o.n.e - august 2008
DESCRIPTION
AIDS and Welfare in Sourth AfricaTRANSCRIPT
August 2008
Although the national poverty rate
fell from 58.1 per cent in 1993 to an es-
timated 16 per cent in 2006, poverty re-
mains in Vietnam, especially among the
ethnic minority population who tend to
live in remote, isolated and mountain-
ous regions of the country. As Vietnam
develops, the gaps between rich and
poor people, between urban and ru-
ral populations, and between the Kinh
and ethnic minorities are widening. For
example, the poverty rate among Kinh
and Chinese is only 10.3 per cent, while
among ethnic minorities, poverty stands
at 52.3 per cent.
In the central highlands of Quang
Tri, where a farmer named Ho Thi Hom
lives, she and her fellow Van Kieu peo-
ple face a poverty rate of about 62 per
cent. Quang Tri and Nghe An are two
VIETNAM: Farming and the Gods
SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS and Welfare
INDONESIA: Mining and the Body
HONG KONG: Youth, Video and Change
GODS, PEOPLE, LAND and INCOMEVan Kieu farmers in VietnamBy Pham Tung Lam
Ho Thi Hom has doubled her rice harvest in Oxfam's project / Photo: Pham Tung Lam
I recently went to southern Africa
for an international poverty meet-
ing in Johannesburg and to observe
Oxfam Hong Kong projects with wom-
en in Zambia.
By the time I left, I was reassured of
two things: Oxfam must continue our
work in the region, and our strategic
goal of improving people’s livelihoods
and sense of security are the right pri-
orities, especially for women.
While I was in Johannesburg, vio-
lence against foreigners broke out in
the townships. Violence is an everyday
occurrence in South Africa, and by far
the most shocking is gender violence:
every year, more than one million wom-
en and girls are raped. A girl born in
South Africa has a greater likelihood of
being raped before the age of sixteen
than of learning how to read.
Oxfam is supporting coalitions
of women’s groups that campaign,
educate and lobby against the vio-
lence. The people in these coalitions
are doing excellent and urgent work,
but maybe my Oxfam America col-
league Ray Offenheiser says it best,
“to describe them as ‘heroes’ would
be to understate the value and im-
portance of their
contribution.”
My next stop was
Zambia , which faces
lower levels of violence, but
a higher poverty rate. The country
ranks 165th out of 177 in the United
Nations Human Development Index,
partially because it neglected the ru-
ral areas for many years, so poverty
kept increasing. There is now more
community development work being
done to provide rural people with a
better life.
Oxfam Hong Kong, for one, is
focusing on bet-
ter agriculture that
will bring in more
income, especially for
women. I v i s i ted vi l lages
where women are growing high-value
crops, both to earn more money and
for better nutrition.
Oxfam knows that women are the
backbone of most rural communities
– literally in terms of hauling water
and firewood and tilling the land,
but also in terms of their willingness
to work in collective efforts for the
betterment of the whole village. The
projects I could see firsthand reaf-
firmed my belief that our focus on
empowering women is the right way
forward in Africa.
In the rest of O.N.E, you have the
chance to read about AIDS in South
Africa, land and religion in Indonesia
and Vietnam, and youth and social
welfare in Hong Kong. Enjoy the
read.
John SayerDirector General
Oxfam Hong Kong
GODS, PEOPLE, LAND and INCOMEVan Kieu farmers in Vietnam
priority provinces for Oxfam, and it is no
coincidence that both areas have high
ethnic minority populations, particu-
larly Quang Tri.
Ho Thi Hom, 52, grows rice, cassava
and corn on the slopes of Truong Son
Mountain, near Laos. It is steep land,
at 2,500 metres high. She also raises
chickens. When her rice yield doubled
by applying new farming methods, her
husband and three children all agreed
that it was the most important thing
that had ever happened to the family.
On harvest day, they killed three chick-
ens for a feast, and invited neighbors
to celebrate their happiness.
“Before the project began, life was
so difficult for us,” Hom recalled. “We
worked all day in the fields, but we
could never grow enough to eat.
“The project also helped build my
confidence,” she continued. “When I
saw how successful the demonstration
plots were that had been set up in the
village, I thought I should try something
new… We started with just one ‘sao’ of
land, and I saw such good results.”
