Most technology is limited in Mfangano, a fishing community off the Kenyan shore of Lake Victoria. The first time a car drove around the entire island was in 2007. Islanders only receive spotty coverage from cell providers due to the difficulties of building cell towers on Mfangano. Providers face difficulty constructing links from the mainland, and islands perceive key construction platforms as sacred.
Worst of all is the lack of internet access.
Chas Salmen, the director of the Organic Health Response (OHR), a small Kenyan NGO that provides HIV/AIDS-related services, noted the Islanders’ repeated desire for internet at community meetings. OHR started the meetings as a means to educate the public about HIV/AIDS and encouraged feedback in order to understand the lives of the islanders.
One of OHR’s primary difficulties was getting a substantial proportion of the community to attend the meetings. This was solved when OHR built the Ekialo Kiona Center (EK). The EK has a computer center, library and training facility. “Ekialo Kiona” means “Whole World” in the Suba language; the name refers to the OHR’s policy of allowing anyone access to the EK and the internet in exchange for maintaining a schedule of HIV tests every 6 months.
Participation in OHR’s programs has grown rapidly with the internet incentive. Now over 2,000 participants, or 10 percent of the population, use the EK and attend the regular meetings.
“The timing of the project was just perfect,” said Salmen. “It went live just before schools closed for a one-month break and we had 250 secondary students enroll right away. 75 percent of our new enrollment has been young people, under 25. They engage with us in a way that wasn’t possible before.”
The OHR also set up a network-connected radio transmitter to broadcast, which has greatly increased the amount of the population on the receiving end of their educational messages.
Salmen said, “When we broadcast we get SMS messages from a huge area, including Kisumu, 90km away. EK Radio fan pages have started appearing on Facebook without any prompting on our side. It’s a total game changer to start those conversations and have everyone listening at once.”
Broadband connectivity is not a high priority for those aiding developing communities. But, as Cisco’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Tae Yoo noted, it creates jobs, higher productivity and ultimately enables economic and social development.
The United Nations now classifies broadband as a basic human right because it helps developing communities advance economically and socially. Yet, UNESCO estimates that 90 percent of communities in developing areas are without access to broadband.
Inveneo has launched the Broadband for Good Initiative (BB4G) to speed up access to broadband throughout the developing world. BB4BG uses low-cost technologies to deliver broadband into urban and rural areas. BB4G currently provides broadband access to 20 percent of rural Haiti, and certain areas of Micronesia, Kenya, Uganda and the West Bank of Palestine.
“Mfangano is a great pilot for building sustainable broadband networks,” said Eric Blantz, senior program director for Inveneo. “The challenges we’ve seen here are not unique, but the solutions we’re finding are innovative and replicable across the developing world.”
– Kasey Beduhn
Source: The Huffington Post
Photo: Organic Health Response
Health Care Success in Rwanda
1994 marked the end of genocide in Rwanda and the beginning of an effort to rebuild a country that was dismantled by genocide. Now, almost two decades later, Rwanda has become a story of evident progress.
In the last two decades, Rwanda has seen tremendous social and economic improvement. The percentage of the population living below the poverty line has sharply decreased from 78 percent in 1994 to 45 percent in 2013. The gross domestic product of Rwanda has more than tripled. Average life expectancy has doubled from 28 years to 56 years of age. Maternal mortality has decreased by 60 percent. The chance of a child under 5 dying has decreased by 70 percent. 99 percent of primary-school-age children are in school.
How has this happened?
According to a research study conducted by Partners in Health that was recently published in the British Medical Journal, improved health care has been the Rwandan answer.
Cameron Nutt, a member of the Partners in Health research team, stated, “The Rwandan government has attacked the deadliest diseases in the most vulnerable parts of the population”. It has subsidized the prices of many medicines and made it possible for nearly 98 percent of the population to have health insurance and access to preventative care, such as mosquito nets and vaccines. Rwandan leaders have taken a proactive approach to ensure the advancement of its health care system. The country has successfully utilized Western aid to train Rwandans in medical fields and improve the way in which major diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, are treated.
