The “specter of the well-fed dead” is an image associated with wasted global aid; the dead bodies have full stomachs but no hope for a better future, exposing the limited, transitory nature of humanitarian aid. This supposed impotency of aid notwithstanding, arguments abound, citing the detrimental effects foreign aid can often have.
Detractors argue foreign aid merely serves as an alibi for real action, which must be wrought at the political level, not simply by pouring money into a broken system in order to defer real change. Fighting parties can compete over aid, prolonging conflicts, and a whole host of other ills can spawn from well-intentioned donations.
These are valid criticisms, but they emphasize the need to optimize—not discontinue—foreign aid. Factor Four improvements, an efficiency tool with great success in environmental initiatives, advocate cutting resource use in half while doubling productivity.
This drastic goal is achievable through changes in the management of aid—chief of which being how aid is labeled, along with reforms in administration.
Two categories of aid, humanitarian and economic development, determine how donor money is allocated. More precisely, $5.5 billion goes toward humanitarian aid, with $28.6 billion allotted for economic development assistance. This disproportion reflects the false assumption that humanitarian crises are short-term and passing, with lives temporarily at stake, and economic growth is a more substantial, long-term project.
Many conflicts, such as those in Afghanistan and Somalia, last for decades, rendering these aid labels a moot distinction with real consequences.
On a broader scale, when determining aid eligibility, countries are classified as either low-income or middle-income, with the latter ineligible for World Bank support. This distinction is unhelpful, as middle-income nations are generally the go-to destination for refugees fleeing conflict, leaving these stable nations in temporary need of aid money.
Middle-income nations, such as Jordan and Lebanon, are currently inundated with Syrian refugees; however, their middle-income status bars them from receiving the full amount of aid.
A better parameter for determining aid eligibility is fragility, which would consider not only a lack of stable government, solid economy or basic services, but also violence and poverty, key factors that would include both middle- and low-income countries.
Only 38% of aid currently spent is in fragile countries, a paltry sum that, with a mere change in labeling, could easily be improved, better serving those in greatest need.
Another area of improvement lies in the cost of transferring money from donors to their intended recipients. Forty-six cents on every dollar donated are lost in delivery.
Fortunately, costs can be reduced without sacrificing quality. Aid travels on a convoluted journey to reach recipients: taxpayers funds go to aid ministries before diverting to either NGOs or U.N. agencies and, finally, making their way to local groups or the U.N.’s own initiatives. This tangled web affects humanitarian aid flows, as 40% of U.N. targets aren’t reached.
Greater transparency about costs will help streamline these redundant bureaucratic layers. Similar problems in vaccine delivery, where immunization rates in developing countries have plateaued at 80%, causing 1.5 million premature deaths each year, can be solved by greater investments to improve coverage and extending the use of medical services.
Ultimately, studies on cost effectiveness—not just tallies of the amount of dollars spent—will need to be leveraged in order to determine opportunities for aid maximization. These studies are, however, notoriously difficult to conduct in turbulent nations.
Humanitarian agencies will also need to consider the implicit ethical messages their actions convey in the regions they serve. For example, if aid workers use company cars and equipment for personal expedition trips, this sends the message to locals that those who control the most resources can do as they please.
Or, if aid agencies employ armed guards to protect their resources, the message is that arms are a legitimate means of determining who receives aid, which is one of the messages of warfare.
More sensitivity to how aid agencies’ actions abroad shape perceptions in local communities will help stem the tide of conflict. Research shows it’s easier to modify behavior than it is to change deeply entrenched attitudes.
Governments are ultimately responsible for the well-being of their citizens, so they must view their sovereignty as responsibility, not as autonomy to resist conditional aid. Foreign aid must be seen as a complement—not a substitute—for domestic measures to improve an economy, but with these relatively straightforward paradigm shifts in labels and measures, almost double can be accomplished with half as many resources.
– Bilal Abdu Ibrahim
Sources: Foreign Affairs, Beyond Intractability, Caritas
Photo: Wikimedia
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
Global Connections Between LGBT Communities and Poverty
The United States has recently seen progress for the LGBT community with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage. Despite the plethora of barriers still standing for the LGBT community in America, there are even more for the community abroad. Moreover, there are many global connections between LGBT communities and poverty.
The amount of LGBT people in underdeveloped and developing countries may often be overlooked or under-considered. With such a focus on food and clothing, helping people in these nations with social issues, which often become economic issues, is commonly unacknowledged. It is thus difficult to place a number on how many people in these impoverished areas are LGBT, because of restricting laws that discourage coming out.
