For a Good Friend…

This is a plea on behalf of my good friend Pete Pattisson, a fellow educator and a photo and video journalist “documenting modern forms of slavery and labour abuses.”

Following my harrowing experience in Qatar last May, returning to Nepal, I was very lucky to have met and befriended Pete. As a fellow educator, like myself, he is passionate about education in Nepal and as a journalist, he is also passionate about providing a voice for the voiceless–such as the Nepalese migrants suffering abroad, especially Qatar.

Pete made the two videos I used in my fundraising drive–Education is Freedom. For the second video, he accompanied me to Thangpalkot on my brief visit to the village in early June 2013. If you have read my final post about the Education is Freedom fundraising drive, you will have noticed a reference to him.

That Pete is no other than Pete Pattisson responsible for The Guardian exposé about the plight of Nepalese migrant workers in Qatar. The exposé, published on September 25, 2013, caused a major stir around the world. It included the article about Ganesh, the 16 year-old child who returned in a coffin just two months into his stay in Qatar, and the accompanying video, and another one. Since then, he has filed a number of other articles and videos, links to all of which you can find on his Guardian profile.

While I have spent most of my time back in Nepal implementing education-related projects in Thangpalkot and elsewhere, what hasn’t been obvious is how I have spent some of my other times.

Apart from writing about (on my blog) the plight of migrants, publicising it on Facebook, working to raise awareness about the plight of the children of dead migrants and supporting their education, I have spent some of my other times helping/assisting/working with Pete on his articles and videos. Apart from playing a role, albeit a small one, in bringing to light their plight, working with him has also helped me understand a great deal about the processes and issues involved in semi- and unskilled Nepalese workers going abroad.

The reason behind that long-winded description is to draw your attention to the fact that Pete’s Qatar film has been nominated for a Webby Award. The Awards, Pete tells me, are sort of,”the Oscars of the Internet.” Furthermore, the public votes for them, and that’s where you come in!

Could I please ask you to help Pete by voting for his video and encourage him to do what he has done and continues to do?

Thanks a bunch!

Here’s how you can do that:

• If you haven’t watched the video already, click on the image below which will take you the page shown, and follow the instruction.

OR

• If you have already watched the video, click on the image below, which will take you to the page shown, and follow the instruction.

The voting runs until midnight, Thurday, April 24, 2014, Pacific Time.

Thanks in advance!!

* * * * * * * *

April 28, 2014 Update

Pete’s video WON the Award!!

Thank you everyone!!

Click here to go to the Webby Award site and watch the video if you haven’t seen it already.

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