Endemic problems facing education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) continue nearly unabated despite the passing of the 15-year-long time frame established by the U.N. for securing its ambitious Millennium Development Goals. Included among its eight commitments was dramatic education reform to address systemic gender-based discrimination, a goal that has hardly been realized in the Oceanic nation.
In a 2012 report, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) tallied total enrollment in primary education to be a meager 29.3 percent of all PNG children. The research found that the male-to-female ratio is nearly equal during those early education years, with 16,821 males and 16,120 females enrolled in some level of schooling in the relatively wealthier Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
That seeming equality morphs as children age, however, especially when comparing different regions of the country. Female enrollment rates decline significantly in poorer regions that are also marked by a horrific record of abuse toward women. That state of affairs is attributed by many to the historic degradation toward women found worldwide, and in particular regions of the country like the Eastern Highlands.
Indeed, the literacy rate between men and women in that region was 51 percent and 36.5 percent, respectively. In 2009, grade 12 enrollees were made up of just 180 females to their 494 male colleagues. Much of the blame has been leveled at a lack of will and ability to actually fund initiatives aimed at attaining universal gender equality in spite of such officially professed goals.
Similar to the reality throughout the world, PNG girls and women face an exorbitantly high likelihood of experiencing rape or assault at some point in their lifetime. Human Rights Watch pegs that figure at a staggering 70 percent for PNG, well above the one in three average for much of the majority world.
The World Health Organization notes that this problem is exacerbated in low-income regions with poor social attitudes toward women, like rural PNG, and often increases the risk for physical and mental health problems. As those problems increase, the amount of professional and personal self-improvement women and girls can achieve diminishes, thus perpetuating the problem of gender inequality for education in PNG and elsewhere.
Some progress toward reforming education in Papua New Guinea has been made. AusAID found that total enrollment rates have increased from 52 to 63 percent between 2007 and 2009 among primary-aged students. At that same time, completion rates for students enrolled up to grade eight rose from 45 to 56 percent.
In 2012 the government rolled out a new round of subsidizations for tuition fees, building on the apparent success of similar policies enacted in the early 1990s. The new policies have positively affected enrollment among female children and have promoted retention rates among children who seek to continue on with their education at various levels.
In fact, a unique problem has arisen over the last several years involving a lack of resources to accommodate so many current and prospective students, with the numbers expected to continue climbing. For example, nearly 14,000 high school-aged students are expected to continue their education in Papua New Guinean colleges and universities despite glaring inadequacies in terms of quality of educational infrastructure and low numbers of qualified educators.
Ravinder Rena, who published research in 2011 which studied the causes and challenges facing primary education in Papua New Guinea, laments that the quality of most things associated with the PNG education system is derelict and in need of reforms on nearly every level.
“But, if the government can maintain its financial commitment to education, then Papua New Guinea’s educational system most likely will continue to progress,” writes Rena.
– James Collins
Photo: Flickr
Evaptainer: How the Science of Sweating Can Increase Food Security
The Evaptainer brings modern-day technology to an idea that has been around for several millennia. At its most basic level, a refrigerating device that uses evaporative cooling contains an inner chamber that holds food. The outer chamber contains an evaporative medium, such as sand, between the outer and inner containers. Water is poured over the evaporative medium, which cools as it evaporates.
The science is simple. To evaporate, water must absorb heat energy from the environment in order to become hot enough to change its state, either from solid to liquid or liquid to gas. The heat the water draws from its environment, called latent heat, cools the environment from which it draws heat.
In the case of the Evaptainer, this process cools the inner container that holds the food. Evaptainers can cool the 60-liter inner container by up to 35 degrees Fahrenheit, extending the shelf-life of food from around two days to two weeks, in hot weather.
Bishop Sanyal, a MIT professor not affiliated with Evaptainer, told MIT Technology Review that Evaptainers could help increase food security. However, he sees the $25 unit price as posing a possible problem for families’ ability to access the devices. For example, the average family in Morocco makes $60-$100 per month as explained by Sanyal, so paying $25 upfront could be a challenge. Nonetheless, if families are able to make the investment, having an Evaptainer could save them money in the long run.
Another challenge Evaptainer faces is that humid air can evaporate less moisture than dry air. As a result, in past 40 percent humidity, the device cools significantly less than it would in its optimal environment of 30 percent humidity or less.
For now, at least in optimal environments, Evaptainers have the potential to improve the quality of life of those who have no access to electricity or refrigeration and reduce the amount of spoiled food waste. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, such progress represents about $310 billion annually in developing countries alone.
– Laura Isaza
Photo: Flickr
Cockroach Milk: The Superfood Game-Changer?
