us,” and Serena acknowledged by waving back with a smile.

For hundreds of Wee residents, the presence of helicopters attracted their attention much more than did the tennis star as they gathered around the machines they only see flying above the hilly region.

Serena’s school has a special class for deaf students, the first of its kind in the region.

Serena also met with the Prime Minister and Vice President of Kenya and conducted a tennis clinic with the children. And being that Serena was recovering from the flu, her appearance was all the more impressive.

Child Rape Survivor Helps Other Virgin Myth Victims

Hope was 14 years old when her uncle raped her. He trapped her to the ground and covered her mouth with his hand, then threatened to kill her if she ever told anybody. So, she kept quiet. A few months later people around the villages started saying that that she looked pregnant. Hope was not only pregnant, but her uncle had infected her with HIV. Like many young girls in Zimbabwe, Hope was the victim of a widely held belief that if a man with HIV or AIDS rapes a virgin he will be cured of his disease. This so-called virgin myth, perpetuated by Zimbabwe's traditional “healers”, has led to the rape of hundreds of girls, according to UNICEF. Some of these victims are too young to walk, much less protect themselves.

Betty Makoni has fought for nearly a decade to protect her country's young girls from sexual abuse. And she's witnessed some of the worst cases of the myth in action. The youngest girl she ever came across was a day-old baby who was raped. Through her Girl Child Network (GCN), Makoni has helped rescue 35,000 girls from abuse -- including now 18-year-old Hope. Ten girls per day report rape cases, which means that if unchecked, at least 3,600 girls per year may be contracting HIV and AIDS."

Ms. Makoni's own tragic experiences fuel her fierce determination. She was raped when she was 6 years old. Her attacker was a local shopkeeper. Her mother would not allow her to report the abuse. "She said, 'Shh, we don't say that in public,' " Makoni remembered. Betty Makoni had no shoulder to cry on. Three years later, she witnessed her father murder her mother. In that moment, Makoni said she realized the potentially deadly consequence of a woman's silence. She told herself that no girl or woman will suffer the same again.

Believing an education would provide her the best opportunity and means to speak out, Betty Makoni earned two university degrees and became a teacher. While teaching, she noticed that girls were dropping out of school at an alarming rate. She approached her students with an idea. “Let's have our own space where we talk and find solutions," Makoni said. Girl Child Network was born. By the end of the first year, there were 100 GCN clubs throughout Zimbabwe where girls could find support. Ms. Makoni said she was not surprised: "Every woman and girl identified with the issues that we were raising," she said.

In 2000, she quit her teaching job to volunteer with GCN full time. The following year she successfully procured a piece of land and opened the organization's first empowerment village, designed to provide a haven for girls who have been abused. Girls are either rescued or referred to the village by social services, the police and the community. The healing begins as soon as a girl arrives. In the first 72 hours, a girl is provided with emergency medication, reinstatement in school, as well as counseling.

It is important to her that the girls are in charge of their own healing. "It gives them the confidence to transform from victims to leaders," she explained. The process helps the girls work through the times when many thought their life had come to an end. Today, GCN has grown to 700 girls' clubs and three empowerment villages across Zimbabwe. An estimated 300,000 girls have received assistance.

But for Betty Makoni, speaking out came with a high personal cost. In 2008, she was forced to flee her native country. She left Zimbabwe because her life was in danger as a result of her project being interpreted politically. Today, she lives with her family in the United Kingdom. She still serves as executive director of her organization and shows no signs of slowing down. GCN has partnered with the DOVE project, a group based in Essex, England, that deals with domestic violence. "We are now bringing the girls from a local community to the international scene," she said. Her efforts in Zimbabwe are highlighted in the film documentary, Tapestries of Hope.

It's disappointing to know that grown men are foolish enough to believe in such nonsense and will take to raping infants and toddlers in a ridiculous attempt to save themselves. Yes, if these men, and I use the term loosely, were educated they would know better than to believe that raping a child cures AIDS. But even if they DO believe that, it still doesn't explain why they are evil enough to go through with raping a child. This is absolutely horrific and depressing! I can't fathom anyone perpetrating such atrocities towards other people, especially newborn babies! Lack of education or not, ignorance is no excuse for such depravity! There needs to be justice and everyone involved in such horrific and unimaginable crimes SHOULD FACE “REAL” JUSTICE.

In Tanzania, Albinos fear for their lives because some "traditional healer" says using their body parts for ritual sacrifice will bring them lots of money. We are talking about another human being hunted down like an animal to be killed and sacrificed. Just recently in Nigeria, there was a case of the wife of some newspaper owner who beheaded a young boy as sacrifice in order to cure her ailing children. And stuff like this isn't just Africans - the Germans in WWII camps used to put virgins in bed with frozen corpses in the hope that they would thaw out and come back to life.

