Senegal's Queen of Hip Hop Speaks Against Injustice with Sarabah

Sister Fa is Senegal's Queen of hip-hop. But getting to the top wasn't an easy road - for a woman to break through in an almost exclusively male field within a male-dominated society, it was a long, hard journey. Struggle breeds compassion, and Sister Fa uses her international album debut "Sarabah - Tales from the Flipside of Paradise" to speak out against the injustices rampant in her native country. Warm, groovy and unmistakably African, her raps, in Wolof, Manding, Jola and French, roll elegantly over beats as well as traditional sounds (kora and djembe), delivering tracks far removed from rap clichés, and more influenced by 80s Old School hip-hop than current Western forms of hip-hop. From the very beginning of her career, Sister Fa has dedicated herself to fight the wide-spread practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in her country: "It's an operation that can kill - I've seen dead babies with my own eyes. We need to fight against this practice at all costs and get rid of it forever. But it is quite a complex problem. It's a practice that has been around for some 3000 years - I myself am a victim." It is a major taboo for a Senegal woman to raise her voice against this tradition, one which usually only foreign celebrities openly condemn, but during her "Education without Mutilation" tour in 2008, funded by Germany's cultural institution, the Goethe Institute, Sister Fa took her fight to the front lines: the Senegal cities and villages where FGM is most firmly established, hoping to sensitize the population of her homeland. For Sister Fa hip-hop is about raising awareness and denouncing the wrongs of life: "When you're a musician, you're an ambassador - you are here to defend and help people, not just to make music for money." FGM isn't the only issue she addresses on "Sarabah": there is the real story of a young girl in an arranged marriage ("Bou Souba Si Ngone"), AIDS messages aimed at women ("Life Am"), songs dealing with the plight of Senegal soldiers ("Soldat") and the hard-working lives of women in Senegal's countryside ("Milyamba"). "Hip Hop Yaw La Fal" is about the power of hip-hop, while in "Selebou Yoon" Sister Fa argues that hip-hop is in harmony with Islam. The latter was featured on the "Many Lessons - Hip Hop Islam West Africa" compilation (Piranha Musik, 2008).

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India Gay Ruling Boosts AIDS Fight But Stigma Lingers

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian court ruling to decriminalize gay sex will boost the fight against aids, but a powerful stigma against homosexuality and uneven quality of healthcare will still hamper efforts, a top AIDS worker said.

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Kuwait underscores need to fight AIDS, TB, Malaria

Kuwait underscored Wednesday the importance of boosting international efforts for the fight against aids, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria - the most vicious diseases in the world - and working to increase preventative and awareness programs in this area.

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Nigeria: FG Gets World Bank's N32 Billion Loan to Fight HIV

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) announced at the end of its meeting yesterday that it has secured a loan facility of about N32.8 billion ($225m) from the International Development Association (IDA) to assist it mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS.

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An e-card from Visual AIDS in collaboration with Art Action...

An e-card from Visual AIDS in collaboration with Art Action AIDS. Spork chose to display a card from the Art Action AIDS series because of the Cleveland connection, since the Sporks have recently been there. Cleveland, where we actually saw Confederate Flag bumper stickers on our first visit, does not seem like a safe place to be openly gay (or to be an artist). Art Action AIDS is a project of the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland, funded by the City of Cleveland Department of Public Health. The campaign is curated by John A. Chaich and designed by Mobius Grey. Visual AIDS was one of the first national initiatives to record the impact of the AIDS pandemic on the artistic community. The selected images come from the Visual AIDS Archive Project, the largest international slide archive of HIV/AIDS artists.

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USAID, Western Union program aids African business

By By CATHERINE TSAI -- A U.S. aid agency and Western Union Co. are teaming up to offer a cash boost to sub-Saharan Africans who live in the U.S. but have business plans back home. The African Diaspora Marketplace program offers matching grants of $50,000 to $100,000 for small- to medium-sized business proposals that can boost the economy in applicants' home countries. Applications are due July 21. The U.S. Agency for International Development, Colorado-based Western Union and other partners have set aside $1.5 million for the program, but the pot could grow through donations.

View original story : international+aids Feed : SanLuisObispo.com: Financial Markets

USAID, Western Union program aids African business

A U.S. aid agency and Western Union Co. are teaming up to offer a cash boost to sub-Saharan Africans who live in the U.S. but have business plans back home. The African Diaspora Marketplace program offers matching grants of $50,000 to $100,000 for small- to medium-sized business proposals that can boost the economy in applicants' home countries. Applications are due July 21. The U.S. Agency for International Development, Colorado-based Western Union and other partners have set aside $1.5 million for the program, but the pot could grow through donations. The program comes as the recession threatens to undo years of work fighting poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, where remittances can outstrip official development aid. "The program is really great to encourage those of us who are outside the country to go back and invest," said Eliab Tarkghen, a software engineer in Alexandria, Va., whose family moved from Ethiopia in 1986 to escape communism.

View original story : international+aids Feed : TheState.com: Business - Nation

India: Historic ruling against “sodomy” laws, the first step to equality

India: Historic ruling against “sodomy” laws, the first step to equality Amnesty International welcomes the historical decision by the high court in Delhi to decriminalize homosexuality. The decision is a significant step toward ensuring that people in India can express their sexual orientation or gender identity without fear or discrimination, said Amnesty International. “The decision is a significant step toward ensuring that people in India can express their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear or discrimination. This British colonial legacy has done untold harm to generations of individuals in India and across the Commonwealth” said Madhu Malhotra, Deputy Director, Asia Pacific, Amnesty International. The ruling overturns a 19th century British colonial law which bans engagement in consensual sex with an individual of the same sex as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”. The law had been used to stifle the work of organizations working on HIV/AIDS prevention in India. The court rejected the law as discriminatory and “against constitutional morality”. “Amnesty International urges the Indian government to address abuse and discrimination by police and other officials and take measures to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in access to economic, social and cultural rights, including housing, employment and health services,” said Madhu Malhotra. The court’s ruling rejected every argument put forward by the government in defence of the law. It found that section 377, the law criminalizing homosexuality, reflected an understanding of sexual orientation that is “at odds with the current scientific and professional understanding”. In particular, the government’s contention that the measure helped stop the spread of HIV/AIDS is “completely unfounded” and “based on incorrect and wrong notions,” the court said. The court acknowledged that Section 377 has been used to “brutalis[e]” members of the gay community and other men who have sex with men, abuses that have long been documented by local human rights defenders and Amnesty International. The Judges ruled that popular morality or public disapproval of certain acts is not a valid justification for restriction of the fundamental rights set forth in the Indian Constitution. India has no laws specifically criminalizing child sexual abuse and has used Section 377 to address this gap. The court’s ruling now restricts section 377 to cases of rape and child abuse. Amnesty International urges lawmakers to rewrite the law to deal explicitly with those crimes. The Naz Foundation, an Indian sexual rights organization which brought the case against Section 377, told Amnesty International: “It's an incredible day, it's been a long battle. Today homosexuality has been decriminalized but not legalized. It is a baby step but finally India has entered the 21st century.” With this decision, India becomes the latest country to join the global trend towards decriminalization. Amnesty International calls on those countries that continue to criminalize homosexuality to follow India’s example and repeal those laws. The majority of these laws are retained within Commonwealth countries. For more information see, Love, hate and the law: Decriminalizing homosexuality (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/POL30/003/2008/en)

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At the End of Pride Month, a Historic Step Forward

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Making footballs that can save lives in Africa: "Mid-year Reflections and Beyond"

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