Issue 3: December
BY LASA DIVERSITY COUNCIL
City Council & Mayoral Runoff Election: December 13th
Tuesday, December 13th is election day for Austin’s city council and mayoral runoff election. According to KXAN, only 8.7% of eligible voters in Travis county have voted so far. If you’re eligible to vote and haven’t voted early, there’s still time. Polling locations will be open from 7am to 7pm on election day. To find your nearest polling location, visit votetravis.com. If you’d like more information on candidates and what issues are on the ballot, you can watch videos of city forums at https://www.austintexas.gov/CandidateForums.
Our Picks
Digital Art & Photography: Divya Wolf
Minneapolis-based digital artist and photographer Divya Wolf of Rocket Moon Photography captures simple moments in day-to-day lives and turns them into whimsical pieces of art. Through digital storytelling, she hopes to “provide an unfiltered look at our lives and insight into what went on behind the scenes, all with a splash of whimsy.” You can check out her work on Instagram @ divyawolf and visit rocketmoonphotography.com to learn more about her work.
Podcast: Equality Talks by Samantha Sutherland
Equality Talks is a podcast that tackles workplace discrimination and brings up thoughtful discussions among listeners. For example, Samantha Sutherland discusses pay equity and the lack of women in leadership roles. Such podcasts can encourage listeners to process these grievances and formulate their own stance on the topic. Equality Talks is available on a multitude of platforms, allowing those interested to listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more streaming services.
Get Involved
Volunteer At the Austin Animal Shelter
It’s the holiday season, and there’s no better way to celebrate than by giving back! This year, the Austin Animal Center has reported that it has reached critical capacity due to the heightened intake, so it's looking for volunteers. Volunteering can take many forms depending on your age; from playing and helping the animals exercise, to being shelter greeters, feline medical assistants, or even outreach volunteers. Additionally, the AAC is requesting for foster families or pet item donations.
Donate to Austin Food Pantries
Another great way to help out the community this winter is by volunteering at your local food pantries. The Hope Food Pantry in Austin is requesting volunteers to help prep and stock dry goods and fresh produce. But if you're unable to help out, they’d also be grateful for one-time or monthly donations of any amount.
Current Events Spotlight
Cholera Outbreak in Haiti
A catastrophic earthquake, a 7.0 on the Richter scale, struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. The 52 or so aftershocks measuring 4.5 or higher killed over 200,000 people and displaced over 1 million people. Only ten months later, tragedy struck the island again when the first outbreak of cholera was confirmed. At the time, it was considered the worst in history, for there were over 820,000 confirmed cases and nearly 10,000 deaths. Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness that spreads in situations of poor sanitation and can lead to a gruesome death by dehydration if left untreated. Thankfully, the quick response from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), National Directorate of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DINEPA), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and other partners prevented thousands of deaths from cholera. It was still a slow process due to the fragility of the infrastructure and politics in Haiti as evidenced by cholera transmission continuing until early 2019. There was a peak of over 352,000 suspected cholera cases in 2011 and over 4,000 suspected cholera deaths in 2010, but only 720 suspected cholera cases and 3 cholera deaths were reported in 2019: a greater than 99% decrease in cases from 2011 to 2019.
After more than 3 years of no reported cases, national authorities reported a cholera outbreak in October 2022. As of November 7, 2022, 600 confirmed cholera cases and over 6,500 suspected cases in the greater Port-au-Prince area have been reported. The Health Ministry’s data show that more than a quarter of all suspected cases are in children under 9. Additionally, cholera transmission is closely linked to inadequate access to clean water and sanitation facilities, which is concerning since in 2020, over a third of the population in Haiti lacked access to clean water and two-thirds had limited or no sanitation service. The recent cholera outbreak is worsened by the fact that a record of 4.7 million people are currently facing acute hunger, according to the World Food Programme. For the first time in Haiti’s history, a catastrophic level of hunger has been recorded in Haiti, affecting 19,000 people in the capital’s Cité Soleil neighborhood. Nearly 100,000 children under age 5 suffer from severe acute malnutrition, making them especially vulnerable to cholera. Help from the international community is necessary in preventing a tragic loss of life from happening again. Indeed, cholera vaccines and medicines are being distributed to hospitals by UN agencies, nonprofit Médicins sans Frontières, and other international and local agencies. Cholera treatment centers have been established in addition to facilitating access to clean water and sanitation and assisting the Health Ministry’s surveillance efforts and case management. But, more work is still needed to abate the situation.
Progress has been hindered by the gang violence growing stronger in the island. Gangs have taken strategic control of certain areas, which causes access roads to be prone to shootouts. Such violence has displaced more than 43,000 people in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. In fact, political paralysis has further worsened the situation in Haiti since there is no elected or appointed president and the Prime Minister Ariel Henry rules without any heed to the constitution. Despite the tragic situation, countries continue to repatriate people back to Haiti. From January through September 2022, they expelled or deported more than 21,000 people to Haiti: 70% of those repatriations were from the United States. Indeed, the escalating insecurity of the country has impacted children the hardest. Most have not gone to school since the start of the academic year, and many children live in fear of of being recruited, kidnapped, injured, or raped by gangs. In fact, children as young as 10, mainly girls, have been subjected to hours of gang rape in front of their parents. A quarter of girls and one fifth of boys in Port-au-Prince have been sexually abused.
Although improving Haiti’s water and sanitation infrastructure, strengthening cholera surveillance and targeted use of oral cholera vaccine are vital to controlling the current outbreak along with improving case management efforts to reduce the mortality rate, it’s equally, if not more, important to face the fragile political situation. Ignoring the causes of the cholera outbreak and only addressing the effects of it will only eventually worsen the situation in Haiti. It’s crucial that governments stop sending people back to Haiti where a humanitarian crisis is brewing. Children’s rights and sanitation rights are human rights that shouldn’t be overshadowed by the cholera outbreak.
Student Submission
Poem: Worth Waiting For by Zachary Suri
For the children of Iran—
Resistance is the art of knowing how much you should give,
of recognizing what is worth waiting for;
It is putting on the mask of courage at the right time,
and coming triumphantly into the center of it all,
unwilling to say anything except what is true.
But the stage is life, and the characters unpredictable,
so we walk along in steps beating forward to the front of the line;
At the rationed shelves requesting butter ‘till the end of time;
And this choice is truly far more significant.
I picked up a bottle cap this morning as I crossed a field of weeds.
You walked right past it only minutes before.
We would pass each other again, later, under searchlights.
You walked away, and I laid motionless in the street where they had met me with sticks.
You wanted butter. I wanted freedom.