Encouraged by the experiment with
the one sao (500sqm), she and her hus-
band decided to use pellets of an envi-
ronmentally-friendly fertiliser made of
nitrogen, phosphorous oxide and po-
tassium oxide for the whole rice paddy.
Strictly speaking, this was against the
traditional customs of the Van Kieu,
who believe their God named Yàng Cute
would not allow any human interven-
tion with the soil – it was seen as an in-
vasion of the God’s domain.
The Van Kieu believe in Yàng, with
different Yàng for the forest, moun-
tains, rivers, rice and other things in the
natural world. If any of the Yàng Gods is
angered, that Yàng may express it in the
form of storms, bad harvests, or bring-
ing illnesses to the people. Yang Cute is
the God of land.
Hom also believes in Yàng, prays reg-
ularly, and makes offerings of chicken
and sticky rice to ensure that Yàng is
happy and supportive of her crops. For
important occasions, Van Kieu people
may even sacrifice a buffalo, their most
prized farm animal.
In the past, Hom’s average rice yield
was only 100kg per sao, compared with
250kg on the coastal plains. This was
only enough to feed her family for six
months. For the other half of the year,
she had to spend about US$100 to buy
her own rice, and would rely on rice
from the national reserve, which the
government allocates to poorer prov-
inces. To raise that US$100, she would
sell her chickens or pigs, forage in the
forest for mushrooms, and engage in
logging.
“Raising pigs was a hard job then,”
Hom said. “I got up early in the morn-
ing to cook the pig feed, worked in the
fields all day, and when I returned home
late in the day I couldn’t rest at all. I had
to prepare the feed again.”
Her life changed for the better when
she joined the rice cultivation train-
ing in 2006; the activity was part of a
market-based model by Oxfam Hong
Kong and International Development
Enterprises (IDE) which aimed to im-
prove the incomes of 200 families. She
carefully observed the demonstration
models and then attended additional
training in a new way of production
and fertiliser application called ‘fer-
tiliser deep placement’. She also learned
about composting. Her rice yield is now
almost 200 kg per sao annually, twice
as much as before, and the family food
supply is secure.
“At first, I did not believe the meth-
ods because we had never seen them
applied in our village. The results were
so clear and the application so easy, that
it just seemed too good to be true, but
it was!” Hom said, holding some newly
harvested rice in her hands.
She also tried new ways of raising
her two pigs through the Oxfam-IDE
training. No longer does she cook feed
but makes a simple mixture of fish, wa-
ter, and powder from cassava, rice and
peanut. She also learned about animal
nutrition and after three months, her
pigs weighed 60kg each, bringing in a
significant extra income.
“It used to take us twice as much
time to get half of what we had now.
Therefore, we decided to continue with
the new method and we were able to
make over 200,000 VND net profit from
just one pig,” she said with a smile, and
a hint of pride.
With the money and some savings,
Hom built a better, enclosed latrine
for the family, and enlarged the pig
sty so that she could raise four pigs at
a time.
“I will definitely raise even more pigs
in the future,” she said. “I feel very com-
fortable with this new no-cook method
and I don’t think I will ever go back to
the conventional way. I now have more
time to look after my children and the
rice paddy.”
Hom is now more than a farmer: she
is also a trainer. She belongs to a group
of key farmers who teach hundreds of
other women in the nearby villages
about the new cultivation and the pig
raising methods.
Yàng does not seem to be up-
set. There is harmony. The villagers in
Quang Tri still respect their Gods, the
land and themselves.
Pham Tung Lam is Communications Manager with Oxfam Hong Kong. He is based in Hanoi.
in South Africa
There is a serious challenge in the
South African government’s HIV and
AIDS response.
Currently, the government offers
several social support grants to its citi-
zens in need, including the disability
grant which HIV-positive patients can
apply for. At around USD107 per month,
this grant may seem minuscule in this
middle-income country that ranks in
the world’s top 20 GDP. Yet, one-third
of the families in South Africa live on
less than USD 100 a month, one-third
of the population is unemployed, and
the country’s rich-poor gap is one of the
widest in the world.
