Whenever people debate how to end world hunger or global poverty, individuals often resign themselves to the fact that the problem is too big for a single person to actually affect much change. While global food insecurity is a daunting task, people still are fighting to address it. Below are three people (and one group) who started with only a plan and determination and are now making the world a better place.
Elijah Amoo Addo (Food For All Africa)
In 2011, Elijah Amoo Addo, a Ghanian chef, saw a homeless man rummaging through his restaurant’s trash. When asked, the man told Elijah he was collecting leftovers for his friends. From that point forward, Elijah swore no food from the restaurant he worked at would go to waste.
Around 30 percent of children growing up in Ghana are malnourished, a statistic with a strong correlation to being impoverished, according to the Ghanian government. The high number of starving children in Ghana surprised Elijah and caused him to quit his job to start Ghana’s first food bank and the organization Food For All Africa.
Now, Food For All Africa recovers $5,700 in wasted food every month with the hopes of scaling up to other parts of Africa and feeding one million impoverished Africans by 2020.
Cindy Levin (Charity Miles & RESULTS)
Cindy Levin, a mother of two in her 40s, defeats the myth that there is not enough time in a day to help the less fortunate. In fact, the anti-poverty advocate dedicates her time to dispelling that very idea with her position at RESULTS. There, Cindy coaches people on how to organize fundraising activities themselves, with a focus on getting stay-at-home mothers and children involved and educating them on how to end world hunger.
But Cindy keeps going. In 2013, Cindy ran a 5K with her 9-year-old daughter; two days later, she ran a half marathon. In the process, she raised enough money to vaccinate 100 children against polio, measles, rotavirus and pneumococcal virus through Shot@Life, a cause she felt passionate about after traveling to Uganda and meeting with impoverished mothers.
Bill Ayres (Why Hunger)
In 1975, musician Harry Chapin and radio DJ Bill Ayres wondered why, in a world with so much, so many people were still lacking. These two friends believed that access to nutritious food was a human right and that the problem of how to end world hunger was solvable. As a result, they committed themselves to changing the policies and institutions that perpetuate world hunger.
Their organization, Why Hunger, leads by funding grassroots organizations. In 2016, the organization funded and provided resources for over 100 grassroots organizations to the tune of $485,000, with a focus on community solutions. These solutions range from agroecological training to leadership development for women and youths.
Bill Ayres and his organization believe that social justice is an integral part of how to end world hunger. A major step taken in the past year was the establishment of a national alliance of emergency food providers that hopes to shift the conversation about how to end world hunger from a charitable cause to a push for social justice.
Istanbul&I
In February 2016, 11 international students got together in Istanbul, where they envisioned creating a storytelling program to bring different cultures together and help displaced people from Syria and Iraq talk through some of their trauma.
When Ramadan came around that year, the group gathered donations to provide iftar (the traditional sunset meal) to people in Istanbul’s vulnerable Tarlabasi neighborhood. Now, 11 friends have become over 300 from 50 different countries. While cultural exchanges and soup kitchens are still an integral part of Istanbul&I, the group does so much more now. They provide digital literacy programs to refugees, give Turkish and English language lessons, landscaped a neighborhood retirement center, run comedy fundraisers and raise money to support an orphanage for boy refugees so they can continue their education.
You: How to End World Hunger
All these people began with a desire, a wish. They did not start out with money, but they believed in themselves and now others do too. So, next time someone says poverty is here to stay and nothing can be done about it, remember these four groups who asked, “how can I alleviate global poverty? How to end world hunger?” and took their brains and their hands and started working.
– David Jaques
Photo: Flickr
Starbucks’ Partnership with ECI Benefiting Congo Farmers
Background of the Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has a population of 75 million people and has some of the most fertile lands in the world. Most of the farming communities are found around Lake Kivu, in the eastern part of the country. Despite the conflict that has been ongoing in the DRC, the Lake Kivu area farmers have prevailed to provide some of the world’s best coffee and cocoa.
The DRC continues to work towards peace, with the completed Amani program for disarmament and the current Stabilization Program for Eastern DRC focusing on education, health and reintegrating soldiers into their communities.
The Success of Starbucks’ Partnership with ECI
Starbucks’ partnership with ECI began at the end of 2014. The goal of this partnership is to help sustainable agriculture and production of coffee grow in the Congo, mainly in the DRC. There are further plans to work with an additional 10,000 farmers and continue to build up the coffee industry in the Congo.
