United Maasai Women Kenya Africa

Please support art Maasai Women !!!

Please support art Maasai Women ...

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Maasai-Women-Kenya-Africa/262440880461357

 

 

Puci - painting cats and dogs  .... These are paintings of great artist Puci on Etsy :

http://www.etsy.com/people/puci#

https://www.facebook.com/puciart

" I SEE PETS, PEOPLE - and I paint them too :) "

 

Jenny Mendes, Great artist, my friend, 
we are born same day and same year at the two ends of the world.
You may contact her on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/jenny.mendes.39

In Search of a Job – Any Job : Photography by John Hulme

 Documentary Project By: John Hulme

The past thirty years have seen the ever-increasing global restructure of production and investment as capital moves freely from industrial centres in Europe and North America to countries with the cheapest labour. This, in turn, has produced vast numbers of migrant workers. In fact, according to a recent United Nations International Migration and development report, there are now more than 192 million migrants, the largest number in human history.

But the free movement of finance capital stands in stark contrast to the plight of the millions of legal and “illegal” migrants throughout the world who are confronted by a myriad of border controls, racist legislation and other measures blocking their efforts to escape poverty, famine, political repression or war.

The following photographs reveal something of the problems and difficulties confronting Burmese migrant workers in Thailand—fishermen in the south-west; factory workers, and day labourers, hundreds of whom cross the Moie River on rubber inner tubes each day.

These scenes, of course, are not peculiar to Asia but are repeated in a variety of forms throughout the world—in Europe, Australia, the Americas and elsewhere—with tragic consequences.

In Thailand there are an estimated two and a half million migrants from Burma (now known as Myanmar) who have entered the country since the mid-1980s in search of a job—any job—and the hope of a better life for their families.

Thai Immigration regularly conduct sweeps or raids on construction sites rounding up all workers registered or not and put them in jail, if they want to get back quickly to their families and work then they are encouraged to pay a “Fine”.

Even though they are paid less than the minimum wage and have little freedom in Thailand it is still more than they would earn in Burma, and with a good employer life can be better than in Burma where forced labour extortionate taxes and land confiscation are common.

But life in Thailand for Burmese migrants brings new difficulties. More than half of these mainly young workers are undocumented, forced to eke out a living on rock-bottom wages and in constant fear of deportation. They are employed in dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs in Thailand’s fishing and construction industries, rubber plantations, dockyards and shrimp farms, as well as providing cheap labour for the tourist industry. Migrants without passports, official papers or sponsored jobs have to rely on labor agents, or “carrys” as they are known, who promise well-paid employment and the opportunity to send small amounts of money back home to help their families. In Burma “carrys” demand between £250 and £400 to take migrants through military and police checkpoints on both sides of the border.

Securing a work permit is difficult, time consuming and expensive, costing over £100, more than a month’s wages. And the process is complicated because the rules can change from one year to the next. Those without a work permit are deemed “illegal”, forced to take on low-paid, unsafe work and at the mercy of ruthless bosses and corrupt government officials and police. Arrest, extortion, deportation and sexual abuse are common place.

It’s my hope that some of these difficulties and tragedies facing Burmese migrants in Thailand—a microcosm of the conditions of life facing millions of migrant workers around the world—can be found in these photographs”.

Other images can be found here :

http://121clicks.com/photo-stories/in-search-of-a-job-any-job-photography-by-john-hulme

 The Dolphin's Gift

from the book :