While this is terribly sad, we need to recognize that it happens everywhere, including the U.S. Maybe not for the same reasons, i.e. the virgin myth, but child molestations happen in the U.S. daily. 1 in 3 girls is molested before her 18th birthday and 1 in 5-6 boys, across the United States.

Want to get involved? Check out the Girl Child Network and Promise Place to see how to help.
http://www.promiseplace.net
http://www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org

Out of Bushwick

On July 31, 2008 CNN's Soledad O'Brien traveled with 30 Brooklyn schoolchildren on a volunteer mission to serve the impoverished and orphans in South Africa. These teenagers are mostly from Bushwick, Brooklyn -- a community of about 109,000 people located five miles from Manhattan. For most, it’s their first time away from home. The children on this trip to South Africa are what educators and social workers call "at-risk" -- at risk of having babies as teenagers; at risk of never finishing high school or achieving their dreams; at risk of never knowing the world beyond their neighborhood.

Bushwick is mostly a working class neighborhood where families have often struggled. For years it was a community with a thriving drug trade, severely under-achieving schools, extreme poverty and a staggering rate of teenage pregnancy. It was ravaged by fires and looting during the summer of 1977 and hit hard by the crack epidemic in the 1980s. The community is recovering now, but half of the children under age 18 still live below the poverty line. A quarter of the adults never make it past the ninth grade and more than half never graduate from high school.

The South Africa trip is Malaak Compton-Rock's brainchild -- to broaden the horizons of young teens and give them perspective on their own lives. These 30 children, between the ages of 12 to 16, have been paired up with college-aged mentors and brought to South Africa by Malaak Compton-Rock, the wife of comedian Chris Rock. She brought them to volunteer -- to serve the impoverished and the AIDS orphans South Africa, a country with the highest HIV-infected population in the world; a country with 1.4 million AIDS orphans. Compton-Rock has carved her own niche in community service. She often quotes her mentor Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund: "Service is the rent we pay for living."

I believe by traveling you open up your life and your mind. You no longer think locally, you start to think globally and internationally, outside the confinements of your neighborhood and it gives you a sense of confidence. In the United States, even in Bushwick, we have certain services that we need to understand and need to take advantage of. I am talking about things that we take for granted like access to free public education, food, knowledge and the ability to move up the ladder in life – things reserved for only the rich in most developing countries.

When the Bushwick travelers returned to the U.S. their journey did not end. Malaak Compton-Rock has required all of the children selected for the trip to sign one-year contracts to become "global ambassadors."
As ambassadors they are required to tell their friends and neighbors about their experiences -- through writing, blogging, photographs and speeches. What did they learn and discover about themselves, and the world? All the kids have been asked to blog about the joys and the challenges, the things they learned and the disappointments. The Bushwick teens came to make a difference in the lives of these vulnerable kids in South Africa. It will be equally interesting to see how South Africa's children make a difference in the lives of these children from Bushwick.

Cut and paste to get more information:

http://www.angelrockproject.com/arp/projects/journey_for_change.asp

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/06/01/btsc.bia.south.africa/index.html#cnnSTCPhoto

Amobi Okoye Gives Back to Africa

Amobi Okoye, defensive tackle with the Houston Texans of the National Football League, started a project with other athletes called the Athletes in the Diaspora Community Interventions (ADCI) which provides humanitarian support for change on the African continent.

For one of the projects, Changing Africa Through Education (CATE), Amobi traveled to Nigeria with several other professional athletes (Adewale Ogunleye, Israel Idonije (Chicago Bears), Osi Umenyiora (New York Giants), and Ahman Green (Houston Texans), to work on programs that included scholarship endowments, soccer camps, and, clean water programs and they held five mobile clinics for over 1,000 residents. In addition, medicine was distributed in partnership with physicians from Integris Health of Oklahoma. The players held two physical activity camps which exposed youth to the fundamentals of American Football and they included girls as a part of their commitment to the advancement of women in sports. During the trip, Okoye and ADCI launched the ADCI Academy of Sports and Learning which will be built in Nigeria. ADCI is presented in conjunction with the Sports and Marketing Management firm founded by Okoye, InVictus91. Additional programs that Amobi Okoye leads through C.A.T.E and the Amobi Okoye Foundation include the funding of clean water wells and the ongoing sponsorship of a maternity ward, the only hospital within 100 mile radius in Nri, a developing village in Nigeria. Other athletes who donated but were unable to make the trip include Nnamdi Asomuga and Adimchinobe Echemandu (Oakland Raiders), Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila (Green Bay Packers), Akbar Gbaja-Biamila (Miami Dolphins).