Simply put, the government’s so-
cial grants have become integral to
many families’ survival: for very poor
families, the grant can be twice the av-
erage monthly income. Studies show
that the disability grant has been used
to support entire families, and house-
holds with access to social grants have
been more likely to work their way out
of poverty.
People with HIV must have a T-cell
count below 200 to be eligible for the
disability grant. (The lower one’s T-cell
count is, the weaker the immune sys-
tem.) Another requirement for HIV-
AIDS patients is that they must be un-
dergoing antiretroviral (ARVs) treat-
ment. All this seems quite logical and
appears to be a pretty good deal.
Yet, there is a problem.
Let’s say a person’s T-cell count is
175. She or he goes on ARVs, gets the
disability grant, and begins to feel
healthy again. The immune system is
strengthening, and therefore, there
are fewer infections and other illnesses.
Then, because the ARVs are doing their
job, the T-cell count goes up over 200,
above the limit. The grant is promptly
stopped.
Considering the importance of the
income provided by the grant, HIV pa-
tient-recipients have sometimes been
willing to take risks to ensure that the
funds continue coming in. So, in order
to keep the T-cell count below the 200
limit, some patients have been known
to reduce the prescribed amount of
ARVs or stop taking them altogether.
They put their own health at risk for
the sake of the income, which may be
supporting their whole family. What
started as a way to curb the pandemic
as well as poverty, has sometimes led
to a conundrum with huge and highly
problematic implications.
Oxfam is aware of this trend and
is monitoring the situation to develop
ways to address the issue. Since 1998, we
have been running large-scale anti-HIV
and AIDS programme in South Africa
to prevent the spread of infection, to
improve treatment, to reduce stigma
and discrimination, and to advocate for
AIDS in SOUTH AFRICA• AIDSistheleadingcauseofdeath
• Deathrateishighestamongwomenofchild-bearingage,female
teenagers,andyounggirls
• About4.5millionpeoplehadHIVin2000
• 18.7%ofadultsage20-64,wereHIV-positivein2004
• 10.8%oftotalpopulationwereHIV-positivein2004
• KwaZulu-Natalhasthehighestprevalencerate,asof2005
• about6millionpeoplewilldiefromAIDS-relatedcausesoverthenext
10years
INCOME OR HEALTH: Can HIV Patients have both?
better legislation. For several years, we
have been focusing on KwaZulu-Natal,
the province with the highest preva-
lence rates, and in Limpopo. An exter-
nal evaluation conducted in 2004/2005
recommended that we scale-up the pro-
gramme, and we have begun working
in Eastern Cape, too.
Sources: South Africa Department of Health, South Africa National HIV Survey (2005)
For more information on HIV & AIDS: http://www.thebody.com/content/art6110.html
Navin Vasudev leads Oxfam Hong Kong's work in southern Africa from his base in Johannesburg.
Photo: HIV test at an Oxfam-supported organisat-ion in Phalaborwa, South Africa / Oxfam Australia / Gcina Ndwalene
Photo: Pham Ngoc Tinh
By Navin Vasudev
National Park. Local government has
also allowed marble mining of the
mountains. In all, the land accessible
to the people is getting smaller and
smaller, as is their sense of well-being;
the forestry policy and government-en-
dorsed development projects have im-
poverished the people.
The Mollo people have tried many
ways to regain their land, through di-
alogue, negotiation, demonstrations,
and even sabotage. They have won
some, lost others, and refuse to sur-
render. They have been intimidated,
threatened, beaten and imprisoned for
their dissent, yet remain strong in their
views, firm in their commitment to re-
gain what has been lost.
People of Mollo view nature as body:
stone as bone, soil as flesh, water as
blood, and forest as skin, lung and hair.
Stone is particularly essential in their
view. Without stone, life is incomplete,
unstable, frail, tentative.
Stone does more than strengthen
the soil and keep it secure through
rain or wind. People of Mollo believe
that stone absorbs and retains water,
and therefore can keep the surround-
ing soil moist and fertile. Stone is the
foundation, above which is soil, and
then topsoil.
People’s respect for stone is appar-
ent throughout Mollo history and ev-
eryday culture. Two of their words for
‘stone’, ‘fautkanaf’ and ‘batunama’,
even lead to many surnames, including
the names of these main clans: Ba'un,
Fui, Lasa, Nani, Seko, Sumbanu, Tanisip
and Toto. (Interestingly, few names
come from ‘water’.)
