This year too, the association I belong to, 12 Scatti, has produced the Below underwater photography calendar, which you can see in preview.

And this year too I have decided to put it on sale online via Blomming :)

Obviously it can also be purchased simply by contacting me!

What I want to be clear about is that 100% of the proceeds reaches its destination; this is because we have no administrative costs. We have no physical premises and therefore no rent, utility bills, etc.

We do not pay photographers’ royalties because they are donated to us; so everything you choose to give to the association arrives in full.

In just over 4 years we have built no fewer than 37 wells for clean drinking water!!

Other figures..:

Below 2006 1,398 calendars distributed

€10,188.00 donated to charity + a contribution of €19,812.00 from Acea S.p.A.

Below 2007 2,040 calendars distributed

€15,408.00 donated to charity + a contribution of €17,392.00 from Acea S.p.A.

Below 2008 8,841 calendars distributed

€61,683.00 donated to charity + a contribution of €16,400.00 from Acea S.p.A.

Below 2009 13,320 calendars distributed

€73,632.00 donated to charity + a contribution of €20,000.00 from Acea S.p.A.

Below 2010 10,008 calendars distributed

€74,930.00 donated to charity + a contribution of €20,000.00 from Acea S.p.A.

Below 2011 9,840 calendars distributed

€124,099.00 donated to charity (including €15,830.40 from the 5x1000 scheme for 2008 and €12,520.71 from the 5x1000 for 2009)

The calendar costs €10; if you are in Rome you can contact me (all my contact details are here on the blog) and collect it in person, otherwise I can send it.

Here I am again with the rest of the travel diary I promised you. I know very well it is a very long post… but it is really worth taking a little time to read it in full. I didn’t have the heart to “break it up” further, and I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of events recounted here too much :)

I am finishing organising the photos they took to publish them, and I am also finishing editing the various videos they shot; some are truly wonderful.

I hope you find it an enjoyable read :)

Simona

Day 5 (Wednesday the 16th)

Definitely the most gruelling day!

Departure at the usual time, after breakfast. Destination Mogtedo to visit 4 villages; in order:

1. Bomborè V6
2. Rapadama V7
3. Mancarga V5
4. Bessin-Noghin

Bomborè V6

There is a market at Mogtedo.

Along the dirt track we turn onto, immediately on the left an endless stream of people on foot, on carts pulled by tired little donkeys, motorbikes and bicycles loaded to the absolute limit of anything your imagination can conjure up, and more.

Crates heaving with chickens, goats with all four legs tied in a bundle lying inside semi-cylindrical baskets, not exactly comfortable… All of it enveloped in a reddish dust cloud, stirred up by the wind from all this to-and-fro of people and engines.

The track does not take long to become a mere trace through the bush, which keeps crossing other trail traces, perpendicular, converging, oblique, diverging (which makes you wonder, why did Marcel take this one and not that one, or that other one…), and also parallel ones where it is necessary to go around the most uneven and water-eroded sections to cross the dried-up river beds.

As last year, my mother and her partner went to Burkina Faso to visit the current state of the wells built together with the association 12 Scatti per l’Africa, which I have already told you about in this post.

I have to admit I regret not having thought earlier to explain to her how Twitter works, so she could tell the story live as she was experiencing it. So I decided to do it for her.

I relay on Twitter what she tells me via text message :) in real time: the moment she writes to me I write to you, because I like the idea of making you part of this, of giving you a real firsthand account from the field :) I decided to use the hashtag #12scatti as it recalls the name of our association.

Life in the villages of Burkina Faso is not easy at all; my mother and her partner (last year they were four, this year just the two of them) are staying at the nuns’ establishment, which also has a hospital and an internet connection through which my mother managed to send me the travel diary of the first few days and a photo!

I decided to post the travel diary, written jointly, just as it is in its entirety :) with the typos, the perhaps misspelled village names, and the table of wells to visit; complete with Massimo’s irony and my mother Rita’s sensitivity :)

Here and there you will find small notes written by me, simply to explain what is being mentioned :)

Last Saturday, 19 February, I had the opportunity — or rather, I would say the honour — of attending the 34th Governing Council of IFAD in Rome. The event brought together delegates from 167 IFAD member countries who, alongside international figures, young leaders from farming communities, and high-level institutional representatives, debated how to guarantee food security, strengthen smallholder farmers, and how to support — and above all encourage — young people living in rural areas of developing countries.