Most cockroaches are oviparous, or egg-laying animals. However, the Pacific beetle cockroach, or Diploptera punctata species, gives birth to live young by carrying them in a fleshy brood sac. Only this certain species of cockroach is viviparous, meaning they are among animals that give birth to young and nourish its offspring with milk protein.
Surprisingly enough, this specific milk protein is the very liquid substance packed with nutritious fats, sugars and proteins that are taking the protein game by storm. The “so-called” milk gets converted into concentrated protein crystals that are stored in the gut of the embryos.
It all began with the curiosity of Nathan Coussens, a young researcher out of the University of Iowa, who noticed shiny crystals pouring out of a roach gut one day in the lab. This discovery took place 10 years ago.
International teams, including InSTEM, have since broken down the structure of these crystallized milk proteins. More often than not, protein crystals obtained from living systems tend to be small and limited in size by the volume of the cell they grow in. This leaves scientists little room for investigation.
Scientists try very hard to obtain pure proteins with which to make crystals for X-ray crystallography studies, a technique employed to elucidate protein structure. Peculiarly enough, the milk crystals within roach guts grow large enough to be used for this type of technique.
“The crystals are like a complete food – they have proteins, fats and sugars. If you look into the protein sequences, they have all the essential amino acids,” said Sanchari Banerjee, one of the postdoctoral fellows at InSTEM, in an interview with the Times of India.
Now equipped with the gene sequences for these milk proteins, InSTEM’s lead biochemist on the project, Subramanian Ramaswamy, and colleagues plan to use a yeast system to produce these crystals. “They’re very stable. They can be a fantastic protein supplement,” says Ramaswamy.
If everything goes according to plan, InSTEM will synthesize the protein-rich milk and market it as a supplemental food. The scaffolding in the milk protein crystals shows compelling characteristics — ones that could be used to design nanoparticles for drug delivery. It’ll be interesting to see if and how cockroach milk is rolled out over the next few years.
– Keaton McCalla
Photo: Flickr
Poverty in Slovakia
Slovakia has only been a state for less than three decades; it became independent from Czechoslovakia in 1993. Since then it has struggled to break the cycle of poverty. Having experienced hard economic reforms to join the European Union, the country is known as the eurozone’s second-poorest member. With a population of 5.4 million and a weakening employment rate, poverty in Slovakia continues to rise.
According to the “Phenomenon of Poverty and Economic Inequality in the Slovak Republic,” Slovakia has a poverty rate of 13%, which equates to about 700,000 people.
The Harsh Effects of Poverty in Slovakia
In a study, 32% of respondents said their living standards are lower than they were before 1989. Working-class families with three or four more children, the elderly and the handicapped have felt this burden the most.
Moreover, those at risk of poverty are totaled at 112,200 people, representing 20.6% of Slovakia’s total population. Citizens whose income is below 60% of the median income face a 13% risk of living in poverty.
For the above reasons, citizens have been forced to rely on government programs to get by, putting the state deeper in debt.
Additionally, ethnic poverty is well apparent. Romas are marginalized from the rest of the population, they live the worst off, in shanty settlements grappling with little to no money. Around four percent of the population suffers from “severe housing deprivation.”
Moreover, unemployment continues to increase; the long-term unemployment rate in the Slovak Republic stands at 8.8% compared to the OECD average of only 2.6%. The share of children living in workless households stands at 6.9% and lies below the OCED average.
Studies have shown that the problem arises from economic inequality and an absence of business competitiveness throughout the country. Additionally, a lag in technological development has led to inadequate modern infrastructure — one of the primary ways for generating revenue.
To counteract the rate of poverty in Slovakia, the state established the Institute for Subsistence Law: those whose monthly income is below a minimum fixed amount, are entitled to social assistance benefits.
Furthermore, the EU also recognizes this increase of poverty throughout Europe as seen with the European Commission’s ten-year economic plan called “Europe 2020.”
They plan to raise the employment rate of the population aged 20-64 from the current 69% to 75%. They also aim to reduce the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25%, lifting 20 million people out of poverty from the current 80 million in the region; including Slovakia.
– Marcelo Guadiana
Photo: Flickr
Challenges Plague Education in Papua New Guinea
Endemic problems facing education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) continue nearly unabated despite the passing of the 15-year-long time frame established by the U.N. for securing its ambitious Millennium Development Goals. Included among its eight commitments was dramatic education reform to address systemic gender-based discrimination, a goal that has hardly been realized in the Oceanic nation.