Of all the stones in Mollo, it is
Naususu that is revered first and fore-
most – it is considered to be the oldest
stone. The word Naususu means a moth-
er who is breastfeeding, so the stone
can be regarded as the first mother.
The Mollo people also liken the Naususu
stone to a strong root, and the moun-
tain that surrounds it as tree branches.
Thomas Ola, a traditional doctor and
community leader in Mollo, explains it
this way, “roots of a tree support trunks
and branches, so if the roots are pulled
out, the tree will collapse, and if the
trunk is damaged, the tree will sink.”
Nevertheless, the Nusa Tenggara
provincial government has given per-
mission to a mining company to oper-
If you find time to come to West
Timor, drop by Mollo. It isn’t a must,
but you will not be dissatisfied with
the beauty. Mollo has cool air, casua-
rinas trees, rocky hills, savannas, cows,
wild horses, and people will welcome
you into their round homes, and wear-
ing beautifully hand-woven clothing,
even though they may have little to of-
fer you by way of meals or gifts. Poverty
is part of what will guide you around
the island.
In a way, Mollo is already the richest
part of Timor. With rivers and moun-
tains, including Mutis Mountain, the
highest in West Timor, there are many
natural resources. Mollo borders Mina
River and Timau Mountain, and almost
everyone here is a farmer, growing corn,
tubers and other crops, and rearing
cows, buffalos and horses. The animals
are branded and then either worked to
plough the fields or let loose to roam
the grasslands, much of which used to
be forest. Most people have between
0.1 to 0.5 hectares of land which is seen
as being owned both by the community
and by the family. Little of the crop is
set aside for seeds, most of the land is
not irrigated, and there is only one cul-
tivating season: one harvest must last
for the whole year. This has been the
Mollo way of life for centuries.
In Mollo, people feel deeply con-
nected with nature. They realise they
are alive because of nature, and to-
gether with nature. Thus, they knew
their life would be ruined if separated
from nature. This happened when the
Forestry Department began its refor-
estation of the savanna plains back in
the 1960s. Through the decades, hun-
dreds of thousands of casuarinas trees
have been planted by the company
Hutan Tanaman Industri on thousands
of hectares of indigenous community
land, mostly in 1974, 1977, 1983, 1996,
and recently. The trees have exhausted
the water supply, and when the land
was fenced in, animals could not easily
reach what water remained. Separated
from nature, thousands of livestock
have died.
Other government projects have
also affected the land, essentially
changing the ownership from communi-
ty land into state-owned land with dif-
ferent status, from Production Forest,
Protected Forest to Nature Reserve or
Initially, the Mollo people did not
understand marble and mining. When
the talk of marble began, they thought
it would beautify the stone, and they
agreed to the plan. They soon realised
that mining meant cutting up the stone
and transporting it out of Mollo, and
they strongly protested. They filed a
case against both the local govern-
ment and the mining company, which
has tried to mine six mountains. Five
mountains have been protected, but
Naitapan Mountain, in the village of
Tunua, was ‘skinned’ three years ago.
Flesh has been torn. Bones protrude.
Waste stone covers the base of the
mountain.
A village woman named Naomi
Mnune talks about the impact in Tunua.
The water quality and supply has de-
teriorated. The Tokseko, Tokseok and
Kuisfolo springs dry up, something
which has never happened before, she
says. “There are 48 families who use the
springs. Now we have to walk farther
away, for two hours, to get water at the
next village. Then, we have another two
hours to carry it back home. Our life is so
much more difficult. Lots of tubers have
died, as has corn. Our livestock drink wa-
ter that has been contaminated by min-
ing waste. First their heads puff up, then
they die.” Naomi has lost seven cows
and eighteen pigs since the mining be-
gan, and she says her neighbours have
lost more. Last but certainly not least,
landslides come, slowly but frequently,
covering homes, crops and sometimes,
people. The Naipitan experience has
convinced every last person of Mollo to
reject marble mining.
But please do not change your mind.