Opening the proceedings, Fund President Kanayo F. Nwanze said that IFAD is working to build stronger and more dynamic rural economies, which will in turn give momentum to the agency’s efforts to eradicate rural poverty. “The programmes and projects we support are creating the conditions for smallholder farmers and the entire rural poor to become small entrepreneurs in the new emerging markets.”

The Board of Governors was also attended by Kofi Annan, Chair of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and former Secretary-General of the United Nations, together with Princess Haya Al Hussein, UN Messenger of Peace, who touched on a fundamental point of discussion that was later taken up in the afternoon during a round table in plenary session: “making agriculture more attractive to young people with ambition and initiative.” “They are the generation needed for sustainable change to occur.”

This is a theme that has always been very close to my heart, one that touches me personally. For years I have followed and supported the Slow Food movement founded by Carlo Petrini, who was the protagonist of the round table held during the afternoon — a round table I was very happy to attend.

For some years now I have been a supporting member of a non-profit association called “12 scatti” (12 Shots). The association was founded with the aim of helping children in Burkina Faso (Ivory Coast), who die every day from diseases caused by the lack of clean drinking water, through the construction of wells that make this indispensable resource available to ensure survival.

The funds needed for well construction are raised through the distribution of calendars we produce ourselves, with a minimum contribution of €10. The calendar, long known as Below, is made with beautiful underwater photographs taken by volunteer photographers. Here you can see a preview of the 2011 calendar: http://www.12scatti.org/below/11/defin/elenco-foto.html

I want to make clear that the association directly oversees, with no intermediaries, the production process, the quality of materials used, and the relevant construction costs. As every year, I take part in distributing and “selling” the calendar for fundraising, and this year I decided to do it differently, using a new online service I have been testing for some time and which I find genuinely charming and very useful: Blomming. The calendar can be purchased on Blomming at this address: http://blomming.com/mm/nhaima/items/328 for €10, payable via PayPal, bank transfer, or postal order. Shipping costs this year will be free :)

In the hope of welcoming you among us as supporting members, I leave you with some photos taken last year during a trip to Burkina Faso. The Italian woman you see in the photos is my mother ;)

From “Ch’a Shu” Hsu-Tze-Shu (Ming Dynasty)

• In moments of leisure
• When poetry wearies us
• When thoughts are confused
• Following the rhythm of songs
• When the music falls silent
• Living in solitude
• Devoting oneself to refined pastimes
• Conversing late into the night
• Studying on a sunny day
• In the bridal chamber
• Entertaining guests of distinction
• Hosting intellectuals or beautiful young women
• Paying visits to friends returned from afar
• In fine weather
• When the sky is covered in clouds
• Watching boats glide along the river
• Among trees and bamboo
• When flowers bloom and birds sing
• On warm days by a lotus lake
• Burning incense in the courtyard
• After the guests have gone
• When the young have gone out
• Visiting secluded temples
• Gazing at springs and steep ravines…

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

~ Frank Herbert

It all comes down to balance, which is no easy thing to achieve. To self-awareness. Trying not to let oneself be dragged down by those low human instincts — so devoid of meaning — that make you lose sight of what truly matters.

There are those who are aware of it and those who are not. And perhaps that is the key to getting out of it. Or perhaps it is only so for “us” who have in truth already been through it, fallen all the way in, and then managed to climb back out and detox ourselves from it. But to what extent can this permeate and influence our lives, down to every smallest thing — reactions, thoughts, attitudes? Completely. And when do we manage to realise this? If ever it even happens. Are we still in time? Perhaps, speaking personally, each one of us would say yes; for my part, without a doubt. But for this society, for all of humanity, I now harbour serious doubts — if not outright no hope at all. It will unfortunately be an ever-growing crescendo. Web 2.0 surrounds us, haunts us, subjugates us. We have it everywhere. Through the computer at home, at the office, on our mobile phones, wandering through shops, through the gaming console, on television. We will reach the point where we can vocally command our home to change our Facebook status the way Jimi in Nirvana used to tell his to run him a hot bath. It is so pervasive, so invasive, that it turns up in your everyday life constantly and continuously, like brushing your teeth in the morning before you go out. And when small sensations, connected to real, living people, yet mediated through this tool, pass through your soul and body — then you understand you have reached that point. The point at which you must reclaim your life entirely, without it being falsified, altered, and dissociated, and without the lives of others — perhaps even people you no longer wanted to be connected to in any way — interfering with your own.

And here is our lovely group photo at the end of the 5-day training =)