For Rwanda, health care has meant vast amounts of change and improvement. Health care has equated for fewer people living below the poverty line, more people living longer, and more people being able to work and contribute to their country. Health care has resulted in successful development.
– Angela Hooks
Photo Source: PHR
30 Hour Famine Campaign in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
From February 2nd to 3rd, over 50,000 Taiwanese attended the 30-hour famine campaign in Kaohsiung (a province of Taiwan). This was part of a larger 30-hour famine campaign, the 30 Hour Famine Hero Rally, run by “World Vision Taiwan.” It was the 24th year of this campaign, and it has been growing in strength as the years have passed.
World Vision Taiwan is part of World Vision: 30 Hour Famine, a global campaign to raise awareness of world hunger. The 30-hour famine is a worldwide experience that students, as well as anyone else, take part in once a year.
Participants gathered together and did not eat solid food for 30 hours, in order to experience what it feels like to live in poverty with scarce or no food. The 30-hour famine campaign in Kaohsiung, just like all of the 30-hour famine campaigns, had two parts: raising awareness about world hunger and fundraising for the hungry.
In the past twenty years, the 30-hour famine campaign in Kaohsiung is one event that has helped lower world hunger. The rate of hungry children has dropped by 50%. The goal of this rally was to raise $13.5 million U.S. dollars to help eradicate poverty and hunger not only in Taiwan but worldwide.
The donations do far more in disaster areas than they ever could do in countries like the United States. World Vision uses the donations to feed children and families in high-risk areas, but also teaches them how to overcome hunger on their own, and provides them with the proper tools to do it. Anyone can take part in a 30-hour famine, or host their own.
Visit the 30 Hour Famine website to learn how to host your own fasting event for the sake of world hunger.
– Corina Balsamo
Sources: Gospel Herald, World Vision Taiwan
Photo: Want China Times
Social Impact Bond Model of International Aid
The Social Impact Bond model of international aid is a relatively new way of helping foreign countries; many call it a “pay for success” model. Social Impact Bonds, or SIBs, are based on outcomes, rather than intentions. Despite the name, they do not fit the average definition of a “bond,” which would imply those receiving the investors’ money are obligated to return it no matter what happens. Rather, in a nutshell, the independent investors will only get their money back (plus interest) if the program succeeds. The social impact bond model of international aid is meant to be a preventative course of action to benefit society; only those programs that have the most chance of success will be funded.
Due to the existence of private investors, the social impact bond model of international aid does not threaten public funds or rely on the United States (or any other country’s) federal budget. SIBs could also provide a huge benefit to foreign aid if the right programs exist. Rather than merely expecting those wealthy enough to donate their cash to these causes, they are investing in them, and like any other investment, there is a chance of failure. Still, if they invest wisely, not only will they reap the rewards, but so will those who have received help from the various nonprofits.
Although there are certain flaws to SIBs, because not all programs will be able to gather funding (such as pilot programs, because they have not proved they can be successful), it certainly would help in some cases. Moreover, it will protect the U.S. budget and, if successful, will benefit a large number of people across the globe, including investors in the U.S.
Instiglio is an example of a nonprofit organization that deals primarily with social impact bonds.
– Corina Balsamo
Sources: McKinsey, US News
Photo: Tech
The Queen of Katwe
Imagine living in a slum. There is little food to split between you and your family and you are a minority in your age group because you have regularly attended school before. This was exactly the situation that teenager Phiona Mutesi found herself in when she started learning chess.
The slum where Phiona lives is called Katwe, and it is located right in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where veteran and refugee Robert Katende began a chess program for children, giving them food in return for completing a lesson. Of his program, Katende has said that he had started it hoping to teach analytic and problem-solving skills that the children could apply to succeed in their own lives.
This was the program that would come to change Phiona’s life and turn her into “The Queen of Katwe”.