Amobi Okoye was born in Anambra, Nigeria. He moved to Huntsville, Alabama when he was 12 years old. After only spending two weeks in middle school, he tested into the 9th grade. He first started playing football as a sophomore at Lee High School, knowing virtually nothing about the game before his high school coach suggested he go play Madden NFL football to learn. By the time he was a senior, he won first-team All-State honors as both a defensive and offensive lineman. At the age of 16, Amobi Okoye became the youngest NCAA student athlete of all time. Amobi successfully graduated from Louisville within 3 ½ years, prior to entering the NFL as the youngest athlete ever drafted into the NFL in the modern draft era. Okoye was drafted by the Houston Texans as the tenth pick of the first round of the 2007 NFL draft.

The Amobi Okoye Foundation was founded on the belief that all youth have the basic human right of hope for a brighter future. Programs and services have been implemented domestically and abroad that address the basic needs of children and their surrounding communities.
These programs include: Kick-off for Kids, Tackle Hunger, Amobi’s House, C.A.T.E (Changing Africa Through Education) and AO’s Young Professionals.

First African Playboy Playmate of the Year

Tanzanian-born model Ida Ljungqvist recently received a necklace from Hugh Hefner in recognition as the 2009 Playboy Playmate of the Year at the Playboy Club at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was Playmate for March 2008.

The 27-year-old African/Swede stunner was discovered while working at a Bebe clothing boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills by 2007 Playmate of the Year Sara Jean Underwood. She made history as the magazine’s 50th woman to hold the title, and the first African to do so. She is tri-lingual (English, Swahili and Swedish, and), and has a degree in fashion design and marketing and plans to study economics. Ljungqvist quit her job at Bebe a month later and appeared on the cover of Playboy in March of last year. She said her parents were hardly proud when she told them she was going to bare all for Playboy. “My mother didn’t speak to me for a month,” she said. She hopes being Playmate of the Year opens doors for her; she'd love to act. And from now on, she says, she's keeping her clothes on in photos.

Ida Ljungqvist was born to a Tanzanian mother and a Swedish father and she traveled the globe while her father worked for UNICEF. In Africa she has lived in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe; in Asia, she lived in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand; in Europe, she lived in France, the U.K., Sweden, and Denmark. She currently lives in California.

AIDS: The Cavalry Is Not Coming to Save Us

Over the past 40 years Blacks in America have made huge advances in many fields. I can certainly speak of some of the changes and some of the “same ole thing” that Black people encounter daily in the United States. Health care is one of those areas I must include in the “same ole thing” category, particularly the U.S. response to HIV/AIDS among Blacks.

The average American can relate to the devastating AIDS epidemic in Africa, but has no clue of the epidemic happening in the Black community enduring right here at home. America’s response to AIDS in Africa has been billions of dollars more than its response to its citizens at home.

The world has been very consumed with the devastation of AIDS in Africa. Great! However, there should be an out-cry that 5% of the population in Washington, DC is living with the AIDS virus; that’s 1 in 20 persons in our nation’s capital. And over 80% of these persons living with HIV in Washington, DC, are Black. In the state of Georgia 70% of persons living with HIV is Black.

The U.S. this year will once again deliver billions of dollars to 15 nations to address HIV prevention and treatment. Once again, GREAT! But sadly, the rate of HIV/AIDS in Black America ranks higher than seven of those foreign countries that will receive U.S. dollars in the coming months. The seven countries that have less of an HIV positive population than Black America are: Guyana, Rwanda, Haiti, Namibia, Vietnam, (yes we are sending money to Vietnam), Botswana, and Ethiopia.

Pernessa Seele, Founder/CEO of The Balm in Gilead, a non-profit organization which disseminates accurate information about AIDS said, “When I was a child in Lincolnville, South Carolina, with various illnesses, my mom and I sat in “colored only” hospital waiting rooms and had to enter the doctors’ offices through the back door in order to be seen. It did not matter what time we arrived - always early in the morning - or the nature of our medical distress, we would not be seen by the doctor or the medical staff at the hospital until every White person had been served that day. Waiting was the life of Black folks when I was a child, particularly in areas of health and medicine. Today, Black Americans are still waiting for adequate health care and an appropriate response to its suffering regarding HIV/AIDS. However, the waiting is much longer! The world is in front of us!! It appears that the U.S. Cavalry is not coming to save us.
We must depend on ourselves!

There is no excuse for the shocking numbers of infection we are seeing in the Black population. People need and should take personal responsibility. The answer to preventing AIDS for the most part is simple. Stop participating in unprotected sex with multiple partners and stop taking IV drugs. No one is going to protect us except ourselves. There is no way around this simple truth.

People can manage this problem only by changing their behavior. Stop doing things that will put you in danger of catching or spreading the disease. No one should have to pass a bill because we refuse to “do the right thing.” Anyone who expects the government to run our lives and take care of us from cradle to grave is in fact still slaves. True freedom comes with self-reliance and resourcefulness. Why would any truly proud Black person want to say that someone else solved their AIDS problem?

