In 2015, 18 percent of Rwandan females didn’t go to school or work because they couldn’t purchase sanity menstrual products.
Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) recycles trunk fiber from banana farmers to be cut, carded, washed, fluffed and solar dried for menstrual pads. The company supplies farmers with the necessary equipment and training services for production. They offer health and hygiene education to the community through schools.
SHE believes it’s a personal injustice that menstrual hygiene is seen as a luxury item. In Rwanda each year, the country has roughly a gross domestic product (GDP) loss of $115 million for women needing to take sick leave due to their periods. The company is fighting for the removal of value-added taxes on menstrual pads.
“We’re creating a blueprint to franchise globally. It’s a sustainable system that can be rolled out anywhere. We think it’s straight up common sense,” SHE outlined on the company’s website.
Most U.S. food stamp programs do not define sanitary menstrual products as an essential item. In India, people believe menstruation makes women impure. Most of the time females who are on their period are banished from completing their household obligations such as cooking, or even from inhabiting their homes at all.
In the largest slum, Mukuru, in Nairobi, Kenya, a study found that girls 10 to 19 years old were having sex with older men to gain access to sanitary menstrual products, according to Dignity Period.
In Burkina Faso, 83 percent of girls don’t have a sanitary menstrual changing area, and more than half of schools in the poorest countries lack private toilets, according to UNICEF.
Diana Sierra, a founder of Be Girl Inc., created a pair of underwear with a menstrual, mesh pocket that females can fill with any type of recyclable materials, such as cotton, grass or fabric, depending on the materials readily available in their geographic location.
After Sierra finished a master’s program in sustainability management at Columbia University, she traveled to Uganda for her internship. While conducting research on a coffee farm and cultural arts, she was working on the side to create a prototype for the most effective sanitary pad.
“So I said okay I’m going to hack this material with what I have handy. I took an umbrella for the layer on the bottom, I took like a mosquito net and cut it in pieces and stick it all together and created a kind of a universal pocket, a mix-proof pocket for a certain material,” said Sierra.
Sierra took her product to a school and the children found it successful, but they didn’t like the color black because they found it boring. In Tanzania and Malawi, the stigma associated with menstruation is more than a negative connotation. It is considered a curse.
“When we were asking them, they were talking about how they can’t touch an animal because the animal would just drop dead, and they cannot touch a baby because the baby can die. They cannot go through the crops because the crops will die,” said Sierra.
Sierra realized that she spent years working for global companies, designing for about 10 percent of the population with their extra TVs and face steamers, but she wondered about the other 90 percent of the world who feel that they aren’t deserving of a sanitary product.
Be Girl was launched in the U.S. to fiercely distinguish between and within genders. Sierra is mining a conversation of equality worldwide. It’s a product not exclusive to any socioeconomic status. She wants women to educate themselves about their options and teach others in every country so that generations that follow will spread the knowledge.
“They have the same value as a human being, but they’re completely overlooked. So that was the very first thing that I said I have to go and see this for myself and experience firsthand what it is that a designer can do for this type of scenarios,” said Sierra.
– Rachel Williams
Photo: Flickr
Factors Driving Lack of Access to Education
Education remains an unreachable right for millions of children around the globe. Currently, upward of 72 million children in the primary education age (five to 12 years) are not in school and 759 million adults are illiterate. There are a plethora of reasons why such a large number of children in lower income countries do not receive the adequate education at the primary school level. Below are just some of the factors driving a lack of access to education:
Access to schools is the first step toward increasing the right to an education for all children on a global level. Taking steps to resolve the hindering factors driving the lack of access to education will be crucial in overcoming education’s inaccessibility to so many young minds.
– Keaton McCalla
Photo: Flickr
Basa Pilipinas: Childhood Literacy in the Philippines
The United States Agency for International Development and the Philippines Department of Education collaborated over the last three years to improve childhood literacy in the Philippines through a program called Basa Pilipinas, or “Read Philippines.” Basa Pilipinas aims to enhance reading skills in English, Filipino and other mother tongues for one million children in grades one through three. Begun in January 2013, the $39.7 million program is scheduled to conclude on Dec. 31 of this year.
On Oct. 26, 2016, Trey Hicks of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee visited several Cebu elementary schools to reiterate a commitment to childhood literacy in the Philippines. Hicks led reading activities for the children and was joined by USAID Office of Education Chief Brian Levey, who remarked: “Education…set[s children] on a path towards making informed and healthy decisions and taking advantage of limitless economic opportunities.” As Basa Pilipinas draws toward a conclusion, its effects on children and education will continue to evince themselves.
