Belief in one of the major world religions is commonplace throughout Africa but a small but growing number of people are turning to humanism, defined by the Collins Concise Dictionary as the “rejection of religion in favour of the advancement of humanity by its own efforts”.
Lorraine Ololia is 10. She lives in Kampala, Uganda. And she recently came up with a new career goal. A TV show about science, produced by teachers from her junior high school, has inspired her. She's watched an episode on computer programming, another where two young explorers visit her country's Lake Victoria to talk about wetlands and learned how to make a model of a digestive tract at home using bowls, crackers, water, food coloring, bananas and oranges.
VOLUNTEERING isn't that common in Ahmed Tohow's homeland.
Humanist weddings are banned in most of Africa. A growing movement in Uganda is trying to change that. The bride wore a white strapless tulle gown with a beaded bodice and carried a bouquet of red and white roses. Red, to symbolize “how deep she loves the groom,” and white, “to give them a spice.” Rings were exchanged. Guests clapped joyously. To an onlooker, the September nuptials of Faridah and Derrick at a hotel in Kampala, the capital of God-fearing Uganda, looked like any other wedding. B
Before her daughter-in-law bled to death after refusing to bribe a government hospital nurse for a safe childbirth, Ugandan Rhoda Kukiriza had never set foot in a court. She had never spoken to a lawyer. She had never been involved in a legal case. Today, the 70-year-old farmer and grandmother is feted in her village as a “victor and a celebrity” after her role in a historic legal triumph for her country and Africa in which she and other citizens stood up to the government in a bid to make the
The first time Gemma Perry tried chanting, she had no idea what to expect. "I was at a yoga studio and everyone was chanting a particular phrase 108 times and I didn't know what was going on," she says. But Perry, who was suffering from severe depression, says she found chanting to be so therapeutic she tried it again the following week. A decade on, she's undertaking a PhD to try to uncover if science can explain it. Despite having been practised for thousands of years by almost every cultu
When Louis Dorval went to Ghana in 2005 as a volunteer, the country was in the midst of a cellphone boom. Only one in 10 residents of the west African nation were mobile subscribers, but that was steadily climbing to the two-thirds it's at today, according to a report by data and analysis firm GSMA Intelligence. This piqued the curiosity of Dorval, a 37-year-old who grew up in Montreal and by the time he started at McGill Unversity in 2000 had bought his first cellphone, a Nokia dumb phone. "
Under an acacia tree, a group of schoolchildren listens to a teacher. They have been brought here, away from the classroom, and with the stunning Rwenzori Mountains in the background, in hopes that an open learning environment will be conducive to open-mindedness. This is just one aspect of learning offered at the Kasese Humanist School. Kids are taught science and critical thinking and are introduced to concepts and ideas that aren’t part of the usual curriculum. And this game-changing school,
Three months ago, Edris Senfuka, 27, a farmer and property broker from Mukono, Uganda, received a curious text on his cellphone: an invitation to play an educational game for free. It piqued his curiosity. “I had not seen anything else like it,” he says. The game, based around financial literacy, had Senfuka listen to a story and make decisions by pushing his phone’s buttons. Each choice led to a different outcome — much like the choose-your-own-adventure books popular in the 1980s. Today, the
Uganda has one of the highest birth rates in the world. It also has some of the most dedicated soap opera watchers anywhere in Africa. Now a group of enterprising Ugandans is aiming to tackle the former through the medium of the latter. Soap operas are expensive to make, however, so they plan instead to “hack” a Venezuelan import, recutting the existing series and overdubbing it with Ugandan actors. Using content originally from Nacer Contigo (Reborn), the new show has been rescripted and turn
This year hundreds of thousands of children around the world have gone on ‘strike’ over the future of the planet as the issue becomes increasingly critical. Should young children be getting involved?
Legal aid, laptops and motorbikes. These African startups are reducing the wealth divide by sharing resources.
Around the world, there is a growing call to ensure that all women and girls can menstruate with dignity. After Gemma Abbott began volunteering with The Red Box Project, a community initiative that distributes free menstrual products and underwear to young women in the UK, she was shocked by some of the stories she heard. “I vividly remember one woman who approached me at an awareness-raising stall in a supermarket, to tell me that she had grown up without sufficient menstrual protection,” rec
People in central London sit on one of a number of ‘Camden Benches’ dotted around the city. It is what artist Stuart Semple calls a “textbook example” of “hostile design”. When US$20,000 worth of studs were installed on the surface of a fountain in a downtown Toronto park in 2017, the upset felt by some locals was tempered by a general acceptance that the measure – designed to prevent damage caused by skateboarders – was necessary. The studs weren’t overtly antagonistic – at least not compared
“I like my money right where I can see it … Hanging in my closet,” reads the quote from Carrie in writing on top of the dryers at this Sex and the City themed self-service laundry in Melbourne’s hipster suburb of Brunswick. But with the walls of this wash house covered with images of the New York City skyline and cosmopolitans, we’re sure the TV heroine would agree that clothes need to be taken out on the town now and again, if only for a quick spin.
Singapore running tours: how to see the Lion City’s attractions and stay fit, if you can stand the humidity
When the #KeepItOn campaign team received a photo of a dirt track from a citizen affected by an internet shutdown, they were puzzled. “We were saying ‘why (did) this person send us this photo? It doesn’t make any sense’,” says Melody Patry, advocacy director at Access Now, the digital rights nonprofit that has convened the campaign with 141 organizations from 59 countries. It eventually emerged that the sender had no internet where they were, forcing them to trek on foot and then get the bus t
It was a people-powered case that led to a landmark decision. In November 2018, a court ruled that SIVA Group, a billion dollar conglomerate headquartered in Singapore, must return 41,500 hectares (103,000 acres) to villagers in the Port Loko district in Sierra Leone’s north and pay a fine of US $250,000. SIVA had vowed when it leased the land in 2011 to create 8,000 jobs for the community and put local children in school. However, it failed to pay residents rent for three years, the country’s
There's more to this Northern NSW farm than meets the eye. Here's what really goes on at a Hare Krishna retreat, tells Amy Fallon. “I might move here,” a woman I’ve just met in the communal bathroom says to me. “I’m sick of the real world. I’ve been doing it for 40 years. It’s not going anywhere.” Gazing out at the “unreal” world, if you like, the lush green hills in a tiny part of Northern NSW that belong to New Govardhana, a thriving Hare Krishna community boasting scrumptious vegetarian foo
TORONTO — Some 4,000 people are set to gather in Nairobi this week for the first global conference to focus solely on the sustainable blue economy. Hosted by Kenya, with Canada and Japan as co-hosts, the event will be the first to focus on how to channel global water resources in sustainable ways to enhance development. Described as a “bold initiative” by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference is expected to draw participants from some 180 countries, as well a