I still suggest you visit Mollo. At least
you will be able to enjoy the natural
beauty of the land, even if it will come
with destitution. I also think that a spe-
cial inner beauty will come to you, a
beauty felt in the Mollo people’s deep,
physical connection with nature. Their
pursuit of well-being is sure to inspire.
When you come, you will see a
five-kilometre-long fence encircling a
mountain that had once been mined
for Naususu and Anjaf, but which has
since been stopped due to the hard
campaigning of the Mollo people. Made
with local timber by local people, the
fence is a symbol of their work to re-
claim their stone, their bones, their land
and their rights. Every time I see the
fence, I imagine them standing hand
in hand, as strong as a rock. As long
as there is rock, there is also flint, the
promise of fire, of change, for a stron-
ger, deeper life.
Siti Maemunah is the National Coordinator of Mining Advocacy Alliance (JATAM). Oxfam Hong Kong began working with JATAM earlier this year.
All photos by NM Rulliady
ate precisely in this Naususu stone. The
company has about 20 different min-
ing sites in the Mollo and nearby Flores,
and the capacity of marble is said to be
approximately 3.5 trillion cubic metres.
Typically, the company cuts Naususu,
the stone of all stones, the bone, the
mother, the root of life, into one-me-
tre cubes.
NATURE AS
BODYLand
and Life in Mollo, Indonesia
By Siti Maemunah
Naitapan Mountain was 'skinned' for its marble, despite protests by the residents / Photo: NM Rulliady
One of many peace zones established in Mindanao
CO
VER
: Gci
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xfam
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tralia
Hong Kong
VOICE
OXFAM HONG KONG WEBSITEwww.oxfam.org.hk
OXFAM BOOKSTwo books have gone into their
second print run: one on disasters
and poverty, featuring new articles
on the Sichuan earthquake and
the Myanmar cyclone, and the sec-
ond on people who receive social welfare in Hong Kong. Both books featured at
one of Asia’s largest book fairs, at the end of July. Both books are in Traditional
Chinese.
To order books: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/list
OXFAM in the NEWS HONG KONG – CNN quoted Oxfam Hong Kong (on 7 July) that the government’s
main welfare scheme, Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), is still
“seen as charity” by the public, even if the bulk of the recipients are elderly. In Hong
Kong, 1 out of 7 people is elderly, and 2 out of 5 of them are poor. Oxfam has
been advocating CSSA reform since 2003 and views receiving the assistance as a
“basic right”.
PHILIPPINES – GMANews.TV reported (on 18
July) the launch of a new 10-year programme in
Mindanao, by Oxfam Hong Kong, Oxfam Great
Britain and Oxfam Netherlands. “Poverty is greatest
in Mindanao [as high as 47%] and is exacerbated
by conflicts,” an Oxfam spokesperson said. The
programme will focus on income generation and
peace-building, with gender justice and minority
rights as essential components.
MOKUNGOxfam Hong Kong publishes this quarterly magazine
in Traditional Chinese. Mokung, which means both “no
poverty” and “infinity”, highlights a different aspect of
development in each issue. The Editor is Tung Tsz-kwan.
The March 2008 edition looks at the poverty news poll
in Hong Kong.
To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/public/bookstore/?lang=big5
Mokung is online at www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/category?cid=1017&lang=big5
ONEO.N.E – Oxfam News E-magazine – is uploaded
monthly at www.oxfam.org.hk/one.
To receive a copy in your inbox, please sub-
scribe – it is free.
To subscribe: www.oxfam.org.hk/one/subscribe.html
17th Floor, 28 Marble Road, Northpoint, Hong Kong
O.N.E is also on-line: www.oxfam.org.hk/one
Editor: Madeleine Marie Slavick [email protected]
HONG KONG CLIMATESix action groups call for carbon dioxide emissions to be capped in the Air
Pollution Control Ordinance: right now, the Hong Kong SAR Government does
not regulate CO2 emissions of its two power companies, which account for about
70% of all CO2 emissions. Please add your voice to this campaign (http://write-a-
letter.greenpeace.org/407) – if action is not taken soon, now, Hong Kong winters
may disappear within just 20 years, according to The Hong Kong Observatory.
Oxfam Hong Kong is also calling to stop climate change, to stop the poverty
it is bringing around the world: http://www.oxfam.org.hk/public/contents/
category?cid=53988&lang=iso-8859-1.