In 2014, when Starbucks’ partnership with ECI first began, the primary suppliers of coffee were in the Lake Kivu area. Over 4,500 farmers sold their coffee to Starbucks and were able to triple their income. With this increased income, the farmers were better able to send their children to school and gain access to healthcare.
By 2015, more than 4,000 farmers were able to export their coffee to Starbucks, who then sold the farmers’ coffee for a limited time at certain locations. Starbucks plans to purchase more Congolese coffee every year to support the ECI, the more than 10,000 farmers and their communities.
The Coffees
In 2016, Starbucks’ partnership with ECI continued, with even more specialty coffee becoming available at 1,500 locations across the United States and Canada, as well as online. This launch took place on March 22 and was a single-origin specialty coffee from South Kivu. The limited release from Lake Kivu included coffee from 4,500 farmers. The successful release was the result of a four-year project funded by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation and USAID.
Since 2015, there have been annual limited-edition coffees from Lake Kivu that have had bold and flavorful blends, available as part of the Starbucks Reserve coffee selection. All of this has been made possible because of Starbucks’ partnership with ECI.
– Amber Duffus
Photo: Flickr
The Ways the US Benefits from Foreign Aid to Panama
Panama is the dividing landmass between two major water sources, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. A small sliver of a country, Panama is only 115 miles at its widest; such a small country should not by any means be an influencer in international affairs, but with the building of the Panama canal by the United States in 1914, Panama became perhaps the most prolific trading country in the world. As a result, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Panama in many ways, especially in access to trade and finances.
Fruitful Waters
According a National Geographic article, nearly 14,000 ships pass through the canal a year. Due to the length of time it takes to move through the canal (approximately eight to ten hours), the canal is a difficult route to navigate, but is crucial to increasing the speed with which shipping companies transfer goods between companies. Panama and the U.S. have had a friendly relationship since the conception of the canal, and it has continued into trading deals.
Location, Location, Location
The U.S. Department of State describes the ways the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Panama incredibly simply: “Panama’s location and role in global trade makes its success vital to U.S. prosperity and national security.” However, it also notes that the Panama Canal is a hub for traffickers and illegal activity as well. Due to this, the U.S. greatly assists in Panama’s anti-corruption and anti-trafficking policy building and free-trade agreements in the area.
Police Presence
One main interest in Panama is building a strong police presence in the region, due to the amount of cargo coming and going through the canal’s system. The more the U.S. and Panama regulate the canal, the less opportunity traffickers have to transport illegal goods to other countries.
Trading and Transportation
Similarly, the U.S. is incredibly invested in the trading and transportation policies around the canal, because not only is the U.S. one of the biggest investors in the canal, but it is also one of its main users. The Canal’s official website offers a graphic which shows all of the major import/export trade routed through the Panama Canal, and each route begins or ends in the U.S. So not only does Panama benefit from the finances and security the U.S. provides, but the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Panama by ensuring access to a major trading route that greatly benefits the U.S.
Mutual Benefits
The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Panama through mutually assured success of U.S. involvement in trade routes and Panama’s maintenance of a secure canal system. As long as the U.S. continues to support anti-trafficking efforts in Panama and help the nation monetarily, it is almost impossible for the U.S. to lose this benefactory system.
– Molly Atchison
Photo: Flickr
New Database Designed to Combat Biopiracy in India
Traditional medicinal plant knowledge from people living in developing countries is often exploited by companies from developed countries who forage for plants with novel medication applications. To improve this situation, a new database will combat biopiracy in India so as to better protect traditional knowledge from misappropriation by foreigners.
What is Biopiracy?
Biopiracy is when drug manufacturers profit from traditional tribal knowledge without compensating the tribe for their knowledge. This robbery of intellectual knowledge deprives the tribe of the modern medications that are a direct result of their knowledge base, and it also deprives tribes of any form of compensation for the use of knowledge to produce new medical products.
Issues with Compensation
The major issue of biopiracy in India is that the tribe that initially discovers the medical application of plants in their region is not compensated for their knowledge; meanwhile, Western drug companies profit from the medical application of the plants. One of the main reasons it is so difficult to combat biopiracy is because patent inspection offices do not often have access to the knowledge of traditional healing practices in developing countries. To address this problem, the database to combat biopiracy in India contains translations of texts written in traditional languages about traditional healing methods.
