© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Processing argan oil in Little Atlas Region, MOROCCO

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Argan oil, valued for its nutritive, cosmetic and numerous medicinal properties is an oil produced from the kernels of the argan tree, endemic to Morocco. Famed for having wild goats climbing all over them, the argan trees were first reported by the explorer Leo Africanus in 1510. The Berbers or Amazighs (indigenous people of Morocco) have been processing the argan pits collected from the waste of the goats that climbs the trees to eat the argan fruits for nutty cooking oil and cosmetics long before the Phoenicians arrived.

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Whilst the process has not changed and remains largely manual, today, the oil used in cosmetic and culinary products available for sale are more likely to ave been harvested directly from the tree than by sifting through the waste of the goats. All argan oil sold today is produced by a women’s cooperative that shares profits among the local women of the Berber tribe. Not only does the cooperative employs widows or in more recent years divorcees and unmarried single mothers, the cooperative has established an ecosystem reforestation project to ensure continuous supply of argan oil and hence, a sustainable income for the women. Excess money attained has been used to provide for health care and education of the local women, as well as supporting the entire community.

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According to the Department of Water and Forests, argan oil provides income for 3 million people in the southern part of the kingdom and provides a total of 20 million workdays per year.  The argan oil women cooperatives in Morocco work within a biosphere protected by UNESCO which ensures its protection and reforestation.

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Source: Wikipedia and Argan Oil Society

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A stuffed fennec head lies next to mountain goat horns, monkey skulls, dried tiger penises and gutted out air dried lizards.

Parts of vanishing species from Africa’s forests are laid out for local buyers seeking sex boosters, spiritual and physical cures for multitude of ailments ranging from a simple cough to cancer, and exotic food, while the skins of jungle cats, snakes and other reptiles are draped impressively with lit bulbs carefully positioned to attract Western buyers / collectors of exotic fur and skin used to fashioned out luxurious fashion items and souvenirs.

While, noticeably a sizeable quantity of wildlife is hunted and felled to supply dealers and medicine men in this scruffy part of UNESCO enlisted Djemaa el Fna, Djemaa el Fna is just one node of a trade network that funnels the wildlife from across the region to satisfy the insatiable global demands.

With millions of people in Asia and Africa still believing that rhino horn prevents convulsions, tiger wine provides strength, bear paws enhances bravery, pickled turtle flippers increases longevity, fresh snake blood makes potent aphrodisiac and that the consumption of exotic fare endows them with added social status, the demand for wildlife is unlikely to wane. The supply of illegal wildlife available openly in Djemaa el Fna is just the tip of the iceberg of the global illegal wildlife trade problem.

Whilst the true immensity of the illegal wildlife trade is unknown, Interpol experts believes that it generates between 10 – 20 million dollars annually; coming a close second to the trade of illicit drugs in regards to revenue.

Although enforcement and awareness efforts have been stepped up globally in recent years by the likes of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and WildAid Asia, focus has been predominantly in Southeast Asia and China, especially in the wake of trade liberalization in the region and the proliferation of air and road links with China.

In Morocco, awareness have been limited to the Barbaray Macaques, which remains very much a localised issue. As a preferred source of protein and where primates are considered a delicacy, up to 40,000 primates are killed and consumed each year in Africa alone, with a small fraction of these game meat being supplied all over Europe and the United States by “bushmeat” hunters in addition to souvenirs made from tortoise.

Although a member of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), Moroccan wildlife trades and medicine men seems unperturbed and continues to boldly display and ‘push’ their wares. Much of this is due to lax law enforcements that is rife with corruption and the steep cultural and spiritual believe by enforcers themselves in the spiritual and physical healing properties of these wildlife, thereby legitimating the ‘product’ and trade.

With big-time operators, documentations are often doctored; falsely listing the source of the wildlife to circumvent conditions and species proscribed under CITES.

