First person to create a Snapchat story inside The White House. Professional at sixteen. Good News Storyteller. Find the good, tell the people.
These are just a few ways of describing the positive power that is Branden Harvey, a twenty-something-year-old from the Northwest on a mission to find the good in the world and tell it to anyone who will listen. There are plenty of devastating facts and statistics that have their place and often inspire people to action, but what effect, Harvey wondered, will the good news have?
In an interview by Isabel Thottam of Moment, Harvey begged the question, “What if we just didn’t say bad things? What if we went out and created things in the world that are only filled with good?”
This talented, driven professional has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry: Disney, Skype, Paramount, Sony and more. He learned from some of the greatest photographers and turned this passion into his main source of income.
But somewhere along the way, passion started to fade. He realized what was missing when he discovered his desire to be a storyteller. Through a podcast, weekly newsletter, Instagram, Snapchat and global travel, Harvey is accomplishing what he set out to do: find the good, tell the people.
Harvey’s travel has taken him to Africa several times, and here he has worked with a non-profit called These Numbers Have Faces. This organization believes “educated, empowered, and community driven young people are the best vehicles for social change.” They pay for the brightest students of Africa to attend university on the condition that they will stay on the continent after receiving their education.
Harvey told Mashable in an interview that he is thankful for the CEO of These Numbers Have Faces, Justin Zoradi, because “he doesn’t see Africa as full of problems, but full of potential.”
Harvey’s desire to find potential instead of problems is manifested in his weekly newsletter. He works to deliver five relevant pieces of news in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations such as natural disasters and this presidential election.
Tapping even further into his storyteller roots, “Sounds Good with Branden Harvey” is a weekly podcast where Harvey sits down with some of the happiest people in the world to discover “what makes them tick” and where they find the good amongst the bad.
Harvey recently interviewed award-winning Australian photographer Nirrimi Firebrace, conversing about what it means to remain honest while searching for the positive. Firebrace explained that vulnerability in her work has been met with a lot of hate. The good news, though, is that the people who appreciate her genuineness only lean in closer to keep hearing the narratives she has to tell.
In writing his own narrative and traveling to Rwanda, Uganda, the Philippines and beyond, Harvey has seen plenty of the bad. He told Moment when discussing the people he met who had been pushed into crime and women who had lost their children, “these are all terrible situations, yet I see good come from them. Good comes from people who rise out of poverty.”
Harvey connects with the people he meets in these countries by learning their language, pulling out his phone before his camera and only going where he is invited. All of these together allow him to connect with the people he meets and tell their stories from an honest and engaging perspective. He says, “I won’t share a photo if I don’t know their name because I’d be taking from them without knowing anything about them. It’s about adding value.”
Harvey urges those with an eye for the good news to share what they see with others. People are searching for it, explicitly or not, and if we focus on the good, consider how much more there could be. “For the people who can see that, pay attention and share that in a way that feels creative and compelling to you.”
Branden Harvey is working hard to find what is good and shout it from the rooftops. And some of the best news? The world is listening.
– Rebecca Causey
Photo: Flickr
Find the Good, Tell the People
First person to create a Snapchat story inside The White House. Professional at sixteen. Good News Storyteller. Find the good, tell the people.
These are just a few ways of describing the positive power that is Branden Harvey, a twenty-something-year-old from the Northwest on a mission to find the good in the world and tell it to anyone who will listen. There are plenty of devastating facts and statistics that have their place and often inspire people to action, but what effect, Harvey wondered, will the good news have?
In an interview by Isabel Thottam of Moment, Harvey begged the question, “What if we just didn’t say bad things? What if we went out and created things in the world that are only filled with good?”
This talented, driven professional has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry: Disney, Skype, Paramount, Sony and more. He learned from some of the greatest photographers and turned this passion into his main source of income.
But somewhere along the way, passion started to fade. He realized what was missing when he discovered his desire to be a storyteller. Through a podcast, weekly newsletter, Instagram, Snapchat and global travel, Harvey is accomplishing what he set out to do: find the good, tell the people.
Harvey’s travel has taken him to Africa several times, and here he has worked with a non-profit called These Numbers Have Faces. This organization believes “educated, empowered, and community driven young people are the best vehicles for social change.” They pay for the brightest students of Africa to attend university on the condition that they will stay on the continent after receiving their education.
Harvey told Mashable in an interview that he is thankful for the CEO of These Numbers Have Faces, Justin Zoradi, because “he doesn’t see Africa as full of problems, but full of potential.”