Turmeric Exploitation
One example of such exploitation is the medical applications of the spice turmeric. Traditional Indian healers recently needed to prove in court that turmeric has been used since time immemorial for healing, and that the patent about using turmeric was not a novel medical application. The database to combat biopiracy in India will ensure that traditional knowledge is neither misappropriated by bioprospectors or misused because the researcher studying the plants was unaware of that the plant was already used by traditional healers as a medicine.
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library
The database to combat biopiracy in India is called the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TDKL), and this program solves language issues that make it challenging to eradicate biopiracy. Since traditional knowledge in India is written in numerous languages indecipherable to modern patent inspectors, many patents are granted plants that are already used in India.
By translating these texts and putting them in a database easy for patent officers to search, the TDKL has helped protect traditional knowledge in India and ensure such knowledge does not get usurped from biopiracy.
Preventing Foreign Misappropriation
Biopiracy can also happen in the production of food. A company in America tried to get a patent and trademark to gain a monopoly on the term ‘basmati rice.’ Basmati rice is a food staple grown in India and a major aspect of India’s heritage.
Since biopiracy is the attempt to use the legal methods available in developed countries, patent and trademark offices, to usurp the intellectual property of people who live in developing countries, traditional knowledge passed down usually by oral traditions are at risk for natives in developing countries.
– Michael Israel
Photo: Flickr
How the US Benefits From Foreign Aid to Iraq
Iraq is located in a volatile region, with war-torn Syria to its west, daily military incursions by Turkish warplanes from the north and covert funding of proxy militias from eastern neighbor Iran. It has undergone dramatic changes in its modern history, most notably the removal of dictator Saddam Hussein by U.S.-led forces in 2003 and the recent crackdown against the Islamic State. The prolonged state of civil war has devastated Iraqi infrastructure.
In a recent conference held in Kuwait, international donors pledged $30 billion, which falls short of the $88 billion required by the Iraqi government. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stressed that “the war on terrorism can be affected by instability in the Gulf.” The current Iraqi regime walks a fine line of stability, brokering a power-sharing deal among its population. The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Iraq are momentous, but wholly dependent on a stable and united Iraq.
Stability of the U.S. Dollar
Although the U.S. imports most of its oil from Canada and Latin America, its economic interest is still affected by activities in the Middle East. The U.S. dollar is not backed by gold, meaning that it lacks intrinsic value. However, if European or Asian nations purchase oil from Middle Eastern nations, the only acceptable currency is the U.S. dollar. The constant demand for the U.S. dollar ensures its status as the global reserve currency. Thus, its value largely comes from oil.
Likewise, the U.S. dollar is viewed by oil-rich nations like Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as being reliable and accepted everywhere. The current Iraqi government, which accepts U.S. dollars, has safeguarded the continuance of petrodollars; this is one of the many U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Iraq.
The Security of NATO
A stable Iraq is one of many U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Iraq. The prospect of Iraq breaking up into ethno-religious microstates has kept Turkey, a NATO ally, on edge. Turkish forces have been battling armed Kurdish groups for decades, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU. Washington, Ankara and Baghdad have reached an agreement to establish safe zones along their borders. This is to ensure the protection and accommodation of civilians who have been displaced by armed conflicts.
Profitable Contracts for American Oil Companies
Opening up Iraqi oil to the international market requires international investors building the necessary plants and infrastructure to drill and extract oil. The Iraqi government granted licenses to American-owned multinational oil companies to explore and extract Iraqi oil, including BP, ExxonMobil and Shell. These three companies employ a combined total of 200,000 Americans.
A Reliable Ally Representing Both the Sunni and Shia Sects
Iraq is unique when it comes to its demographics, as it is populated by Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. The Iraqi forces have proven to be an effective fighting force against the Islamic State. Backed by U.S. air cover, its ground forces have recaptured major cities from the militants. This denied the militants any safe haven to roam freely and plot attacks against the U.S. and its allies next door, such as Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The exercise of soft powers, such as when the Trump administration removed Iraq from the controversial travel ban, has improved the image of the U.S. among Iraq’s population. Friendly relations between Washington and Iraq’s diverse population encouraged moderate voices in the region to voice their pro-U.S. stance as a result of foreign aid to Iraq from the United States. Continued support will ensure that the U.S benefits from foreign aid to Iraq by maintaining an important ally in a key region of the world.