There are currently 81 countries that have repressive laws against same-sex actions and/or propaganda. Many of these countries are in North Africa and the Middle East, where poverty is widespread. Eight of those countries currently have a death penalty for homosexual behavior, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. These laws, death penalty or not, place further dangers on individuals in these areas.
Before the legal restrictions are even placed upon them, LGBT people experience hardships that come from social interactions and perceptions. Legal and economic securities become nearly nonexistent in nations with laws restricting any same-sex actions. It makes any type of health, economic or social security unattainable.
On top of that, rates of being wrongfully criminalized increase. Stigmas cause being shunned and excluded from daily activities or needs. The Williams Institute found that as many as 68% of LGBT people report experiencing discrimination, especially in regards to employment.
These limitations would be challenging enough for people residing in developed countries. In places where basic needs are hardly being met to start with, anti-LGBT laws can make access to food and water, education or healthcare seemingly unattainable.
The barriers placed upon the LBGT community are too great to be ignored when discussing poverty. As Colin Stewart from 76Crimes put it, “If LGBT poverty is not addressed, the goals [of alleviating extreme poverty] are mere aspirations and dreams.”
One of the most startling and disturbing occurrences of this mistreatment comes in the form of aid being provided to regions in need. There are two fronts to this issue. The first is that people providing aid often experience the same prejudice and harm that there is against same-sex individuals and supporters. In areas such as Uganda, Cameroon and Zambia, LGBT persecution has increased, as “HIV workers were more harassed, imprisoned and even killed” by anti-same-sex groups and organizations.
There has been much criticism over the fact these troubling issues have not been properly investigated and that support to these anti-same-sex and/or religious groups has continued despite such abuse.
The second issue international aid is facing is the blatant refusal of some organizations to serve and care for LGBT people in need. Sadly, too many donors and organizations turn a blind eye to the discrimination in front of them. Such behavior is allowing personal opinions to interfere with the livelihood and well-being of people truly in need. Increasing awareness of such discrimination is the first way to ensure equal treatment to individuals that are receiving aid from organizations and donors.
Human rights are making improvements around the world, but the fight is far from over.
– Katherine Wyant
Sources: International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, OpEdNews, Erasing 76 Crimes
Photo: Flickr
Visually Impaired Kenyan Students Receive a New Kind of Education
The initiative “Computer Labs for the Blind” aims to bring assistive learning technologies to 356 blind and visually impaired Kenyan students at the St. Oda Primary and Secondary School for the Blind in Gem District, Siaya County, Kenya.
This technology will be provided by partnerships between the organizations InAble, AccessKenya and the Rockefeller Foundation.
The program will not only train blind and visually impaired students, but also their teachers. The students will learn basic computer skills and how to access the Internet, and will also complete an online education program.
The goal of the organizations involved is to help these students develop skills that will make them employable, leading to a life that many visually impaired Kenyans could only have dreamed of in the past.
Over the years, the education of the blind and the visually impaired has faced many obstacles, including logistics, the availability of facilities and teaching resources. With these setbacks, the visually impaired have not been capable of participating in mainstream life.
Visually impaired students that reach the high school level are barred from participating in the sciences, such as chemistry and physics. Even if they were able to participate, most teachers are not properly trained in the appropriate methods for teaching blind and visually impaired people.
This leaves the students at a tremendous disadvantage.
“Braille textbooks happen to be bulky and expensive, requiring up to four or more students to share a single book, presenting a challenge in imparting knowledge to students,” said Irene Mbari Kirika, executive director of InAble Kenya. “For instance, whereas the costs of books required by a Form 4 student are KES 7,060, it would cost slightly over KES 61,000 [to get] braille [textbooks], which is way out of reach for very many Kenyans.”
However, it is not only the braille books that are more expensive: the notebook paper blind and visually students write on also costs more. Many schools are not equipped with the necessary funds for blind and visually impaired students, even though these students are expected to sit for the same tests and exams as other students.
AccessKenya Group will be investing KES 7.2 million over the next two years in the provision of technology resources and financial support. From the fund, KES 6 million will go towards the “Assistive Technology Labs” project, which will include broadband Internet.
Emily Kinuthia, Marketing Manager at AccessKenya, added, “We realize that there was a lot of focus on the provision of hardware but little emphasis on skilling both for the teachers and students. We are therefore making it easier to access the curriculum and other resources, such as digital books and applications, all of which will be available online in order to deliver value in technology studies.”