Harvey’s desire to find potential instead of problems is manifested in his weekly newsletter. He works to deliver five relevant pieces of news in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations such as natural disasters and this presidential election.
Tapping even further into his storyteller roots, “Sounds Good with Branden Harvey” is a weekly podcast where Harvey sits down with some of the happiest people in the world to discover “what makes them tick” and where they find the good amongst the bad.
Harvey recently interviewed award-winning Australian photographer Nirrimi Firebrace, conversing about what it means to remain honest while searching for the positive. Firebrace explained that vulnerability in her work has been met with a lot of hate. The good news, though, is that the people who appreciate her genuineness only lean in closer to keep hearing the narratives she has to tell.
In writing his own narrative and traveling to Rwanda, Uganda, the Philippines and beyond, Harvey has seen plenty of the bad. He told Moment when discussing the people he met who had been pushed into crime and women who had lost their children, “these are all terrible situations, yet I see good come from them. Good comes from people who rise out of poverty.”
Harvey connects with the people he meets in these countries by learning their language, pulling out his phone before his camera and only going where he is invited. All of these together allow him to connect with the people he meets and tell their stories from an honest and engaging perspective. He says, “I won’t share a photo if I don’t know their name because I’d be taking from them without knowing anything about them. It’s about adding value.”
Harvey urges those with an eye for the good news to share what they see with others. People are searching for it, explicitly or not, and if we focus on the good, consider how much more there could be. “For the people who can see that, pay attention and share that in a way that feels creative and compelling to you.”
Branden Harvey is working hard to find what is good and shout it from the rooftops. And some of the best news? The world is listening.
– Rebecca Causey
Photo: Flickr
How are Climate Change and Hunger in Tuvalu Related?
The latest report on poverty headcount ratio conducted by the World Bank was in 2010, which stated that 26.3 percent of the population is estimated to live below the national poverty line. Additional reports conclude that 61.3 percent of Tuvalu citizens aged 15-years and up are employed. Thus, places where poverty is allowed to fester, increased rates of hunger are expected to rise.
Hunger in Tuvalu is considered to be a result of one of the biggest instigators in the country, climate change. Climate change is a constant concern for the people and the government of Tuvalu. Many political figures of Tuvalu are strong advocates for environmentalism and continuously campaign against climate change.
These politicians argue that climate change will not only contribute to increasing sea levels but will expedite the salination of soil that threatens agriculture.
According to U.N. reports, Tuvalu is expected to completely disappear beneath the ocean because of global warming. Moreover, salinization of the soil reduces agricultural output which detrimentally affects local farmers and the Tuvalu economy.
In Tuvalu, the largest export commodity within the country is the dried coconut kernels of coconut palm trees. Without enough land coverage or quality soil for agriculture, hunger in Tuvalu is expected to climb substantially within the following years.
The U.N. has even identified that hunger in Tuvalu is a result of climate change in the following released statement, “The diet of Tuvaluans is primarily based on the marine environment and a limited number of food crops. These will be seriously affected by climate change. There will be a number of impacts that will affect the food security of Tuvalu. These include coral bleaching, ocean acidification, saltwater contamination and sea level rise.”
In response, the U.N., as well as delegates of the Pacific Island States, have committed to reducing both hunger and climate change through the use of ratifying the Paris Agreement.
In 2016 during the annual debate at the U.N. General Assembly, Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Enele Sosene Sopoanga applauded and showed solidarity with the ratification of the Paris Agreement.
Prime Minister Sopoanga stated that “We must [now] ensure that the Paris Agreement enters into force [and that] it must be fully elaborated and operationalized as early as possible on real adaptation and mitigation.”
Prime Minister Sopoanga also brought to light the plight that climate change has had on the country of Tuvalu. The prime minister expressed that, “We pray that through these great halls of the U.N., our humble voice will be amplified by the conscience and goodwill of humanity for real urgent action.”
During the debate, Prime Minister Sopoanga expressed numerous times that the country of Tuvalu was fully prepared to meet the targets of the global development agenda in order to reduce climate change.
With continued efforts to ratify legislation as well as advocate against climate change, the country of Tuvalu should expect to see significant improvement in not only the integrity of their islands but also a reduction of hunger in Tuvalu.
– Shannon Warren
Photo: Flickr
8 Facts About Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is a widespread bacterial disease that has been around for much of recorded human history. The following are some key facts about TB to learn more about what is going on with the disease.
These facts illustrate how dangerous TB is and also the progress that is being made against it as well. With additional developments, the world can hope that the U.N.’s sustainable development goal of ending the TB epidemic by 2030 will become a reality.
