Known as the home of the magnificent Taj Mahal and the world’s largest democracy, the subcontinent of India lies in South Asia and borders both Pakistan and China.
Although India has significantly improved its infrastructure and is now one of the world’s fastest growing economies, much of the population continues to lack access to basic sanitation facilities such as toilets and clean running water. An astounding 500 million people in India resort to open defecation, accounting for 60 percent of the world’s population who do so. Unexpectedly, an Indian romantic comedy aptly named “Toilet, a Love Story” has been instrumental in pushing the need for building toilets in India into the spotlight.
With a renewed focus on providing more access to toilets, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, has promised to build 100 million new toilets across the country. Additionally, he started a new cleanliness initiative called Clean India mission in 2014 that will attempt to make India open defecation-free by 2019. According to the Indian government, 47 million toilets have already been built in rural villages and public areas, but many have criticized the program for its many failures. New toilets are being built around the country so rapidly that many of them are not even connected to running water, rendering them dirty to the point that few use them. The Indian government must focus on adding additional sewage systems throughout the country in order to properly handle the increase in toilets.
Even if toilets are built, there needs to be an entire shift in mindset before open defection will stop. For many Indians, having a toilet inside a house is considered an unclean practice, so there needs to be tangible steps taken to confirm that the newly built toilets are actually being used. Educating communities, particularly rural ones, about the undeniable health benefits of utilizing toilets, is a worthwhile pursuit. With many families using toilets as a store house for fodder, India’s government must dedicate time and resources to bringing the serious harms of open defecation to the forefront of public health issues.
The lack of basic sanitation often leads to epidemics of dangerous diseases, including potentially fatal ones such as cholera, which are spread through fecal matter. Furthermore, water sources and crops are commonly contaminated by open defecation, but many lack the awareness or the resources to properly clean their food and water before consuming it, leading to thousands of deaths every year. In addition to the need for a larger effort into raising awareness of the benefits of building toilets in India, resources need to be invested into infrastructure for waste management.
Also, the lack of sanitation facilities has proven to be an issue for women’s rights and human dignity. Without access to toilets, women in rural villages are often forced to travel in groups and are only able to relieve themselves before the sun rises in order to ensure their safety. Unfortunately, these groups of women are often met with verbal and sometimes physical abuse. Sexual assault remains a frighteningly common occurrence for Indian women who are forced to relieve themselves in open fields.
Several studies have shown that lack of access to private toilets frequently make women significantly more susceptible to sexual violence. According to a senior police officer in the state of Bihar, about 400 women were raped while they relieved themselves outside simply because they did not have access to a private toilet. Rapidly and effectively ending open defecation must be of the utmost urgency, as millions of Indian women continue to endure vicious sexual violence on a daily basis.
With toilets being a taboo subject in India, there are undoubtedly serious obstacles to be overcome if India wishes to end open defecation, which is linked to sexual violence and the spread of disease. “Toilet, a Love Story” has gone a long way in helping Indians openly discuss and raise awareness of the dangers of continuing to avoid building toilets in India. If there is to be lasting success, the Indian government must prioritize shifting the public’s mindset away from believing that toilets are unclean as well as build an accompanying sewage system alongside the new toilets.
– Akhil Reddy
Photo: Google
Preventing Common Diseases in Seychelles
Three of the more common diseases in Seychelles are dengue fever, chikungunya and leptospirosis.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), dengue fever and chikungunya have a number of common symptoms. Fever, joint pain and headaches are some of the more prevalent symptoms of dengue and chikungunya. Even though both have overlapping symptoms, they are still separate diseases and it is possible to be infected by both diseases at the same time.
Dengue fever and chikungunya are both viruses that are spread by mosquitos. Thanks to the tropical climate that Seychelles has, it is a high breeding ground for mosquitos, meaning that these diseases can be spread easily. In 2005 to 2007, it was reported that there was an epidemic of chikungunya in Seychelles that infected about 60 percent of the population.
Thankfully, a French team from the World Health Organization (WHO) went to Seychelles and assisted the islands. They destroyed domestic breeding sites of mosquitoes and began a public health education campaign.
