The Rising Tigers Initiative

Math, Murder, and Making a Difference

Part 1: Congo · Palestine · Sudan

Data visualization vignettes sharing news, mortality rates, & aid narrowed to certain causes. Ways to help right now.

By Tahreem Karim

Each box = 100,000 people forced out of their homes.

Congo7,000,000+ displaced over mining rights
Palestine~1,900,000 · 9 in 10 people in Gaza
Sudan13,600,000 · largest displacement crisis on earth

Different agencies, 2024–2026. All institutions linked from this page are vetted.

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Some context

DR Congo · 1990s -

7M+ Displaced

120+ armed groups in the east

Situation
M23 (the 'March 23 Movement'), backed by Rwanda, took Goma and Bukavu in 2025. Since early 2026 both sides have used armed drones and heavy artillery in neighborhoods.
Ebola outbreak in May.
Why?
The Rubaya mining area supplies ~15–30% of the world's coltan. Coltan - metallic ore refined into the element tantalum.
Tantalum can hold a high electrical charge in a small space, which is why it is used in virtually every modern phone and computer.
Why it's silent
It's been going on for thirty years and nearly impossible to boycott. The computer this page was built on (and likely any used to view it) requires coltan.
HRW Africa Center ACAPS

Gaza, Palestine · Oct 2023 –

73,231 killed

173,686 injured — recorded by the Gaza Ministry of Health, reported through UN Health Cluster

The situation
Ceasefire: 10 October 2025. Between then and 11 August 2026, 1,259 people were killed.
90%+ of schools damaged/destroyed.
Who's saying what
Israel rejects the UN commission's September 2025 finding of genocide in Gaza. South Africa's case under the Genocide Convention is still open at the ICJ.
Why it's different
It's on the news & social media.
UNRWA UN COI Gisha

Sudan · April 2023 -

13.6M Displaced

The largest crisis of its kind.

Situation
A paramilitary force called the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) is fighting the national army.
Famine confirmed in Darfur. 33.7 million people (two in three Sudanese) need aid to get through the year.
Officially
In January 2025 the US State Department determined the RSF committed genocide. Not an "activist finding."
Why it's quiet
No Western troops, no oil angle, & reporters can't get in.
2026 aid appeal ~20% funded in April.
UN State Dept FAO · famine

Beyond the news

Neighbors & teachers are already there helping.

Congo

1999Panzi has treated survivors since

Women who refuse

Julienne Lusenge names commanders in public and runs a coalition of Congolese women's organizations. Panzi Hospital in Bukavu has treated survivors since 1999. And in Garamba, a country at war, the giraffes are up fivefold in 14 years.

panzifoundation.org ↗
Palestine

336,000children UNICEF is scaling toward

School's still in session

Gaza had some of the highest literacy rates on earth. Teachers have since kept classes going in shelters the whole time.
UNICEF now scaling toward 336,000 kids. When exams coincided with a pause in the fighting, one teacher called it a miracle.

unicef.org ↗
Sudan

26,000volunteers running kitchens, clinics, evacuations

The Emergency Response Rooms

The state government collapsed in April 2023. Now there are 700+ neighbor-improvised rooms across all 18 states.
26,000+ volunteers running kitchens, clinics and evacuations. Mostly unpaid people in their twenties, often under shelling.

mutualaidsudan.org ↗

Nobody here is waiting to be saved.

No money? No problem

Make a difference by spending time instead, or ask about finding your own causes!

2 min

Call, don't post.

Staffers tally calls but not reposts. For any Gen Z readers, just speak one legible sentence and then hang up.

 find yours ↗
Saves money

Maintain your phone

Coltan and cobalt demand makes eastern Congo's mines more in demand. Not upgrading is all that is required.
4 min

Read from the Sudanese volunteers directly

Not a thread, their own site.

 mutualaidsudan.org ↗
10 sec

Remember facts for casual conversation, and mention them

Helpful during epic dinner table debates or for remembering to be grateful

Same map, different casualties

War happens to places too as well as people.

Congo holds the second biggest rainforest on earth. Same country as the first tab. The war and burning aren't distinct subjects.

Bengal tiger · India, 2022 census

3,682

wild tigers, up from about 1,400 in 2006 — roughly 75% of every wild tiger alive

How they know
Camera traps and DNA from scat across 20 states. Largest wildlife survey on the planet.
The catch
Gains sit inside reserves. The corridors between them are highways and farmland now, and the Sundarbans habitat, in Bangladesh, is going under with sea level rise.
Why it's here
Because it went up. Keep reading.
Mongabay Corridors 2026

Tropical forest · 2025 satellite data

4.3M ha

primary rainforest lost in one year — eleven football pitches a minute

The situation
Down 36% from 2024's record, mostly because there were fewer fires. Still 46% above a decade ago.
Pressure works
Brazil cut non-fire forest loss 41% in a single year, to the lowest on record, after enforcement changed. Somebody made cutting it expensive.
Who's counting
Maryland's GLAD lab, from satellites, published openly.
WRI Forest Watch

Air & plastic · annual

~7M

premature deaths a year linked to air pollution - WHO. Estimates run 4–8M by method, aka the number is "soft".