– Edmond Kim
Photo: Flickr
Power to The People: Reaching Sustainable Development Goals
While it is important for the global community to focus on the macro-cosmic picture of tackling these issues, having local governments and citizens face these issues is equally vital. Beneficiaries are often the last group to be consulted about the efforts that are being implemented to help their lives. Problem solving that addresses the specific needs of different communities is so beneficial because it does not focus on one overarching idea, but rather the specific needs of the people within the community.
With the global community and local communities working simultaneously, there is a greater chance for more widespread empathetic progress being made in terms of achieving sustainable development goals worldwide. One of the largest problems is that those who have political power are not impoverished and those who are impoverished do not have political power.
Thus, poverty is often overlooked by those in seats of power. This starts with education. If education is made available to those people who are impoverished, then they are being given an effective say in their communities, and therefore some degree of power.
Eradication of global poverty will not happen unless we are able to give power over to the people who are impoverished and thereby have a more nuanced understanding of the situations that they themselves face. This empowers people in lower income communities to receive an education, making it possible for them to impart the change they want to see in their communities.
However, this is still a tandem effort. By supporting the Education for All Act, a bipartisan initiative that would advance basic education worldwide while protecting U.S. security interests, even those who are citizens of developed nations can help to empower individuals to reach sustainable development goals in developing nations to help themselves and their communities.
– Kayla Provencher
Photo: Flickr
German Health Care: A Broken System for Asylum-Seekers?
German health care, geared to caring for a population of 80 million, is dealing with an unexpected and intimidating challenge by the continuous influx of about 1.1 million refugees in 2015 alone. Escaping poverty, war and repression, as well as family reunification are among the main reasons people attempt to enter Germany both legally and illegally.
Despite having opened its doors to more refugees than any other European country since 2013, Germany restricts asylum-seekers’ health care access to emergency care, treatment for acute diseases and pain, maternity care and vaccinations. Additional care can be provided, however, patients must file various petitions and jump through multiple hoops before getting approval for the same.
The aim of restricting asylum-seekers’ access to German health care dates back to the 1990s when rising numbers of asylum-seekers from former Yugoslavia created a need to reduce Germany’s pull factor. However, it is evident from various studies that this policy has done nothing to bring down the number of people seeking asylum in the country.
In spite of limiting access to health care, the sociomedical system is crumbling with news reports about vaccines not being available for German citizens till 2017 in the normal quantities. Doctors are having to undergo courses in screening and treating diseases like tuberculosis, scabies and psychological trauma.
In addition, there is the cost of material resources like medicines and hospital beds, diagnostic and surgeries that have spiraling economic repercussions. The siphoning of medical services, even in their most basic form, to asylum-seekers, is resented by many German citizens.
However, despite this backlash, there are many reasons for the country to consider providing full access to German health care, both for asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. The most obvious of these is that any communicable disease can skyrocket the economic cost to the country by a loss of productivity.
In addition, according to experts such as Dr. David Ingleby from the University of Amsterdam, research has shown that, “denying easy and early access to healthcare not only ignores the right to health but actually increases costs: a new study estimated that since their introduction, these restrictive policies have increased the cost of healthcare by 376 euros per year for each asylum seeker.” Clearly, restrictive policies benefit neither immigrants nor state.
Some states like Bremen and Hamburg have been providing their asylum-seekers with health insurance cards like those used by the general population. These enable direct access to doctors and hospitals without having to apply for a certificate of entitlement.
Officially, the restriction on acute and emergency services remains, but the decision is now moved to the doctor’s medical discretion and no longer made by a municipal administrator. An innovative solution, this could be extended to the legal system, resting the decision of what warrants medical attention to the hands of those in the know.
Another solution being considered is granting anonymous insurance certificates that allow refugees without proof of citizenship to seek medical help without legal repercussions. In Berlin alone, up to 250,000 people live without any personal identity documents which are essential to get full medical treatment, making this idea almost a necessity.
In order to provide funding for these and other such policies for less restrictive health care, the European Union Health Program released a statement pledging fund actions supporting the Member States under particular migratory pressure in January this year. Hopefully, with this positive impetus, the German health care system will move to a more inclusive model for both asylum-seekers and undocumented immigrants.
– Mallika Khanna
Photo: Flickr
Tackling Brazil’s Income Inequality
Almost 10 percent of Brazilians live under the extreme poverty line. This is coupled with extreme inequality of income distribution. Recently however, Brazil showed a tremendous progress towards redistribution of wealth. Even though there isn’t any considerable average increase in gross domestic product (GDP), efforts to reduce poverty exist along with overcoming Brazil’s income inequality. This counts as an important step toward achieving the millennial development goals.
