This campaign started off as a response against ignorance and injustice. Why, I asked myself, tugging playfully at the healthy tresses that ran down my neck, are Americans (and much of the world) so vehemently opposed to mullets?
The coiffe of choice for such prominent leaders in American society as President James Polk, pitcher Randy Johnson, American television gladiator Mike Awesome and enterprising action man and general all-round good egg MacGyver, the mullet held reign during one of the United States’ most notable sartorial decades: the nineteen-eighties.
And yet, despite it’s remarkable run during that era, despite the hairstyle’s continued prominence in such fashion plate cities as Barcelona and throughout the Latin American region, the mullet continues to face endless ridicule as the butt of endless ironic jokes. Today, it remains co-opted by hick hockey fans and red-staters throughout the North Americas, a hegemony as historically unjustified as the recent stranglehold with which the faux/fro-hawk has held sway over the hip youth of our millennium.
Similarly injust but far more significant has been the sustained and systematic slaughter taking place in Darfur, in far Western Sudan. An ongoing armed conflict between the Janjaweed militia group and the land-tilling tribes of the region, the conflict has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives, according to the United Nations.
According to Save Darfur, more than two million civilians have been forced to flee their homes and now live in displaced-person camps in Sudan or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad. In total, over 3.5 million Darfuris are completely reliant on international aid for survival.
One of the aid organizations currently working in Darfur, CHF International, is developing one innovative solution to improve assistance provided to IDPs and refugees in Darfur. Currently collaborating with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at Berkeley University to improve women’s security from sexual violence whilst providing income generation skills and alleviating environmental pressure.
According to the website:
By the end of 2005, approximately 2.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) were living in dense camps scattered across arid areas of Darfur, Sudan, areas that have already low fuelwood productivity. In addition, inefficient harvesting of fuelwood has increasingly depleted the area’s sources of wood and fuel. As a result, many women and children are left to leave the safety of their camps to fetch fuelwood from farther and farther away, imposing great risk upon themselves.
CHF International and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at Berkley University conducted research in North and South Darfur to understand the household parameters related to family size, food, fuel, cooking habits, cooking pots, expenditure on fuel, and preferences related to alternative ways to spend time/money if fuel could be saved. The research teams found that a significant fraction of families are missing meals for lack of fuel—50% in South Darfur, and 90% in the North Darfur camps that were surveyed.
The LBNL research team concluded that the most suitable design for Darfur’s conditions would be a metal “Tara” stove, which would significantly reduce fuelwood consumption using the same fuel, pots, cooking methods, and food ingredients used by Darfur IDPs. With training, cooks who have learned to tend the fire with this stove can greatly save fuel. The stoves need 75% less fuel than current stoves and essentially pay for themselves in about two months.
The Fuel Efficient Stoves project is one of several key interventions in CHF International’s programs in Darfur. Specifically, the FES project is designed to:
* protect women from the sexual violence many have suffered during trips into isolated areas in search of wood;
* give IDPs skills that can be used for income generation; and
* help alleviate environmental pressure caused by excessive use of firewood.
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So, in the spirit of global solidarity as well as an effort to utilize the cultural-zeitgeist power of the mullet, the “Cut Mark’s Mullet for Darfur” campaign was born.
Please donate to the cause.
The largest donor will receive both:
1) The (admittedly dubious) honor of cutting off Mark’s mullet; and/or
2) A gift from the Amber Chand Collection of Global Gifts for Peace and Understanding.
The Top 10 donors will receive:
*A lock of Mark’s burnt sienna-shaded mullet! (Optional)
I hope to raise over $100 through this endeavor, but am open to the notion of making thousands if not millions of dollars for this and similar programs. At this point, the campaign is in the “Let’s see what happens” stage.
How to donate:
Electronically: Please visit the CHF International Donation site to make a donation by debit or credit card. In order to let it be known that your gift is part of Mark’s Mullet Fund, please enter “Mark’s Mullet Fund” within the Comments box, which you’ll find on the second page of the donation process.
To donate by mail:
* Send your check or credit card information to:
CHF International
Resource Development
8601 Georgia Ave, Suite 800
Silver Spring, MD 20910
* Please make checks payable to: CHF INTERNATIONAL.
* Be sure to include “Darfur Stoves” as well as “Mark’s Mullet Fund” in the memo field (if you would like your donation to go specifically to that project).
Thank you for being a part of this worthy and hopefully refreshingly well-humored project!
Peace,
Mark
