UNICEF
What You Hear Is What You Read
I recently came across an organization called PlanetRead that completely captured my heart, and I am so excited about the work they are doing to improve literacy in India. There are 900 million illiterate people in the world, and 1/3 of those people, 300 million, live in India. According to UNICEF, 66% of India’s population is illiterate. I was acutely aware of India’s literacy problem and its implications for the socioeconomic development of the country, however I was still surprised to hear the explanation of Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director for Google.org, in reference to the undeniable urgency of a literate nation. He explained that if you do a multiple logistic regression analysis and you put all of the variables in trying to explain what is the single most important factor in determining whether a child will live or die past the age of 5, it isn’t water or vaccinations, but the literacy of that child’s mother.
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Two Weeks Before Heading Off To Malawi
It’s two weeks before I head off to Malawi and I am buzzing. I am currently trying to read everything ever written about HIV/AIDS in preparation and the reading list just seems to be getting longer and longer. I am definitely “hooked” on this subject.
I recently got a CD of Peter Mawanga’s “Zanga Zo zama,” the primary musician who I plan to collaborate with in Malawi. Peter’s music is hard to get in the states and he actually arranged an inter-continental rendez-vous between myself and a mutual friend who gave me his CD. I closed my eyes yesterday and listening to the whole thing from start to finish and was left salivating at this guy’s breadth of musical knowledge. He rocks.
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Up to four awards will be available to pursue projects around an aspect of international contemporary or popular music as a cultural force for expression. Preference will be given to creative projects that are conveyed in a dynamic fashion and are accompanied by a feasible plan. In addition to presenting unique projects on music as a global force for mutual understanding. Deadline to apply is March 1, 2012.