This practice of “laundering” wildlife through approved enterprises which breeds endangered species such as musk deer, bears and tigers have created an added complexity for enforcers and conservationists  who is adopting a two-pronged approach by complementing theirs strikes against suppliers with education to lessen demand:

“When the buying stops, the killing can, too”

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© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Manali, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA

Despite the success of a few world class schools such as the Indian Institute of Technology, India’s education system is in a dismal state overall. Spending just 3.5% of its gross domestic product on education, of its 1 million schools, most are state-run and reported to be sub-standards.

Set against this backdrop, tens of thousands of private school have sprung up across India in recent decades. Once preserved for the elite, private schools in India have undergone rapid transformation and growth to satisfy the educational aspiration of middle-class. This trend it appears has begun to extend to villages in the rural areas, and poor families have increasingly expressed willingness to pay at least a small percentage of their income to bolster the educational prospect of their children.

Despite these efforts to provide for a better and far reaching education system, one fact remains: of the 96% of India’s children enroll in primary school, about 40% drops out by the age of 10 (UNESCO 2006). The root causes for these dropouts are attributed largely to poverty, family problems or lack of awareness among parents on the importance of literacy, let alone education.

Acknowledging this, some commendable localised ‘solutions’ have surfaced with the emergence of NGO-linked and individual funded private schools that hands out scholarships and highly subsidised fees.

Manali Model School is one of such schools ran by Raju ji – a physically handicapped man, who after spending 5 years with various grass root and national level NGOs championing literacy programmes (‘Mission Illiterate’) with villagers and the elderly, decided to take on personal bank loans (at various intervals) to build a school for ‘slow learners’ with the aim of providing inclusive education that does not exclude children on the basis of caste, creed, financial status, academic performance, or physical disability.

Twelve years on, the Manali Model School is a 3-storey structure – with room for expansion – that provides elementary, primary and secondary schooling between 9:30am to 3:00pm, in addition to night and computer classes for dropouts and adults in the evenings. Staffed by 10 full time teachers, Raju ji and his wife are not just actively involved in formal classroom education and the daily operations of Manali Model School, but finds the time to knock on the doors of pockets of villages in the Himalayan foothills and visits the tents of the nomadic Rajasthani community with the aim of convincing parents on the importance of education and its role in improving the lives of their children and future generations.

Although Raju ji is well aware that these students are unlikely to afford even subsidised fees, uniforms and allocate 5-1/2 hours a day, he is unperturbed and soilders on with his ‘Mission Illiterate’ dream.

“Some pay. Some don’t. It’s ok. If they come 10 to 15 hours a week, I am happy. Education is not about learning algebras or memorizing history books, it’s about character building and understanding the fundamental skills you will use in daily life. This is my hope for them. My dream for these children and their families.”

Raju ji

Having survived the strife his ‘Mission Illiterate’ dream had created with his late father, outcast by his village, near bankruptcy and continuous debts, Raju ji is far from giving up the Manali Model School, his 10 staff and approximately 130 students he has when school reopens next month.

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For those who would like to volunteer and learn more about Raju ji and the Manali Model School, please contact:

Hemraj (Raju) Thakur, c/o Manali Model School, Bhajogi, Manali, Kullu 175131, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA | rajumanali12@gmail.com | +919 816812410

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Click HERE for FULL slideshow / multimedia

The Spastic Children’s Association of Selangor and Federal Territory (SCAS & FT), Malaysia, was established in February, 1960 in a garage of the Red Cross to address the shortfall in the education system that does not cater to children suffering from cerebral palsy (CP). In 1962, the SCAS & FT formally established itself and built a center when it obtained a piece of land and a grant from the former Mayor of Selangor.

Enrollment of children with CP has since increased from seven to approximately three hundred students to date and they are provided free transport, education and various training and rehabilitation treatment such as physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and hydrotherapy. Apart from providing the main education and rehabilitation treatments, the SCAS & FT also carries out interesting and beneficial extracurricular activities such as sports, music sessions, gardening, needlework and swimming.

The SCAS & FT accepts children in their centre from as young as one year old to nurture and mould them into self-reliant individuals. Generally, those with less severe CP will start daycare therapy as an outpatient treatment and, if progress is made, they can then enroll in the early intervention program. Older children will be enrolled in the School Section and adult students are employed in the Sheltered Workshops.