This change in Brazil’s income inequality resulted from improvements in education. The government tried to reduce the gap between skilled and unskilled labor. Thus, the supply of skilled labor increased. This helped more families get out of poverty by earning higher wages. Another factor was using social policies that provided small transfers to low-income families.
Brazil is apparently following the trend in Latin America as the whole continent is fighting poverty. Latin American society is becoming more aware of the harmful effect of inequality on the whole global economic growth. However, Brazil’s progress is unique. Their inequality is far higher than many advanced countries and can do more to improve its situation.
One positive aspect is that Brazil‘s economy is very inclusive. With new policies bringing more labor to the market, Brazil’s economy will strengthen. However, the business environment is not very encouraging. Many people view entrepreneurial failure as an embarrassment and not necessarily a learning experience.
The World Economic Forum during a 2015 report explained that education must be reformed as well and more students from low socioeconomic background should be included.
Brazil’s income inequality gap is narrowing. Media focused recently on the events of a World cup and the Olympic Games but on the other side, Brazil socioeconomic conditions were becoming better. This is remarkable as Brazil was on the brink of collapse due to the global economic financial crisis. The model of socio-economic development that Brazil used can be applied in other countries such as Zambia or Nigeria.
– Noman Ahmed
Photo: Flickr
Eight Facts About Refugees in Jordan
In the past five years, the Syrian Civil War has turned into one of the biggest humanitarian crises of the 21st century. Millions of civilians have been displaced from their homes and forced to flee to other countries. This has created a refugee crisis the likes of which hasn’t been seen since World War II. Few countries have borne a greater brunt of this crisis then Jordan. Here are eight facts about refugees in Jordan.
While the situation in Jordan is problematic, it is by no means hopeless. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace outlines a number of measures that can be taken to help improve the lives of both Syrian refugees and Jordanian citizens. Increased humanitarian and developmental aid can be implemented to help meet the basic needs of refugees.
Allowing refugees access to formal employment will help create a more sustainable situation by allowing refugees to become more self-sufficient. Greater governmental aid can be provided to the Jordanian government to improve their capacity to manage the situation.
– James Long
Photo: Flickr
Poverty Reduction Through Entrepreneurship
There are two types of programs most commonly associated with helping the global poor.
The first is government to government aid. The second is a direct service NGO that performs tasks like building wells and distributing medicine. However, another effective way to boost poverty reduction is through entrepreneurial assistance.
There is a persistent impression of the world’s poor as being entirely dependent on others and incapable of improving their own lives. Contrary to this belief, there is a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit in the developing world. After all, given the lack of government support in these regions, citizens have to become creative in order to simply survive. The problem is just that most of these individuals lack the knowledge, skills or financial means to turn their ideas into reality.
The Transformational Business Network (TBN) explains that growing entrepreneurship can be a powerful means of poverty reduction for three main reasons. First, it provides individuals with the tools to improve their own circumstances as opposed to relying on aid from foreign governments or NGO’s. Second, it gives people the means of achieving a sustainable income. Third, it improves overall economic growth which benefits all the citizens of a country.
The TBN identifies microfinancing as a popular means of facilitating entrepreneurship in the developing world. Microfinancing involves providing individuals with small loans, usually a couple hundred dollars, to help them set up micro businesses. Microfinancing has shown a large degree of success with an extremely high loan repayment rate and has grown into a multi-billion dollar global enterprise creating millions of entrepreneurs.
Microfinancing does have its limits. The Carnegie Council identifies two different types of entrepreneurship: opportunity entrepreneurship and necessity entrepreneurship. Opportunity entrepreneurship involves the creation of real businesses that have the capacity for significant growth. Necessity entrepreneurship usually involves self-employed individuals who are barely surviving.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project found that opportunity entrepreneurship is a much more effective way of growing a nation’s economy and lifting entire populations out of abject poverty than necessity entrepreneurship. Microfinancing, however, tends to create more necessity entrepreneurs.
USAID’s PACE initiative is currently engaging in a comprehensive strategy to increase both necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship by partnering with over 40 accelerators, incubators and seed-stage impact investors. According to the PACE initiative website, the idea is “to catalyze private-sector investment into early-stage enterprises and identify innovative models or approaches that help entrepreneurs bridge the” gap between promising enterprises and potential investors.
