Can anyone tell me if this is legit?

Got an(other) email last night that tugged at my worthy cause heartstrings. But I don't know if this is legitimate because it came to me through an unsolicited email--some might call it spam it sounds too real to be spam--and I'm hoping it's just one blogger asking some others for help. Minnich sounds for real and the blog is not sploggy, but there aren't any pictures or ways to get to know those involved. So I thought I'd put this out there to see if anyone I know knows whether or not its the real deal. And so that if you'd like to find our or help Minnich, you have the info. And if it is for real, what a perfect social marketing opportunity for Stormhoek!

anywhoo Thanks!

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Hi,

Wait! Please don't delete. Read on and if there is still nothing you can do about it, then at least you will have entertained yourself.

This is not a Spam, and it is not a Nigerian Con letter. I don't need your money to pay for an American Passport or to transfer money from some war torn country or help set off credit card debts or… well, you know how they go.

This is a humble request to help make a change. I have gone through your blogs, all of you (sorry I had to Bcc your Email address as this letter goes to 30 different people) and they are all intriguing, interesting, entertaining, soulful, mindful… all of it.

I am Minnieh, A Girl From Africa, I may have posted comments on some of your blogs or already send you an E-mail earlier. I am 28yrs and in a programme that educates girls from East Africa. I have so far put three girls through secondary school, two are in their final year and one has one more year to go. Requests from my country folk have been coming in and the need is overwhelming. I can only stretch myself so far, and we all know I ain't no Oprah (bless her) so won't be coming up with a Leadership Academy any time soon, not without some outside help (Nothing is impossible). So, I have decided to seek your help to assist me carry on putting them through school, one by one, two by two, whatever we shall manage to do. I do not have a website but the girls and myself have been blogging, trying to do up some short stories and African folklore and sell through a Read-For-A-Dollar initiative at www.girlfromafrica.blogspot.com. I wouldn't mind doing up a website but I thought about it… $36 (cost of a web?) is enough to put one girl through school for a term, …$36 is enough to feed a family of 5 for a month, …$36 is enough to put a dressing on a painful wound, …$36 is enough to… by the time I finish with the list of what $36 can do, I'm not sure I will still be thinking of a web site any more.

So, to all of you fellow bloggers, the young mummies, the super mummies, the mummy fighting the world to save her son, the mommy-to-be who is on a countdown to her delivery date (I am one), the chap trying to translate English for an African girl in a Chinese shop in Germany, the Australian babe making a life in Europe, the Norwegian girl married to a gorgeous guy, the momma of 5 trying to get organised, the chaps whose blogs are raining men, Susan who runs for her life, Kelly whose blog rains men, pet mommies, the Iraqi raising his/her voice for fellow country men, children writing to keep a parents candle burning – a parent killed in the Iraq war, Crystal, a purpose driven wife… all of you, all of us.

All I ask… beg of you is to donate 1 Dollar/Pound/Euro (one will do, 5 will be good, 10 might be too much to ask for but, thanks anyway) through a PayPal account under the email girlfromafrica@gmail.com and, if you could be kind enough, pass this message to a couple of friends kind enough to also make a donation.

If you are not in a position to, thanks anyway for taking the time to read this far, but please do not hurl insults at me, or get too negative about my initiative. It's just an idea I have come up with, and it's my small way to make a small change in someone's life.

Be part of a positive change. Please help put a girl through school.

Kind regards,

Minnieh.

A Girl From Africa

www.girlfromafrica.blogspot.com

girlfromafrica@gmail.com

Stormhoek and Corporate Social Responsibility

One of the groups mentioned in the recent discussions on the Blog-Marketed, South African wine Stormhoek -- a conversation ripe with questions about how much the company is doing to remedy the social ills in South Africa that stem from its industry and the legacy of the dop system -- is the Women on Farms Project. (Another is ActionAid, which is broader in focus).

I noticed these two groups in this article from 2006, "Worker Pleads with Tesco to Honor the Fruits of Her Labor, which South African blogger Mike Golby linked to in his post, "Tell The Truth, Nigga." From what I have read, my understanding is that Gertruida Baartman became a spokesperson for underpaid laborers in her fight to secure a wage more than the three dollars and change per day she was being paid to pick fruit for Tesco.

Awareness of Ms. Baartman shamed Tesco into action on Baartman's behalf. (ActionAid bought one share in Tesco in Baartman's name, giving her the right to speak up at the retailer's annual meeting. The share cost about the same as she earns for her nine-hour shifts.). But what has happened since then?

What are companies like Tesco and Stormhoek doing to make sure that paying wages in the currency of booze (still prevalent on 3 to 5 percent of South African vineyards according to one estimate) stops? What is being done to help displaced workers--when the CSR action of the day is to say: OKAY you sixth generation live-in laborer, you're free to go. (What? No mule? No 40 acres?) What are these companies doing to help reverse the alarming rate of alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome that are a direct legacy of the dop system?

Why am I interested in this story? Lots of reasons, because it has lots of hooks for me. As a blogger, I see a company using bloggers to market its product--a product no one really needs but some enjoy--and I wonder if they know how it got to them. Are they being exploited? Do they know? Do they care? As a PR blogger, I see an opportunity for vineyards and wine companies to actually come together as competitors to do something larger than their profit margin or next blog promotion, to help people who ARE being exploited. As a woman, as a mother, and as someone keenly aware of the legacy of slavery in this country and its toxic generational impact, I give a shit.

Stormhoek isn't going out of business because a few bloggers want to know about the practices in its associated vineyards, about its CSR programs, about the laborers who give Hugh a product to glue his cartoons on. But it would do well to address the questions

Mean Kids Disclaimer 230: I am not trying to poke holes in Hugh's project for poking's sake. I am really trying to find out what the current situation and practices are, and -- given the OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING POSITIVE (all bloggers like Positivity and Higher Purposes, right?), plus the wealth of EXPERTISE in and around the blogosphere ((which incidentally IS Stormhoek's marketing engine)) -- discuss what can and should be done.

For example, do Stormhoek vineyards have a Woman on Farms Committee on site, like Lanzerac, Kaapzicht, Fine Farms, Uitkyk, Blyhoek, Elsenburg, De Clapmuts, Spier, Groenland & Labonheur do? Do they have any representatives on the WOF's District Forum?

I'll stop now. But feel free to continue the conversation. Markets are, you know.


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Way?

"Look for the good... the glass isn't always half empty.. sometimes it's half full."

Way?!?

You see, this is where i get into trouble, 'cuz, no. no i'm fraid it's not. for sheltered white westerners sipping wine and sopping up blog juice maybe. but the planet does not begin and end with a full glass of wine.

go figure.

while you're figuring, read some investigative blogging wherein Madame Levy takes Stormhoek to school on the shady business practices of Tesco, where the wine is being promoted.

Something slightly more informative -- or at least wittier -- than 'sometimes the glass is half full' is deserved in response. I doubt if we'll hear it. After all, things are well with good bloggers everywhere whose glasses are half full--well, probably a good bit more than half if it's half past noon.

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