There are no vaccines for chikungunya but there is a vaccine for dengue fever. However, only a few countries have approved the use of the dengue vaccine. Because the mosquitos in Seychelles can bite indoors or outdoors and are active both day and night, preventative measures are the best way to ward off these diseases. Wearing long sleeves and using bug sprays are common ways to prevent mosquito bites. Cleaning and covering standing water can help prevent mosquito-breeding sites.
Another one of the common diseases in Seychelles is leptospirosis, which is a bacterial infection spread through animal urine. Leptospirosis can lead to kidney damage, liver failure and death if left untreated. Like chikungunya, leptospirosis currently does not have a vaccine available to prevent it. However, since leptospirosis is bacterial, antibiotics can be prescribed as treatment.
Much like dengue fever and chikungunya, preventative measures are the best way to not become infected. Avoiding areas where infected urine may be found are unclean water sources, soil after rainfall and animal habitats is the best preventative measure against leptospirosis.
Thankfully, research is well underway to get a vaccine for chikungunya and leptospirosis. Due to the outbreak of chikungunya, knowledge was gained on how the virus behaves and that has allowed scientists to be one step closer to produce stronger tools against it.
– Daniel Borjas
3 Benefits of the Xenoscope
Cost effective
The Xenoscope only costs $85 to make and is mostly comprised of cell phone parts. These devices sell for a few hundred dollars, compared to other equipment that can cost as much as $20,000.
The benefit of the low price is that if the Xenoscope breaks, it is easily replaceable. Rather than needing to pay for expensive repairs, users can simply buy a new one.
Efficient
The Xenoscope uses mostly cell phone parts, as well as an image sensor and LED light to capture images. The smartphone camera is able to capture high quality images of the abdominal cavity. This cost-effective solution efficiently captures the images needed to perform the procedure.
The Xenoscope is just as efficient in taking images as normal laparoscopy equipment. For example, the Xenoscope was first tested by using it in a procedure to remove Fallopian tubes. The patient recovered from the procedure very quickly.
The device also removes the need for disinfection of the scope between surgeries. This in turn reduces the cost of sterilization services.
Versatile
The most highly regarded benefit of the Xenoscope is its versatility, especially in areas with unreliable electricity. Many areas that have limited access to expensive equipment also have unreliable electricity, requiring a battery-operated piece of equipment. The Xenoscope can be used in hospitals with unreliable electricity as well as outside of a hospital environment.
Not only is the Xenoscope itself versatile and mobile, the equipment it is compatible with is equally as mobile. The Xenoscope can be used with most laptops or smartphones and does not require expensive imaging equipment.
The Xenoscope is a beneficial, low-cost tool that gives access to effective medical equipment to those that need it. Even though it was originally intended for laparascopies, its use has expanded to other minimally invasive procedures involving thoracic and peritoneal cavities.
– Rebekah Covey
Photo: Flickr
The Effects of Automation on Developing Countries
While technological disruptions have already taken a significant toll on developed countries—causing what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee dub the “Great Decoupling” of wages from productivity—the effects of automation on developing countries are only beginning to be felt.
In the last three decades, information technologies produced high growth rates in many developing countries, as communication and transportation technologies facilitated economic globalization and tapped low-cost labor sources.
But in the future, continued technological advancement is expected to undercut even the lowest-cost labor in developing countries.
Last year, the World Bank estimated that roughly two-thirds of all the jobs in the developing world are due to succumb to automation.
While deindustrialization caused wage stagnation and inequality in developed economies, automation in developing countries will likely have an even worse effect. Lacking the wealth and educational infrastructures developed countries had, most developing countries will be hard-pressed to transition from export-led to service-based economies.
Instead, the coming technological revolution is likely to produce a reverse-outsourcing effect on developing countries. The countries with the best-educated and most competitive STEM workers will be the ones attracting the businesses that are going to design and develop the technologies that put everyone else out of work.
To compensate for technological disruptions, tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg have suggested implementing policies like universal basic income.
While this platform may offer a short-term solution to the coming wave of unemployment, it will likely bankrupt governments and ultimately fail to uphold a long-term consumer-based economy.
In the developing world, specifically, universal basic income will explode budgetary deficits, which are in many cases already inflated from subsidizing industrial production and exportation.
Regardless of how cheap and efficient technology renders supply chains, without an employed and enriched populace, efficiently produced goods will find no new markets.
The only long-term means to mitigating the effects of automation on developing countries will be investing in human capital and educating high-skilled workers. Only when most workers are responsible for driving the driverless economy will the economy work for most workers.