“I was living a hard life, where I was sleeping on the streets, and you couldn’t have anything to eat in the streets. So that’s when I decided for my brother to get a cup of porridge,” Mutesi told CNN.
Although she was unfamiliar with the game, as is most of Uganda, Phiona worked hard, practicing every day for a year. Eventually, she began to win against older children and compete for titles. Since those early days, Phiona has represented her country in several international chess competitions in countries such as Sudan, Siberia, and Istanbul.
Although life for her is still hard – she still lives in the Katwe slum with her family – winning competitions and working hard to one day become a Grandmaster keeps her hopeful. A grant that she has received through her competing has even allowed her to go back to school and develop her reading and writing skills.
While Phiona’s story of success has yet to win her the chess title of Grandmaster, she has gained another, unofficial reputation as the ultimate underdog. She is an underdog on the global chess stage both because she comes from Africa, a continent where chess is culturally absent in most countries, and because she is from Uganda specifically, a nation that is one of the poorest on the continent. The fact that she is from Katwe, a slum, is a strike against her even to other Ugandans. However, despite these odds, she has achieved enormous success given her circumstances.
Phiona Mutesi’s inspiring story was written into a book called “The Queen of Katwe,” by Tim Crothers, and was published in October of 2012. Since then, Disney has bought the rights to the story and has started making a movie to chronicle Phiona’s journey to the international chess stage. The Queen of Katwe remains steadfast in attaining her dream of becoming a Grandmaster and is an inspiration to us all.
– Nina Narang
Source: CNN
Accountability and Transparency with U.S. Aid
Financial foreign assistance is one of the most powerful ways that developed nations can help lower-income countries fight their way through poverty. It also provides the most immediate results, given that aid investment is effectively distributed both to short-term direct programs as well as long-term indirect programs. Many in aid-giving communities, including the United States, criticize foreign aid spending because they believe it a wasteful investment, used to line administrator’s pockets or be lackadaisically distributed to corrupt governments.
Futuregov estimates that annually, around $150b is contributed globally to aid and assist socio-economic and social development.
Given the global community’s demands for greater accountability and transparency in funding, the AidData Centre for Development Policy organization was established. The organization is “a joint venture between the College of William & Mary, Development Gateway, Brigham Young University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Esri.” AidData will be funded $25 million over five years in its conjoined efforts with the United States Agency for International Development.
The program will combine the work of experts in a menagerie of different fields to track and make public the effects of specific foreign aid projects. The purpose of the program assessments is also self-reflective, as programs become more stringently criticized. The aim is to have less money spent will have efficiently maximized impacts.
– Nina Narang
Source: futureGOV
Photo: BIPPS
Zero Tolerance Day of Female Genital Mutilation
140 million women across the globe have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) or cutting, otherwise known as female circumcision. The age-old practice could involve removing the clitoral hood, clitoridectomy, or the removal of the inner labia or outer labia, ensuring pre-marital virginity as well as preventing extra-marital sex. February 6th is the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, an observance that raises awareness of the harmful effects of this practice.
This year marks the 10th commemoration of the declaration of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting since the first conference was held in Addis Ababa in 2003. In 2000, USAID officially introduced the eradication of FGM to its development agenda. Significant development has occurred since, but there is much more to be accomplished.
USAID acknowledges the incredible progress that has been achieved thus far. In 2004, UNICEF presented an important publication, “Changing A Harmful Social Convention: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting,” providing extensive facts and information on the practice while promoting change. In 2008, UNFPA and UNICEF joined hands to create “Accelerating Change”, a program that strives to fund and implement official policies to affect change. Last year, the UN General Assembly called for states to denounce harmful practices against women and girls, specifically FGM.
Despite the progress made, every year 3 million girls remain at risk of this cruel procedure. The International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation serves to remind us to work towards ending this cruelty that had been disguised as the norm in many societies.
–Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana
Source: USAID
Photo: eLearning Africa
Canada Pledges $13 Million to Mali for Humanitarian Efforts
According to the Canadian media, Canada’s $13 million aid to Mali for humanitarian purposes stood out among the millions of dollars pledged by other countries specifically for combat resources and other military costs for AFISMA (the African coalition of about 20 countries and 3500 troops fighting against the Islamists in Mali).
