#africa
Putting Twiga Foods on the Blockchain
Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Twiga Foods is a business-to-business logistics platform for food stalls and kiosks. Twiga helps farmers distribute bananas, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and more to 2,600 kiosks across Kenya. But they realized that they could help farmers sell more produce if they gave them access to capital, credit and other financial services. Working together with IBM, Twiga Foods developed a machine learning-powered, blockchain-enabled finance lending platform that is designed to manage and track micro-loans to farmers and vendors in Africa to help stimulate the economy and benefit its users. During an eight-week pilot program, Twiga’s service conducted 220 micro-loans (the average size of each loan is about $30, or 3,020 KES), which helped increase order size by 30% and profits for each retailer, on average, by about 6%. IBM is excited to help promote social good and use technology to bring positive change to these regional markets.
Learn more about Twiga Foods and its blockchain-powered micro-loan service ->
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Africa’s ‘Brain Drain’ In Health Care Continues To Soar
The number of doctors from sub-Saharan Africa working in the U.S. has risen by nearly 40 percent in the past decade, researchers from Vanderbilt University reportedTuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine.
By analyzing data from the World Health Organization, Akhenaten Benjamin Siankam Tankwanchi and his team estimated that 10,819 physicians were born or trained in 28 sub-Saharan countries. For all of these countries, except South Africa, migration to the U.S. increased from 2002 to 2011. Nigeria and Ghana saw a more than 50 percent rise, while Ethiopia and Sudan suffered a more than 100 percent increase. Liberia was hardest hit with an estimated 77 percent of their doctors moving to the U.S.
Once the doctors leave sub-Saharan Africa, they don’t return home quickly. On average, the physicians trained in Africa have been in the U.S. for 18 years, the researchers said.
“Unless far-reaching policies are implemented by the U.S. and sub-Saharan countries, the current emigration trends will persist," Tankwanchi and his team wrote. "And the U.S. will remain a leading destination for SSA physicians emigrating from the continent of greatest need.”
Top graph: Since the 1960s, the number of sub-Saharan trained doctors who have moved to the U.S. (SSA-USMG) has increased exponentially.
Bottom graph: Length of service provided to the home country by medical graduates trained in sub-Saharan Africa before moving to the U.S.
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WATCH: “CABRALISTA” (Part 1) - Documentary Film
Part 1 of a new documentary film trilogy exploring the legacy of anticolonial thinker and leader, Amilcar Cabral, and the rise of the Cabralist movement on the African continent.
RISE & DECOLONIZE.
Twenty-two-year-old Amber Koonce created a foundation that brings black dolls to orphanages in Africa to help girls value their self worth and individual beauty. She was recently featured on The Root. Click here to read more about her story.
The aardwolf is a small relative of the hyena and lives in East and Southern Africa. Because aardwolves eat termites and other insects, they have sticky tongues and specialized teeth. Aardwolves are nocturnal and live as monogamous pairs in underground burrows.
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Unequal Scenes | Johnny Miller |Via
Cape Town-based photographer Johnny Miller reveals distinct lines between rich and poor in a striking (and unsettling) series of photographs. Taken using drones, the aerial perspective presents the harsh reality of past Apartheid policies and the continued disparity in a way that can’t be ignored.
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The Forked Tailed Drongo steals food by imitating others.
The forked tailed drongo bird of Africa — quite the trickster — imitates multiple species’ warning calls to scare off other animals and steal their food, a study published on Thursday revealed.
The birds often use their own danger alert to trick their fellow bird and beast into abandoning a meal, but researchers were puzzled why animals…
Making Tracks - Series IIhard enamel pin series Kickstarter campiaign is on it’s way to unlocking 27 designs + super stretch goals on the horizon!
Owerri, Nigeria
“Black woman will define herself, naturally.
Will talk/walk/live & love her images.
Her beauty will be… the only way there is to be”
- Don L Lee
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“Attitudes necessary for survival were vigorously pounded into the wooly heads of black boys and girls by their loving mothers. The boys were reared to be Negroes, not men. A negro might survive a while, but a black “man” didn’t live very long…. a black boy aiming to reach “manhood” rather than “Negro-hood” rarely lived that long”
- Jamil Al-Amin
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Ode to my Mother
I wish
I knew words like this
Back when life was more pain
Back to five
in the yard
While she cooked water and pig
With the salt of her tears
- Zula Saata,
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