– Nathaniel Sher
Photo: Flickr
Could the Montenegro Poverty Rate Increase with EU Accession?
Prior to Montenegro’s independence, the country of Serbia and Montenegro was attempting accession into the European Union. Now an independent country, Montenegro is in its own process of accession into the EU. If and when Montenegro becomes an EU member, the Montenegro poverty rate has the potential for a fairly dramatic change, due to differences in how poverty is calculated.
Montenegro currently uses an absolute poverty rate. The poverty line as reported in 2013 was €186.54 per month. This line was calculated using basic costs of life needs, consisting of food costs and non-food needs. In contrast, the EU uses a relative poverty rate calculation. The poverty line in EU member states is calculated as 60 percent of the median income.
Attempting to calculate the relative poverty rate in Montenegro to demonstrate the difference is not easy. Monstat, Montenegro’s statistical office, currently provides average income rather than median income, so determining the relative poverty rate based on median income is not immediately possible. Using markers such as the given average income and income inequality index to estimate median income suggest the poverty line would rise using a relative calculation. Using EU member poverty rates as a guideline would also seem to suggest the potential for a higher poverty rate in a relative system.
Montenegro’s foreign minister Srđan Darmanović stated earlier this year that Montenegrin accession into the EU could happen as early as 2022. Even with the relative volatility of the Montenegro poverty rate over the last decade, a sudden rise around the point of accession need not be an immediate concern if understood as a change in the calculation system.
– Erik Beck
Photo: Pixabay
Causes of Poverty in Liberia
What are the causes of poverty in Liberia? The main reasons are corruption and government conflict. Corruption in the government is the major epidemic, infiltrating many of the other sectors of society. According to Transparency International, low public sector salaries and a lack of decent training create the incentive for corruption.
The country also fails to utilize its natural resources in a productive way. The country is rich with mineral wealth including iron ore, timber, diamonds, rubber and gold; however, natural resource management continues to deal with corruption and governance issues. If natural resource management can remain uncorrupted, the country can use these minerals as a way to bring in legitimate funding.
Another of the causes of poverty in Liberia is that during the wars, more than 200,000 people lost their lives. Many Liberian children were forced to fight in these wars, and have had few opportunities to adjust back to a normal civilian life. This then results in them turning to crime and a life of poverty.
An estimated 64 percent of Liberians live below the poverty line and 1.3 million live in extreme poverty, out of a population of 4.6 million, according to World Food Programme. The country depends on imports, which does not help with its agricultural markets already being integrated poorly. There is inadequate rural road infrastructures, limited smallholder participation in value chains and restrained institutional capacity of farmers’ organizations. Food security is also affecting 41 percent of the population, making chronic malnutrition high.
Liberia, however, is beginning to benefit from the work of some organizations like Mercycorps, which is bringing aid to those in poverty. It is providing water, food and teaching locals how to provide for themselves in a developing economy. It is also helping to fix Liberia’s market gaps as well as helping its economy recover. Additionally, there are organizations helping children find better lives after being soldiers.
Liberia is slowly on track to overcome poverty but ultimately needs more help. With financial assistance from other countries including the U.S and stopping the corruption, Liberia can emerge from poverty.
– Chavez Spicer
Photo: Flickr
Teaching Impoverished Women Solar Panel Engineering
The project estimates it will bring clean, renewable power to over 200,000 people by training 400 women at five centres in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific Islands. Since 2008, when the initiative started, the college estimates it has trained 1084 women, or ‘solar mamas’ as they call them, from 83 different countries in solar panel installation and maintenance. Hogan Lovells is now providing Barefoot with pro bono legal advice and financial backing to help with the most recent expansion of the program.
Although a majority of the women are illiterate, through sign language and color-coded textbooks they are taught how to create, install and maintain solar panels for their community. Not only does this help bring a renewable power source to thousands of destitute villages, but by teaching impoverished women solar panel engineering, it helps to develop gender equality in these regions. The ‘solar mamas’ become respected community advisers and hold a high position as the installers and maintainers of a village’s main power source.
Installing solar panels also brings an array of other benefits to poor, rural, areas. It replaces the use of toxic kerosene, allowing children to study at night with the use of lamps, and family incomes tend to rise, since they pay less than what they paid for kerosene, batteries, candles, etc. Barefoot estimates that it has replaced over 500 million litres of the highly toxic and flammable kerosene since the program started.
