Miboso Newsletter

ISSUE: December 2006

	Holiday Moos, News and Events CONTENTS Tap links to go straight to each topic
	The Gift of Giving Free Teleclass Web Marketing Magic Breaking Through Brand Building Blocks	Prizes Top $5000 Client Spotlight Partner Spotlight Bookshelf Small Group Starts
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The Gift of Giving

Last year at this time, I was packing for a two month trip to South Africa. It was an adventure planned to brighten the painful shadow that my Mother's December 20, 2004 death had cast upon the festive season. And what a wonderful experience it was for my Dad and I to undertake this journey together. We met old friends and made new ones. We were treated to endless stunning vistas and an abundance of spectacular wildlife. After celebrating Christmas at a secluded lake lodge, we welcomed the New Year to the sound of Zulu drums in Kruger Park. And in January I reconnected with a dear friend whom I first met in January 1977, when she was an exchange student from the prosperous British-African colony of Rhodesia.

Much has changed in the intervening years. Rhodesia has become Zimbabwe and its former prosperity is now a distant memory. My friend is now a mother of three and a highly respected, award winning human rights worker who is making a huge difference to thousands of people. She and I met for dinner in Melville, a trendy suburb in north Johannesburg, where we attempted to catch up on lives that had been cursorily shared through sporadic e-mails. Seated on the restaurant's sidewalk patio, our table became a island around which people flowed as they courteously, but desperately, sought buyers for their handicrafts. My friend explained that most were Zimbabwean refugees and went on to share some shocking details of the recent events in her homeland.

In 2005 the Zimbabwean government undertook an initiative called "Operation Murambatsvina" (clear the filth) which has displaced 700,000 people who had be resident of poorer communities for up to 30 years. Since then, 2.4 million people (one quarter of the country's population) have been affected in varying degrees. Those who were displaced have been living in tents and shacks made of sticks and plastic, with no access to clean water, sewage or electricity. Because they were relocated far from their former homes, they lost their jobs and their access to the few employment opportunities that exist in a country where the unemployment rate is 80% Their children lost their access to schools and/or their ability to pay for school fees, books and uniforms. The high incidence of HIV (27%) means that many of the displaced families are headed by elderly grandmothers raising grandchildren or children raising siblings who would otherwise become destitute. Mental illnesses actively compete with an army of physical diseases to claim those living in temporary shanty towns, which are woefully inadequate long-term shelters.

In 2005, the United Nations Special Envoy noted that 'the humanitarian consequences (of Operation Murambatsvina) are enormous. It will take several years before the people and society as a whole can recover." Today Zimbabweans are worse off than people in Afghanistan or Iraq. They have the lowest life expectancies on earth, only 34 for women and 37 for men (down from over 60 just a decade ago) and more people die of preventable disease in Zimbabwe every week than are killed by the war in Iraq....

In this season of giving, please visit http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/ and view the reports and videos posted on-line. Then write to your elected representative and ask them to pressure the leaders of this small and blighted African nation to cease their violent and repressive policies. The situation in Zimbabwe is dire but it can be corrected if we give the gifts of our voices raised in protest; the gifts of our outrage and compassion. And if you can feed a family, even just for a day, ($1) you will give the gift of hope to people who have no voice, no choice and a future that few of us could bear to imagine, let alone experience. Our gifts will sustain them in their fight to survive and strengthen their belief that one day they will once have the chance to work and educate their children, so that they, in turn, have an even better future with even more choices. Just $30 will feed a family for a month, which is incredible in a country where food is scarce and inflation has topped 1000% this year. Donate through donate@miboso.com at www.PayPal.com. Claim the gift that giving offers by making a difference in our world this holiday season. Others are not "taking care of this issue." It is getting worse, not better. Make a difference, by raising your voice, heart or wallet, today!

And in the words of Dickens's beloved Christmas Carols' tiny hero, "God bless us, every one!"