Sean Jones, a UUSC intern (at left in photo), participated in the Civil Rights Journey.

It was my first time in the South. For some reason, my conception of the South before going didn't include cities, and cars. Imagine my surprise in seeing Atlanta and Birmingham. They looked like cities, and they felt like cities. But they were also different.

Going through Atlanta, Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham, I was left with a lasting impression of community. Big or small, the people we met in each location appeared to have a sense of connectedness that I didn't know was missing from the North until I saw it for myself.

In Selma, it was particularly striking. We went to two museums that were built from the ground up, with no federal support. First, we went to the Slavery and Civil War Museum, where Sister Afreiya took us on a guided tour through the slave trade. Then, we went to the Civil Rights Museum, where Ms. Joanne Blande told us her moving story, and explained life in Selma during the civil rights movement. We learned of everything from the Middle Passage to Bloody Sunday. And all through the sheer force of will these people possessed in keeping the museums alive and thriving.

I was shocked to see just how many civil rights activists were not only still alive, but still doing things. Each person we met had a clear message: "We won't be here forever. It's your turn now."

And hearing Rev. Orange speak of his imprisonment and near-lynching, I couldn't help but put my life in context -- I am a 19-year-old college student who hasn't once been to jail and has, as yet, not risked my life for something I believed in. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that there's a long way left to go, and I sincerely hope we find the courage as a people to make it there.

Six Congress members were arrested a few hours ago at a protest outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C., including Rep. Jim McGovern from Massachusetts.

Staff members from UUSC also joined in this protest, spotlighting the first of many events happening as part of the Save Darfur rally this weekend.

"Words are no longer enough. It is time for action," McGovern said. "This is the first genocide of the 21 st century. The world has said, 'Never again.' Those words must mean something." (From the San Francisco Chronicle)

Audubon Dougherty, UUSC's communications assistant, recently returned from visiting tsunami-affected communities in Indonesia and Thailand.

In the last few days of our trip, Martha and I flew to Phang Nga, Thailand, a tsunami-affected area south of Phuket, to visit Grassroots Human Rights Education and Development (HRE), a Burmese nongovernmental organization (NGO) that UUSC has been supporting since 1999.

Arriving at the airport, we were greeted by two young girls. I thought they were interns, but it turned out they were both experienced coordinators (one for children's education, one for women's health) who fled Burma as students and have been working with HRE for several years now. "My staff is young," said Htoo Chit, the founder of HRE, "because it's very important to train the next generation of Burmese activists."

What we soon came to realize was that nearly all his staff are undocumented, or stateless, refugees. They need work permits in order to stay in Thailand, which are very costly. Fortunately, UUSC will be providing funds to secure permits for HRE staff members and affiliate teachers. Grants will also support legal aid for migrant workers and training for teachers and staff.

Htoo Chit is a former student activist turned resistance leader turned founder of this successful -- yet undocumented -- Burmese-run human rights NGO. The respect he shows for his colleagues and fellow Burmese refugees is huge, and creates a tangible feeling of fairness and equality in his office and on his work sites. It took only a few minutes for Martha and me to be in awe of this man, as well as the entire staff of HRE.

Burmese migrants specifically were made most vulnerable of all tsunami survivors, receiving almost no relief because of their status as undocumented and stateless people. HRE provides legal aid and tenement housing for Burmese migrant workers on rubber plantations and construction sites, health training, nurseries for infants and toddlers, and new "learning centers" built after the tsunami for elementary school-aged children of migrant workers. They also are fundamental in organizing the community of Burmese migrants around rights issues.


Schools are set up strategically around work sites so parents can move to different ones when their contracted jobs are over. Some teachers stay overnight at the school to take care of children who board there while their parents work. Schools are low-profile buildings so Thai officials will be less likely to close them down. Over the course of a whirlwind two days, Htoo Chit took us around to different learning centers, nursuries, and temporary housing barracks his organization has created.

I took way too many pictures. Perhaps through photos you can catch a glimpse of the compassion and commitment of the teachers and the appreciation and innocence of the children.

Audubon Dougherty, UUSC's communications assistant, is traveling in Indonesia visiting communities affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami and the ongoing conflict in Aceh.

We woke at 5:30 a.m., to the sound of melodious prayers wafting via loudspeaker (as soothingly as a loudspeaker can waft) from the mosque down the street. Martha and I had to get up for an early breakfast meeting with FOSOMO director Rosli and his colleague Awi. FOSOMO is a small grassroots organization assisting survivors of both the conflict and the tsunami with reconstruction and livelihood restoration. Like PERMATA, staff at FOSOMO use swadaya, a participatory work strategy involving members of the community in the rebuilding process, while making use of available materials from the village. Currently 148 houses are in the rebuilding process in four villages around East Aceh.