However, the BBC notes that donations from other countries, such as the United States, Germany, and China, are also directed towards “Afisma, humanitarian assistance, logistics, improving security and the future development of Mali”.
Nevertheless, the Canadian government withstood arguments made on behalf of the African Union to put more money and troops into AFISMA’s military campaign. Prime Minister Harper made it clear that Canada will no longer be sending troops but instead “will continue its lifesaving work in Mali through humanitarian and development assistance”.
When political unrest creates such horrid living conditions in a country at war, it is understandable how concerned countries may be caught in the middle of choosing between military or humanitarian assistance. However, it can be viewed as a cycle, where choosing which end to start with makes the difference. By becoming involved at the ground level in the villages, schools, and health centers, outside aid can create stability, survival, and small patches of peace, which will hopefully create an internal domino effect. These acts may not remove the Islamist forces from the north in Mali, but they surely create a more constructive path with fewer deaths instead of instigating fighting with tank and arms donations.
As governments make decisions on where to funnel their money, the people of Mali will be patiently waiting. For them, other than becoming refugees, there is not much they can do against hunger and weapons. While keeping in mind the importance of political stability and the different ways to achieve it, the African Union and future global-donor meetings will hopefully not call for special meetings focused on collecting only a certain kind of assistance, especially when that assistance is not for the basic survival needs of the people of Mali.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source: CTV,BBC
Photo: CTV
Climbing For Hemophilia Awareness
Chris Bombardier, a 27-year-old hemophiliac, is attempting to climb Mt. Aconcagua as a part of his Seven Summit Challenge to raise awareness of hemophilia. Bombardier was the first American hemophiliac to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro in June 2011. The remaining 6 summits include Mt. Aconcagua, Mt. Denali, Carstensz Pyramid, Mt. Elbrus, Vinson Massif and Mt. Everest. He is currently climbing Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, which is approximately 22,847 miles high. He started the climb on Tuesday, January 29th with 2 guides and 8 other climbers.
Bombardier is a board member of Save One Life, an international non-profit that aids impoverished hemophiliacs in developing countries. All money that Bombardier raises through his climbs will go to Save One Life.
Bombardier hopes that his climbs will increase hemophilia awareness: “Most people in the States don’t even know about hemophilia; think about how little is known worldwide. I think having someone with hemophilia pushing the limits is a cool story in itself, but I hope it raises awareness of the discrepancy in treatment,” Bombardier said.
Bombardier’s Seven Summit Challenge is crucial for raising awareness about the existence of hemophilia in developing countries where therapy and factor concentrations are often unavailable. Factor concentrations are preparations that are injected into a hemophiliac’s vein to replace the missing blood clotting factors.
Only a few developing countries have fractionation facilities or have made concentrates available. Problematically, approximately 80% of patients with severe hemophilia (PWH) live in developing countries. PWH patients denied access to factor concentrates will have five damaged joints by the age of 20. Damaged joints limit physical movement and thereby prevent normal participation in society.
In addition to factor concentrations, PWH patients should participate in physiotherapy and rehabilitation which help prevent disabilities that prohibit normal social involvement. Physiotherapy and rehabilitation procedures include muscle strengthening exercises, exercises that maintain or increase range of motion, training proprioception and coordination, management of pain, and orthotics.
Facilities must be formed in developing countries that provide access to educational materials and trainers in order to educate local areas about the proper treatment for those diagnosed with hemophilia or PWH. Hopefully, Bombardier’s Seven Summit Challenge will raise the money and awareness needed to tackle this challenge so that patients with hemophilia or PWH can enjoy a normal life.