Look at the country of Uganda: from 1986 to 2000, the HIV rate dropped from 30 % to 6%. The government along with faith based organizations banded together to promote the ABC campaign. A-Abstinence, B-Be faithful, and (if these did not work), C-use Condoms. It worked because people took personal responsibility for their sexual behavior. The U.S. solution is ill advised, because condoms are pushed as its foundational cure, rather than changed behavior. Ugandan leaders are trying to persuade this country not to get too involved in their country, believing that the HIV/AIDS campaign has merely morphed into a condom promoting business, now more about money rather than focusing on people’s behavior.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Black America is very alarming and disgraceful at the same time. Black men and women must hold themselves accountable for reckless and yes sinful lifestyles that are putting our future in danger. Young Black women must start demanding respect and a commitment before they have sex. Bi-sexual Black men must stop lying and protect their women, and turn to God for complete deliverance. Sixty-six percent (66%) of Black women, ages 25-34, are infected with HIV/AIDS. And to add further future troubles 70% of Black children are born out of wedlock (that’s a whole other story in itself). Men on the “down low” account for a large part of the spread of the disease. They are being locked up for long periods of time, denied either female company, or condoms, having sex with men, then going back into the community and having sex with women. Who in turn have sex with other men, who have sex with other women.

This fight goes beyond personal responsibility. We need to bring our people along kicking and screaming. Just looking out for number one is why we have fallen victim to this. Men, get your boys to wear a condom, ladies get your girls to make their man to wear one. We are fighting for our future… We must educate to survive.

The information on how to prevent AIDS has been available for a very long time. Advertising prevention is on TV and in schools and in almost every doctor’s office. The government has done their job in the U.S. The public is informed. They can not force you to use a clean needle for drugs or wear a condom or stop indiscriminate sex. Ignorance is when you don’t know something. Stupid is when you know better and still do it. In Africa I’d chalk it up to ignorance and lack of protection. In the U.S. it’s pure stupidity.

Mataano: Twins

Born to Somali parents and raised in both Somalia and Washington, D.C., identical twins Ayaan and Idyl Mohallim are anything but ordinary. Having fled Somalia at the age of nine to escape the country’s civil war, the twins completed their college education; Ayaan at University of Michigan and Idyl at Boston University, before making the bold move to Manhattan where they aimed to stand out from the rest in the world of fashion and design. They always shared an interest for fashion. Experiencing the industry from the ground up through careful study and practice, they slowly crafted their talent in their studio with only distant dreams of launching a collection. They each had worked in fashion (Idyl at Jill Stuart and Ayaan at Betsey Johnson), and used that experience to learn the industry and, eventually, start their own line. In 2008 the time had come to stand on their own four legs.

On November 1, 2008, the Mohallim sisters took their first step together, launching a new brand, Mataano (ma-taa-no), meaning “twins” in Somali, and launched their premier Spring 2009 collection in New York City featuring a boutique preview of ten dresses. Not long after that they got a call from Oprah. The twins recently appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show featuring the Olsen twins and young millionaire moguls. Paralleling their success with the Olsen sisters, Oprah lauded the duo for their inspiring story and much deserved success, and gave them the national credibility that will undoubtedly launch Mataano as an emerging brand with a rich cultural heritage.

They have a strong presence in the internet. They have videos documenting our photo-shoots on youtube, and they blog. The twins say that they are greatly influenced by their Somalian heritage; growing up and being surrounded by beautiful women wearing colorful dresses. Africans love color and you can see how that influenced their Spring 2009 designs.

Their advice and recipe for success is “never give up your dream and be ready to really work hard.”

Sons of Lwala

The village of Lwala is a small farming community of 1500 in Kenya. Two things stand out in Lwala: the sense of community and the lack of health care. In Lwala poverty, impassable roads during the rainy season, lack of electricity, unsafe drinking water and poor nutrition create an environment where poor health is rampant and access to care practically nonexistent. Malaria, diarrhea, skin diseases, respiratory diseases and tuberculosis are rampant. Women give birth in their dirt-floored huts, and complications in delivery often lead to death. Children suffer from malnutrition, which makes worse the problems of malaria, diarrhea and skin diseases. But despite their difficulty, these problems pale in comparison to the problem of HIV/AIDS, which is the primary cause of death in Lwala and infects as much as a third of the population. The nearest hospital is over 40 miles away. Lwala is basically a community struggling to keep afloat. In all this misery and despair, the residents of Lwala somehow carry themselves with a sense of joy.