In a 2012 report, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) tallied total enrollment in primary education to be a meager 29.3 percent of all PNG children. The research found that the male-to-female ratio is nearly equal during those early education years, with 16,821 males and 16,120 females enrolled in some level of schooling in the relatively wealthier Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
That seeming equality morphs as children age, however, especially when comparing different regions of the country. Female enrollment rates decline significantly in poorer regions that are also marked by a horrific record of abuse toward women. That state of affairs is attributed by many to the historic degradation toward women found worldwide, and in particular regions of the country like the Eastern Highlands.
Indeed, the literacy rate between men and women in that region was 51 percent and 36.5 percent, respectively. In 2009, grade 12 enrollees were made up of just 180 females to their 494 male colleagues. Much of the blame has been leveled at a lack of will and ability to actually fund initiatives aimed at attaining universal gender equality in spite of such officially professed goals.
Similar to the reality throughout the world, PNG girls and women face an exorbitantly high likelihood of experiencing rape or assault at some point in their lifetime. Human Rights Watch pegs that figure at a staggering 70 percent for PNG, well above the one in three average for much of the majority world.
The World Health Organization notes that this problem is exacerbated in low-income regions with poor social attitudes toward women, like rural PNG, and often increases the risk for physical and mental health problems. As those problems increase, the amount of professional and personal self-improvement women and girls can achieve diminishes, thus perpetuating the problem of gender inequality for education in PNG and elsewhere.
Some progress toward reforming education in Papua New Guinea has been made. AusAID found that total enrollment rates have increased from 52 to 63 percent between 2007 and 2009 among primary-aged students. At that same time, completion rates for students enrolled up to grade eight rose from 45 to 56 percent.
In 2012 the government rolled out a new round of subsidizations for tuition fees, building on the apparent success of similar policies enacted in the early 1990s. The new policies have positively affected enrollment among female children and have promoted retention rates among children who seek to continue on with their education at various levels.
In fact, a unique problem has arisen over the last several years involving a lack of resources to accommodate so many current and prospective students, with the numbers expected to continue climbing. For example, nearly 14,000 high school-aged students are expected to continue their education in Papua New Guinean colleges and universities despite glaring inadequacies in terms of quality of educational infrastructure and low numbers of qualified educators.
Ravinder Rena, who published research in 2011 which studied the causes and challenges facing primary education in Papua New Guinea, laments that the quality of most things associated with the PNG education system is derelict and in need of reforms on nearly every level.
“But, if the government can maintain its financial commitment to education, then Papua New Guinea’s educational system most likely will continue to progress,” writes Rena.
– James Collins
Photo: Flickr
At-Risk Youth in Morocco Given Great Opportunity
Issues in the education system have led to dismal circumstances for youth in Morocco, and this government agency is striving to help those already affected by the problems while simultaneously working to solve the root of them.
In the country of Morocco, most students enrolled in the first grade are not predicted to graduate. Drop-out rates are high although 97 percent of children are currently enrolled in school. Moroccan students rank as some of the lowest on international test scores.
Change has become necessary in order for the at-risk youth in Morocco to be properly educated and prepared to provide for themselves and their families.
USAID has partnered with government and nonprofit organizations to implement plans for reform. Research in 2015 suggested that poor and limited teacher training along with a minimal amount of additional reading materials for students were the two main causes of the students’ poor test results.
The Reading for Success-Small Experimentation program has the following three main focuses: a different approach to teaching Arabian phonics, new training guides for teachers and instructors and summer reading activities to cut down on the loss students encounter over the summer months when not in school.
The program began in September 2015 and is set to run until March 2018. It will introduce over 9,000 students in the first and second grade to a new approach to reading, have 180 teachers complete the reformed training and develop effective guidebooks as a resource for teachers, coaches and instructors as they navigate this new approach.
Working even harder to affect real and lasting change, the final goal of the program is to have 800 students participate in the summer reading programs. The Washington Post quoted First Lady Michelle Obama when she said, “research shows that if kids take a break from learning all summer, they not only miss out on new information and skills, they can actually lose up to three months’ worth of knowledge from the previous year.”
The new implementations for summer learning in Morocco will not only help students retain knowledge from the previous year but also equip them for another year of prosperous learning.
But what about the kids who have already finished elementary school?
USAID is also working to help the older youth of Morocco, who make up one-third of the country’s population. Of this one-third, 40 percent do not have jobs and/or are not currently enrolled in school.
The government has partnered with USAID in the cities of Tangiers and Tetouan to provide unemployed youth with vocational training. Their activity, the Favorable Opportunities to Reinforce Self-Advancement for Today’s Youth, began in 2012 and works to increase confidence by training youth in professional skills and giving academic support such as tutoring.
