Raison d’être

  Barack Obama led a dedication ceremony in Washington last Sunday, honoring the civil rights leader. The 30-foot granite statue “Stone of Hope“, is the first monument on the National Mall honoring a black leader.   From MLK Memorial website: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is conceived of as an engaging landscape experience tied to other landscapes and monuments, not as a single object or memorial dominating the site. The ...

Established in 2006, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation supports good governance and great leadership in Africa. It was founded by Dr. Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim who was born in Sudan of Nubian heritage. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation encourages better governance in Africa, and the Mo Ibrahim Index evaluates nations’ performance. The Ibrahim Index of African GovernanceA comprehensive assessment of African countries according to the quality of their ...

If you don’t know The Congo Story Project yet, it is a reporting and public awareness campaign co-produced by the Voice of America and the media platform, Citizen Global, that uses crowdsourcing and co-creation techniques to raise awareness about gender-based violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. About the project: The goal of the Congo Story Project is to create networks of informed individuals who are actively involved in engaging ...

It is a very sad news we read yesterday:  Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has died of cancer at the age of 71. The New York Times writes about her: Dr. Maathai, one of the most widely respected women on the continent, played many roles — environmentalist, feminist, politician, professor, rabble-rouser, human rights advocate and head of the Green Belt Movement, which she ...

We decided to dedicate this C’est la vie in France weekly post to Troy Davis. As you may already know if you read the Sama Gazette, and with the strong support of French artist Max Dana, we actively work to bring attention to his case. In a few words: ‘Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. No physical evidence directly links Davis to the murder – no ...

We know Troy Davis story for a long time, and last week we selected his story for our Weekly Friday Digest. For a long time indeed we have been shocked by the treatment made of his case: he was sentenced to death but he might be innocent. Killing a man who could be innocent is something horrible, and this is what is scheduled to happen tomorrow. Max Dana wrote a blog about the situation and we think she found the right words about it. Also, Amnesty ...

Stop Genocide Now organizes a Rally for Regime Change in Sudan in New York on September 16, 2011, 1-4pm, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, East 47th Street. As you may already know if you read En Route to Sudan, destructive military action against Blue Nile State as well as in Darfur are still going on.  From SGN: The Sudanese marginalized movements and organizations representing the marginalized areas of the Nuba Mountains, Darfur, Blue Nile, Abyei, Beja, and ...

Among the many, many new things we added to the new version of the Sama Gazette, there is a revamped version of En Route To Sudan (we will present it in a next post) but there is most of all a brand new section we are very proud of: Inspiration to Action. Here is the introduction to it: This page is dedicated to organizations and campaigns we support, and also to inspiring people (this list is by no means exhaustive, of course). They all do an amazing job ...

Since the independence of South Sudan and the killings in South Kordofan, the plight in Darfur has been neglected by many but it shouldn’t have. The protection of civilians remains unattainable as violent attacks against civilians, blockades of humanitarian access, systematic rape, brutal arrests and torture continue in Darfur. You can join the Sudan Now campaign, activists and Sudanese around the world in a 24-hour-long Hunger Strike For Darfur and ...

The (almost) same day last year we posted about Mandela Day: Give 67 minutes to change the world!. The time for the annual celebration has come again and we just wanted to remind you about it. Whether as an individual, community, business, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or a government department, all you have to do on July 18 is donate 67 minutes of your day to doing something good in any way you can. Nelson Mandela gave 67 years of his life to ...