Being a self-reliant organization that strives to help every parent who has difficulties providing care to CP children, the SCAS & FT’s efforts have been funded by a handful of private companies and individuals, many of whom have benefited from the SCAS & FT’s charitable services.

My involvement with SCAS & FT started six years ago when my nephew was diagnosed with severe CP as a result of birth negligence. Though he will never progress from the outpatient daycare therapy session, the SCAS & FT have never once denied him treatment and administers the same therapies and dedication levels as that of CP children with hope of rehabilitation. More importantly, it is a place that has provided my family with emotional support by fostering a caring and open environment amongst all students, families and volunteers.

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

I am HIV positive.

It’s not an easy phrase to say. Yet in April 2009, six brave people stood tall and proud and uttered these simple but profound words that would change their world.

In a country where HIV/AIDS cases were only publicly acknowledged and reported for the last 23 years, and where more importantly discrimination remains the main ‘killer’ for people living with HIV+, the notion of recording uncensored testaments by people living with HIV+ was unheard off.

Yet, through faith, perseverance, sensitivity, respect, responsibility and belief this project evolved from a few scratchy lines of far and between emails dating back to October 2008 between myself and the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) to one that has to date helped raised MYR 6 million in 5 months.

From an independent third party standpoint, the HIV/AIDS issue is no more than statistics which ironically is read far less than GDP figures, unemployment rates, road death tolls and even the latest EPL scores and winning lottery numbers.

Since the first HIV/AIDS cases were publicly reported in 1986 by the Ministry of Health, 84,630 HIV infections have been reported in this country and 11,384 people have AIDS as at December 31, 2008. The majority of new HIV infections are found in adults aged between 20 to 39 years, with transmission from intravenous drug usage (IDU) being the number one cause followed by infections via heterosexual intercourse. Although those with HIV/AIDS are predominantly male, the number of HIV+ infections amongst women has been increasing.

Being a woman myself, never has these words rung truer and deeper …

“Due to gender norms and inequalities, many women and girls lack the social and economic power to control key aspects of their lives, particularly sexual matters. As a result, women are in a difficult, and often impossible, situation when it comes to negotiating with their partners over abstinence, fidelity, or condom use.”

(Excerpt from: UNAIDS, 2006. Increase Women’s Control over HIV Prevention, Issue 4)

… as I sat in their bare and dimly lit kitchens and homes, documenting their lives.

Of the two women who welcomed me into their homes, lives, intimate secrets and dreams… both were ‘victims’ of circumstances – contracting HIV+ from life partners that were IDUs. When I walked into this photo-project, I had imagined the women to be bitter, resentful and possibly wallowing in self-pity but I was repeatedly proven wrong. Far from my own personal cynic outlook of things, these women living with HIV+ were spirited, positive and full of zest. What surprises me most was that although they live on to shoulder the burden of raising their children single-handedly with little means,  balancing their health related issues and faced with societal unforgiving discrimination and stigma, they showed no remorse or anger having contracted the infections through irresponsible husband and has coined the term “love disease”.

Their ‘hopes and dreams’ which includes witnessing the graduation and marriage of their children, to me, does not have a tinge of far fetched ambition, but I soon realised that while it relates to matters we take for granted, time is an essence with these brave women and though they may possess will power that could move mountains, their spirits are constantly dampen by their physical inability and unnecessary hurdles posed by us who do not and/or refuses to understand.

By standing tall and speaking from their hearts, these women hopes to spread the message of awareness and to inspire others that are living of HIV+ that it is still a life worth fighting for.

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The multimedia photoessays of  “Voices of People Living with HIV+” was released for selective viewing for fundraising purposes in May 2009 and will be made available only on the Malaysian AIDS Council website in due course. I would like to thank a personal friend of mine, Jimin Lai for having the faith in me and MAC to volunteer his time and photographic skills in this project as well.

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useful HIV/AIDS resources

The BODY |  WHO

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