With these set goals, blind and visually impaired students in Kenya will be schooled in useful, everyday skills. And with these skills, these students will have the opportunity to enter the job market, something that many blind and visually impaired individuals have previously never thought possible.
– Kerri Szulak
Sources: IT News Africa, All Africa
Photo: Inable
How to Make Humanitarian Aid More Effective
The “specter of the well-fed dead” is an image associated with wasted global aid; the dead bodies have full stomachs but no hope for a better future, exposing the limited, transitory nature of humanitarian aid. This supposed impotency of aid notwithstanding, arguments abound, citing the detrimental effects foreign aid can often have.
Detractors argue foreign aid merely serves as an alibi for real action, which must be wrought at the political level, not simply by pouring money into a broken system in order to defer real change. Fighting parties can compete over aid, prolonging conflicts, and a whole host of other ills can spawn from well-intentioned donations.
These are valid criticisms, but they emphasize the need to optimize—not discontinue—foreign aid. Factor Four improvements, an efficiency tool with great success in environmental initiatives, advocate cutting resource use in half while doubling productivity.
This drastic goal is achievable through changes in the management of aid—chief of which being how aid is labeled, along with reforms in administration.
Two categories of aid, humanitarian and economic development, determine how donor money is allocated. More precisely, $5.5 billion goes toward humanitarian aid, with $28.6 billion allotted for economic development assistance. This disproportion reflects the false assumption that humanitarian crises are short-term and passing, with lives temporarily at stake, and economic growth is a more substantial, long-term project.
Many conflicts, such as those in Afghanistan and Somalia, last for decades, rendering these aid labels a moot distinction with real consequences.
On a broader scale, when determining aid eligibility, countries are classified as either low-income or middle-income, with the latter ineligible for World Bank support. This distinction is unhelpful, as middle-income nations are generally the go-to destination for refugees fleeing conflict, leaving these stable nations in temporary need of aid money.
Middle-income nations, such as Jordan and Lebanon, are currently inundated with Syrian refugees; however, their middle-income status bars them from receiving the full amount of aid.
A better parameter for determining aid eligibility is fragility, which would consider not only a lack of stable government, solid economy or basic services, but also violence and poverty, key factors that would include both middle- and low-income countries.
Only 38% of aid currently spent is in fragile countries, a paltry sum that, with a mere change in labeling, could easily be improved, better serving those in greatest need.
Another area of improvement lies in the cost of transferring money from donors to their intended recipients. Forty-six cents on every dollar donated are lost in delivery.
Fortunately, costs can be reduced without sacrificing quality. Aid travels on a convoluted journey to reach recipients: taxpayers funds go to aid ministries before diverting to either NGOs or U.N. agencies and, finally, making their way to local groups or the U.N.’s own initiatives. This tangled web affects humanitarian aid flows, as 40% of U.N. targets aren’t reached.
Greater transparency about costs will help streamline these redundant bureaucratic layers. Similar problems in vaccine delivery, where immunization rates in developing countries have plateaued at 80%, causing 1.5 million premature deaths each year, can be solved by greater investments to improve coverage and extending the use of medical services.
Ultimately, studies on cost effectiveness—not just tallies of the amount of dollars spent—will need to be leveraged in order to determine opportunities for aid maximization. These studies are, however, notoriously difficult to conduct in turbulent nations.
Humanitarian agencies will also need to consider the implicit ethical messages their actions convey in the regions they serve. For example, if aid workers use company cars and equipment for personal expedition trips, this sends the message to locals that those who control the most resources can do as they please.
Or, if aid agencies employ armed guards to protect their resources, the message is that arms are a legitimate means of determining who receives aid, which is one of the messages of warfare.
More sensitivity to how aid agencies’ actions abroad shape perceptions in local communities will help stem the tide of conflict. Research shows it’s easier to modify behavior than it is to change deeply entrenched attitudes.
Governments are ultimately responsible for the well-being of their citizens, so they must view their sovereignty as responsibility, not as autonomy to resist conditional aid. Foreign aid must be seen as a complement—not a substitute—for domestic measures to improve an economy, but with these relatively straightforward paradigm shifts in labels and measures, almost double can be accomplished with half as many resources.