‘Sons of Lwala’ is a documentary film that follows Milton and Fred Ochieng’. Milton and Fred are two brothers from Kenya whose village sent them to America to become doctors. But after losing both parents to AIDS they were left with a heartbreaking task: to return home and finish the health clinic their father started before getting sick. Unable to raise enough money on their own, the brothers were joined by students, politicians, and Christian rock band - Jars of Clay to launch a fundraising drive among young people across the United States. The documentary follows Milton and Fred on their incredible journey as they find a way, despite all odds, to open their village’s first and only clinic. Both have been speaking all over the northeast lately to doctor’s conventions while filmmaker Barry Simmons been showing the film in dozens of venues, from universities to medical conferences to church gatherings to fund the clinic. The clinic has already made a huge difference in the lives of Kenyans living in and near Lwala. But the greatest challenge facing the clinic continues to be funding. The lack of an ambulance to transport patients, refrigeration to store drugs like snake anti-venom, staffing and supplies, especially medicine. The clinic is staffed by one physician’s assistant and three nurses, a nurse’s aide, a lab technician and a pharmacist. Treatment is free for children under 5, seniors over 70, pregnant women and HIV/AIDS patients. The cost for those who pay is usually about 70 cents a visit.

The Lwala villagers sold livestock, the equivalent of us selling our cars, to send Milton and Fred Ochieng’ to the United States for medical training. Milton is currently pursuing his residency in St. Louis, Missouri and Fred is a third year med student at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. The brothers’ achievement is a village affair and it is also a family affair. Two of their sisters are also in the U.S.: Florence is a second-year nursing student at St. Joseph’s College of Nursing in Syracuse, New York and Grace is attending high school in New Hampshire. A younger brother, Solomon, is in high primary school in Kenya. He is taken care of by the oldest brother Omondi who was enrolled at a local teacher’s college before dropping out to care for the sick parents. Omondi looks after the homestead and runs the clinic in Lwala.

When Milton left Kenya to study in the U.S., he became the first person from his village to board an airplane. He received a college scholarship to Dartmouth but was unable to afford the airfare until neighbors came up with the money by selling chickens and cows. Fred followed his brother to Dartmouth two years later, becoming only the second person from their village to set foot in the United States. Fred raised $9,000 at a Christian conference while at Dartmouth in one day to begin the building of their father’s clinic.

Since its independence from Britain in 1963, Kenya has achieved a level of corruption unrivaled almost anywhere else in the world. According to studies, the government steals and wastes $1 billion. Yet Kenya spends just $14 per person on health each year and pays it young doctors about what a U.S. cab driver makes. It’s no wonder that nearly 1,700 physicians have fled Kenya in the last 10 years in search of better jobs, leaving their families and neighbors in the villages with no one to care for them.

The “Sons of Lwala” DVD is available and on sale for $19.99 at www.sonsoflwala.com. According to the producers all proceeds go to the clinic. If you use Facebook, join the Sons of Lwala group to receive regular updates on where the film is being shown and how you can make a difference in this project.

To find out more about the village visit: www.lwalacommunityalliance.org?>http://www.lwalacommunityalliance.org

The World Hopes for Its First President

The world has never watched any vote, in any nation, so closely. In country after country, polls show record-high fascination with the outcome of the U.S. elections this Tuesday. The Voice of America, which broadcasts in 45 languages to a worldwide audience of 134 million, is seeing "unprecedented interest. Indonesians and Kenyans, are of course fascinated and somewhat astonished by the fact that Barack Obama, a man with ties to both places, should be the front runner. Europe is thrilled by the prospect that whatever happens this week it will mean the end of George W. Bush. It's very clear who they are interested in: Barack Obama.

Senator Obama goes into Election Day with a steady lead in U.S. polls, averaging about 50 percent to 44 percent for McCain, but he was headed for a landslide around the world, topping polls in virtually every nation often by strong margins: 70 percent in Germany, 75 percent in China and so on. Somewhere along the road to the White House, Obama became the world's candidate—a reminder that for all the talk of America's decline, for all the hatred of Bush, the rest of the world still looks upon the United States as a land of hope and opportunity. The Obama story is what makes America magical.

Outside of the United States, most people see Senator Obama as a 21st-century man with whom the whole world can identify versus an old cold-warrior out of synch with the complex political and economic crises of our age. If at home, especially as the election neared its end, Obama seemed to be playing down his Blackness, his intellect, and his progressive ideas, these were the qualities that drew the rest of the world to him. Asia was trying to claim Obama for his Indonesian childhood, Africa for his Kenyan father, and the Middle East for his middle name.

Once upon a time, John McCain, too, was seen as part of the post-Bush American reformation. When he ran for president in 2000 he promised wouldn't "pander" to "agents of intolerance," whose grip on U.S. politics has long perplexed and worried outsiders. When in late August McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate in a bid for support from conservative evangelicals, his global luster quickly faded.