– Awad Bin-Jawed
Photo: Flickr
10 Facts About Poverty in Brazil
The biggest country in South America is dealing with one of the most drastic poverty issues on Earth. Despite billions of dollars invested in event tourism like the World Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016), Brazil’s economy has begun to spiral downward as the country faces its biggest decline in over a decade. These crucial facts about poverty in Brazil offer insight on the issues that plague them.
Poverty in Brazil
One of the recent facts about poverty in Brazil is that squatters there have collectively chosen to occupy abandoned hotels and are now facing the threat of eviction. One example is the Mauá Occupation, which houses over 1,000 people that make up around 237 families. Mauá was a unique idea back in 2007 when the homeless population was barely surviving on the streets and began taking up land by way of force. Now, it has become a full-blown movement. Like many countries, Brazil suffers from gentrification and increased living costs. Brazil’s gentrification has created a revolution of homeless people occupying space both as a protest and out of necessity. This past November, over 20,000 homeless marched throughout the city in direct protest of the housing inequity.
In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, and the social, economic and moral ramifications of it still ripple throughout the nation. This is one of the more subtle and lesser spoken facts about poverty in Brazil because it reflects an ugly part of a recent history. Known as Afro-Brasileiros, black and brown Brazilians make up 51 percent of the nation’s population and suffer from discrimination and exclusion more than their lighter-skinned neighbors. Afro-Brasileiros also make up the majority of the homeless and poor population, and only seven percent of the city’s rich self-identify as such. Despite being known as a racial democracy, 80 percent of Brazil’s richest one percent are white, while only 13 percent of black and mixed-race Brazilians between 18 and 24 are currently enrolled in college. Afro-Brasileiro activism takes many forms; the Quilombos are descendants of slaves fighting for reparations. Another group focuses on the disproportions of blacks dying at the hands of Brazilian police. They have the slogan #VidasNegrasImportam, which translates to “Black Lives Matter.”
The new spending cap, known as PEC 55, will cut public spending for programs that help the poor. A U.N. official lauded it as the most socially regressive austerity package in the world. With 60 percent of Brazilians opposing it, the 20-year spending freeze inducted by President Temer has been protested and deemed a direct attack on the poor by many analysts.
Since the end of the World Cup in 2014, Brazil’s economy has been steadily declining to a new low. Unemployment grew from about six percent in December 2013 to nearly 12 percent in November 2016, despite almost 30 million Brazilians rising out of poverty between 2004 and 2014. Economic inequality is now expected to increase and around 2.5 million more Brazilians will be forced into poverty in the coming years.
Roughly 20 percent of the world’s water supply is in Brazil yet much of the population suffers from a water shortage. The problem is that water is being used to power the economy, not the people. This is actually one of the older facts about poverty in Brazil, as the nation’s water misallocation has always been notoriously underserving. More than 60 percent of the nation’s energy is from hydropower plants while 72 percent of the water supply is consumed by agriculture via irrigation. In fact, Brazil is one of the most water-dependent nations in the world. More than eight percent of its GDP is agriculture and agroindustries, making it the world’s second-largest food exporter. Allocation of most of the nation’s water goes to the business sectors, and between 2004 and 2013, there was only a 10 percent increase in sanitation networks among the poorest 40 percent (i.e., households with toilets).
Formerly an emerging economy growing at a rate of 7.5 percent in 2010, it shrunk at about the same rate over the last two years. Shrinkage is expected to increase due to President Temer’s privatization plan, and around 57 state assets are set to undergo a privatized makeover. From highways to airports and even the national mint, the privatization is in an effort to increase employment and improve quality of the service provided by the sectors. There is some proof that this could work; back in the 90s, the privatization lead to the considerable modernization of several crucial sectors. The best possible scenario still leaves the majority of the population, specifically the poorest, out of the financial loop. Attracting international interests is great for the richest population looking to sell land to the highest bidder which happens to be China.