Barefoot College and its ‘solar mama’ initiative in cooperation with Hogan Lovells is an example of the innovative progress made by non-governmental institutions in the race to meet the U.N’s Sustainable Development Goals. By training impoverished women in solar panel engineering, Barefoot, in a single program, addresses seven of the 17 goals, including tackling poverty, promoting gender equality and developing affordable and clean energy. It is an example to be followed.
– Alan Garcia-Ramos
Photo: Flickr
How to Help People in Tuvalu
Here are some ideas on how to help people in Tuvalu:
Climate change is already beginning to affect Tuvalu. While emergency response to flooding and other natural disasters is important, the most important long-term solution is for countries all over the world to make swift cuts in emissions, until the world reaches what scientists say is a safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – 350 parts per million.
When Tuvalu has experienced flooding or other weather disasters in the past, several humanitarian organizations have responded promptly. However, climate change also exacerbates droughts. One of the biggest problems that can occur during a drought is a lack of safe, clean water. Many on the island will have to ration water. A household of six to nine people is allotted just 40 liters of water per day. This means that basic water needs are only just being met in these conditions.
In 2015, Enele Spoaga, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, asked European leaders to help save Tuvalu ahead of the negotiations for the Paris climate accord. Spoaga warned that a climate that was even 2 degrees celsius warmer would mean that Tuvalu would eventually disappear under water. Later that year, leaders from around the world agreed to take steps to limit future global warming. However, President Trump has recently said he wants to take the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. Since the U.S. is a large, highly industrialized and influential country, the effects of it leaving the Paris climate accord would be devastating. If you would like to help protect Tuvalu from the effects of severe climate change, consider calling the White House and expressing your concern about this issue.
Tuvalu is in a uniquely frightening position, since its very existence is under threat from climate change. However, as people realize the dangers of climate change, more and more will hopefully seek to learn about how to get involved to help people struggling in Tuvalu.
– Brock Hall
Photo: Flickr
How to Help People in Laos
Firstly, you can donate or contribute to a variety of organizations that do work in the region. SOS Children’s Villages International is an organization that works to protect the rights of children in Laos and other countries. They focus on providing quality emotional and physical care to children who have lost their families or are not in a position to stay with their families. You can sponsor a child or a village, or make a one-time donation.
Care is another organization that works in Laos, among many other countries. Care’s goals are to cut poverty off at the root by providing substantial and sustainable change to those who are most vulnerable to poverty, hunger and disease. They also provide emergency relief when necessary. Care accepts donations.
ChildFund Australia is another organization that works to secure children’s rights and promote community development. They work in a variety of countries, including Laos. ChildFund Australia puts 78 percent of all funds towards program expenditures in the countries they work in. They accept donations and allow you to sponsor a child.
There are a lot of other nonprofit organizations that work to protect children’s rights in Laos, but these are a few of the largest. Whichever of these organizations you donate, volunteer, or contribute to, the people in Laos need all the help they can get. Now you know what to say the next time someone asks how to help people in Laos.
– Liyanga De Silva
Photo: Flickr
Building Toilets in India
Although India has significantly improved its infrastructure and is now one of the world’s fastest growing economies, much of the population continues to lack access to basic sanitation facilities such as toilets and clean running water. An astounding 500 million people in India resort to open defecation, accounting for 60 percent of the world’s population who do so. Unexpectedly, an Indian romantic comedy aptly named “Toilet, a Love Story” has been instrumental in pushing the need for building toilets in India into the spotlight.
With a renewed focus on providing more access to toilets, Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, has promised to build 100 million new toilets across the country. Additionally, he started a new cleanliness initiative called Clean India mission in 2014 that will attempt to make India open defecation-free by 2019. According to the Indian government, 47 million toilets have already been built in rural villages and public areas, but many have criticized the program for its many failures. New toilets are being built around the country so rapidly that many of them are not even connected to running water, rendering them dirty to the point that few use them. The Indian government must focus on adding additional sewage systems throughout the country in order to properly handle the increase in toilets.
