Social Impact with Emma » Africa : A Jamaica Gleaner Blog

2019: A Year of Internet Shutdowns, Disinformation, and Distrust

December 28th, 2019

2019 has been the year of “Internet shutdowns.” No, I am not talking about Jamaican companies that fail to deliver the services that we pay for. I am talking about shutdowns initiated by governments that are afraid of their own citizens. The Internet has become the lifeblood of many societies in almost every country you […]

The Netizens of Global Voices Celebrate Fifteen Years of Activism

December 12th, 2019

Happy birthday, Global Voices! I am proud to be a contributor to Global Voices and a member of the “GV Family,” which is now celebrating its fifteenth year. What voices, and where, you might ask? Well, GV is an amazingly diverse network, a digital community populated by people you could sit down for hours and […]

Those Neglected Places That We Don’t Want to Care About

May 14th, 2017

Here’s an important question, in this “information age” where we try to know everything about everywhere (at least superficially): How is it that there are some parts of the world that we simply ignore? No matter what disasters befall these places, we just shrug shoulders and move on. That is, if these places ever make […]

Opportunity Knocks, Part 1: Youth, Entrepreneurship and the Power of Giving

February 19th, 2017

It was a well-attended event. The Courtleigh Auditorium was aflutter with young men and women in their best outfits on a Saturday morning at the end of January. The occasion was a Seminar organized by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (and spearheaded by the accomplished Darine BenAmara, the JCC’s Gender Specialist) on the topic Young […]

Rwandan Women: Peace Leaders, Advocates and Implementers

November 9th, 2015

“South-South” really does mean something, you know. To me, it means discovering links, parallels, connections you never guessed would have existed. You are not getting pre-packaged prescriptions from those countries to the North, while you make huge efforts to fit your own experience into the templates they offer, quite often finding them lacking. South-South is […]

A Time for Heroics

October 21st, 2014

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure” is an oft-quoted remark attributed to Abraham Lincoln (although these may not have been his exact words). Nevertheless, Jamaicans take the spirit of these words to heart, as do other countries in the hemisphere and around the world. This week is National Heroes Week in […]