The World Health Organization confirmed that polio in Ethiopia has been eradicated after an assessment team concluded the evaluation process from June 8 to June 12, 2015. This last polio outbreak began almost two years ago in the Horn of Africa, specifically in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
The assessment team consisted of experts from the Centers for Disease Control, Rotary International, the United States Agency for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CORE Group, the United Nations Children Fund, the World Health Organization Headquarters and the World Health Organization Horn of Africa Polio Coordination Office.
The assessment team worked together throughout the outbreak in all three countries to determine that global standards had been met in response to the outbreak and that the transmission of polio had been interrupted. To do this, the team monitored updates from the Federal Ministry of Health on such matters as immunization progress and activities, funding aspects, communication and surveillance.
Polio in Ethiopia: Remaining Polio-Free
The assessment also provided a framework for the efforts still needed to maintain a polio-free status. In order to remain polio-free, Ethiopia needs to update its outbreak and preparedness response plan, strengthen routine immunization and fortify their implementation of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance.
AFP is the symptom that indicates that polio could be present. It means that limbs are floppy and lifeless. However, its presence could also be due to other causes. As a result, AFP must be reported in every child less than 15 years of age and tested for poliovirus within 48 hours of onset.
It is expected that there are one to two cases of AFP in every 100,000 children under the age of 5. If there are no reports of AFP in such circumstances, then a region is considered to be “silent.” “Silence” indicates a weakness in the surveillance system, and a failure to end this “silence” could prevent the eradication of polio.
According to WHO, “As long as a single child remains infected […] as many as 200,000 new cases could result every year within 10 years, all over the world.”
Polio is caused by a highly infectious virus, poliovirus, which invades the nervous system. However, 90% of infected people have no symptoms or just very mild symptoms that go unnoticed. In other cases, symptoms could consist of fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infected people become irreversibly paralyzed, usually in the legs. Five to ten percent of those paralyzed die because their breathing muscles become paralyzed.
Across the Horn of Africa, 223 children became paralyzed during the last two years, due to the poliovirus.
Since there is no cure for polio, the polio vaccination is the only protection. In Ethiopia, social mobilizers were successful in their efforts to raise parents’ awareness of the risks of polio and upcoming campaigns to vaccinate children.
It is these connections among informed social mobilizers, healthcare workers and parents within a community that not only leads to vaccination but also builds understanding and commitment to recognizing and reporting AFP to authorities.
Although vaccination and AFP are critical in the eradication of polio, this is not accepted knowledge everywhere. Taliban militants strongly resist vaccination campaigns and are considered responsible for deadly attacks on polio vaccination workers. They “view the campaign as un-Islamic and the health workers are Western spies,” according to The New York Times. Pakistan accounted for 85% of the polio cases reported in 2014.
Ethiopia reported its last case of polio on January 5, 2014. Kenya has also halted the transmission of polio, having reported its last case of polio on July 14, 2013. Somalia has not yet been assessed for eradcation, even though it reported its last case on August 11, 2014. The Somalian government is unable to reach approximately 350,000 children under the age of 5 in order to administer vaccinations, and the assessment team has found gaps in their surveillance efforts.
In spite of these hurdles, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988 by the World Health Assembly to eradicate polio worldwide, has made enormous progress. Since that time, the number of people infected with the poliovirus has dropped more than 99%. In 2014, only 3 countries remain polio-endemic: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
– Janet Quinn
Sources: Global Polio Eradication Initiative, The New York Times, Outbreak News Today 1, Outbreak News Today 2, WHO
Photo: Flickr
Treatment to HIV/AIDS Patients Spreads Globally
After years of struggling to get proper treatment to HIV/AIDS patients in Africa, there finally seems to be some progress, and furthermore, some hope.
Different aid and relief groups have struggled with treating people in Africa that have contracted the HIV or AIDS illness because of uncooperative governments, and a lack of financial means. However, despite seemingly discouraging statistics and results in the past, the United Nations Aids agency has thus far made a significant impact on the small communities throughout impoverished Africa.
The overall goal was to treat about 15 million people by 2015—a goal that was set in 2010. Targeting people in wealthier and more developed countries has not been an issue when it comes to spreading the treatment for HIV patients. Unfortunately, it has been significantly more difficult to provide treatment to poorer regions of the world, such as in Africa where there is the highest concentration of cases of HIV in the world. The region of Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for 66 perecnt of the cases of HIV around the world.
