The story of prisoner F95488

I came across the first article browsing through my friend’s Stephen G.’s site -
Observations. Beyond its Ghanaian and human rights relevance, I thought I should share this with everyone.

Article @ ESPN

and

Article @ GHANASPOT

Get involved here.

Theft on June 23

First and foremost allow me a moment to apologize. It has been close to 6 weeks since the last post on this site, despite my original intention to have weekly updates, eventually leading into daily postings. I have not lived up to that challenge, but I won’t admit failing to fulfill it just yet. Now allow me to explain what happened. On the morning of June 23, I woke up to the silence of a disconnected fan and the deathly buzzing of a host of mosquitoes. It was roughly 7 a.m, and in an unusual manner, I woke up with an unnerving sense of suspicion and sweat prior to my alarm clock scheduled to be thrown out of the window at 8. The agenda for the day – head to the Diaspora African Forum to film the unveiling of Bob Marley’s plaque on the Sankofa Wall of ancestors and interview Rita Marley after. But this was rudely interrupted after reaching for my cell phone and noticing that it was missing. Instantaneously I noticed an empty void on the desk where my laptop usually sits, and empty camera bag where my DSLR sleeps while charging overnight. I panicked and ran down stairs to question the 24hr security guard whether people had been let into the house at any point, only to prompt a “No, is everything OK?” Not really. Actually, far from it. My stay in Ghana would not be the same from here on out.

Village of Hope Pt. 2

Despite the fact that all human beings are born free and equal in human dignity, every day thousands of women and children are sold so that their bodies and their labour can be exploited. Despite international labour standards and a UN Protocol against human trafficking, millions of victims, particularly children – made vulnerable by poverty and exploited by criminals – are working in mines, sweatshops, brothels and plantations – trapped by debt and violence. In a perverse commercialization of humanity, they are used like products and then thrown away.
- Address by H.E. Mr. Kofi Annan to both Houses of Parliament, London, 8 May 2007

Where Brooklyn At?

Does an American Hip Hop festival have anything to do with West Africa, Accra, or me slapping away at my aluminum Macbook Pro keys on Church Crescent Road? Well I’ll save the tangential rant of how Hip Hop spreads its wings across Mama Earth to Ghana and is used as a cultural tool of political resistance and exposure for another post, and simply say yes, yes it does. As iTunes blasts Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Blackstar in the background and I wade through endless emails, evites, and fraudulent offers to enlarge my penis size, I couldn’t help spreading the word about this event I came across through Fusicology – The 5th Annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival. The main portion of the event starts June 20th, and if I was back in the Stuy, guarantee I would be present.

Oh and I forgot, is Hip Hop reaaaaally dead?

Village of Hope Pt. 1

Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others. Slaves could be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (such as wages).
- Wikipedia

Today, according to the International Labor Organization, an estimated 1.2 million children from all over the world are sold into laborious or sexual servitude every year. The economic growth from this modern day slave trade is up to $10 billion annually. African children compose close to one-sixth of this trade, although numbers may be higher considering those who are unaccounted for (various reasons). In West Africa, the situation is increasing. And although Ghana passed the Human Trafficking Act in 2005 to curtail such growth, child labor is still increasing, especially along Ghana’s Lake Volta.

Hello world.

At the time of writing this post, I’ve been in Ghana for 3 weeks, 27 days, 648 hours, 38,880 minutes, and 2,332,800 seconds, still I feel as though I just arrived yesterday. After a 14.5 hour plane ride from Los Angeles to Accra, I stepped out of the winter cold Boeing jet, and into the warmth of Mama Africa.