Dear friend,

The fight against climate change is already as hard as it is but it doesn't just mean fighting natural elements. Turns out, it doesn't even mean just fighting big conglomerates, trying to change government policies or trying to convince people that what we're doing to our planet is destroying it. For some people, being a climate activist means putting your own and your loved ones' lives in danger. Latin America is one of the most dangerous places for climate activists, especially women. Read this excellent piece from Open Democracy on the challenges women activists in Latin America face in their fight against climate change.

Berta Cáceres solidarity rally, Honduras 2016. Photo: Flickr/Daniel Cima/CIDH. CC BY 2.0.

If we want to stop humanity from destroying the living planet we need to start thinking beyond the current time and beyond borders. SpaceBuzz is an organisation that is aiming to do both. It's based on the idea of the 'overview effect', something that astronauts who see the earth from outer space experience, that allows them to see it as a "fragile ball of life". SpaceBuzz's mission is to give this experience to as many children so that they will grow up not taking the earth for granted. We talked with Spacebuzz's founder Hidde Hoogcarspel to see where Spacebuzz is headed (other than to infinity and beyond).

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Help people of Yemen fight the effects of the civil war in their country

Solutions
Written by
Tanisha Keil

on
1 July 2020

The war, which has been going on since 2015, has a complex political history. It is not just a single conflict between two sides but is a mosaic of power struggles on the regional, local and international levels, fueled by history as well as recent events. Entering its sixth year, it seems like there is no end to it in sight. In fact, the situation in Yemen is worsening. Living with war for over five years, the Yemeni People have been suffering from the heaviest tolls of conflict, being subjected to a life that violates human rights.

As of 29 June 2020, in Yemen:

100,000 people have lost their lives

4 million people have been displaced from their homes

20 million people are labelled as food insecure

24 million people are in need

Over 80 percent of people have been displaced for at least a year

Source: UNHCR

There is no single solution to war, especially a civil war-like The Yemen War with its roots in tangled webs of international transgressions and human rights violations. Nonetheless, there are still millions of people living with the reality of this war, and they need our help. Numerous charitable organisations are doing as much as possible to support civilians affected by the war. These organisations focus on different aspects of life for a person living with civil war. Some organisations focus on children and youth, providing them with continuous education and ensuring their safety. Others put great emphasis on building sanitation and health facilities, which include emergency relief for those physically affected by war. Additionally, various charitable organisations focus on peacebuilding and taking action against human rights violations.

In this appeal, we have chosen four organisations with projects that focus on different aspects of providing relief to the people of Yemen. With your donation, you’ll be supporting all four organisations.

Organisations

War Child Holland
War Child Holland has two ongoing projects in Yemen: Emergency Cash Assistance and Education in Emergencies Initiative. For the first, they distribute cash and vouchers directly to the most vulnerable families. Each remittance helps a family buy enough food for one month. For the second project, they rehabilitate schools and set up spaces to ensure that children have a safe environment to learn.

International Rescue Committee (IRC)
IRC is providing health, nutrition, water and sanitation services to more than a quarter of a million people in Yemen. They deliver essential medicine and supplies to hospitals that treat children facing starvation and other life-threatening conditions including cholera. Their mobile health teams reach people living in remote mountainous regions.

SaferWorld
SaferWorld supports women, youth, community groups and non-governmental organisations in their efforts to build peace and respond to the impact of the war. They continue to provide relief and safety to communities and offer new skills to young people. They emphasize gender issues, youth empowerment, peace and security, and strengthening civil societies.

Humanity and Inclusion UK
Humanity and Inclusion UK (HI) mitigates the impact of the crisis by focusing on the most vulnerable people and meeting the most urgent needs. Their teams provide physical rehabilitation and psychosocial support to the people injured or left disabled by the conflict. HI also supports other non-profits to ensure that people with disabilities are taken into account within humanitarian interventions.

Cover image by Felton Davis. (CC BY 2.0)

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An appeal you can donate to to support the Black Lives Matter movement

Your moment
Written by
Tanisha Keil

on
3 June 2020

This appeal is a collection of thirteen Kinder vetted organisations that are directly or indirectly related to combating racial injustice, police brutality and discrimination against Black people by law enforcement and legal systems. We have made sure this appeal contains a mix of organisations tackling the issues from different angles. Your donation to this appeal will support all of the organisations you can read about below.

Areas of focus include:

Bail funds for protesters

Structural and systemic racism and police brutality research

Support, protection and lobbying for Black people’s civil rights

Civil and human rights education

Police accountability and criminal justice

Promoting Black communities, rights and lives

Mental Health support

The Problem

In the United States, more than one thousand people are killed by the police every year. Police brutality, the unwarranted and often excessive use of violence by law enforcement personnel, is often associated with racial profiling, discrimination against minorities and harassment of targeted people. Victims of police brutality are predominantly people of colour and low income. In such situations, law enforcement is rarely held accountable for their actions and there are not enough policies in place to make sure people get the justice they deserve.