Planes, vans, jungles

We drove a half hour by car, then hiked 2.5 kms on a winding dirt path through the forest to reach the village of Paya Bili, located in an area formerly controlled by the GAM. The village was not affected by the tsunami, but had been attacked several times by the TNI (Indonesian army) who had burned it down completely in January 2004. Out of 74 families, only seven have returned to stay in this village, all of whom are living temporarily in the ruined school. More people want to return to the village but there is no other shelter. Houses are shells of what they once were, and the community needs to start everything -- building, planting, living -- from scratch.

With us walked Rosli and Awi, Jonaton from HIVOS, a volunteer nurse, and several women from Paya Bili who return to their village during the day to begin the slash-and-burn process of clearing the land in preparation for raising crops again. Along the way, some of the women showed us pieces of overgrown land where their homes used to be; beneath the grass lay the burnt remains of their houses. They urged me to take photos.

Our reception in Paya Bili was a bit different from the way we were received by other communities we’ve visited, for several reasons. It was clear, first of all, that women have more equality here, since they did almost all of the talking with us. Also, unlike tsunami-affected villages, the members of this community haven’t been visited by NGOs before so they seemed very happy -- and anxious -- to tell us their stories.


The stories aren't pretty

When TNI armed forces came in, they didn’t just destroy houses. They tortured and shot villagers, burned crops, killed livestock, and left behind a community with serious trauma and no resources. Mr. J. (I'm abbreviating since the villages are still in danger of government retribution) is the head of the village, but severe beatings have left him "slow," they told us -- too traumatized to talk. M., the deputy head of the village, told Martha how TNI forces had kicked her husband so badly he was disabled, how most families are still living with friends or host families in other villages, how eager they are to resuscitate their agricultural work and community life again.


While M. was talking to Martha, Rosli asked me to photograph the local volunteer nurse, who had brought along medicine and was beginning to examine villagers. As I joined them, older women began to approach and tell me their stories. B.'s house was burned and her husband was beaten and remains severely traumatized. "Now, we have nothing," she told me. "Not even bowls. We have to eat our rice in palm leaves."

B. then told us about her friend S., who threw herself at the mercy of TNI officials, pleading with them not to kill her husband or the livestock she was raising. They ignored her pleas, tortured her husband, and kicked in several of her teeth as a punishment. As B. talked, both women began to cry, then immediately started laughing because they couldn’t stop crying and they wanted their photos taken.

"This is the first time anyone has wanted to report on what happened here," Awi explained. "Nobody’s reported about it. That's why it's really important you're here," he said.

"I love these people," Rosli added. "They are so brave, and they have nothing."

In addition to reconstruction, FOSOMO would like to support Paya Bili's agricultural system, which is already rather advanced: green beans, chilis, peanuts, watermelon and soya beans are all planted at different times and sold throughout the year. The women want to plant them now because they can harvest and sell them within two months, tiding them over until the agroforestry harvest from their groves of coconuts, cacao and betel nut. This will all be supplemented with rattan harvested from the forest.

R., another older woman from the village, chopped up the only food the village currently has to offer its guests: coconuts. We left determined to help find strategic ways to promote the development of this forgotten village, and walked back marveling at the hospitality, openness, and strength of a community struggling to exist.

Audubon Dougherty, UUSC's communications assistant, is traveling in Indonesia visiting communities affected by the December 2004 tsunami.


Following the tsunami, UUSC has been supporting PERMATA, a peasant farmers' collective, in their work rebuilding houses in small villages in East Aceh. We met with them yesterday to discuss how reconstruction, building rehabilitation, and livelihood restoration is going.

PERMATA has a collective approach to reconstruction, working with members of the community to design and rebuild houses using available materials. They are working first on houses that were completely destroyed, then houses that were damaged.

One large concern, however, is getting people to return to their homes, once rebuilt. The government doesn't grant as much aid -- money, food, health care -- if any, to families once they leave the barracks. There's also little guarantee that families can pay for rent, food, school fees, and transportation back at home, especially when fishponds need to be cleaned out (which the woman pictured at right works on daily) and melon crops aren't yet ready to harvest.

PERMATA's livelihood restoration projects, including organic farming and microfinancing programs for agricultural supplies, aim to address these issues and ease the transition to life back in the village.

