News from New Orleans and day three: Somalia Awareness Week

Hi folks,

I'm posting a blog by founder Naomi Natale letting you know how things are going in New Orleans.  You'll see that below, but first, remember it's day three of Somalia Awareness Week and here's something we'd like you to know:

53% of Somalis are experiencing a food crisis.  That's 4,000,000 people who go hungry because they can't afford basic foods. Learn.  Act.  Do.

And from Naomi:

Last Thursday, OMB in partnership with the Raise Hope for Congo campaign, hosted a Kick-Off event at Tulane University.  The event was co-sponsored by Tulane African Student Association, the Tulane Human Rights Law Society, the Tulane International Law Society, and FaceAIDS. 

I got to New Orleans in September and have been working at the Unfold Media Gallery to bring OMB to the New Orleans community.  The goal is to produce a 50,000 bones preview installation in New Orleans in March. As our Albuquerque crew can attest, a 50,000 bones event is a lot of work and grass-roots organizing and that could have gotten overwhelming, particularly starting from scratch in a new city.  Luckily as soon as I got here I started working with three Tulane students, Leigh, Emma and Erica, who are doing internships with One Million Bones this semester, and they are wonderful.  As a result of the event at Tulane last night I think we will be bringing on a handful of volunteers and perhaps new interns as well which is very important and exciting for us.

I’m also excited because at this event we were able to talk about the Raise Hope for Congo’s Conflict Free Campus Initiative.  OMB is actively working with the Raise Hope for Congo to bring their Conflict-Free Campus Initiative to the Tulane Campus.  The initiative calls upon students nationwide to help build a consumer voice for “conflict free electronics”-laptops, cell phones, and Ipods that do not finance war in eastern Congo, and to demand that their schools stop investing in these products.  We see this as a huge opportunity for Tulane students to leave a legacy on their campus promoting human rights and displaying a powerful form of student activism.  We also hope to engage students at Xavier, UNO and Loyola to bring this initiative to their campuses as well.

We screened the film Blood in the Mobile, which is documentary that reveals the conflict mineral trade in Congo, how it is financing the war and violence there and how we as consumers of the electronic products they are used in are perpetuating the conflict.  But it also very well explains that the role we play as consumers can be used as leverage demanding the big electronic companies to demand the minerals in their products be conflict free. The video ends with two jarring facts:

1. There is currently no law making it illegal to use conflict minerals in electronic products neither in the USA nor in the EU
2.  There is still no phone on the market which is guaranteed conflict mineral free

I feel encouraged by the amount of interest and enthusiasm that Tulane students displayed last night and look forward to the work we have a head of us in what we call here… The Big Easy.

Stay tuned for a weekly update on the OMB initiative in New Orleans.