Operating at the classroom level, Basa Pilipinas expands access to reading materials. Roughly 8 million copies of teaching and learning materials, including teacher’s guides and textbooks in both English and local dialects, were distributed throughout the Philippines in the last three years.
Likewise, Basa works to improve reading delivery systems. The program assists the Philippines Department of Education in setting valid early grade reading standards and regulating teacher training in the school systems. Providing hands-on professional development to teachers ensures newly established reading standards are met. Modifications such as these at the systemic level establish achievable literacy goals for students and teachers alike.
Teacher training in literacy instruction is perhaps most crucial to the goals set forth through Basa Pilipinas. Almost 13,000 teachers received training on effective reading instruction, and nearly 3,500 Department of Education supervisors and school heads strategized teacher training support and Learning Action Cells facilitation. LACs are a “group-based intervention for improving teaching practice.” Through these programs “colleagues study content and pedagogies together, plan lessons collaboratively, and conduct action research as a group.” LACs are sustainable, low-cost ways to afford ongoing teacher development.
Basa Pilipinas has directly benefitted more than 1.6 million students, and 2 million more have been indirectly influenced. Evaluations of Basa Pilipinas in 2015 revealed the increased fluency of students by an additional nine words per minute as well as a 23 percent advancement in reading comprehension. And because most of the education reforms Basa imposed were on the systemic and teacher-training level, these dramatic improvements should only be the beginning of the progress in childhood literacy in the Philippines.
– Robin Lee
Photo: Flickr
President Kuczynski’s Plans to Reduce Poverty in Peru
Since assuming office in July 2016, Peru’s President Kuczynski has promised to modernize the economy and fight poverty in Peru. By expanding basic services and aspiring to membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Kuczynski hopes to leave Peru a “fairer, more equitable, and more united” nation.
During the past decade, Peru experienced a commodity boom and increase in tourism, both of which contributed to impressive economic growth. Peru’s GDP and GNI per capita sharply increased over this period, and consequently, development surged.
Poverty in Peru dropped from 55.6 percent in 2005 to 22 percent in 2015. Peru has become a regional leader in education coverage, reducing dropout rates and reducing unwanted teenage pregnancy, among other indicators. The chief-economist for the Development Bank of Latin America praised Peru for consolidating its fiscal position and expanding the middle class.
Despite recent development, poverty in Peru still exists. As of 2012, 25.8 percent of the population was living below the poverty line, with nearly 5 percent living in extreme poverty.
Despite some progress in government programs aimed at helping Peru’s poorest citizens, basic services and infrastructure remain insufficient in rural areas.
To combat ongoing poverty, President Kuczynski seeks to launch a “social revolution.” Aimed at helping the most impoverished citizens, the new administration promises to expand access to basic services while also advancing Peru’s national policies and institutional involvement. These plans build on Peru’s active role in complying with the millennium development goals and show a strong commitment to the new challenge of achieving the sustainable development goals.
The main tenants of President Kuczynski’s social revolution are providing safe drinking water, improving the quality of basic education, implementing universal health care, ending informal employment, fighting corruption and developing better infrastructure.
An early sign of success for the revolution is the $74.5 million joint investment between the Government of Peru and the International Fund for Agricultural Development intended to create rural employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. The targeted regions of this investment are characterized by chronic and extreme poverty and conflict.
Additionally, the Kuczynski administration seeks to institutionalize its modernization by attaining OECD membership.
Supporting President Kuczynski, Peruvian Prime Minister Fernando Zavala has expressed progressive, development-oriented policies to complement Peru’s rise into OECD membership. World Bank vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Familiar, supports this ascent, claiming the OECD’s dedication to “better policies for a better life,” complements the World Bank’s goals of poverty eradication and improved prosperity for all.
President Kuczynski has big plans for Peru, but the vast development across the nation in the past decade provides a promising foundation. Expanding basic services to the poorest citizens and positioning governmental affairs towards institutional advancement forecast a hopeful future for reducing poverty in Peru and realizing Kuczynski’s goal of a “fairer, more equitable, and more united” nation.
– McKenna Lux
Photo: Flickr
Renewable Energy in China for a Cleaner Environment
Environmentally-friendly sources of renewable energy have been championed for years not only for their benefits to the environment but also in terms of long-term cost-effectiveness and population health. China is particularly known for its commitment to clean energy, which is evidenced by its vast usage of solar energy and hydropower fueled resources.