– Bilal Abdu Ibrahim
Sources: Foreign Affairs, Beyond Intractability, Caritas
Photo: Wikimedia
Tunisia’s State of Emergency and International Aid
Just over a week after a terrorist attack on a Tunisian beach, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi declared a state of emergency in Tunisia. The declaration is intended to last no more than 30 days, though it is renewable. The state of emergency gives more rights to Tunisian security forces and political officials, allowing them more leeway in dealing with potential international and domestic terrorist threats.
Continuous threats and an unstable Western border have put the Tunisian economy on the brink of collapse, and Tunisian politicians in a state of panic. The most recent terrorist attack at Sousse, coupled with existing structural issues, have made humanitarian and anti-poverty aid in Tunisia particularly crucial and time-sensitive.
In his address to the nation in which he declared a state of emergency, President Beli Caid Essebsi insisted that economic and social challenges in the interior of the country, supported by extremism and instability elsewhere in North Africa, have created unique security challenges that the nation cannot handle alone. He declared that Tunisia was in “desperate” need of international assistance, both financially and with cooperative counterterrorism measures. Support from the international community—not just in policy, but in real humanitarian aid and crisis relief in the heart of Tunisia— is crucial to promoting the economic prosperity that discourages extremism and radicalism in developing nations.
Tunisia was not immune to the upheaval that spread across the Arab world in 2011, but it was one of the few nations that reacted to the events with real, democratic change. Since a revolt in January 2011, Tunisia has formed a constitution and staged two parliamentary elections. It remains one of the most secular nations in the region. While the nation in many ways progresses toward stability, its moderate government and continued poverty make it a target both for outside terrorists and for home-grown extremism.
Italy was one of the first nations to respond to the attack in Tunisia with a pledge of continued financial support to the Tunisian government and people. Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, tweeted: “Italy stands today with Tunisia more than ever. It was forced to declare a state of emergency in order to address the threat of terrorism and will receive more economic cooperation from Italy and greater assistance on the security level.” Meanwhile, the Italian Senate’s Foreign Policy Commission has encouraged multilateral financial support for Tunisia from the European Union.
While international aid in Northern Africa has generally focused on the needs and challenges faced by refugees and asylum-seekers, recent upheavals and violent episodes across the region—including the recent terrorist attack in Tunisia—have prompted many aid organizations to devote more energy and resources to protection and economic security of the citizens of the region. Until economic prosperity can combine with the nation’s real democratic efforts, violence will continue.
– Melissa Pavlik
Sources: BBC, Middle East Monitor, The New York Times, Public Radio International, UNHCR
Photo: BBC
Africa Almost Polio-Free
In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was created. It became the largest public-private public health partnership. Those working on the project include the World Health Initiative (WHO), Rotary International, national governments, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF and many others. So far, the program has seen a 99% reduction in the cases of polio. Over 3 billion children have been vaccinated by millions of volunteers.
Now, only three countries remain polio-endemic: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2013, only 416 cases were reported.
Most of Africa has been free of polio for years; however, Nigeria has been a trouble spot for the past 20 years. Actually, the leaders and people were very much against vaccinating children. The health organizations had little support, which meant that they lacked the necessary supervision and field staff. At times, the vaccinators were even killed. Currently, the political instability of Northern Nigeria makes monitoring and vaccinating children rather difficult. There could also be cases unreported.
Thankfully, the issues that held people back from vaccinating their children in the past have been solved for the most part. However, in the meantime, many other countries in Africa that were declared polio-free saw outbreaks of polio that were linked directly from Nigeria.
Nigeria saw what will hopefully become the last case of polio back in July of 2014. There have been no cases reported since then. If Nigeria can go a full year without another child contracting polio, then the WHO will remove Nigeria from the list of polio-endemic countries.
While Africa is steps away from being declared polio-free, vaccinating will not end there. As long as Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to report cases, mass global vaccinations will continue to take place to ensure that every child is safe.
– Katherine Hewitt
Sources: NPR, WHO
Photo: Flickr
Link Between HIV Risk and Secondary Schooling in Botswana
A study in The Lancet Global Health indicates that additional schooling can decrease the risk of HIV by 8.1 percent in Botswana.
This is the first study of its kind to link secondary schooling as a causal effect on new HIV infection. In 1996, Botswana implemented several policy reforms in order to expand education access to grade 10 and increase education for students.
The study used exposure to these policy reforms as the variable by which to understand the effect of schooling on the risk of HIV. The researchers estimated the causal effect of the number of years of schooling based on the probability that an individual would contract HIV up to their age when the survey was administered.