Even if toilets are built, there needs to be an entire shift in mindset before open defection will stop. For many Indians, having a toilet inside a house is considered an unclean practice, so there needs to be tangible steps taken to confirm that the newly built toilets are actually being used. Educating communities, particularly rural ones, about the undeniable health benefits of utilizing toilets, is a worthwhile pursuit. With many families using toilets as a store house for fodder, India’s government must dedicate time and resources to bringing the serious harms of open defecation to the forefront of public health issues.
The lack of basic sanitation often leads to epidemics of dangerous diseases, including potentially fatal ones such as cholera, which are spread through fecal matter. Furthermore, water sources and crops are commonly contaminated by open defecation, but many lack the awareness or the resources to properly clean their food and water before consuming it, leading to thousands of deaths every year. In addition to the need for a larger effort into raising awareness of the benefits of building toilets in India, resources need to be invested into infrastructure for waste management.
Also, the lack of sanitation facilities has proven to be an issue for women’s rights and human dignity. Without access to toilets, women in rural villages are often forced to travel in groups and are only able to relieve themselves before the sun rises in order to ensure their safety. Unfortunately, these groups of women are often met with verbal and sometimes physical abuse. Sexual assault remains a frighteningly common occurrence for Indian women who are forced to relieve themselves in open fields.
Several studies have shown that lack of access to private toilets frequently make women significantly more susceptible to sexual violence. According to a senior police officer in the state of Bihar, about 400 women were raped while they relieved themselves outside simply because they did not have access to a private toilet. Rapidly and effectively ending open defecation must be of the utmost urgency, as millions of Indian women continue to endure vicious sexual violence on a daily basis.
With toilets being a taboo subject in India, there are undoubtedly serious obstacles to be overcome if India wishes to end open defecation, which is linked to sexual violence and the spread of disease. “Toilet, a Love Story” has gone a long way in helping Indians openly discuss and raise awareness of the dangers of continuing to avoid building toilets in India. If there is to be lasting success, the Indian government must prioritize shifting the public’s mindset away from believing that toilets are unclean as well as build an accompanying sewage system alongside the new toilets.
– Akhil Reddy
Photo: Google
Human Rights in Samoa Improving
According to a 2015 Human Rights Report on Samoa, the country did generally well keeping up with the code of conduct prescribed in the Samoan constitution. An executive summary reported that there were no unlawful government or police killings, torture or inhuman punishment, denial of fair trials or restrictions on academic, internet or speech freedoms. However, the report noted some breaches of the human rights standards in Samoa.
In 2015, conditions in men’s prisons were reported to be overcrowded and there was a lack of ventilation and lighting in cells; in fact, one cell at police headquarters in the city of Tuasivi was deemed unfit for human containment. There was also a general lack of security at prison centers, but authorities did properly investigate and monitor conditions.
The report also noted a violation of privacy of homes and families. Lack of privacy in some villages meant possibly granting officials access to homes without a warrant and there were several allegations of village councils banishing people from their villages. Those exiled by traditional government law were banished due to cases of rape, adultery, murder and unauthorized claims to land. There were some reports of government corruption in 2013, but elections were considered generally fair. Reported rape cases in 2015 were thoroughly investigated and had high conviction rates. Domestic violence is considered common criminal assault with a maximum penalty of one year imprisonment and offenders were generally only punished if the abuse was considered extreme.
In August 2017, a United Nations human rights panel released a report on Samoa’s handling of gender-based violence. The U.N. Working Group on discrimination against women noted that it is only once womens’ sexual and reproductive rights are met that laws regarding gender-based discrimination and violence in Samoa can be fully effective. In Samoa, gender-based violence is somewhat taboo and perceptions of discrimination against women are buried deep within the roots of Samoan culture. The goal of the 10-day delegation on Samoan laws was to open a dialogue about gender-based violence and to rally support from government leaders, stakeholders and men and women alike in order to make the necessary reforms to change misconceptions about violence and discrimination against women. Suggestions for new policies at the event included a state-sponsored welfare system, support for female victims of sexual violence and better funding for civil society groups.
The country, which is making several strides toward bettering human rights for all, has a history of ratifying treaties which work in favor of all Samoans and give people equal and humane treatment. Some include the 2016 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the 1994 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the 2008 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. With continued pressure on leaders to make permanent changes to the human rights standards of the country, and with the participation and education of the public, human rights in Samoa are on their way to serious improvement.
– Olivia Cyr
Photo: Flickr