China’s overwhelming demand for food meets Brazil’s immense agricultural production in a way that primarily benefits the wealthiest of Brazil. The Brazilian government has been selling off large parts of the Amazon to China directly, ironically in an effort to help China’s pollution while hurting Brazil’s sensitive ecology and economy. China’s deforestation of the Amazon temporarily increases employment in Brazilian cities near the forest, but then once first stages of production are over, massive layoffs result in a plummet of employment with the social climate (increased crime and violence) going with it. The massive deforestation even threatens Brazil’s ecological promises involved with the Paris Agreement.
As of 2016, Brazil has significantly lowered it’s infant mortality rate from about 53 deaths per 1,000 (circa 1990) live births to about 14. While this is quite an achievement for such a developing country with so many social problems, UNICEF, the organization most responsible for helping the decline, remarked that the indigenous children of Brazil’s mortality rate is twice as high as those of city-born children. This shows that even for countries with relatively low levels of mortality, greater efforts to reduce disparities at the sub-national level are still needed. According to UNICEF, back in 2013 at least 32 municipalities still had an infant mortality rate of 80 deaths per 1,000 live births.
A recent law passed by President Temer allows employers to bypass nearly all hurdles set up by unions by eliminating a “union tax” that generates funding for worker’s unions. Designed to aid multinational corporations and not workers, the “reform” has been criticized by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as being in violation of international conventions. This permits inhumane working conditions and legalizes free labor. Legislation changes like this alter the future of the Brazilian workforce exponentially as multinational companies begin their migration into the Amazon.
Temer altered the definition of slavery so that it is defined by the victim’s freedom to leave. Meaning if a worker is kept in all the same living conditions as slavery, but not being physically forced to stay, it is to be considered legal labor. This is an emerging fact about poverty in Brazil because it has not happened yet, but legislatively, the absurd conditions do exist and the threat of slave labor is very real. This critical alteration of the definition has lead to the need for deeper investigations and, in alignment with the new changes, requires a police report with every case, creating more complications with each case. This drastically hurts the effectiveness of the ILOs ongoing fight against slavery which saw the liberation of more than 30,000 slaves in Brazil since 2003. The migration of businesses to the Amazon has made investigations much harder for the ILO and the conditions under which slaves work have gotten more brutal as well.
– Toni Paz
Photo: Flickr
Infrastructure in Suriname
Infrastructure in Suriname is on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to quality, with some facets being up to date and self-sufficient, while others have fallen into serious disrepair due to improper maintenance and oversight. Suriname is sparsely populated in most areas, with most of its people inhabiting the capital, Paramaribo, and the surrounding regions. Most of the country is heavily forested making habitation and transport impossible.
Paramaribo is the country’s main hub with a vast majority of infrastructure in Suriname focused in this one city. Roads, railways, bridges, imports, and exports are all centered in Paramaribo making it the main support for Suriname’s economy. This translated to economic instability with little to no possibility of growth. Unless infrastructure in Suriname is expanded to the outer regions of the country and thence to its neighbors, it will continue to deteriorate and threaten an economic collapse.
Water, railway, and flight are the main modes of travel and transporting goods across the forested areas of Suriname. Unfortunately, many of the roads and airport runways are unpaved, making the operational expenses a fiscal nightmare. According to the 2013 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, the quality of Suriname’s roads ranks 71st out of 148 countries, while the airports and railroads rank 104th and 108th, respectively.
Infrastructure in Suriname is constrained by several factors:
Despite this monopolization, however, service and access to telecommunication services are far more advanced than all other aspects of the country’s infrastructure, ranking 7th in the 2013 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report. These last few years have seen a rise in government plans for developing infrastructure in Suriname, all focused on increasing the country’s status as an economic competitor. Telecommunication networks are being opened to the private sector, allowing for more competitors and lower rates.
The government’s main concern is developing the Paramaribo port (as the country’s largest) to increase its capacity to handle more exports. This port currently handles from five to six hundred vessels. Exports include 40 percent of the country’s oil (taken from the Tambaradjo oil field), gold, bauxite, rice and tropical wood from its forests.
Investment from the public and private sectors have enabled the development of the physical structure of the ports in Suriname, along with modernization of cargo holds and storage. This not only allows for easier transport but ensures greater protection of goods.
– Kayla Rafkin
Photo: Flickr
Looking from All Angles: Fighting Poverty with Humanity Unified
Flashback to How It Began
Rwanda has long been an ethnically divided country. The citizens were faced with a brutal civil war and genocide in 1994 that left more than 800,000 dead. This conflict also caused an extreme economic downturn that left survivors in ruin.