– Kasey Beduhn
Sources: Europe PubMed Central, Europe PubMed Central, PRWeb, Adventures of a Hemophiliac
Photo: Adventures of a Hemophiliac
Johns Hopkins’ Free Course On Food Systems
Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world.” For those prepared and passionate to change the world with the key to success, at a time when it is increasingly harder to achieve credentials and training through limited courses and high student loans, websites such as ‘Coursera’ are becoming an effective means of sharing and teaching the information we need to know how to change the world.
For those who want to become involved in foreign policy and understand the interconnected economies of the global food system, Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health recently started a 6 week long free course entitled, “An Introduction to the U.S. Food System: Perspectives from Public Health”.
Taught by Robert S. Lawrence, M.D., this introductory course on food systems discusses “activities, people and resources involved in getting food from field to plate.” Food production in the United States deals with not only the agriculture sector but our country’s economy, the population’s general well being and health, and political issues impacting all corners of the world.
Dr. Lawrence has an extensive and highly respected background in public health. He is currently a Professor of Health Policy and International health and the Center for a Livable Future, an institution which he helped establish in 1996. He has sat on multiple committees and was the director of Health Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation. Aside from himself, the course will also feature other faculty from the Center for a Livable Future as guest lecturers.
In order to create meaningful policy changes to reduce food insecurities and global poverty, courses such as this are extremely useful in introducing to the public the various connections that must be taken into consideration before embarking to ‘change the world’.
For someone with the desire to end world hunger, it is not enough to be equipped with a fire in their heart and a sociology degree in their hand. By having widespread familiarity or in depth knowledge across multiple sectors, economics, diet and health, and global politics in this case, it will be easier to attack the problems we want to fix.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source:coursera
Broadband – A Basic Human Right
Worst of all is the lack of internet access.
Chas Salmen, the director of the Organic Health Response (OHR), a small Kenyan NGO that provides HIV/AIDS-related services, noted the Islanders’ repeated desire for internet at community meetings. OHR started the meetings as a means to educate the public about HIV/AIDS and encouraged feedback in order to understand the lives of the islanders.
One of OHR’s primary difficulties was getting a substantial proportion of the community to attend the meetings. This was solved when OHR built the Ekialo Kiona Center (EK). The EK has a computer center, library and training facility. “Ekialo Kiona” means “Whole World” in the Suba language; the name refers to the OHR’s policy of allowing anyone access to the EK and the internet in exchange for maintaining a schedule of HIV tests every 6 months.
Participation in OHR’s programs has grown rapidly with the internet incentive. Now over 2,000 participants, or 10 percent of the population, use the EK and attend the regular meetings.
“The timing of the project was just perfect,” said Salmen. “It went live just before schools closed for a one-month break and we had 250 secondary students enroll right away. 75 percent of our new enrollment has been young people, under 25. They engage with us in a way that wasn’t possible before.”
The OHR also set up a network-connected radio transmitter to broadcast, which has greatly increased the amount of the population on the receiving end of their educational messages.
Salmen said, “When we broadcast we get SMS messages from a huge area, including Kisumu, 90km away. EK Radio fan pages have started appearing on Facebook without any prompting on our side. It’s a total game changer to start those conversations and have everyone listening at once.”
Broadband connectivity is not a high priority for those aiding developing communities. But, as Cisco’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Tae Yoo noted, it creates jobs, higher productivity and ultimately enables economic and social development.
The United Nations now classifies broadband as a basic human right because it helps developing communities advance economically and socially. Yet, UNESCO estimates that 90 percent of communities in developing areas are without access to broadband.
Inveneo has launched the Broadband for Good Initiative (BB4G) to speed up access to broadband throughout the developing world. BB4BG uses low-cost technologies to deliver broadband into urban and rural areas. BB4G currently provides broadband access to 20 percent of rural Haiti, and certain areas of Micronesia, Kenya, Uganda and the West Bank of Palestine.
“Mfangano is a great pilot for building sustainable broadband networks,” said Eric Blantz, senior program director for Inveneo. “The challenges we’ve seen here are not unique, but the solutions we’re finding are innovative and replicable across the developing world.”
– Kasey Beduhn
Source: The Huffington Post
Photo: Organic Health Response