Despite obvious obstacles, the United Nations has been able to successfully provide treatment to many impoverished people in Africa. The goal previously set by the UN to provide treatment to 15 million people has already been reached and is now being surpassed. Since 2000, when the number of people being treated for the illness was only 700,000, the number of new cases per year around the world has decreased from 2.6 million to 1.8 million a year, a drastic drop.
Because these goals were met so quickly and efficiently, the UN has now set even more optimistic goals. The UN AIDS agency now is working to create more sustainable and long term treatment for patients living with HIV especially in poor countries. Furthermore, the UN is aspiring to end the AIDS epidemic entirely by the year 2030.
– Alexandrea Jacinto
Sources: BBC, Avert
Photo: Direct Relief
Power to Victims: Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is a major concern especially for young people in underdeveloped and developing nations. However, there have been major efforts to save those taken into modern-day slavery, and victims of such atrocities are now fighting back.
Victims are fighting back with two different approaches: through advocacy programs, and through direct involvement in ending human trafficking and returning others who have fallen victim. These victims range in age, gender and nationalities, whether poor countries in Africa or citizens of the United States. Human trafficking a global issue that affects every nation directly.
The United Nations has founded that 70% of those taken into human trafficking are young women and children. When victims, especially women and children, are able to escape their traffickers, they often find themselves in need of help. For this reason, many shelters and organizations have begun to appear around the world—in order to shelter and protect these traumatized victims, as well as bring their violators to justice.
The Philippines have had several young people taken into human trafficking against their will, and, as the issue is given more attention, victims of the practice are now finding the strength to oppose their captors. Many of these victims are women and children, stolen from shelters—as many of them were already fleeing unsafe living circumstances.
There are shelters throughout the Philippines that are specifically established to house people who have fled their human trafficking captors, assist them in reintegrating into society and also give the legal assistance needed to take down their traffickers.
Human trafficking is also being combated by nonprofit organizations that are emerging all over the globe. A number of organizations have been created to spread awareness of the issue in an effort to end the terrible practice.
One group that was created for such a purpose is Polaris, a nonprofit organization that works with survivors of human trafficking and governments of different countries to apprehend human traffickers and bring back captives who have been taken against their will. One of the biggest efforts in ending the phenomena is through advocacy and spreading awareness of the issue, as is the case for many security concerns throughout the world.
– Alexandrea Jacinto
Sources: CNN, The Polaris Project, The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime
Photo: FBI
Empact Northwest: Rapid Ready Response When Disaster Strikes
On April 25, a massive earthquake of magnitude 7.8 rocked the tiny country of Nepal. Widespread devastation resulted and the aftermath left hundreds of people entombed in concrete graves. As the international relief effort mobilized, smaller teams of volunteers responded from all over the world using money from their own pockets. One of these teams was Empact Northwest.
Empact Northwest, a nonprofit volunteer organization, hails from Kitsap County, Washington. They specialize in dispatching technical rescue operations locally, regionally, nationally and internationally to communities in need. The group’s motto is “Empathy in action” and on April 27, empathy turned into action when they deployed as Disaster Team 1 to Nepal.
The epicenter of the earthquake that struck Nepal was located in the Lamjung District northwest of Katmandu, a part of Gandaki Zone and one of the seventy-five districts of Nepal, a landlocked country in South Asia. The district, with Besisahar as its headquarters, covers an area of 1,692 squared kilometeres and has a population of 167,724, as of 2011. Lamjung mainly consists of agricultural villages.
After establishing an operation base in Katmandu, Disaster Team 1 became USA-11 by the United Nations Disaster Assistance Center (UNDAC) and were then assigned to the village of Lanmang. The team drove and hiked over rough terrain and demolished roads before they reached the village, where they provided rescue operations and conveyed vital assessment information to the UNDAC. Later, USA-11 partnered with a rescue group from Burnaby, British Columbia in the town of Barabise, conducting K-9 search and rescue tactics.
