Swahili web game to tackle Aids

Children all over the world first learn their ABCs from the school and from the popular computer game. But the United Nations children’s agency (Unicef) has launched the first computer game to educate children’s and grown up people about AIDS. The game called “What would you do?” (Ungefanyaje?) aimed at halting the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africans nations. Africa accounts for most of the world’s 2.3m children who are HIV-positive.

Brilliant idea, hope this sort of game and education program will be translated in other languages too. I would also like to see some famous cartoons and other famous TV programs which are generally aimed for children’s spread some awareness about this deadly disease as most of children do watch cartoon and TV.

 

Use technology to Stop HIV-AIDS

 

The United Nations children’s agency (Unicef) has launched the first computer game in Kiswahili, aimed at halting the spread of HIV and Aids.

The game called “What would you do?” (Ungefanyaje?) takes players through various scenarios to explain the importance of prevention and testing.

 

The UN estimates that around 80% of all young people do not know how to protect themselves from Aids.

Africa accounts for most of the world’s 2.3m children who are HIV-positive.

technorati tags: Africa, HIV, AIDS, HIV-AIDS, Game,

Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes

I feel very sorry for these children who at an early age must struggle to work hard to be able to survive. Children are the future of tomorrow’s world, but I am not too sure about the future of this six year old kid. He should be playing with toys and learning to read and write but instead he paddles a canoe a mile out from shore.

It’s hard for me to blame those parents who due to lack of financial capabilities perhaps, no means of education and food leased their kids to Mr. Takyi to work for him as indentured servants. Developed world should do more to help these kids. People of all countries should do more for abolishment of child labor from this earth for ever. We should realize our responsibility ask big nation to support these poor family so that they can send these kids for education. Reading this sort of news really bleeds my heart.

 

KETE KRACHI, Ghana — Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, Mark Kwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor. It was time for work.

On Lake Volta in Ghana, Mark Kwadwo, 6, left, scoops water in the canoe of Kwadwo Takyi, rear. Kwabena Botwe, 11, paddles.

Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile out from shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishing net, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping.

He last ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings.

“I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Mr. Takyi’s earshot.

Mark Kwadwo is 6 years old. About 30 pounds, dressed in a pair of blue and red underpants and a Little Mermaid T-shirt, he looks more like an oversized toddler than a boat hand. He is too little to understand why he has wound up in this fishing village, a two-day trek from his home.

technorati tags: Africa, Ghana, Child, ChildLabour, ChildAbuse, child labour,

Somali Islamists declare ‘Jihad’ on Ethiopia

Anyone Listening? What the hell is happening in Africa? As I mentioned in my earlier post African Taliban? Does anyone care to tackle this problem or what? I can see this situtaion as a potential new home for Islamic fundamentalist in Africa.

MOGADISHU: Somalia’s powerful Islamists on Monday declared a ‘Jihad’ against Horn of Africa rival Ethiopia, which they accused of invading Somalia to help the government briefly seize a town controlled by pro-Islamist fighters.

Both sides confirmed the takeover of Buur Hakaba, the first military counter-strike by President Abdullahi Yusuf’s interim government since the Islamists took Mogadishu in June and went on to grab much of Somalia’s south.

“Starting from today, we have declared jihad against Ethiopia,” Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed told a news conference, wearing combat fatigues and clutching an AK-47 assault rifle.

Ahmed, usually viewed as a more moderate voice among the Islamists, appeared angry as he addressed reporters. “Heavily armed Ethiopian troops have invaded Somalia. They have captured Buur Hakaba. History shows that Somalis always win when they are attacked from outside,” he said. Residents of Buur Hakaba, seen as a potential flashpoint because it had put the Islamists within 30 km of the government’s base in Baidoa, said Ethiopian troops accompanied government fighters who took the town early on Monday. A government militia commander in Buur Hakaba denied that, and Addis Ababa has consistently said it has not sent any soldiers except for military advisers.

technorati tags: Africa, Taliban, Islamic, Somalia, News

African Taliban?

Act now stop this now! Else I can see as a potential new home for fundamentalist Islam in Africa.

Islam has tamed a lawless Somalia, but is it raising an African Taliban?

As a senior drill officer for Somalia’s new Islamic army, Col Abukar Sheikh Mohamed is proud to have recruited some of the unholiest warriors ever to grace a parade ground.

Marching over the sandy strip in front of him are former members of Mogadishu’s notorious warlord militias, the drug-crazed freelance killers, robbers and rapists who have brought anarchy to the capital for the past 16 years.

Now, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a new religious movement which drove out the warlords two months ago, is “rehabilitating” them to defend the land that they so spectacularly destroyed.

technorati tags: Africa, Taliban, Islam, Radicals, Mogadishu