Despite its usage of clean energy, China is heavily reliant on coal-powered activities. Recently, an analysis published by The Guardian outlined the effect of building “coal power plants in China” — the plants contribute to environmental pollution and exacerbate poverty. The unexpected effect of coal power plants is primarily explained by their inability to reach individuals in remote, rural areas and the fact that poor households often have insufficient access to electricity.
It is worth noting that despite increasing amounts of clean energy in China, the country has very high carbon dioxide emission rates. Significant carbon dioxide emissions can accelerate the effect of global warming. Global warming has undesirable effects on global poverty by increasing the frequency of radical weather changes, which can have a disproportionate effect on poorly built homes and farming prospects. A report by the World Bank suggests that an additional 100 million people can be afflicted by poverty by the year 2030, mainly as a consequence of climate change.
Rising carbon dioxide emissions have also been linked with numerous health risks. Carbon dioxide released from coal combustion can increase the risk of premature deaths due to air pollution. Through increased formation of ozone in the atmosphere, individuals are predisposed to conditions such as emphysema and cardiovascular disease, which can severely impair their quality of life.
In areas that are distant from mainstream sources of electricity, it is more pragmatic to build independent sources of renewable energy. Another important feature that characterizes developing countries is high unemployment rates and these can be addressed to some extent by the establishment of local renewable energy providers. Recently, it was estimated that approximately 8.1 million individuals globally are employed by the renewable energy industry.
With the multitude of benefits that renewable energy offers, what makes it so difficult for China to transition to a society that is completely reliant on clean energy? With coal comprising approximately 70 percent of China’s energy reserves, it is logistically difficult for the country to completely switch to renewable energy as this would cause a dramatic rise in unemployment. The costs of building new hydropower plants, solar powered systems and wind turbines also need to be factored.
In summary, the benefits of renewable energy sources outweigh the drawbacks by a significant margin. The objective to increase clean energy in China can be fulfilled by financial planning of involved costs, a thorough cost-benefit analysis of renewable energy and greater investment in sources of energy that facilitate a reduction in harmful carbon emissions.
– Tanvi Ambulkar
Photo: Flickr
A Sad Goodbye to Bhumibol Adulyadej, Longest Ruling Monarch
In Bangkok, Thailand, the reign of the world’s longest-serving monarch has come to an end. On Thursday, Oct. 13, King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand was pronounced dead at age 88. The cause of his death was associated with medical complications from a recent surgical procedure. The king reigned over the country for 70 years as it passed through the Cold War, conflict near Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and several military coups.
For decades, King Bhumibol Adulyadej acted as a liaison between the country’s political rivals. He was known as the glue that held the country together. The king represented a symbol of national unity and was greatly revered by the people of Thailand. His portraits can be seen throughout the country in buildings, schools and along highways. His death may have the potential to cause political instability in the country.
Maha Vajiralongkorn, King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit’s only son, is the next in line to the Thai throne. He was named crown prince in 1972 by his father at age 20. Many are skeptical about the country’s future because of the crown prince’s reputation for being a playboy and for lacking financial restraint.
Many of Vajiralongkorn’s escapades have been hidden from Thai society because of the country’s stringent lèse-majesté laws. The laws have helped protect Bhumibol and his family from defamation due to the prince’s exploits. Stories about Vajiralongkorn are a gossip mainstay nationwide, and he is loathed by many of his future subjects, including the elite circles expected to crown him and then help him rule. Many believe this apprehension prompted the military to stage a coup in 2014 to gain a strong hold on the government.
Many anticipated that the king would appoint his widely cherished daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, as heritor. Thailand, however, has never had a ruling queen because the laws of succession specify male heirs.
Although the king’s passing is devastating for Thailand, the people of Thailand hope that his successor will uphold his father’s fairness and courage.
– Needum Lekia
Photo: Flickr
Four Ways Capitalism Has Helped Alleviate Poverty
Merriam-Webster defines capitalism as “a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government.”
Today, in much of academia, capitalism is portrayed as an inherently corrupt system; the exploitative sweatshops and lack of child labor laws are constantly in the limelight.
Yet in the last 30 years, as capitalism flourished and globalization opened up its gates, 1 billion people have been taken out of poverty. Many remain unaware of and fail to account for global improvements in health, education and living standards.