The Borgen Project had the opportunity to interview Maria Russo, founder and executive director of Humanity Unified. She was a travel writer and her husband a web developer and photographer; they combined their talents to create the organization. Russo says she “became interested in international development, particularly in the areas of women’s issues as pertaining to gender inequality, education for women and girls and global food security”. The organization they created uses a variety of approaches, with a focus on women, to combat poverty globally and specifically in Rwanda.
A Big Picture Approach
Russo states that the goal of Humanity Unified is “empowering communities to rise above poverty through education, food security programs and economic opportunities.” It does this through a varied program that includes partnering with local NGOs to accomplish tasks and employing a team directly in Rwanda because, as Russo says, “this creates a greater sense of trust between our team and the communities we work with”.
Humanity Unified invests in women in several ways, beginning with education. Its education programs include specific focuses on human rights, business, literacy and health. They specifically target women because they are ten times more likely to use this education to better their communities. The organization also collects donations to provide food security to rural communities that are commonly neglected by aid programs. Lastly, it provides economic opportunities through business, leadership and vocational training. Several communities of rural women farmers have benefited from this training as well through positive masculinity for their male partners.
Proven Success
So far, Humanity Unified’s methods have proven effective. Eighty-five percent of women said their lives had changed since becoming involved with these programs, 96 percent were able to purchase health insurance for their families, and 96 percent reported that violence against women had decreased within their communities. The organization also works to connect personally with these women in what they call a “humanist approach”. They make visits to Kigali, the country’s capital, where women tell them of their specific successes and the ways in which their individual lives have improved.
The hope is that the organization will only expand in 2018. Russo elaborates that “the goal for 2018 is to continue to support the women in their entrepreneurial endeavors and provide education on how to properly run a small business”. With the support of donors, volunteers, local NGOs and the people themselves, Humanity Unified will be able to accomplish these goals.
– Megan Burtis
Photo: Flickr
How the US Benefits from Foreign Aid to Ghana
The U.S. always had an unofficial relationship with Ghana in supporting refinements of its power sector, strengthening healthcare and expanding access to education. Ghana possesses a level of dependency upon assistance given to it by the U.S., a dependence by which a cut in foreign aid could further hinder the country’s development. Since foreign assistance makes up such a minimal amount of the U.S. budget, increasing the amount of foreign aid would advance both countries.
The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ghana in these ways:
According to the U.S. Department of State, Ghana is currently facing a $1.5 billion shortfall in its funding for infrastructure projects. Continued support of these needs through foreign aid can ensure that the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ghana by helping the country reach its potential and become a bigger participant in the global economy.
– Christopher Shipman
Photo: Flickr
New Laws Address Women’s Rights in Timor-Leste
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, a country located in Southeast Asia, gained its independence from Indonesia on May 20, 2002. This came after a popular vote in favor of becoming independent on August 30, 1999. As one of the world’s youngest and poorest nations, it is facing numerous social, political and economic issues. The country is not ignoring its issues but is instead working to improve them daily. One subject that is currently being brought to public attention is women’s rights in Timor-Leste, or the lack thereof.
Women in Timor-Leste face daily challenges that their male counterparts do not face to the same degree. One of these challenges is of an economic nature. Many women in Timor-Leste do not have the same training opportunities as men, which limits their job options. This limited access to jobs became a large issue after the conflict that Timor-Leste faced following the vote for independence in 1999 and before it was declared a sovereign state in 2002. During this time, nearly half of Timorese women were widowed due to widespread violence. These women became the sole provider in many households, and with economic options greatly limited for women in the country, many were left in poverty.
The government of Timor-Leste has recognized the economic challenges faced by women in the country. It is for this reason that Timor-Leste’s 2014 Country Gender Assessment includes an area dedicated to laying out a framework for advancing the economic opportunities of women. This framework includes increasing women’s participation in the labor market by improving training opportunities and implementing the Secretariat of State for Professional Training and Employment Policy’s gender mainstreaming strategy. These efforts will help to increase the number of financially independent women in Timor-Leste. In this area, women’s rights in Timor-Leste are advancing tremendously.