Not only did each additional year of schooling lead to a reduction in the risk of HIV contraction, but these policy changes were proven to be cost-effective HIV prevention methods.
The annual cost of education per student in Botswana is USD $2,248. The cost per HIV infection averted amounts to USD $27,753. These calculations were performed with World Bank data and approximated using DALYs (Disability Adjusted Lifetime Years) to understand the impact of lives lost and shortened by the burden of HIV.
Increased schooling can allow people access to information on how to avoid contracting HIV. Furthermore, we understand that increased schooling has many other benefits. It allows for increased employment opportunities and can help communities develop in a sustainable way.
The fact that these policy reforms were successful and cost effective could imply that other countries could benefit from similar policy reforms. However, further research is needed to understand exactly why and how the education reforms in Botswana were as effective as they were.
– Iliana Lang
Sources: The Lance
Photo: Peace Corps
UN Report Shows Progress on Poverty
This past week, the U.N. released a report on the successes and failures of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The report revealed that more than one billion people have successfully broken out of poverty since 1990. It showed China and India playing key roles in this significant reduction of and progress on poverty.
The report also showed that in addition to a sharp drop in extreme poverty, the MDGs have facilitated other major successes. Presently, just as many girls as boys are enrolled in primary schools around the globe. Simple steps like installing bed nets in parts of the developed world have prevented approximately six billion deaths from malaria.
Experts say that the most important MDG contribution has been the creation of a measuring system that depicts what countries have done for their people, and what issues they have neglected. Concrete measurements of well-being—like how many children are clinically malnourished—provide the most helpful insight on the most pressing needs.
The report stated that the world’s most populous countries, China and India, played a central role in global poverty reduction. Economic progress in China helped the extreme poverty rate in Eastern Asia fall from 61 percent in 1990 to a mere four percent in 2015.
By the same token, development in India helped extreme poverty in Southern Asia decline from 52 percent to 17 percent over the same time period. Additionally, Southern Asia’s rate of poverty reduction has accelerated over the past seven years.
While these remarkable gains should not be understated, there is still much more to be done. In India, an estimated 600 million people still defecate out in the open, which dramatically heightens risk of serious disease, especially for children. Additionally, jobs are still not keeping pace with the country’s population growth.
Despite much progress, certain MDG targets were still missed, including a two-thirds reduction of child mortality and women’s deaths in childbirth. Persisting gender inequality was acknowledged as “one of the starkest failures” in the report, as women are still more likely to be poor than men.
This is not to say that progress has not been made on both fronts, but to encourage an even greater collaborative effort in the future. The MDG target of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty was achieved ahead of the 2015 deadline five years ago. This is the kind of efficiency we must continually strive for.
The most recent estimates show that the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day fell globally from 36 percent in 1990, to just 15 percent in 2011. As of 2015, projections indicate that the global extreme poverty rate has fallen even further, to 12 percent.
At the launch of the report in Oslo, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proudly stated, “The report confirms the global efforts to achieve the goals have saved millions of lives and improved conditions for millions more around the world.” He encouraged the celebration of MDG successes across the global community.
Indeed, the report’s findings most certainly call for worldwide celebration. So too, however, they paint a picture of certain key areas in need of improvement. Looking ahead, findings such as these should help to pave the path for the post-2015 development goals agenda.
– Sarah Bernard
Sources: NY Times, Economic Times
Photo: NY Times
5 Anti-Poverty Organizations with Opportunities for Students
Some say college is the best four years of your life; these anti-poverty organizations are helping to make them some of the most meaningful as well. While some groups only offer internships at their headquarters, here are some anti-poverty organizations with either on-campus opportunities, remote or summer training or volunteer opportunities. These opportunities offer advocacy and leadership experience for college students hoping to raise awareness of global poverty on their own campus.
1. ONE
According to its website, “ONE is an international campaigning and advocacy organization of nearly 7 million taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.” There are campus clubs for ONE on campuses across the country. Online, ONE offers resources, ideas and challenges for their student-run campus clubs. For more information, visit its website.
2. Oxfam
Oxfam’s mission is “to create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice.” For college students, Oxfam offers the opportunity to create and sustain an Oxfam club on campus, as well as a training program one must be selected to attend. Oxfam currently has clubs on more than 100 college campuses. To start a club on campus, you can download a “toolkit” from the website and register your university’s club with the organization. Oxfam’s leadership training program, CHANGE, trains 50 students each summer on nonprofit organizations, advocacy and more.