Capitalism has lessened the severity of poverty over time. Yet there is no hiding the fact that 1.2 billion people currently live in extreme poverty. Many of these capitalist problems stem from too much government regulation. However, we are continuing to gradually alleviate poverty. The report, by Oxford University’s poverty and human development initiative, predicts that “countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates.”
– Marcelo Guadiana
Photo: Flickr
The Heroism of Syria’s White Helmets
Between rubble, blood and chaos, emerge a group of voluntarily civil servants. They are known as Syria’s White Helmets, a civil servant group made of local volunteers that act as the first responders to hundreds of daily airstrikes and bombings in Syria. They dig for survivors between fallen concrete walls and twisted metal.
The team grew out of small, untrained units to become a force of search and rescue missions. They have saved the lives of 60,000 since 2014. They are called White Helmets for the color of the hard hats they wear. But, these are just some 3,000 ordinary men who are pushed by their desire to save lives. They are trained in Turkey and they have been successful in their mission which brought the Syrian regime to fury.
Syria’s White Helmets are officially known as Syria Civil Defense and ars now established on a ground community that is widely recognized and appraised. Their only goal is to save lives and not to get involved in politics. Despite that, the group was criticized by the regime for getting millions in funds from western governments. Their work, however, is purely humanitarian.
Syria’s White Helmets depends mainly on local capabilities. The leader, Raed al-Saleh, said at the U.N. headquarters “We are abandoned.” The group of volunteers decided not to escape the war and not to hold a gun but to wear helmets, pull people out of the wreckage and extinguish a fire. Their heroism was demonstrated in a Netflix documentary told by three White Helmets.
This dedication and courage inspired the global community and Syria’s White Helmets have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Under the motto of “to save one life, is to save all of humanity,” these volunteers risk everything trying to demonstrate humanity.
It is indeed a story of heroism from the darkest corners of humanity. This unlikely humanitarian act is a symbol of hope for millions of Syrians. Khaled Farah, one of Syria’s White Helmets, said: “We go to save as many people as we can. If one person was alive that’s enough for us to take the risk.”
– Noman Ahmed
Photo: Flickr
Low-Income Communities Deserve Sanitary Menstrual Products
In 2015, 18 percent of Rwandan females didn’t go to school or work because they couldn’t purchase sanity menstrual products.
Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) recycles trunk fiber from banana farmers to be cut, carded, washed, fluffed and solar dried for menstrual pads. The company supplies farmers with the necessary equipment and training services for production. They offer health and hygiene education to the community through schools.
SHE believes it’s a personal injustice that menstrual hygiene is seen as a luxury item. In Rwanda each year, the country has roughly a gross domestic product (GDP) loss of $115 million for women needing to take sick leave due to their periods. The company is fighting for the removal of value-added taxes on menstrual pads.
“We’re creating a blueprint to franchise globally. It’s a sustainable system that can be rolled out anywhere. We think it’s straight up common sense,” SHE outlined on the company’s website.
Most U.S. food stamp programs do not define sanitary menstrual products as an essential item. In India, people believe menstruation makes women impure. Most of the time females who are on their period are banished from completing their household obligations such as cooking, or even from inhabiting their homes at all.
In the largest slum, Mukuru, in Nairobi, Kenya, a study found that girls 10 to 19 years old were having sex with older men to gain access to sanitary menstrual products, according to Dignity Period.
In Burkina Faso, 83 percent of girls don’t have a sanitary menstrual changing area, and more than half of schools in the poorest countries lack private toilets, according to UNICEF.
Diana Sierra, a founder of Be Girl Inc., created a pair of underwear with a menstrual, mesh pocket that females can fill with any type of recyclable materials, such as cotton, grass or fabric, depending on the materials readily available in their geographic location.
After Sierra finished a master’s program in sustainability management at Columbia University, she traveled to Uganda for her internship. While conducting research on a coffee farm and cultural arts, she was working on the side to create a prototype for the most effective sanitary pad.
“So I said okay I’m going to hack this material with what I have handy. I took an umbrella for the layer on the bottom, I took like a mosquito net and cut it in pieces and stick it all together and created a kind of a universal pocket, a mix-proof pocket for a certain material,” said Sierra.
Sierra took her product to a school and the children found it successful, but they didn’t like the color black because they found it boring. In Tanzania and Malawi, the stigma associated with menstruation is more than a negative connotation. It is considered a curse.