Chicken Soup for the Soul

by Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen

The Dolphin's Gift
I was in about 40 feet of water, alone. I knew I should not have gone alone, but I was very competent and just took a chance. There was not much current, and the water was so warm, clear and enticing. When I got a cramp, I realized at once how foolish I was. I was not too alarmed, but was completely doubled up with stomach cramps. I tried to remove my weight belt, but I was so doubled up I could not get to the catch. I was sinking and began to feel more frightened, unable to move. I could see my watch and knew there was only a little more time on the tank before I would be out of air. I tried to massage my abdomen. I wasn't wearing a wet suit, but couldn't straighten out and couldn't get to the cramped muscles with my hands.
I thought, "I can't go like this! I have things to do!" I just couldn't die anonymously this way with no one to even know what happened to me. I called out in my mind, "Somebody, something, help me!"
I was not prepared for what happened. Suddenly I felt a prodding from behind me under the armpit. I thought, "Oh no, sharks!" I felt real terror and despair. But my arm was being lifted forcibly. Around into my field of vision
came an eye—the most marvelous eye I could ever imagine. I swear it was smiling. It was the eye of a big dolphin. Looking into that eye, I knew I was safe.
It moved farther forward, nudging under and hooking its dorsal fin below my armpit with my arm over its back. I relaxed, hugging it, flooded with relief. I felt that the animal was conveying security to me, that it was healing me as well as lifting me toward the surface. My stomach cramps went away as we ascended and I relaxed with security, but I felt very strongly that it healed me too.
At the surface it drew me all the way into shore. It took me into water so shallow that I began to be concerned that it might be beached, and I pushed it back a little deeper, where it waited, watching me, I guess to see if I was all right.
It felt like another lifetime. When I took off the weight belt and oxygen tank, I just took everything off and went naked back into the ocean to the dolphin. I felt so light and free and alive, and just wanted to play in the sun and the water in all that freedom. The dolphin took me back out
and played around in the water with me. I noticed that there were a lot of dolphins there, farther out.
After a while it brought me back to shore. I was very tired then, almost collapsing and he made sure I was safe in the shallowest water. Then he turned sideways with one eye looking into mine. We stayed that way for what seemed like a very long time, timeless I guess, in a trance almost, with personal thoughts from the past going through my mind. Then he made just one sound and went out to join the others. And all of them left.
Elizabeth Gawain

 Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Henry Ford

Obstacles
We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of his freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Viktor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning

You may find my art on Fine Art America :

 

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/drinkamercep.html

Removing Slavery from Product Supply Chains

'BECOMING A SLAVERY-FREE BUSINESS:
REMOVING SLAVERY FROM PRODUCT SUPPLY CHAINS'
 

https://www.freetheslaves.net/SSLPage.aspx?pid=640

There’s slavery in every shopping mall in America. From cocoa, coffee and clothing, to cars, computers and cell phones—many products sold in the U.S. are tainted by slavery. Sometimes it’s sweatshop slavery where goods are manufactured. Other times, it’s brutal child slavery at plantations and mines where commodities and raw materials come from.
Consumers, investors and regulators want to remove slavery from U.S. store shelves. California has already enacted rules that will soon affect thousands of products sold in America’s most populus state.  

PREPARE YOUR COMPANY, YOUR CLIENTS, YOUR EMPLOYEES, YOUR SUPPLIERS AND YOUR INDUSTRY

• In just eight minutes, business leaders will understand why government regulators are requiring companies to investigate, disclose, and eventually remove slavery from their product supply chains.

• This powerful documentary reveals the impact of supply-chain slavery on people in the U.S. and around the world. Viewers see what modern-day slavery looks like, and hear directly from slaves.

• Professionally-produced by former network journalists, the video can be shown at briefings and conferences, as well as at work-team meetings or individual viewing sessions.

• It is a valuable learning and motivational tool to accompany a corporation's written directives and training materials for compliance with state and federal requirements.
  
  

  PRESENTED BY ONE OF THE WORLD'S TOP SLAVERY EXPERTS

  

  • Dr. Kevin Bales is co-founder of Free the Slaves, which is one of America's leading nonprofit anti-slavery organizations.

  
  

  • Professor Bales is one of the world's most sought-after experts on ending modern slavery. He has advised the United Nations and overseas governments. He appears frequently in the global news media.

  
  

  • Professor Bales sits on the board of the International Cocoa Initiative, a trade coalition of top chocolate companies trying to remove slavery from their industry. He understands the challenges that business leaders face, and he’s developed a valuable three-point plan for corporate supply-chain policies.

  Free the Slaves’s Videos

   http://vimeo.com/freetheslaves/videos