It is doing more than teach skills; this program is giving at-risk youth in Morocco purpose. One student participating in a sewing class in Tangiers told a USAID deputy assistant administrator that “if it wasn’t for this program, [I] would most certainly be on the street selling drugs.”
Morocco is making incredible progress as 12,000 youth are being mentored through this program, and those still enrolled in school are given more and more opportunities for success. The education and vocational skills given to one-third of this nation are sure to positively impact the other two-thirds as well.
– Rebecca Causey
Photo: Flickr
Environmentally Responsible Fishing Practices Reduce Poverty?
Around the world, the fishing community is particularly vulnerable. Just over 96 percent of fishers live in developing countries and many of them live in substandard conditions of poverty. However, environmentally responsible fishing has the potential to alleviate environmental concerns as well as the poverty of fishermen.
Part of the reason that fishermen face such tenuous financial circumstances is the unstable nature of the profession. The fisherman’s boat and equipment are the most valuable possessions but also their most vulnerable. The unpredictable nature of the sea means equipment may be damaged at any moment and halt the flow of income.
Furthermore, fishermen in Africa, Asia and Central America are at least five times more likely to be infected with HIV due to their mobility. These circumstances often lead to overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions and poor access to education and health services. Over and above these problems, the damaging environmental effects caused by this cycle of poverty has not even been explored.
It is understandable that many fishers are not focused on environmentally responsible fishing practices. People struggling to survive today are less likely to focus on long-term environmental effects. However, depletion of resources will ultimately push them further into poverty.
Therefore, it is imperative that fishermen consider how they can practice environmentally responsible fishing as it will help to alleviate the poverty that they face. Latin American nonprofit company MarViva aims to help fishermen with this objective. As the organization’s co-director said, “we are not dealing only with an environmental problem, but also with significant institutional, social, and economic challenges that require serious attention and integral long-term solutions.”
MarViva is working for these long-term solutions with a two-part initiative. First, they teach fishermen the advantages of responsible fishing practices that may appear as more expensive or labor-intensive in the short-term. For instance, investing in ice may seem like an unnecessary expense, but it ensures that fish stay fresh during transport and money is not lost due to a spoiled product.
They are also encouraged to use smaller hand lines instead of large gill nets. When gill nets are used, the caught fish are already dead and may be damaged. While gill nets seem to catch a larger amount of fish at once, they may sell for a lower price due to damage that may have occurred. Hand lines result in higher quality that will translate to a higher selling price.
The second part of the initiative focuses on the traceability of the product. If fishermen present the source and journey of their fish to the market, they can distinguish their product as one that was caught and handled responsibly. This means that it can sell for a higher price than fish of questionable or unknown origin.
Through its initiative, MarViva has increased the availability of high-quality products and the practice of responsible fishing. Raising awareness of how to protect the ocean’s precious natural resources is a highly important endeavor. Equally important is the fact that fishermen who depend on the ocean’s resources can protect those as well as alleviate the poverty that they face.
– Nathaniel Siegel
Photo: Flickr
Ten Ways Sustainable Tourism can Alleviate Poverty
Tourism brings both advantages and disadvantages to a country. It can bring wealth and jobs to communities that would otherwise remain poor just as much as it can lead to social dislocation, loss of cultural heritage and ecological degradation. UNESCO claims that tourism must be sustainable for the advantages to outweigh the disadvantages.
“Tourism that respects both local people and the traveler, cultural heritage and the environment” is what UNESCO calls sustainable tourism. This form seeks to benefit the host country and local economies so that people in that country may have better lives.
Evidence shows that sustainable tourism is a great tool for development and poverty alleviation in developing countries. These are ten ways in which sustainable tourism alleviates poverty:
This list is by no means exhaustive. There are many other ways in which tourism can help the poor. As long as tourism is sustainable and wealth from tourism trickles down to the poor, the poorest countries will prosper. Given the increasing popularity of sustainable tourism, prosperity and wealth are a likely prospect for many poor countries.
– Christina Egerstrom
Photo: Flickr
10 Important Facts About Refugees in Lebanon
Lebanon hosts an ever-increasing refugee population, largely the result of an ongoing five-year civil war in Syria. Though Syrians comprise the majority of the approximately 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon, Palestinians and a small number of Iraqis have also sought refuge in the country.
Here are 10 important facts about refugees in Lebanon:
The results of WBG projects have had an immensely positive impact on the Lebanese communities where its efforts have been directed.
