In every place around the world regardless of religious tradition, culture and language, giving to others has always been an idea encouraged for thousands of years. From Lao Tzu to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Prophet Mohammed to St. Thomas Aquinas, the importance of giving to others has been written and spoken about extensively.
Yet, despite the long history of giving, many people today do not donate to any cause for various reasons. It may be that they are unsure how to navigate the vast array of organizations and causes, or that they are hesitant about how their money will be used, or simply they don’t realize what benefit it has on others.
As Aristotle said:
“To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power. But to decide to whom to give it, and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy matter.”
Giving is easy, but why and where to give are difficult questions to answer. Listed below are five great reasons why people should give to charity. Deciding where and how much is a personal decision, but there is not much to argue with when it comes to why. In fact, with Americans donating $335.17 billion in 2013 there seems to be some very good reasons for donating.
1. Sense of Purpose
Giving to charity helps you participate in a cause you feel strongly about. Even if you don’t have the time to volunteer, charitable gifts go a long way in helping organizations operate and impact those they help.
In addition, studies show that people who give to charity are happier people. So when faced with the decision of whether to buy an unneeded new pair of shoes or donate that money to a cause, choose the cause. You may not get new shoes, but you’ll be much happier in the long run.
2. You can make a difference
While it may seem that a small donation won’t make a big difference, however even small gifts can have a big impact.
For instance, through programs like Kiva, a nonprofit micro-lender, individuals can loan as little as $25 to help impoverished, would-be entrepreneurs in the developing world start a small business. Many of these people do not have access to a strong banking sector so these loans provide are a great method of empowerment.
To date Kiva has had 860,000 individual lenders participate and has a 99 percent loan payback rate.
3. Donations are often tax-deductible
Giving to money to most charitable organizations has the added benefit of being tax deductible. There are approximately 1, 536,084 charitable organizations in the U.S. according to 2013 data, which means that are plenty of places for people to give.
What does this mean in concrete terms? If someone were to give $100 to a tax-exempt organization of their choice, the donation may actually only turn out to be $65 or less due to tax refunds. The donation not only benefits the organization, but also the individual giving.
4. Matching Gifts can have a big impact
A great way to give to charity is to find an organization or corporation that will do a matching gift. Matching gifts are when a company will match dollar-for-dollar what their employee gives; maximizing the impact of the gift as well as creating a positive image for the company.
Corporations like General Electric, Gap Inc., Boeing, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft all offer some of the best employee matching gift programs.
5. Create a budget, plan ahead
Whether its $25 or $2500, donations are possible from every budget. Plan a charity budget that allows for a donation each year. Even two percent of your yearly income can make a big difference. For someone making $30,000, that could be around $500 – all of which can be deductible!
Before giving to charity, be sure to do research. Numerous websites exist to help potential donors find out what organizations are most legitimate and what cause they think could benefit most. Like all things in life, research will not only make potential donors better informed, but will also maximize the impact for each donation.
– Andrea Blinkhorn
Sources: Sweating the Big Stuff, Dime Spring, Giving What We Can, Gaiam, The Guardian,Bank Rate, NP Trust, Live Science
Photo: Business2Community
Free High School in Nicaragua
In order to eliminate poverty, the impoverished must be educated. This is the philosophy practiced by Margaret Gullette, co-founder of the Free High School for Adults in Nicaragua. 12 years ago, Margaret, who resides in Newton, Massachusetts and is a resident scholar at Brandeis University, was volunteering in Nicaragua through the Newton-San Juan del Sur Sister City Project when she and another woman, Rosa Elena Bello, decided they wanted to start a literacy program.
“It’s a great story,” Margaret said as she recalled the details. “Rosa was working in a clinic for women and children, and infant mortality rate was not improving.” The two women believed that it would never improve without literacy. It is not enough just to donate money; the people must be educated.
In Nicaragua, one out of 10 people are illiterate, and this figure is even higher among women. The average Nicaraguan has less than five years of schooling and only 29 percent of children complete primary school. Much of this can be attributed to the poverty cycle. Until 1979 a dictator ruled Nicaragua, and dictators rely on ignorance to control the masses. “Poverty and ignorance should always be put together,” Margaret explained. Because many adults who lived under that dictator’s rule and did not receive an education themselves, not only do they not have enough money to pay for school supplies and uniforms, but they often do not value education.
