Beauty in Chaos
Shweta Gulati is a Multimedia Photography and Design Fellow working to document change-makers and local communities in Nepal. […]
The Perspective of a Visual Storytelling Fellow
By: Brittany Wait, Accountability Lab Visual Storytelling Fellow in Nepal I’m a master’s student in photography and film at Syracuse University. Thanks to a partnership through my college and the Accountability Lab based out of Washington, D.C., I spent the summer in Nepal on a visual storytelling fellowship. Thanks to my mentor Ken Harper, with the Center for Global Engagement at SU, I was selected to join the team. While there, I worked independently on projects, setting my own deadlines with the mission to add value to their efforts. Not only did I feel I was a value to the [...]
Nuwakot: Land Of Dreamers And Healers
By: Brittany Wait, Visual Storytelling Fellow in Nepal Walk with me... ...through Kharanitar, a rural village in the Nuwakot district of Nepal still rebuilding after the 2015 earthquakes. We spent two days working alongside Nepali nonprofit, Visible Impact, educating 15 local girls on accountability and activism. One of our accountapreneurs, Medha Sharma, its president and CEO, and her associate Sharmila Acharya, took Samita and I along with them. After an eventful ride, in which got stuck in mud and had to move boulders from a recent flash flood out of the way, we arrived. There, we met our colleague Suresh Chand and [...]
Debating Integrity Idol Liberia with the Street Parliaments
By: Beth Goldberg, Resident Summer Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia In Buchanan, Liberia, we sat circled around glasses of hot, milky tea in an open-air tea shop, far from a traditional parliament. The 20 members of the “street parliament” opened the meeting with a call and response chant, melding the disparate group of men into one voice comprising elders, students, local representatives, mechanics, and everyone in between. These men gather daily for the self-described purpose of critiquing leaders and debating hard questions. Such forums hearken back to early Athenian democracy, where citizens (men) met in public squares to engage lawmakers directly [...]
Preventing Violence through Mediation as Liberia Transitions, Part 2
By: Beth Goldberg (Summer Resident Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia) and John Kamma (Founder of Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity, and Accountapreneur). This blog post is the second in a series about the Community Justice Team in Logan Town, Liberia. Mr. Kamma and his team of mediators face three primary challenges in delivering justice in Liberia: Transportation & Communication – the communities served by the Citizens Bureau are widely dispersed and the mediators have no vehicles. For example, one office of the Bureau serves Logan Town’s 17 distinct communities of over 70,000 residents. This is a tall order, but [...]
Preventing Violence through Mediation as Liberia Transitions, Part 1
By: Beth Goldberg (Summer Resident Fellow at Accountability Lab Liberia) and John Kamma (Founder of Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity, and Accountapreneur) The five mediators sat along the wall of the bright blue room, sweat beading in the stagnant Liberian heat as the office manager, Rockson, recalled a recent case: A 16 year-old girl was accused of witchcraft by her community for exhibiting “unusual behavior”, not unheard of in Liberia where belief in the supernatural is widespread. The girl was subsequently ostracized by her community, prohibited from attending school and church. The situation escalated when her parents were given [...]
Where Are We With The Learning Agenda In Liberia?
By: Beth Goldberg and Lawrence Yealue (Accountability Lab Liberia) At the Accountability Lab we have recently been running a series of “learning about learning” discussions to understand how we- as a community- can get better at adaptive learning. We want to help highlight practical ways to internalize and build on lessons around what works and what does not; and to support open conversations around impact (read recent blogs from our impact survey process and learning in Pakistan). In Monrovia last week, we brought together a group of donors, civil society representatives and government officials to discuss these issues. In Liberia, [...]
Forging New Ground – Jim Tuttle – First Accountability Lab/Newhouse Visual Storytelling Fellow
By: Jim Tuttle, Accountability Lab Visual Storytelling Fellow. This blog post was originally published by the Newhouse Center for Global Engagement. Earlier this summer I lived in Liberia for about 10 weeks, working as the multimedia resident for a NGO called The Accountability Lab. I’d like to thank AL and the Newhouse Center for Global Engagement at Syracuse University for making this wonderful opportunity available. It was an excellent learning experience, and a great chance to push my visual skills and portfolio forward. My projects there included filming a music video in an abandoned Monrovia hotel for a Liberian musician named [...]
‘Corruption, Corruption’: Partnering with ‘Amaze’ to Promote Social Change Via Music Video
With the support of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), the Accountability Lab and Amaze are pleased to announce the launch of a collaborative initiative to combat corruption in Liberia through the power of Hip co music. The centerpiece of the initiative, a music video for the track ’Corruption, Corruption’, will be complemented by a discussion on Hip co and accountability, and performances at high schools and universities in Monrovia and Buchanan. Produced by the Accountability Lab, the video for ‘Corruption, Corruption’ was filmed at the Ducor Hotel. Towering over Central Monrovia, the edifice, constructed in the 1950s, [...]
“I have to do what has to be done”: Leslie Lumeh and the Fight for Liberia’s Cultural Heritage
By: Brooks Marmon and Jim Tuttle, Accountability Lab in Monrovia, Liberia. This blog post was originally published as an article in Images Magazine, Edition 16. A Leslie Lumeh has been proclaimed “Liberia’s most celebrated artist” by CNN. A product of Booker Washington Institute, the visual artist has received accolades from wide and afar, with his works presented at exhibitions in Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, South Africa, and the United States. His services are widely in demand by Liberia’s international partners, such as the UNICEF, the US Embassy, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Stating that “I came to the earth as an artist”, Leslie notes that he began his career by [...]