– Heidi Grossman
Photo: Flickr
The WFP High Energy Biscuit that Saves Lives
The World Food Program (WFP) High Energy Biscuit is pre-packaged and full of high-protein cereals, micronutrients and vegetable fat and requires zero preparation to be consumed. This food product extends to all groups suffering from hunger — women, children, infants, the elderly, those struggling with disease and communities in rural, underdeveloped regions, such as the Philippines, Kenya, North Korea and Afghanistan.
The biscuits serve as a lifesaving snack to survivors of natural disasters, conflicts and contain a multitude of healthy ingredients to keep individuals, especially children, strong and focused in school.
In 2014, WFP distributed its “biscuit-factory-in-a-box,” which, along with the WFP High Energy Biscuit, contains a variety of foods that are delivered to the world’s hungry. This includes fortified blends, or “mixtures of partially precooked and milled cereals, soya and beans that have been infused with micronutrients for additional health benefits.”
The primarily blended food produced by WFP is corn soya blend, cooked with water to create a warm, nourishing porridge. The blends not only provide protein supplements but also prevent and address nutritional deficiencies. Ready-To-Use Foods are also transported, typically to treat malnutrition among children between the ages of six months and five years old.
These products are easily accessible for poor families who lack access to running water or electricity, as they do not require heat or water to cook. The oil-based, low moisture consistency prevents bacterial contamination and gives them a long shelf life.
The successful impact of the WFP High Energy Biscuit and how much this program has grown since it was initially created has been documented over the years. Individuals who have benefited from the foods include more than 200,000 flood victims from Kenya, as well as 850,000 primary school children in North Korea, where the attendance rate has increased as a result of the incredible amount of aid offered to schools in the local area.
Most recently noted, the WFP High Energy Biscuit made its way to the people affected by the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the city of Tacloban. In the early days of the emergency response, the biscuits made a big difference and served as a light, convenient form of food aid. WFP has extended its operating locations, with one particular factory in Kabul, Afghanistan as the newest supplier for the WFP High Energy Biscuit.
WFP shows workers in new locations how to make the biscuits using local ingredients. This provides food for more people living in impoverished locations while stimulating the economies of these regions.
– Mikaela Frigillana
Photo: Flickr
How UNICEF is Maintaining the Education of Burundian Children
Burundi relies heavily on foreign aid and what is not coming in cannot possibly go out. At the close of last year, the president of Burundi announced the budgetary conditions for the upcoming year, and all sectors would be receiving a large cut. The Ministry of Education was reduced by one-third, with water/sanitization and human rights services closely following. The Ministry of Health would also have to operate with half of its previous budget.
It is not just the availability of education in Burundi that affects a child’s capacity to learn and function, all of their basic needs must also be met in order to contribute to their growth. Toward the end of last year, the number of children suffering from severe malnutrition in Bujumbura doubled within less than three months. The city is in strife, abreast with political unrest, making the streets unsafe for children, leading to an increase in Burundian’s seeking asylum in neighboring countries.
With strains being placed on Burundi’s already feeble education system, it is hard to predict a positive outcome for the education of Burundian children living in these harsh circumstances. However, UNICEF refuses to let the education of Burundian children fall victim to circumstances.
Although UNICEF provides school supplies, manages grants and other forms of relief in Burundi, they have also implemented a number of other programs for the advocacy and safety of Burundian children.
Partnering with Handicap International, a program called “Zones of Peace” was launched in Bujumbura, where teachers received specialized training to help children cope with the psychosocial effects of living in turbulent conditions. UNICEF also mediated with organizations in Tanzania to provide a way for Burundian refugee students to take their 9-10 grade exams, without jeopardizing their safety.
The safety and education of Burundian children are UNICEF’s top priority, especially lone male children that are being targeted and forced into jail. In response, UNICEF and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have fought rigorously for their release and opened two re-education centers to house the previously detained children.
The majority of imprisoned children are held in adult prisons, where they are at risk for abuse and are malnourished during their confinement. The re-education center is a safe haven for the children to receive needed counseling, nourishment, legal services, education and reintegration back into society. These centers hope to remove the stigma that often accompanies incarceration and to return educated, mentally well young adults into society.
UNICEF’s efforts to provide safety and the education of Burundian children does not stop at the re-education centers. On Aug. 1, 2016, in conjunction with Burundi’s Ministry of Education, UNFPA, WFP and the United Nations Volunteers, they have opened 20 summer camps in Bujumbura. The goal of these camps is not only to allow the children a safe place to join in recreation but also to provide them with life skills, education, as well as enhancing non-violent communication and interactions.
The road towards achieving stability for Burundian children, with reliable access to education, is wrought with challenges, but through the unrelenting efforts of UNICEF and co-sponsoring organizations, one thing Burundian children have is hope.
– Amy Whitman
Photo: Flickr