Worldchanging’s Attention Philanthropy campaign
I have been offered the chance to send an attention grant on WorldChanging, a nice initiative by Alex Steffen and his team centered around attention philanthropy. “In a noisy world, deluged in advertising, overrun with PR flacks and crowded with the superficial, one of the biggest barriers to success for a small, good idea or noble enterprise can simply be getting noticed in the first place.“
I decided to spotlight the work of Baba Wamé, who is working in Cameroon to raise awareness on the dangers of online dating for the women of his country.
Baba Wamé: Award-Winning Work to End Human Trafficking
WorldChanging Team
July 6, 2009 7:35 AMNominated by Laurent Haug.
I can say I have seen my share of great ideas and people in the past four years, with close to 200 speakers attending Lift. One guy stands out when I think of someone I want to send a bit of spotlight to: Baba Wamé.
I found him when I stumbled on his thesis on the impact of dating websites on Camerounese society. He is from a country where men pile up on boats to escape –- with the tragic consequences we know –- while some women, supported and encouraged by their families, use the Internet as a way to find a husband, leave the country, and support their loved ones through money transfers.
In the cynical world we live in, such an access to young and desperate women did not remain unexploited for long, and only 15 percent of women form a real marriage. The rest end up being prostituted, their passport in the hands of a random pimp.
Our western tools have an impact beyond our borders, not always positive. Baba helps us understand that, and is now setting up –- in part thanks to a grant he won at Lift –- an association to inform women in his country of the dangers of online dating. Visit his website to learn more.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:18 am
The link http://www.lesblackettes.org/ is unreachable.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Apparently DNS replication takes a bit more time than usual, I informed Baba