The PACE initiative also hopes to expand the entrepreneurship knowledge base by partnering with a number of organizations including the Omidyar Network, the Argidius Foundation and Emory University. Together these groups are launching a research project designed to assess the efficacy of accelerator programs, providing these programs with “statistical data and market insight to better inform their own decision-making.”
It’s clear that the future of anti-poverty efforts will and should involve an increased investment in entrepreneurial enterprises.
– James Long
Photo: Flickr
The Role of Unofficial Diplomacy in Peacekeeping
The role of unofficial diplomacy, also known as Track II diplomacy, became increasingly helpful for state crafting. This method of diplomacy started in the U.S. by a group of academics, state department bureaucrats and public intellectuals during the 1970s.
The methods grew out of the conflicts of the Cold War including Soviet-U.S. spy scandals and the Arab-Israeli conflict. By the 1980s and 1990s, many individuals and public institutions were taking part of unofficial diplomacy. Currently, Track II diplomacy is taught in several graduate programs.
The method encourages negotiators and private individuals to meet in an informal and unofficial setting to make common ground where normal diplomatic negotiators can’t.
Governments started worrying that Track II diplomacy is taking over freelance diplomacy but scholars insist that unconventional problems require unconventional solutions. Track II diplomacy efforts help to bring solutions to problems such as in Kashmir, China and North Korea.
An example where Track II diplomacy is used to resolve conflict is in India. For decades, India and Pakistan are fighting for the disputed Kashmir. The tension could escalate again into a conflict between the two countries.
In order to prevent such a situation, Track II diplomacy could bring more stakeholders to the negotiations table. According to the Diplomat, a genuine people-to-people approach would only help reach long-term peace among the two nuclear countries.
In order for unofficial diplomacy process to succeed in the conflict of Kashmir, Track II efforts should include groups who are not necessarily on either side. This includes diverse media and not just local media of both sides.
Also, diplomacy efforts should be conducted in local areas of the conflicts. This includes suburban towns that are not major cities. Agendas for prospective agreements should be open and not limited to biased goals.
A more practical example of the use of unofficial diplomacy is the resolved disputes between the U.S. and Iran. The tensions were high after the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis.
However, during the time from 1997 to 2005, Track II diplomacy efforts were taken to provide space for productive talk. These talks provided ground to discuss topics that government officials were not ready or willing to discuss. This was unique since the governments were not willing to discuss many issues.
Through implementing frequent use, the role of unofficial diplomacy will aid in the ability to civilly resolve disputes.
– Noman Ahmed
Photo: Flickr
António Guterres Named U.N. Secretary-General
In early October, the 15 ambassadors that make up the U.N.’s Security Council were presented with the challenging decision of choosing a new secretary-general. The vote was characterized as the most important decision from the U.N. this year. In the end, António Guterres, the former socialist prime minister of Portugal, was nominated as the new U.N. secretary-general.
Guterres was favored for the position for many months leading up to the actual vote. He accepted the nomination from Lisbon after the Council’s decision and did so with “gratitude and humility.”
He will replace current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Historically, the Security Council has been polarized in their decision-making, so the consensual conclusion to choose Guterres was met with his resounding agreement. Guterres described the decision as an “exemplary process of transparency and openness.”
The decision to choose António Guterres ignored the Council’s traditions of rotating the presidency based on region. The only region that hasn’t held the presidency is Eastern Europe, which is one reason why Danilo Turk, a former Slovenian president, and Irina Bokova, a Bulgarian director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), finished closely behind Guterres in the vote.
The Council also ignored external pressures to elect a woman secretary-general, despite seven of the 13 candidates begin female. Well aware of this, Guterres has pledged to exercise gender equity as he moves forward with his new position.
After acting as the prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, Guterres was elected to serve as the head of the U.N.’s High Commission for Refugees. While serving in this position, Guterres repeatedly called for humanitarian action from countries with appropriate resources.
In particular, after U.N. agencies failed to meet funding goals that would provide humanitarian aid for displaced peoples in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, Guterres called for financial commitment from Western countries.
His experience leading a major U.N. institution was looked at as a huge strength in the voting process. He has promised to demonstrate “the humility that is needed to serve especially those that are most vulnerable.”
Guterres will have to face many difficult challenges as he moves forward with his new position of leadership, like maintaining and negotiating support from Russia and the U.S. and facing the impacts of the global refugee crisis.
Despite these inevitable challenges, the ambassadors of the Security Council are confident that Guterres will be able to act justly and level-headedly as the new U.N. secretary-general.
– Peyton Jacobsen
Photo: Flickr