Not far away
April 2026: 152.3 million Americans (44%) live in a county that failed at least one air quality standard. Including 33.5 million people under 18.
Plastic
Over 450 million tonnes made a year. Under 10% of all plastic ever made has been recycled.
Why it's here
Not a "far-away people's problem." Check your ZIP.

OWID · air OWID · plastic ALA

What winning looks like.

1972: ~1,800 wild tigers left & falling. 1973: Project Tiger. Reserves, wardens, money. 50 years later it has doubled+.

Not luck or charity but constant/boring pressure, applied by people publicly mocked for caring.

NTCA mean estimates. 2022 figure has a stated range of 3,167 – 3,925.

1,0002,0003,0003,682 200620102014 20182022 1,411

1,411 → 1,706 → 2,226 → 2,967 → 3,682 wild tigers

Free Ideas for starting right now (or tomorrow)

30 sec

Check your own air

Live US AQI for your ZIP, a few sections up this tab. No account, nothing stored.

 jump to it ↑ 5 min

Watch a forest from orbit

Global Forest Watch is free. Pick a place you love, see what's happened since 2001.

 globalforestwatch.org ↗ 2 min

Photograph one living thing

iNaturalist turns a phone photo into a research grade occurrence record. Scientists actually use this data. Now you're doing fieldwork too.

 inaturalist.org ↗
Free · saves money

"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies....

but just as much to stand up to our friends." - Albus Dumbledore.
Speak up, but don't yell.

The drawer

Free readings, tools, & work by people I know, just for building bridges. First person (not peer reviewed).

If anything on this page made you doubt yourself, check these out instead.

I Don't Belong in Science

Olga Botvinnik — a computational biologist holding every credential imaginable, on fitting in.

olgabotvinnik.com

Asexuality and Imposter Syndrome

Feeling like an outsider twice over as a queer scientist, speaking about belonging.

sisterstem.org

How Useful Is "Impostor Syndrome"?

An Aeon essay arguing the term itself hides the real structure — class, not just confidence — and questioning whether "fitting" is even the right goal.

aeon.co

Read primary sources for free

Unpaywall

Browser extension. Hits a locked paper, finds the author's legal copy. Works about half the time, which is enough.

unpaywall.org

PubMed Central

Every NIH funded paper, free, no embargo since 2025. Most US biomedical research.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc

DOAJ

Directory of Open Access Journals. Vetted, so you're not wading through predatory titles.

doaj.org

Mongabay

Nonprofit conservation journalism, 500+ correspondents, nine languages, free forever. Most forest reporting is theirs.

news.mongabay.com

ProPublica

Nonprofit investigative reporting. Free, w/ published data.

propublica.org

Our World in Data

Every chart downloadable, every source cited, licensed for reuse. When someone says "source?", this is the answer.

ourworldindata.org

Ten minutes, real contribution

You can do actual science tonight.

No degree, no fee, no application. The data goes into real papers.

10 min

Zooniverse

Classify camera-trap animals, transcribe old weather logs, find galaxies. Hundreds of live projects, credited in publications.

 zooniverse.org ↗ Browse

NASA Earth Observatory

Public-domain satellite imagery with the science written plainly. Free to reuse, including commercially.

 earthobservatory.nasa.gov ↗ 5 min

eBird

Cornell's bird database. Your backyard list becomes one of the largest biodiversity datasets on earth.

 ebird.org ↗ Free

Open Library

Borrow scanned books free, one at a time, like a library. Because it is one.

 openlibrary.org ↗

Get paid to do this work.

Cheapest first.

ComSciCon

Scicomm workshops run by grad students, for grad students. Free if accepted, travel funded.

free · in person · comscicon.org

The Story Collider

True science stories, told live and on the podcast. Workshops too. The podcast is free forever.

online + in person · storycollider.org

SciArt Initiative — The Bridge

A virtual residency pairing an artist with a scientist. No relocation, no money down.

online · sciartinitiative.org

Leonardo / ISAST

Fifty years of art–science work via MIT Press. Runs a month-long residency for five artists and five scientists.

residency · in person · leonardo.info

PLAYA Art/Sci Residency

Funded, biodiversity focused and explicitly open to naturalists & data folk (not just painters).

funded · in person · artistcommunities.org

ASTC Job Bank

Where the actual openings are: outreach coordinator, exhibit developer, museum educator.

jobs · astc.org

UC Santa Cruz Science Communication

One year, ten students, two internships. The only US program that requires a science degree first.

graduate · in person · scicom.ucsc.edu

Connect

Rising Tigers Initiative

Free help with career development ranging from school applications to immigration. No tasks handed out or oversight. Just brainstorming help, the reason this page exists at all.

tahreemkarim.xyz

The garden

The cutting room floor for my projects, plus future ideas or even musings. Nothing there is finished as a rule.

garden.tahreemkarim.xyz

The source repo

Every figure on this page as a plain text file, with the date I checked it. Fork it, correct it, use it in your own thing.

github.com/TahreemK13/Rising_Tigers_Initiative