Throughout Europe Polls show Obama rising in the polls since May, to the present average of 62 percent in October. In France "France for Obama" T shirts have not been able to keep up with the demand. The Portuguese-language networking sites have 293 "communities" dedicated to Obamania. In Brazil, at least eight candidates in recent elections simply borrowed Barack Obama's name and put it on the ballot instead of their own.

If Obama losses rest of the world will continue to say (only more loudly) that America is on the decline, and it will look all the smaller for having failed to redeem itself with the election of a young Black man with African and South Asian roots and a Middle Eastern middle name. They already think Americans are crazy for re-electing Bu$h.

The world caught a glimpse of their man on a sunny afternoon last July in Berlin. He stood at the base of Berlin's Siegessäule, or Victory Column, in the Tiergarten. Some 200,000 people fanned out before him, a crowd much larger than any he had drawn at home during 18 months of campaigning. "People of the world," Barack Obama said, "look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." The world has already cast its vote, in poll after poll. In a globalized world, the U.S. president can shapes lives worldwide. So in a sense he is their president, too. Around the globe Obama has raised hopes of a progressive leader who can restore America's moral leadership.

Hollywood and Bollywood Make Room for Nollywood

Nigerian movies have found a place next to those from Hollywood and Bombay, India's equivalent, Bollywood, in English-speaking Africa. The Surulere district of Lagos, Nigeria, is a center for filmmaking in West Africa’s new moviemaking capital.

Since the late 1990's, Nigerian movies have found a place next to offerings from Hollywood and Bollywood in the cities, towns and villages across English-speaking Africa. Though made on the cheap, with budgets of about only $15,000, the Nigerian movies have become huge hits, with stories, themes and faces familiar to other Africans. It is now, according to conservative estimates, a $45 million a year industry.

Serious movies about Africa that win awards in the United States and Europe are usually made by African filmmakers based in Paris or London, and attract little attention among most Africans. But Nigeria's pulp movies have had a wide influence on African popular culture — so much so that they have suddenly made acting an attractive profession in Nigeria and have transformed the Surulere district from a dull neighborhood of two-story businesses and houses into a mecca of dreams and desires.

"This is Hollywood in Nigeria," said Emeka Ani, an actor whose two-room office in Surulere serves as the center for the Actors Guild of Nigeria. In Mr. Ani's inner office he keeps a file of Nigeria's famous actors and a list of guild members, which has grown to 5,000 from 500 since its creation in 1996. In the other room, he sells videocassettes of hundreds of movies, which are known here as home videos. Christian songs flow through the office. By midmorning, the music changes to the dance rhythms of Nigerian night life and the young would-be actresses working in his office dance to popular Nigerian music.

Outside, on Folawiyo Bankole Street, a steady stream of eager young men and women pause before the audition notices on two boards. They hang around on the street, exchanging gossip and tips, causing traffic jams on the narrow two-lane street. When a star comes by, a crowd gathers. The crowd gradually moves to Winis, a hotel and restaurant a couple of buildings away from Mr. Ani's that is the hangout for actors, directors and producers. They sit in the bar and make deals over Gulder beer and hot pepper soup.

With such low budgets, the movies are typically filmed over several days, with just one digital camera. The stories are perhaps no different from those found in Hollywood movies, though many have Africa-specific themes. By all accounts, the first big hit was the 1992 movie "Living in Bondage." It gave birth to the film industry, which is dominated by the Ibo tribe, said Remy Ohajianya, an actor who is chairman of the actor’s guild. But the explosive growth occurred after 1998, when Nigerian movies began to be exported all over Africa, especially in the English-speaking countries. So many films were being made that, early this year, producers spat out 54 titles in a single week. After a four-month voluntary recess, the industry has agreed to limit the releases to eight a week.

A week or two after shooting ends, the movies flood the Nigerian market. They are sold for $2.15 a cassette and shown to the public for a few pennies in restaurants, video centers or private homes operating as movie houses. An average movie will sell about 50,000 copies and a blockbuster four times that. The Nigerian movie industry now produces more than 400 movies a year. At that rate, the producers bring in an estimated $45 million a year; but other people, at movie centers, and bootleggers, also capitalize from the movies.

Top actors like Kate Henshaw-Nattall, who is well recognized throughout Africa, now earn about $4,000 a movie, a sum that was inconceivable only a few years ago and one that remains out of reach for most working Nigerians. Charles Awurum, another popular actor, began his acting career in sleepy Imo State in 1982. He appeared on a weekly soap opera called "Dusk of the Gods" and made less than $7 an episode. After his first movie in 1994, he left Imo State for "greener pastures" in Surulere. He had a breakthrough with "Ekulu," a love story about an African slave and a White woman who frees him. When they come to Africa, she is rejected by his society, and they flee into the jungle.

