Where have San Francisco’s African Americans gone?

 
Reverend Dr. Amos Brown explains where displaced members of the African American community in San Francisco have gone.

Storyteller: Reverend Dr. Amos Brown
Date of Story: 1990s-present
Location of Story: Fillmore District, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Location: Third Baptist Church, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Date: 10 October, 2016

Okeechobee’s toxic tides

Scuba diver Tyler Beck describes the consequences of record rains and reckless industrial policy in Florida: freshwater runoff from a highly polluted lake has not only trashed the environment, but also affected local communities and wrecked the tourism industry.

Storyteller: Tyler Beck

Date of Story: 2016
Location of Story: Marco Island, Florida, U.S.A.
Location: Marco Island, Florida, U.S.A.
Date: 7 February, 2016

I saved my granddaughter before our roof collapsed

Dilkumari, a 65 year-old mother of five living outside of Kathmandu, describes how the deadly 8.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on 25 April, 2015 nearly killed her and her granddaughter while her family was away.

Storyteller: Dilkumari

Date of Story: 25 April, 2015
Location of Story: Jitpur Phedi, Nepal
Location: Jitpur Phedi, Nepal
Date: 23 November, 2015

Recorded by: Sarki Gyalzen for Volunteers Initiative Nepal

Find out more about this rural Nepali community and get involved here.

Postponed indefinitely: cleaning up the Haitian earthquake

Tobias Metzner arrived in Haiti three months after a devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed over 100,000 people and destroyed 250,000 homes.  He was puzzled as to why there was not more heavy equipment considering the amount of foreign aid for the country, and soon discovered that an enormous amount of machinery never cleared customs.

Storyteller: Tobias Metzner

Date of Story: April 2010-present
Location of Story: Port-au-Prince
Location:  New York City, U.S.A.
Date: 31 October, 2015

Watching The Castro transform in the 1970s

 
James “Robbie” Robinson talks about moving into The Castro in 1970, going into business with a friend at a barbershop there. The neighborhood was not yet the mecca of LGBT culture that it is today, and he describes the process of gay businesses slowly starting to establish themselves.

Storyteller: James “Robbie” Robinson
Date of Story: 1970s
Location of Story: The Castro, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Location: The Castro, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Date: 11 October, 2016

A chaotic year after Nepal megaquake

Bhupendra “Bhupi” Ghimire, the founder of NGO Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN), looks back at the year after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that killed as many as 9,500 people and affected millions on 25 April, 2015. Since then, the earthquake prompted the political class to introduce a new constitution, triggering a trade blockade from India making reconstruction all but impossible.

Storyteller: Bhupendra Ghimire

Date of Story: 25 April, 2015
Location of Story: Kathmandu, Nepal
Location: Kathmandu, Nepal
Date: 24 April, 2016

The human cost of the fuel crisis

 
Eva Wieners describes one of the tragic consequences of the catastrophic fuel crisis that paralyzed Nepal in the wake of the April 2015 earthquake. Since fuel was scarce, buses ran less frequently and became overcrowded, leading to a surge in traffic accident deaths.

Storyteller: Eva Wieners

Date of Story: September 2015
Location of Story: Nepal
Location: Münster, Germany
Date: 17 February, 2016

To find out more about Eva’s life in Nepal with her daughter Miriam, check out her blog Miriam und Eva Unterwegs (German).