“When we were asking them, they were talking about how they can’t touch an animal because the animal would just drop dead, and they cannot touch a baby because the baby can die. They cannot go through the crops because the crops will die,” said Sierra.
Sierra realized that she spent years working for global companies, designing for about 10 percent of the population with their extra TVs and face steamers, but she wondered about the other 90 percent of the world who feel that they aren’t deserving of a sanitary product.
Be Girl was launched in the U.S. to fiercely distinguish between and within genders. Sierra is mining a conversation of equality worldwide. It’s a product not exclusive to any socioeconomic status. She wants women to educate themselves about their options and teach others in every country so that generations that follow will spread the knowledge.
“They have the same value as a human being, but they’re completely overlooked. So that was the very first thing that I said I have to go and see this for myself and experience firsthand what it is that a designer can do for this type of scenarios,” said Sierra.
– Rachel Williams
Photo: Flickr
U.S. Business and Emerging Markets Partner for Mutual Benefits
It was 3:00 a.m. Seamus DuBois had been living in his computer-cramped office for the past few months. He was tired of writing software programs. As he sipped his coffee, he realized how long it had been since he had taken breaks to pursue his passions outside of work.
“It’s time for me to branch out and do something new,” DuBois said.
Having grown up on a farm, he had always been interested in agriculture. In the next few weeks, he conducted rigorous research to explore his options working in the agricultural industry. Through his research, DuBois realized the challenges facing the global food industry. He felt that it was unfair that industrialized countries could benefit so much from developing country products, and yet the populations in those countries were stuck in vicious cycles of poverty.
With this in mind, DuBois contacted the Emerging Markets Development Advisers Program (EMDAP) and began devising a business plan that would benefit local populations and their environment by creating a product he could sell in the U.S. Eventually, EMDAP located him in Madagascar, where he helped local villagers develop a profitable, sustainable business plan to export commercial dry mango to developed countries. This was the beginning of a new venture between the U.S. business community and emerging markets.
The EMDAP provides consulting opportunities for U.S. graduate students to assist local organizations in USAID-funded countries.
For instance, from 2005 to 2006 EMDAP Adviser Robert Haynie, a Georgetown graduate, worked with the Business Development Center in Amman, Jordan. His case examined the security challenges facing the Marriott hotels in Jordan where terrorist bombing gradually became prevalent. The plan Haynie devised highlighted the company’s worldwide approach to security management. Marriott leadership immediately acknowledged the practical contribution of the case and incorporated it into its worldwide security strategies, significantly boosting its managerial capacities.
Since its founding, the EMDAP has provided support to over 200 businesses and organizations in 50 USAID-assisted countries.
The U.S. business community and emerging markets have recognized the potential value of EMDAP advisers to their success in the global marketplace. While local entrepreneurs in developing countries strengthen their business skills and management practices, more internationally competent U.S. business executives are able to assist American companies in capitalizing on trade and investment opportunities in emerging markets.
– Yvie Yao
Photo: Flickr
Separation of the Philippines
Relations between the United States and the Philippines date back to a time when the U.S. had a special interest in Southeast Asia for military strategy. Despite a rocky start, the Philippines became one of the closest allies of the U.S. after fighting side by side in World War II against Japan.
To facilitate better relations in Southeast Asia, the Obama Administration developed the “Pivot to Asia.” Shifting American foreign policy from the Middle East, without fully withdrawing, getting more involved in an area with closer ties to China.
As a result, the U.S. provided $175 million for development assistance and $50 million in foreign military financing to the Philippines in 2015. The number for military funding is set to more than double in 2016, with around $120 million intended just for the Philippines.
Despite this long partnership and recently increased support, Filipino President Duterte hints at a separation of the Philippines from the U.S. for growing stronger bonds with China. Many in the U.S. Government are deeply troubled by this news as it could radically change the relationship between the two nations.
As recently as 2011, Clinton was in Manila to verbally affirm American support of the Philippines during a dispute with China over ownership of islands in the South China Sea. Senior Diplomat Daniel Russel is set to travel to Manila for clarification on this separation of the Philippines.
President Duterte is known for erratic behavior, leading many to question whether he can follow through on these claims. With such a large portion of the Filipino population still supporting continued relations with the U.S., a divide between the government’s affairs and the will of the Filipino people could be problematic.
The reality may be that this is the beginning of a Chinese plan to remove American military presence in the region by taking the Philippines out of a partnership with the U.S, in hopes that Vietnam and Malaysian would soon follow suit.
– Aaron Walsh
Photo: Flickr