Nigerian intellectuals dismiss these movies as exploitation. But their growing popularity, coupled with the big salaries, has changed the traditional perception of acting and actors in Nigerian society. "Before, if you were an actor, people would just wave you away," Mr. Awurum said. "Before, you would kill your daughter if she told you she wanted to become an actress. Actresses were regarded as no better than prostitutes, kissing on the screen. "Now, everywhere I go, people embrace me. Everybody wants to be my friend."

Genevieve Nnaji, maybe the hottest actress on the Nollywood scene, is also a singer and producer has starred in over 60 movies. Her beauty has been praised as incredible, and she has been compared to Gabrielle Union and Nia Long. Her smoldering good looks and her intelligence are hard to ignore and her presence on screen is always memorable. Her foray into acting started in 1998 and helped launch her modeling career when she was chosen to be the face of Lux soap in 2004. In March 2008, she launched a new clothing line called St. Genevieve, adding fashion designer to her list of titles. The line has gained in popularity and was chosen as a feature for the magazine, Today’s Woman. Her business savvy has guided her career and helped her build a niche for herself both in and out of Nollywood.

Darfur Refugee Will Lead U.S. Olympic Team

Lopez Lomong will lead the U.S. Olympic team at opening ceremonies Friday night at Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing. Lomong, one ot the "Lost Boys of Sudan" was selected Thursday as the flag bearer for the U.S. team. He won a vote of team captains to earn the honor at the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Lopez was born Lopepe Lomong, January 1, 1985 in Kimotong, Sudan. He was among roughly 3,800 refugees, dubbed the Lost Boys of Sudan by reporters and aid workers, who were resettled in cities across the United States. Nearly all were boys who had been separated from relatives during fighting in Sudan. They endured months of wandering during which thousands died of hunger, disease or attacks by bandits or wild animals.

Human rights groups have faulted China for doing too little to pressure Sudan, its trading partner, to halt continuous bloodshed in the Darfur region. An estimated 300,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes in a campaign of genocide in Darfur. Lomong was uprooted in 1991 by a grinding civil war in Sudan that pitted Black southerners who practiced Christianity and other religions against a government dominated by Arab Muslims from northern Sudan. The north-south war in Sudan killed 2 million people and displaced 4 million others before a 2005 peace deal ended the fighting. Yet violence still rages in the unrelated conflict that erupted in 2003 in the western region of Darfur. Lomong is a member of Team Darfur, a group of athletes committed to raising awareness about the violence in the Darfur.

The 23-year-old Lomong is a 1,500-meter runner. He was born in Sudan and separated from his family at the point of a gun by rebels, a fate shared by thousands of children in the Darfur, a western area of Sudan. After escaping from a rebel camp with the help of friends at age 6, he spent 10 years in a refugee camp in Kenya before arriving in Tully, New York in 2001 as part of a program to relocate lost children from war torn Sudan and becoming a U.S. citizen a year ago.

Lomong called the honor “the most exciting day ever in my life. It's more than a dream," Lomong said in an interview with the Associated Press moments after he got the news. "I keep saying, I'm not sure if this is true or not true. I'm making the team and now I'm the first guy coming to the stadium and the whole world will be watching me carry the flag. There are no words to describe it. I feel great," Lomong said. "I feel happy, honored. I'm feeling so blessed to get an opportunity to present the United States of America, to present the United States flag in front of my team."

Lopez Lomong began running shortly after the 2000 Olympics. He walked about 5 miles from the Kenyan camp and spent his earnings of a few cents from a landscaping job to pay to watch the Sydney Games on TV.

Lomong attended Tully High School in Upstate New York where he helped lead the cross country and track teams to sectional and state titles, and later competed for Northern Arizona University. In 2007, Lomong was the division I NCAA indoor champion at 3000 meters and the outdoor champion at 1500 meters. He finished third in the distance at the Olympic trials. All three Americans in the 1,500 are naturalized citizens — Lomong, Bernard Lagat (Kenya) and Leo Manzano (Mexico).

After his success at the collegiate level, Lopez signed a contract with Nike and now competes professionally. He specializes in the 1500m run but is a serious contender in every mid-distance race from 800m up to and including the 5k. Lomong is a member of Team Darfur, a group of athletes urging China to exert pressure on Sudan's government to address the violent conflict in Sudan's Darfur.

He is the son of foster parents Robert and Barbara Rogers. Lomong enjoys listening to music. One of his favorite artists is 2Pac Shakur. He plans on majoring in hotel and restaurant management and hopes to have a partnership with a well known hotel like Marriot. His goal is to build a hotel in Africa in order to bring tourists to his birth home and create more of a peaceful environment there. He'd love nothing more than to give people the opportunity to visit the country and interact with the people before prejudging what it may be like there.