Another area of women’s rights in Timor-Leste that the country has struggled with is domestic and gender-based violence. Domestic violence is the most reported crime to the Vulnerable Persons Unit of the National Police by Timorese women, showing that this is a serious issue that is being faced by numerous women in the country. The government of Timor-Leste is determined to end this cycle of domestic violence. In addition to including women’s rights in the new constitution, the nation has also passed violence-specific legislation. This includes the Law Against Domestic Violence, which was passed in 2010 and defines domestic violence as a public crime. Timor-Leste also adopted the National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence, which provides a strategy of prevention for domestic violence, as well as a number of services for survivors of gender-based violence and domestic violence.
In addition to the legislative actions being taken to reduce domestic violence in Timor-Leste and promote the economic advancement of women, government officials are also speaking out on the subject of women’s rights in Timor-Leste. The Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Rui Maria de Araújo, made a statement at the Global Leader’s Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in 2015. He stated that Timor-Leste is fully committing to “achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.” There is hope in this statement, and the lives of the citizens of Timor-Leste can only continue to improve as the rights of women continue to increase.
– Nicole Stout
Photo: Flickr
4 Amazing People Showing How to End World Hunger
Elijah Amoo Addo (Food For All Africa)
In 2011, Elijah Amoo Addo, a Ghanian chef, saw a homeless man rummaging through his restaurant’s trash. When asked, the man told Elijah he was collecting leftovers for his friends. From that point forward, Elijah swore no food from the restaurant he worked at would go to waste.
Around 30 percent of children growing up in Ghana are malnourished, a statistic with a strong correlation to being impoverished, according to the Ghanian government. The high number of starving children in Ghana surprised Elijah and caused him to quit his job to start Ghana’s first food bank and the organization Food For All Africa.
Now, Food For All Africa recovers $5,700 in wasted food every month with the hopes of scaling up to other parts of Africa and feeding one million impoverished Africans by 2020.
Cindy Levin (Charity Miles & RESULTS)
Cindy Levin, a mother of two in her 40s, defeats the myth that there is not enough time in a day to help the less fortunate. In fact, the anti-poverty advocate dedicates her time to dispelling that very idea with her position at RESULTS. There, Cindy coaches people on how to organize fundraising activities themselves, with a focus on getting stay-at-home mothers and children involved and educating them on how to end world hunger.
But Cindy keeps going. In 2013, Cindy ran a 5K with her 9-year-old daughter; two days later, she ran a half marathon. In the process, she raised enough money to vaccinate 100 children against polio, measles, rotavirus and pneumococcal virus through Shot@Life, a cause she felt passionate about after traveling to Uganda and meeting with impoverished mothers.
Bill Ayres (Why Hunger)
In 1975, musician Harry Chapin and radio DJ Bill Ayres wondered why, in a world with so much, so many people were still lacking. These two friends believed that access to nutritious food was a human right and that the problem of how to end world hunger was solvable. As a result, they committed themselves to changing the policies and institutions that perpetuate world hunger.
Their organization, Why Hunger, leads by funding grassroots organizations. In 2016, the organization funded and provided resources for over 100 grassroots organizations to the tune of $485,000, with a focus on community solutions. These solutions range from agroecological training to leadership development for women and youths.
Bill Ayres and his organization believe that social justice is an integral part of how to end world hunger. A major step taken in the past year was the establishment of a national alliance of emergency food providers that hopes to shift the conversation about how to end world hunger from a charitable cause to a push for social justice.
Istanbul&I
In February 2016, 11 international students got together in Istanbul, where they envisioned creating a storytelling program to bring different cultures together and help displaced people from Syria and Iraq talk through some of their trauma.
When Ramadan came around that year, the group gathered donations to provide iftar (the traditional sunset meal) to people in Istanbul’s vulnerable Tarlabasi neighborhood. Now, 11 friends have become over 300 from 50 different countries. While cultural exchanges and soup kitchens are still an integral part of Istanbul&I, the group does so much more now. They provide digital literacy programs to refugees, give Turkish and English language lessons, landscaped a neighborhood retirement center, run comedy fundraisers and raise money to support an orphanage for boy refugees so they can continue their education.
You: How to End World Hunger
All these people began with a desire, a wish. They did not start out with money, but they believed in themselves and now others do too. So, next time someone says poverty is here to stay and nothing can be done about it, remember these four groups who asked, “how can I alleviate global poverty? How to end world hunger?” and took their brains and their hands and started working.
– David Jaques
Photo: Flickr