Watching "The Last King of Scotland" this afternoon was what triggered this change of mind. Please, mind you, it was not just the movie, obviously made more dramatic by Hollywood, but it has also been the books that I have been reading about the human dimension in environmental ethics.

In order to move towards achieving this "utopia" that so many of us dream of, solving the problems on the surface is not a long-term solution. It is certainly also something that we should not be working towards. Perhaps building a new school for a village in a developing country will see smiles while you are there, however, that is not going to see smiles for generations to come. We should be aiming to dig deep and solve the problems that are buried under the face of the poverty, the hunger, the pain and the violence.

There are issues that run deeper than the picture you saw of the starving boy or the mother cradling a dead child. Sending food to them is not going to help, going to build houses or schools for them is not going to help, donating your old clothes to them is not going to help. What we should strive for is not a smile that will last as long as the bag of rice you have donated, but a smile that will radiate for generations to come.

"You fight violence with violence. This is Africa." I believe, we can change that, and I believe, the first steps have to start at home.