“Kip” Ward leads New U.S. Africa Command

General William E. "Kip" Ward, the U.S. Army’s only Black four-star general is Commander, U.S. Africa Command, and the first officer to hold this position. General Ward previously served as Deputy Commander, U.S. European Command. General Ward was commissioned into the infantry in 1971. He holds a M.A. in Political Science from Pennsylvania State University and a B.A. in Political Science from Morgan State University. His military education includes the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced courses, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and U.S. Army War College. His military service includes overseas tours in Korea, Egypt, Somalia, Bosnia, Israel, two tours in Germany, and a wide variety of assignments in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. He assumed his current assignment on October 1, 2007.

Prior to assuming his current position, he was the Deputy Commanding General/Chief of Staff, US Army Europe and Seventh Army. While in this capacity he was selected by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as the United States Security Coordinator, Israel - Palestinian Authority where he served from March 2005 through December 2005.

The newly formed U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is the acknowledgment of the emerging strategic importance of Africa, and recognition that peace and stability on the continent impacts not only Africans, but the interests of the U.S. and international community as well. The creation of AFRICOM enabled the Department of Defense (DoD) to better focus its resources to support and enhance existing U.S. initiatives that help African nations, the African Union, and the regional economic communities succeed. The creation of AFRICOM does not mean the U.S. military will take a leading role in African security matters, nor will it establish large U.S. troop bases. Rather, Africa Command is a headquarters staff whose mission entails coordinating the kind of support that will enable African governments and existing regional organizations, such as the African Standby Force, to have greater capacity to provide security and respond in times of need. AFRICOM builds on the many African-U.S. security cooperation activities already underway, yet will be able to better coordinate DoD support with other U.S. government departments and agencies to make those activities even more effective. I would just like to know why is the U.S. Africa Command headquartered in Germany? If you want to help put some bodies on the ground with money in their pockets.

NBA Star Works to Stop Darfur Killings

The Chicago Bulls’ Luol Deng knows the stakes in the Sudan all too well; He was born there, and he and his family ended up fleeing the African nation for their lives. The refugee-turned-NBA star drew on that personal history recently to appeal for help to stop the bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region, where civil strife has left more than 200,000 dead. “We all need to put a stop to this and do whatever we can to stop this”, he told a crowd at a downtown Chicago rally. “I just hope more people will get involved. The 22 year old Deng briefly told how he had left for Egypt at 5 years old.


Other speakers called on China, one of Sudan’s closest allies, to use its influence to end the crisis that has also displaced 2.5 million people. Some activists have even called for boycotts of this year’s Olympics, to be held in Beijing, unless China acts.


Fighting in Darfur began in 2003 when rebels from Black African tribes took up arms, after years of oppression by Sudan’s Arab-dominated government. The government has been accused of unleashing Arab tribal militias against civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson.


Deng and his family settled in England when he was ten. “As a refugee, life was tough, but I know it was a lot better than what I would have had if we had never left the Sudan,” said Deng. The six foot nine inch tall Deng is a member of the Dinka tribe that produces many of the tallest people in the world. His father, Aldo, served in the Sudanese parliament and became the country’s Minister of Transportation before escaping to Egypt to avoid Sudan’s civil war. While in Egypt, he was taught basketball by former NBA player Manute Bol, who is also a member of the Dinka tribe. In 1993, Deng’s father was granted political asylum in England.


Deng, who played college basketball at Duke, and is also a member of the Great Britain national team, has been active in several programs providing aid to Africa. Luol is one of nine children; His older brother plays professional basketball in England; another brother, Ajou, played college basketball at Fairfield and Connecticut and his sister, Arek, played college basketball at Delaware. He is very active in the Bulls’ charitable efforts; member of the Bulls’ All-Star Reading Team and participated in the team’s Read To Achieve program; awarded the Charles Lubin Award in October of 2006 for his dedication to community service; coordinated the 2nd Annual Luol Deng Thanksgiving Dinner at the Pacific Garden’s Mission Gospel League Home; made a personal donation to the Bulls’ Holiday Food Drive and Spring Food Drive; attended event honoring the Lost Boys of Sudan and Sudanese Heritage Event in January of 2007; serves as spokesperson for the World Food Program and also for the Nothing But Nets initiative, a grassroots effort to prevent malaria by delivering long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets; received the NBA’s Community Assist Award in April of 2007; during the past three off seasons he has organized a summer basketball camp sponsored by Nike in London, England for NBA hopefuls; received the 2006-07 NBA Sportsmanship Award; was a part of the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders tour to Africa in the summer of 2006 and to Europe and Asia in 2007.


Why is it that we only hear about professional athletes in trouble with the law and all the other negative media hype when many more are doing great things similar to these? It is because this does not sell newspapers, magazines and TV commercial time.