Every day, Oxfam Hong Kong works
alongside hundreds of groups around
the world, from small NGOs to inter-
national bodies, from government de-
partments of developing countries to
community groups based in Hong Kong.
Here is 1 ‘partner organisation’ that we
New PartnerOrganisation
are supporting for the first time. The
location indicates where the project is
being implemented.
CHINA (MAINLAND)• China Labour Studies Centre at Beijing Normal University
“We don’t read our world from
books, we don’t listen to the radio, but
you can catch our attention through
the image. Nowadays, we use our eyes
to receive and respond,” said Tommy, a
teenager who joined an Oxfam Hong
Kong training at the Hong Kong School
of Creativity. “Faced with so much mass
media, we don’t spend an hour to read
through all the information and digest
it, we select the parts that catch our eye:
this becomes our perception. I see how
the Hong Kong public has perceived re-
cipients of CSSA (the government’s main
social welfare scheme), and that’s why
we’re making short films to respond to
these impressions.”
Tommy was one of 15 participants,
aged 15 to 17, who joined the three-
month training by Oxfam and Video
Power, with video-making, poverty
analysis, and dialogue with poor peo-
ple who receive social welfare. The
youth developed their creative skills
to work against discrimination against
these welfare recipients in Hong Kong,
and this primarily happened because
the youth saw, heard and felt, face to
face, the real situation: the people’s
daily poverty and their tears and anger.
Tommy and other teenagers said that
they had never imagined so many dif-
ficulties; they had no idea that the ap-
plication procedure was so humiliating
and intimidating, almost always with
delays and mishandlings, and some-
times treated with outright rudeness
and disrespect, both by civil servants
and the general public. It seems no one
in Hong Kong, CSSA and non-CSSA re-
cipients alike, wants to have to depend
on welfare, as they know they will be
looked down upon: self-reliance is an
extremely strong norm in Hong Kong.
Comprehensive Social Security
Assistance (CSSA) aims to provide a ba-
sic assistance for low-income people,
most of whom are elderly, people with
a disability and single parents. Based
on the Oxfam-commissioned survey,
“Perception and Utilization of the CSSA
- A study on views of the public on the
lower income people” in June 2007,
the predominant view is that recipients
are “lazy, not willing to find a job [and]
abusive” of the welfare system. Some
of the public also believe that “the ex-
pense for CSSA in government is increas-
ing every year and will be a burden to
Hong Kong’s economic growth”. Most
respondents got their information from
television (75 per cent) and newspapers
(71 per cent).
The participants decided to voice out
the CSSA recipients’ reality by making
a two-minute film, which took them
three weeks, and then uploading it to
Youtube. They screened the film at a
press conference protesting CSSA dis-
crimination, at which they shared their
experiences with the press as well as
with the four Hong Kong Legislative
Councilors who also attended. “If we
assume accessing social security is a ba-
sic right, we should not discriminate
against the people who exercise this
right,” Tommy said.
Oxfam Hong Kong has provided this
kind of short-term interactive training
with youth since 2006. “It has allowed
our students to be immersed in a social
issue for a few months long, which sel-
dom happens,” said Winkie Ho, a teach-
er at Hong Kong School of Creativity.
“The outcome of visiting real cases [of
welfare recipients] is much more pow-
erful and effective than a typical school
lesson. Through the video, the youth
also spread the message to their class-
mates. I really believe that it has been
a wonderful experience for the partici-
pants, not only for their intellectual de-
velopment, but also for their personal
growth and confidence build-up.”
Oxfam Hong Kong has always seen
youngsters as drivers of positive, sus-
tainable change. The youth programme
has developed through the years :
Oxfam gave talks to schools in the
1970s and 80s, established the Resource
Library in 1992, set up Oxfam Club in
1997, Cyberschool in 2000, and the
Interactive Education Centre in 2005.
Through a more interactive approach,
such as by using visual art, drama and
photography shooting in workshops
and trainings, youth have more ways
to speak out for themselves, and for
poor people.
Genna Leung works on development education with Oxfam Hong Kong.
in Hong Kong
Video for Change Text and Photo by Genna Leung