Empact Northwest is certainly not a newcomer to the international aid scene. The organization is only about five years old, but since its formation, inspired by work done after an earthquake in Haiti, it has been involved in numerous life-saving missions around the world. Empact Northwest offers technical rope and urban search and rescue as well as emergency medical services to disaster-stricken communities. Not only providing rescue, they also offer preventative education to at-risk populations.
In addition to the recent Nepal disaster, since 2010 Empact Northwest has responded to situations in Haiti, Pakistan, Japan, Sierra Leone and the Philippines, providing relief and rescue in catastrophes ranging from earthquakes to tsunamis. It also provides medical relief, logistics and educational mission projects.
Between catastrophes, Empact Northwest is not sitting around idly. The organization is working to provide emergency medical technician training to hundreds of people in Haiti in an attempt to help Haitians sustain a skilled medical work force.
There seems to be no shortage of tragedies in the world, but it is thanks to organizations like Empact Northwest that people are able to cope with these hardships as best they can. In just five short years, Empact Northwest has made an incredible contribution to the globe’s developing countries by saving lives in communities where poverty and hardship are made painfully worse by natural disasters.
– Jason Zimmerman
Sources: Empact Northwest, UNOCHA, CBS
Photo: Empact Northwest
US and Brazil Work Together for Food Security in Mozambique
Obama recently announced that $2 million would be dedicated to an expansion of the partnership between USAID, through Feed the Future, and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency. The money will be used to help Mozambique increase food security with creative agricultural production strategies.
Around 54.7% of Mozambique’s population lives below the national poverty line. The country also struggles with high rates of chronic malnutrition.
With these additional American and Brazilian funds and support systems, Mozambique is in a position to reduce poverty. It has one of the highest rates of economic growth in Africa and exports a large amount of food in the region.
Feed the Future and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency have started initiatives to connect school food programs with local agricultural production. Agricultural research and technology to support local farmers can help address the malnutrition in the region and the broader prevalence of poverty by supporting local farmers.
In the fiscal year of 2013, 47,700 hectares of land were sustained with improved technologies, 575,000 people were trained in child health and nutrition, and 63,800 producers have used new agricultural skills developed by Feed the Future projects
There are several key strategies to increase Mozambique’s food security. One is to increase farmers’ access to agricultural inputs, finance services and unique partnerships. In Mozambique, the central focus is support of critical value chains. For example, sesame, soybean and banana are important crops for nutritional and economic reasons.
Moving forward, there is a push to increase equitable growth in agriculture, support the government’s investment plan and promote local agriculture and nutrition efforts.
– Iliana Lang
Sources: Feed the Future, USAID 1, USAID 2
Photo: Feed The Future
6 Cosmetic, Clothing or Accessory Brands Working for Good Causes
There are plenty of brands around the world that have philanthropic purposes or that have created programs and products that use certain designs in order to participate in charitable programs.
Clothing brands and cosmetic brands have also provided opportunities for many people to participate in charitable programs, while spreading awareness of causes that matter around the world.
Using fashion, jewelry or cosmetic products such as makeup or skin lotions, these brands convert their products into donations or awareness. In other words, their customer will not only be buying their fashion or beauty product, but they will also be contributing to a good cause.
1) LUSH
LUSH is a handmade cosmetic brand that works with organic ingredients to create fresh cosmetic products. This brand uses little or no preservatives in its products and uses vegetarian ingredients.
This brand believes in protecting humans, animals and the planet, showing that they are committed to create their products as natural and as ecologically-friendly as possible.
LUSH is also devoted to work as a campaigner brand that supports animal rights, environment protection and many humanitarian causes, using activism and charitable giving. The brand has a product called “Charity Pot,” which is a hand and body lotion that, whenever is purchased, 100% of the price goes to humanitarian causes in the country or around the world.
2) Satya Jewelry
Satya is a jewelry brand that created modern jewelry pieces with a meaning. The Satya Foundation, along with its jewelry, supports different children groups and charities around the world.
The brand’s foundation is partnered with different organizations, orphanages and projects. Some of the brand’s partners are Commit 2 Change, Charity: Water, and the Manjushree Orphanage, among others. These projects and organizations have different purposes, but each one is dedicated to a worthy humanitarian cause.
3) FEED
“Creating good products that help feed the world” is the phrase that this brand uses as their slogan. This brand creates bags, accessories and clothing out of natural fabrics and artisan-made materials that help with a donation to provide meals around the world to people in need.