In order to begin the literacy program, Margaret applied for funding to 25 different grants. She received 24 rejections, but the one acceptance was all the two women needed. At first it was difficult to get Nicaraguan women involved in the program because their lives revolved around housework and children, but in the first three years nearly 300 women received certificates for the completion of sixth grade.
High school in Nicaragua runs from grade 7 to 11, so after the success with the sixth grade program, the next logical step was to continue the women’s education into high school. Once again Margaret found funding in America, and the following year (2002) a free high school for adults opened. 12 people graduated that year and the number has been growing ever since. The high school currently has 800 students and 616 graduates.
Eventually the Nicaraguan government took over the building of the schools, and the 12 communities that have these high schools have better overall health and fewer unwanted pregnancies. What makes the Free High School Program unique is the teaching model adopted by Margaret and Rosa. The schools use feminist textbooks and a modified version of twentieth century educator Paolo Freire’s teaching method.
Freire believed that education was vital to the liberation of the oppressed and did not support the method of teaching in which students are simply empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. For basic literacy, Freire believed in teaching language that is meaningful to people’s lives. He did not have a program for women, so Margaret and Rosa adapted his method to teach the women in Nicaragua. The first word the women learn is “fetus,” which Margaret says is a word every woman should know.
The Free High School program has continued to grow with a technical high school that opened in 2006 in which students can specialize in one of three fields: Management of Tourist and Hotel Enterprises, Accounting and Civil Construction. A number of graduates from both the Free High School and the Technical School have gone on to receive university degrees and other accomplishments.
Margaret believes that “there is always something to do in Nicaragua,” pointing to her husband David’s bio-sand filter project for contaminated water as an example. The next steps in the Free High School project are to buy new textbooks and construct an office building for the organization in Nicaragua. Go here (https://sanjuandelsursistercityproject.wordpress.com/) to learn more about the various Newton-San Juan del Sur Sister City projects, including the Free High School.
– Taylor Lovett
Sources: San Juan del Sur Sister City Project, Bless the Children, Interview with Margaret Gullette
Photo: The Random Act
Volunteer for Bangladesh
In recent years, education in Bangladesh has greatly improved. Poverty rates have decreased, and with it, hunger. But the nation faces many challenges.
Ready to meet these challenges are the members of Volunteer for Bangladesh (VBD). It is a branch of the JAAGO Foundation, a larger organization which works to provide all children in Bangladesh with access to a quality education. Both have strong ties to and receive financial support from the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka.
There is much work to be done, so the VBD mission is broad; to end poverty and hunger and to protect children’s rights, including their right to an education. The organization promotes gender equality, works to improve nutrition, educates on sustainability and aids in local development projects. Its projects are as varied as its mission tenets.
VBD awareness campaigns fall on holidays like Universal Children’s Day, when they “spread consciousness among mass people about children’s education.” On World Water Day, they raise awareness of freshwater resources, and on Income Tax Day, they speak on the importance of paying taxes.
Last year in Dhaka, Gazipur, Chittagong, Narayanganj, Khulna and Rajshahi, Universal Children’s Day VBD workers, four corporate partners and five local media groups built carnivals for underprivileged children. There were sporting events, visits to the zoo, merry-go-round rides and introductions to Mickey Mouse. For several hundred destitute children, it was a day on which they could enjoy being a child.
The theme for World Environment Day of this year was “more care for the environment, lessen the rise of the sea level.” It is a poignant message for Bangladeshi citizens, 15 million of who stand to lose their homes to rising ocean waters.
On June 5, 1,150 volunteers in bright yellow VBD t-shirts rode bicycles to 12 districts. They planted over 400 saplings to further their goal of “reversing the greenhouse effect.”
All VBD efforts are truly community endeavors. More than 12,000 people are now working in VBD projects. Volunteer for Bangladesh hopes to establish Action Groups in all of Bangladesh’s 64 districts by 2016.
– Olivia Kostreva
Sources: Volunteer for Bangladesh 1, Volunteer for Bangladesh 2, Volunteer for Bangladesh 3, JAAGO
Photo: The Daily Star
The Importance of Clean Cookstoves
On March 10, Senator Susan Collins of Maine introduced the Clean Cookstoves Support Act. The bill has received support since being introduced. It is co-sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. In order for the bill to receive more support, though, people must understand why clean cookstoves are so essential to the well-being of people in developing countries.