Facts and Figures

Despite only making up 13% of the US population, Black Americans are two-and-a-half times as likely to be killed by the police compared to white Americans.

In 2018, 8 of the 100 largest city police departments killed black men at higher rates than the US murder rate.

99% of killings by police from 2013-2019 have resulted in officers walking away without any charges .

There were only 27 days in 2019 where police did not kill someone in the United States.

An estimated 45 million Americans have adopted more progressive views on race and racism since the protests to end police violence began in 2014.

The solutions

Urgent solutions include legal support and education for people who are likely to be victims of police brutality. In the longer term, governments should adjust policies, regulations and laws to strictly hold law enforcement accountable for their actions. All law enforcement officers in the field should be thoroughly screened and trained on racism and racial injustice. We also need to support research on accountability, discrimination and racism specifically in regards to law enforcement. Finally, the longest term solution, the one all of the shorter-term ones leads up to and the only thing that will solve the problem for good: dismantling institutional and systemic racism.

Organisations you’re supporting by donating to this appeal

All organisations in this collection operate in the United States. Unless stated otherwise, they work nationwide.

Communities United Against Police Brutality

CUAPB was established to deal with police brutality on an ongoing basis. The organisation works on daily cases of police violence as well as taking on the more extreme cases. They combat police brutality from numerous angles, including political and legislative action, education, research, and advocacy for victims and their families.
(visit their website)

National Police Accountability Project

NPAP is a project of the National Lawyers Guild. The project aims to protect the human and civil rights of individuals in their encounters with law enforcement and detention facility personnel. The central mission of NPAP is to promote holding law enforcement officers and their employers accountable for violations of the Constitution and laws of the United States. (visit their website)

Campaign Zero

This research-driven organisation aims to end police interventions, improve community interactions and accountability. They support the analysis of policing practices across the country, conduct research to identify effective solutions, provide technical assistance to organizers leading police accountability campaigns and develop legislation and advocacy to end police violence nationwide. (visit their website)

Black Lives Matter

BLM is a member-led organisation dedicated to ending white supremacy and building local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. They do so by combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and emphasising Black joy. (visit their website)

Minnesota Freedom Fund

The MN Freedom Fund is a community based nonprofit that combats the harms of unjust incarceration by paying bail for low-income individuals. They work to secure cash bail bonds for individuals who would otherwise be unable to secure their own bail. Their work is very important during times of active protesting. (visit their website)

Race Forward

Race Forward produces research and organises actions for communities, governments, and other institutions to dismantle structural racial inequity. They also host local government action, curate a daily news site on race issues, and organise a multi-racial conference on racial justice. (visit their website)

ABFE - A philanthropic partnership for black communities

BFE is a membership-based philanthropic organization that advocates for responsive and transformative investments in Black communities. Partnering with foundations, nonprofits and individuals, ABFE provides its members with professional development and technical assistance resources that further the philanthropic sector’s connection and responsiveness to issues of equality, diversity and inclusion. (visit their website)

Mothers against Police Brutality

MAPB formed to unite mothers who have lost their children to police violence. Every year families lose children and other loved ones to police killings. This organisation is run by a multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition that united mothers nationwide to fight for civil rights, police accountability, and policy reform. (visit their website)

ACLU Minnesota

This organisation promotes, protects, and extends the civil liberties and civil rights of people in Minnesota by litigation, lobbying and community engagement. They protect civil rights by selecting, negotiating, and trying cases with the potential to establish legal precedent, broaden interpretation and strengthen civil liberties. (visit their website)

Black Mental Health Alliance

This organisation develops, promotes and sponsors educational forums, training and referral services that support the health and well-being of Black people and other vulnerable communities. They work with clinicians, local communities and individuals, to provide much needed mental health support. (visit their website)

National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP)

The NAACP aims to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination. They work to educate individuals on their constitutional rights and take all lawful action to secure exercise thereof. (visit their website)

Advancement Project

This is an organisation focusing on legal, civil and educational equality. AP is a next-generation, multi-racial civil rights organization. Rooted in the great human rights struggles for equality and justice, they exist to fulfill America’s promise of a caring, inclusive and just democracy. They use innovative tools and strategies to strengthen social movements and achieve high impact policy change. (visit their website)

The Bail Project

This organisation combats injustice in mass incarceration. They pay bail for people in need, reunite families and restore the presumption of innocence. Bails are returned to the fund and then ‘recycled’ for the next person in need, maximizing each dollar. This project is a critical tool to prevent incarceration and combat racial and economic disparities in the bail system. (visit their website)

Thank you to Eleanor Marsh for volunteering her time to help complete this appeal.

This story features:

Black Lives Matter

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Lockdown isn’t good news for all wildlife

Obstacles

Written by
The Conversation

on
15 May 2020

From Venetian canals running clear, to herds of goats roaming around Llandudno, Wales, there have been claims of nature’s comeback since the start of lockdown.