The brand has forged partnerships with many other brands, such as Target, Disney, Tory Burch, Godiva, TOMS and many others.
4) Lemlem
Lemlem is a brand that sells women’s and kids apparel, accessories and home items. Founded by model Liya Kebede, this brand empowers and partners with local artisans in the creation of their products.
The brand’s motto, “Made in Ethiopia,” proves that there are different ways and destinations for clothing and accessory production.
5) Warby Parker
This brand sells designer eye wear at an affordable price, and at the same time donates to a humanitarian cause.
They believe that everyone has the right to see, so every time a person buys a pair of Warby Parker glasses, the brand makes donations to their nonprofit partners that cover the donation of glasses to people in need.
Their primary partner, VisionSpring, trains men and women in developing countries to give eye exams and sell glasses to very affordable prices, while also spreading awareness.
The brand believes that selling the glasses at a very affordable price helps these low-income communities to earn a living through their improved vision.
6) Same Sky
This is a jewelry brand that offers products for both men and women. They provide job opportunities to women who are struggling and living in extreme poverty.
The brand has the vision to provide a second chance to these women struggling to make a living. They offer the employment, fair pay, training and education that these women need in order to empower themselves and live self-sustaining lives.
– Diana Fernanda Leon
Sources: LUSH, Satya Jewelry, Feed Projects, LemLem, Warby Parker, Same Sky
Photo: NorthPark Center
Polio in Ethiopia Eradicated
The World Health Organization confirmed that polio in Ethiopia has been eradicated after an assessment team concluded the evaluation process from June 8 to June 12, 2015. This last polio outbreak began almost two years ago in the Horn of Africa, specifically in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
The assessment team consisted of experts from the Centers for Disease Control, Rotary International, the United States Agency for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CORE Group, the United Nations Children Fund, the World Health Organization Headquarters and the World Health Organization Horn of Africa Polio Coordination Office.
The assessment team worked together throughout the outbreak in all three countries to determine that global standards had been met in response to the outbreak and that the transmission of polio had been interrupted. To do this, the team monitored updates from the Federal Ministry of Health on such matters as immunization progress and activities, funding aspects, communication and surveillance.
Polio in Ethiopia: Remaining Polio-Free
The assessment also provided a framework for the efforts still needed to maintain a polio-free status. In order to remain polio-free, Ethiopia needs to update its outbreak and preparedness response plan, strengthen routine immunization and fortify their implementation of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance.
AFP is the symptom that indicates that polio could be present. It means that limbs are floppy and lifeless. However, its presence could also be due to other causes. As a result, AFP must be reported in every child less than 15 years of age and tested for poliovirus within 48 hours of onset.
It is expected that there are one to two cases of AFP in every 100,000 children under the age of 5. If there are no reports of AFP in such circumstances, then a region is considered to be “silent.” “Silence” indicates a weakness in the surveillance system, and a failure to end this “silence” could prevent the eradication of polio.
According to WHO, “As long as a single child remains infected […] as many as 200,000 new cases could result every year within 10 years, all over the world.”
Polio is caused by a highly infectious virus, poliovirus, which invades the nervous system. However, 90% of infected people have no symptoms or just very mild symptoms that go unnoticed. In other cases, symptoms could consist of fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infected people become irreversibly paralyzed, usually in the legs. Five to ten percent of those paralyzed die because their breathing muscles become paralyzed.
Across the Horn of Africa, 223 children became paralyzed during the last two years, due to the poliovirus.
Since there is no cure for polio, the polio vaccination is the only protection. In Ethiopia, social mobilizers were successful in their efforts to raise parents’ awareness of the risks of polio and upcoming campaigns to vaccinate children.
It is these connections among informed social mobilizers, healthcare workers and parents within a community that not only leads to vaccination but also builds understanding and commitment to recognizing and reporting AFP to authorities.
Although vaccination and AFP are critical in the eradication of polio, this is not accepted knowledge everywhere. Taliban militants strongly resist vaccination campaigns and are considered responsible for deadly attacks on polio vaccination workers. They “view the campaign as un-Islamic and the health workers are Western spies,” according to The New York Times. Pakistan accounted for 85% of the polio cases reported in 2014.