3. RESULTS
RESULTS is a grassroots advocacy group. It is written on its website that “with every hour of their time, volunteers multiply their impact through the enormous power of advocacy—whether it’s helping change policty to support millions of families putting food on the table or helping raise billions of dollars for the world’s most vulnerable children.” RESULTS offers a variety of ways for individuals across the country to get involved. You can listen in on a call where the staff discusses the work of the organization, tips for your own advocacy and how to get involved. Online you can learn about the different RESULTS groups in your area and connect with other people interested in ending poverty. These groups allow people to make an impact in their area by joining together, reaching out to state legislators and planning advocacy events. For more information about how you can get involved visit its website.
4. The Hunger Project
The mission of The Hunger Project is “to end hunger and poverty by pioneering sustainable, grassroots, women-centered strategies and advocating for their widespread adoption throughout the world.” Individuals interested can volunteer bi-annually in The Hunger Project’s global office in New York. Online, volunteer opportunities are posted as available, and those interested in being volunteer activists must follow the steps listed in the “get involved tab” under the “volunteer” section of The Hunger Project’s website.
5. The Borgen Project
The Borgen Project aims to raise awareness of global poverty and the issues that it creates. Through advocacy and campaigning, The Borgen Project forces the nation’s leaders to take notice of this global issue and encourages action to address it in U.S. foreign policy. The Borgen Project not only has volunteer and internship positions in Seattle and remotely, but also provides advocacy tips on its website.
– Rachelle Kredentser
Sources: ONE, ,Oxfam, RESULTS, The Hunger Project, The Borgen Project
Fighting Ebola with Liberty and Justice
When the Ebola virus attacks the human body, the symptoms include muscle pain, vomit, fever and unexplained hemorrhage. While these symptoms are tragic and often fatal, there are no surprises when it comes to the virus itself—we know what it looks like and we can visibly see the damage it leaves in its wake. When the Ebola virus attacks an economy, however, as it did in Liberia in 2014, we know little about the exact symptoms and even less about the treatments available to combat it.
Until 2014, Chid Liberty, the founder of fair trade clothing manufacturer Liberty and Justice, had run his operations out of his native Liberia with ease. This changed almost overnight with the Ebola outbreaks of 2014.
“We had built the company up to a 500,000 orders per month and in a flash we were out of business,” Liberty said in an interview with Madame Noir. “The Ebola epidemic left us and the hundreds of workers and families that were depending on us stranded without income.”
Our economies are just as vulnerable as our immune systems, and can succumb to Ebola just as easily. It is estimated by the World Bank Group that nearly 50 percent of working adults in Liberia lost their jobs after the outbreak. However, Liberty refused to close his doors at the behest of the disease. Instead he turned his ingenuity into a tonic for the symptoms of Ebola and founded UNIFORM, a company based in Liberia dedicated to making affordable school uniforms for children who had been forced to leave school due to Ebola.
Liberia already has one of the lowest rates of primary education enrollment rates in Africa. According to The Global Economy website, an average of only 53.85 percent children reported having completed primary school between 1978 and 2011.
School attendance often incurs costs far beyond those of just tuition—the prices of books, the inability to work a salaried job, and even the cost of the mandatory uniform act as considerable deterrents to struggling families. The uniforms especially act as barriers to school attendance. Abdul Latif Jameel confirmed this in his 2009 study in Kenya, in which he discovered that providing children with free uniforms reduced school absenteeism by 44 percent and decreased dropout rates (particularly among girls) by a third.
Liberty’s UNIFORM brand has embraced the challenge of mollifying the effects of Ebola on the education of Liberia’s children. Their kick starter campaign, which has $174,760, has already given away 7,000 new school uniforms, all of which are being manufactured by small factories throughout Liberia (Madame Noir).
“I am very proud to be working on such a project,” said Ms. Annie Blamo to the UN Ebola Response team. Blamo is a worker in the Monrovian Liberty and Justice factory who has been manufacturing uniforms for the N.V. Massaquoi school, Blamo’s eight-hour days paid off when her son returned to school in early May. “We are so happy for what this factory has done for the children at the N.V. Massaquoi school and their name will be forever remembered.”
UNIFORM’s kick starter campaign will continue to accept donations until July 16, 2015.
– Emma Betuel
Sources: Ebola Response, Madame Noire, Poverty Action Lab, Time Dotcom
Photo: New York Post