But recently, staff at the Meltham Wildlife Reserve in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, reported the arrival of a red kite that was found to be underweight and incapable of feeding itself.

Red kites search opportunistically for food, in the same way their historic kin made use of the rubbish heaps of Britain’s past. But the recent arrival of the kite at Meltham perhaps suggests the current situation of restricted travel – which has contributed to decreased roadkill – may not suit these previously persecuted birds of prey.

This raises questions about the way lockdown is impacting wildlife – for better and for worse.

Brown with a signature orange forked tail, red kites’ fortunes have shifted remarkably in recent decades. They were confined to Wales as recently as the 1980s after being hunted and culled as pests, as well as suffering pesticide contamination and inbreeding. But reintroduction programmes that began in the 1990s, have seen their numbers soar.

Kites from European nests were released across England and Scotland. Supported by feeding initiatives and nest monitoring schemes, their numbers have grown from around 20 in the early 1960s, to approximately 1,600 across the UK.

‘Human spaces’

The apparent “return” of wild animals to “human spaces”, perhaps due to the lack of human presence or management, has captured many people’s attention.

Housebound Brits are reporting (or noticing) more of nature in their own gardens, or tuning in to watch various wildlife webcams. Bird watching now features high on social media, with people keen to spot their wildlife neighbours on their daily walks.

For others, signs of ecological rejuvenation lend credence to ideas of COVID-19 as “nature’s revenge”. Humanity’s arrogant shortsightedness and efforts to exploit, consume and reorganise the nonhuman world in line with our own economic interests have produced conditions where a virus in China can quickly become a global pandemic. As one biologist in the US remarked: “We did it to ourselves”.

But the case of the emaciated kite sits awkwardly in relation to such narratives. Here, our withdrawal from the world has not created opportunities for a triumphant raptorial recolonisation, rather a material situation of scarcity.

Nature and the virus

The language of return and revenge speaks of “nature” as something external to human lives and spaces. This is despite a wealth of academic research and writing, particularly in geography, that has examined the fact that animals are - and have always been - present in our surroundings. Maccaques are establishing new urban territories in Indian cities. Rare species of hoverfly are living among urban parks and cemeteries in London. And peregrine falcons are inhabiting human architecture with and against design.

Such a notion that nature exists as a domain “out there”, distinct from society “in here”, has long been a feature of the way people, at least in the west, talk about the world. That’s been the case whether expressed via the celebration of distant wildernesses, or the differing perceptions of species as in, or out, of place in certain surroundings.

But the hungry kite suggests a different reality, one where humans, scavenging raptors and viruses are all jumbled together. Such “entanglement” raises important questions about our relationship with and obligation to others. This is particularly pertinent given we are living in an era of human-induced environmental crisis.

Living together

The kite’s situation offers a route beyond this idea of nature as separate to ourselves. For this is a species whose numbers in the UK were first diminished and then later reversed by human action.

Like a lot of animals that have successfully adapted to live alongside humans, the red kite is an opportunist making the most of our activities. When those opportunities are withdrawn, it becomes painfully clear that such a bird can flourish because, not in spite, of our presence. Clearly, the benefit of human withdrawal is unevenly distributed across nonhuman species.

In Turkey, for example, the government has mobilised resources to feed thousands of stray animals in cities, left hungry as a result of quarantine. But the entangled fate of humans and animals extends beyond cities, to places where conservation efforts attempt to promote the recovery of more diverse and lively ecologies.

An absence of human activity from numerous nature reserves raises the possibility that vital habitats will be overtaken by invasive species (which we ourselves introduced), as well as the limited capacity to manage damaging practices, such as flytipping and illegal shooting.

Similarly, the absence of humans to manage illegal hunting of endangered animals in Kenya may prove disastrous. While many wildlife reserves will be affected by reduced tourism, which will in turn impact conservation work.

In the face of these events, it is understandable that stories about nature’s “return” have been subject to parody online. The reality is that human relationships with other beings are much more complex and fraught. To some extent, perhaps the red kite at Meltham reminds us of this, and that we – animals and humans alike – are all in this together.

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About Kinder

Topics

To infinity and beyond

Dear friend,

More Stories

Help people of Yemen fight the effects of the civil war in their country

An appeal you can donate to to support the Black Lives Matter movement

The Problem

Facts and Figures

The solutions

Organisations you’re supporting by donating to this appeal

Communities United Against Police Brutality

National Police Accountability Project

Campaign Zero

Black Lives Matter

Minnesota Freedom Fund

Race Forward

ABFE - A philanthropic partnership for black communities

Mothers against Police Brutality

ACLU Minnesota

Black Mental Health Alliance

National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP)

Advancement Project

The Bail Project

Lockdown isn’t good news for all wildlife

‘Human spaces’

Nature and the virus

Living together