Ethiopia reported its last case of polio on January 5, 2014. Kenya has also halted the transmission of polio, having reported its last case of polio on July 14, 2013. Somalia has not yet been assessed for eradcation, even though it reported its last case on August 11, 2014. The Somalian government is unable to reach approximately 350,000 children under the age of 5 in order to administer vaccinations, and the assessment team has found gaps in their surveillance efforts.
In spite of these hurdles, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988 by the World Health Assembly to eradicate polio worldwide, has made enormous progress. Since that time, the number of people infected with the poliovirus has dropped more than 99%. In 2014, only 3 countries remain polio-endemic: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
– Janet Quinn
Sources: Global Polio Eradication Initiative, The New York Times, Outbreak News Today 1, Outbreak News Today 2, WHO
Photo: Flickr
Cooperatives are the Future for UN’s Success
The United Nations has proposed the Sustainable Development Goals to bring people out of poverty and address the issues that keep them there. These tasks were set down after the Millennium Development Goals, which were supposed to be accomplished by this year but were not entirely fulfilled. The United Nations sat down and looked at the programs that they had implemented to eliminate poverty to see what worked and what did not. The conclusion was that cooperatives saw the most success in raising people out of poverty.
That is the direction the United Nations has decided to go in when figuring out how to make the new Sustainable Development Goals a success.
Cooperatives are community driven; the focus is on the people. They combine the resources of several people/groups in the community, forming bonds and creating businesses that one person could not do alone. It allows people who had never had a say in running things to speak. More importantly, cooperatives allow those who are most affected—the poor—a say in the outcomes. Local people are tied together, and thus, want to work for the betterment of their community.
Research that the United Nations conducted also concluded that cooperatives increased employment (especially in the areas that they were located), improved gender equality, used more clean energy, bettered food security and provided social protection. Generally speaking, cooperatives create 100 million jobs worldwide, which is more than any multinational enterprise. Another economic gain is income protection, as the people earn what they make and no big cooperation takes a cut.
In order to monitor the future success of the cooperatives, the United Nations created the Division for Social Policy and Development. The department is to aid in the formation of cooperatives across poverty-stricken areas.
In conclusion, the cooperatives not only bring economic success to poor areas, but also develop many other aspects of the community—something the United Nations wants to see happen. They want to give people the skills and resources to better themselves not just economically but socially and politically. Cooperatives can do this.
– Katherine Hewitt
Sources: UN 1, UN 2, UWCC
Photo: UN
CPAP Machine to Save Lives of Newborns
The neonatal continuous positive airway pressure machine, or CPAP, can be used to save the lives of newborns in developing countries who struggle to breathe after birth. PATH named the neonatal bubble CPAP machine a top breakthrough innovation of 2015 that can help save women and children.
The CPAP machine is used for newborns with breathing difficulties, a leading cause of death in premature babies. The machine contains three main parts: the mask that fits over the nose (or nose and mouth) with straps to keep it in place, the tube that connects to the machine’s motor and the motor that blows air into the tube.
It works using a positive pressure system to help a newborn experiencing respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). RDS is more common in newborns because they have not yet produced enough surfactant, a liquid that coats the lungs to help the baby breathe in air. Without enough surfactant, the infant’s lungs collapse.
The problem is that the neonatal CPAP machine costs up to $6,000, a price tag far too high for most developing countries. Because of this, a group of Rice University faculty, students, clinicians and public and private sector partners dedicated to health technology initiatives sprung into action.
Partnering with Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine and 3rd Stone Design, this group, called Rice 360°, created the bubble CPAP to treat infants with RDS in the developing world. Using an aquarium pump to deliver air and a water bottle to relieve pressure, the machine costs as low as $800 instead of $6,000.
With this more reasonable price range and help from the Saving Lives at Birth grant, Rice 360° and its partners are looking to implement the device where it is needed, starting in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa. In areas where premature babies have a low chance of survival, the bubble CPAP machine will change the odds and decrease infant mortality.
– Hannah Resnick
Sources: NIH 1, NIH 2, PATH, Rice 360°
Photo: Tracheostomy
Heifer International Takes a Holistic Approach to Community Development
Heifer International follows the “teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime” philosophy.