When the tsunami hit, most people in Lanchen, the village we visited, were able to escape to the mountains, but the damage left behind is significant. We met a family that PERMATA has been helping. Halima (pictured at left) owns this home in which her son and his family live. Her son's wife is still living in the barracks with their two children, and will return as soon as construction on the new house is completed. Halima's own house was damaged and will be repaired soon by PERMATA. A community center serves as an Islamic schoool for children both in and outside of the village, and is also being repaired.


Since the tsunami, PERMATA has helped build 98 new houses, with 204 in line to be repaired. While Martha got a tour of old and new houses, I was chased by a large group of laughing children who wanted me to photograph them. With such a language barrier (Acehnese must be translated through one person to Bahasa, which in turn is translated through another person to English), it was difficult to explain to the families who we were and how we were helping, and it felt wrong to just walk in, shoot photos, and leave.

Some of the girls posed strategically with flowers in their hands in front of the tsunami-devastated fields. They didn't understand who I was or why I was taking pictures, but I wish they could see this website and understand why we came to hear their stories.

Audubon Dougherty, UUSC's communications assistant, is traveling in Indonesia to visit communities affected by the tsunami.

Upon arrival in the city of Banda Aceh, we jumped right into meetings with grassroots organizations working in conjunction with HIVOS. UUSC provides financial support to many of these smaller groups and will soon be funding more. Hearing about the scope of their work was eye-opening.

Gender rights continue to be at the core of effective human rights-based relief strategies after the tsunami and the signing of peace accords in August 2005. The issues Acehnese women face now are incredibly challenging: land inheritance rights, income generation, and losing their husbands as a result of either the tsunami or the political conflict in Aceh.


Advocating for women in Banda Aceh

Wanti, director of Bungoeng Jeumpa, a grassroots groups working on women's rights, told us how her organization advocates for women's education, health, and economic rights, especially inheritance rights. Of primary concern is women affected by the conflict. With all the international attention of nongovernmental organizations, tsunami survivors receive more financial support, educational scholarships, food rations, and access to health care than women conflict survivors.

Bungoeng Jeumpa as well as Peoples' Crisis Center are two organizations supporting all women -- including widows and their children -- affected not only by the tsunami but also by the political unrest in Aceh which is now calming down under the ceasefire agreement. The organization doesn't have the capacity at present to deal with all the property rights cases, so their primary focus is providing legal assistance and advocacy, working with Muslim leaders to settle conflicts over inheritance issues through Sharia law.


Later that evening, we met with Herlina, a young woman who had to drop out of the university after the tsunami. She decided to voluntarily live in the barracks (temporary housing) with widowed survivors. There, she acts as an Islamic guru (teacher) for the children and advocates for the inheritance rights of women survivors as part of her work with Peoples' Crisis Center.

It was 11 p.m., when we dropped her off, but she invited us in to see the small room she shares with another woman, the woman's child, and the child's friend, an orphan. Everyone talked in whispers so as not to wake the little girls sleeping on the floor. We drove away in awe of Herlina's intelligence, compassion, and commitment.

Visiting PASKA on another intensely humid day

The next day, after a four-hour drive to Sigli in the Bireuen district, we visited Faridah from PASKA, another grassroots group focused on women's rights. Her organization has done an impressive, meticulous job collecting data about women pre- and post-tsunami. Governmental organizations generated reports on the number of widows and orphans after the tsunami, but these numbers are much smaller than what Faridah's group has been finding. This is largely because heads of villages were hesitant to reveal all the names of widows to government officials, since many of these widows had husbands who were suspected to be part of the political resistance (GAM), and some of the women themselves were former GAM members.

Faridah showed us stacks of detailed reports, which include women affected by the tsunami and those left widowed or homeless by the conflict. "The data speaks the reality," she said, "but white people don't see the houses burned, all the loss that happened as part of the conflict. Why doesn't this reality speak to peoples' hearts?"

She was also adamant that, unless relief is extended to conflict victims, the peace process -- and all the progress achieved through tsunami relief -- will collapse. "People are beginning to feel that they'd rather have no peace and food than peace and no food."

Our hope is to help Faridah translate and publish these important findings and allow her organization the leverage to provide hands-on support to the thousands of women left behind after both the natural and man-made disasters.

Yesterday, UUSC Director of Advocacy and Communications Kevin Murray was a guest on the Charles Goyette Show to discuss the anti-torture amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill being sought by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and subsequent efforts by Vice President Cheney and the White House to quash it.

You can hear the complete broadcast, which also features author James Bovard and call-in listeners, by clicking the links to these mp3 audio files:

http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-11-09-Charles-01.mp3
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-11-09-Charles-02.mp3
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-11-09-Charles-03.mp3

The segment featuring Kevin begins at 21:30 of the first mp3.