The charity organization teaches families living in hunger and poverty how to practice sustainable agriculture and trade. Heifer International provides livestock and other agricultural resources that support financial independence. It also works with public and private partners to ingrain the entrepreneurial drive into the hearts of many developing nations.
Founded in 1944 by Dan West, Heifer is an exemplar in the fight against global poverty.
So far, Heifer has joined forces in more than 125 countries, helping more than 22.6 million families break the cycle of poverty.
In investing in local economies, Heifer has had incredible success.
In 2013, Heifer instituted its Global Impact Monitoring System that collects reference data related to its development work. With this system, the impact is more greatly measurable. This “values-based” system monitors all projects at the group-level and global-level. Heifer further reviews its work by evaluating its projects on five key elements: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.
Heifer projects cover Africa, Asia and the Americas.
The Sahel Program in Africa develops local livestock production in the Sahel region. By providing sheep and goats, the program will impact 516,000 families between 2014 and 2024. The goal is to build resilient and sustainable farming livelihoods.
The Southern Africa Goat Value Chain Program targets food and income security by establishing producers associations, cooperative management and market infrastructures, according to the Heifer site.
The Africa Climate Change Adaption and Mitigation (ACCAM) Program also tackles food security. On the Heifer website, the ACCAM profile lists its goals: creating adaptive climate resilient food systems, increased access to renewable energies, sustainable management of natural resources, increased access to water for agricultural production, sanitation and hygiene, and increased women’s participation in control of resources, leadership and decision-making.
In Asia, Heifer launched similar value chain programs in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam. They focus on increasing supplies and management of local commodities such as beef, dairy, goat, swine, chicken and other staple foods.
The GANASOL Agricultural and Livestock Program in Central and South America connects local farmers to market resources. The PROMESA Coffee and Cocoa Program revolves around the coffee, cocoa, cardamom and honey value chains. The PROCOSTA Coastal and Mangrove Ecosystems program addresses climate change, income and food security, and the subsequent issues that affect the mangrove and coastal zones.
This work continues in several other programs, all of which foster self-reliant livelihoods in primarily agriculturally dependent regions.
Heifer International believes in achieving zero hunger by supporting small-scale farmers.
– Lin Sabones
Sources: Heifer, Vimeo
Photo: The Global Journal
Videre est Credere: London’s (Secret) Eye on Human Rights
Videre est Credere equips local activists with small, hidden video-capable technologies. The tools give oppressed communities the power to capture and distribute recorded evidence of human rights violations surrounding them.
The name literally means “to see is to believe” in Latin. CEO Oren Yakobovich and Board Chairman Uri Fruchtmann founded the project in 2008. The international charitable organization is based in London, and since its launch, it has trained more than 500 activists in how to effectively plan, create and deliver useful footage.
The methodology is simple. First, local activists receive training on how to safely document effective and convincing footage. Then, Videre collects, verifies, re-verifies and distributes the evidence free-of-charge to those who can turn it into actual change on the ground.
The video cameras and distribution equipment are provided through personal training in security, filming and verification. Videre’s security process is of the utmost importance as it is responsible for data storage, communication encryption, counter-surveillance and authenticity.
Videre works with numerous influential allies including international decision-makers, courts, lawyers, civil society, local communities and a global media network of over 100 media outlets, according to the Videre site. Prior, these distribution clients are agreed upon by Videre, its partner organizations and trusted advisers.
Videre then gathers and processes the footage itself. The organization’s local networks label points of interest so that the undercover recorders have an idea of what to capture. These plans consider what images Videre needs, where they will have the most impact, and what risks are involved, according to the Videre site. Further, the evidence is analyzed by a series of tests from forensic testing to special verification teams in the field. Videre archives all materials in the case of future court cases, briefings or the like.
Constant feedback is also available throughout Videre’s work.
Videre’s six central goals are to strengthen freedom of speech, enhance accountability and justice, protect human rights defenders, expose human rights violations, deter violence and political intimidation, and empower oppressed communities.
So far, the Videre team has enlisted hundreds of human rights activists in several countries around the world. Videre evidence has been used in court, decision-making, NGO advocacy and the media, surrounding issues like political intimidation, corruption, political manipulation of aid and female genital mutilation.
– Lin Sabones
Sources: Videre Est Credere, TED
Photo: Wired