According to the World Health Organization, 4.3 million deaths were caused by cookstove smoke emissions in the year 2012 alone. This number is shockingly high, but maybe not as surprising with the knowledge that over half of the world’s population currently cooks over unclean and dangerous surfaces.
By cooking over open-air fires or dirty cookstoves, families are putting themselves at risk. The smoke from the fire releases harmful toxins into the air that can get trapped in a kitchen space and cause diseases. When the same smoke is released through unsanitary cookstoves, the risk of illness is even higher.
The smoke is also bad for a person’s lungs. Damage done to the respiratory system is detrimental to long-term health and can make accomplishing simple, every-day tasks more difficult.
Because of familial roles in many developing countries, unsanitary cooking conditions have affected women and children more than men. As a result, the average age of death will become lower. Women with smoke-related illnesses experience a great deal of difficulty in child birth, and high child mortality rates are never good for a country’s statistics.
Aside from health related issues, a family would benefit from replacing old cookstoves and open-air fires because the new methods are so much more efficient. The Justa wood conserving stove, for example, is 70 percent more efficient than a regular stove. Families can save a lot of money by switching to safer methods of cooking and heating.
U.S. citizens should also realize that the Clean Cookstoves Act would have a positive global impact as well. Cleaner cookstoves and more efficient methods release fewer chemicals into the air. Therefore, the strain on the environment is reduced. In order to stop or slow climate change on a global scale, the world needs to take action in areas of the developing world that are emitting harmful chemicals without knowing.
If passed, the bill would initiate the replacement of dangerous cookstoves with more efficient ones in 100 million homes by 2020.
Supporting the bill and funding its causes will help families learn how to burn wood more efficiently and provide the money necessary to refurnish kitchen areas in more environmentally conscious ways.
Senator Collins calls the Clean Cookstoves Support Act the “low-hanging fruit” of sustainable development goals. Unsafe and unsanitary cookstoves are a quick and easy fix that just require a little bit of planning and additional funding. With these resources, the bill could change the lives of millions of people combatting harmful diseases and other negative effects of inefficient open-air fires and dirty cookstoves.
– Emily Walthouse
Sources: American Society of Civil Engineers, The Borgen Project, Govtrack, Susan Collins
Photo: Clean Cookstoves
Center for International Development
The Center for International Development at Harvard University is dedicated to both understanding the causes of global poverty and working to eradicate them. It aims to accomplish the following five goals:
1. To reexamine the methods in which growth strategies are applied.
2. To increase various countries’ levels of productivity.
3. To make more markets accessible in impoverished countries.
4. To make a more efficient system for assuring basic human rights such as adequate health care, education and other social services.
5. To establish a way of life for the people in impoverished nations in a way that is sustainable over a long period of time.
Completed and successful projects by Harvard’s Center for International Development include the Migration Project, which sought to discover “the links between migration, remittance and prosperity”; the Empowerment Lab, which aimed to figure out a way to give the world’s poor access to crucial markets in order to promote their economic growth; and the Mexico Project, which established a research collaboration between the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School Of Public Administration and Public Policy of the Tecnologico de Monterrey.
One of the most recent projects from Harvard’s Center for International Development involved exposing fake malaria medicine being sold in Uganda. Researcher David Yanagizawa-Drott’s findings explain that these counterfeit drugs are extremely hurtful to those in need of medicine – in more ways than one might expect.
Naturally, if given the fake medicine, the patients aren’t receiving the real treatment they need, but if the patients are ever to receive the real medicine, these counterfeit drugs can also prevent the real medicine from working.
In an article in the New York Times, Tina Rosenberg explains that some of these counterfeit medicines contain a small portion of the active ingredient contained in the real medicine. The amount of active ingredient, however, is so small that it will not help the sick patient, but ultimately is enough to “promote resistance that renders even the real medicine powerless.”
This research, however, now gives Harvard’s Center for International Development the knowledge and chance to attempt to remedy such situations.
– Jordyn Horowitz
Sources: Center for International Development, Chronicle of Higher Education
Photo: Center for International Development
Malnutrition in Bangladesh
Malnutrition in Bangladesh remains a severe problem, especially for women and children.
According to the United Nations, 33 percent of Bangladeshi adolescent girls are anemic and micronutrient deficient and 25 percent of women ages 15-44 are unhealthily thin for their height. About 48 percent of Bangladeshi children are malnourished and 1.5 million of them die each year from diarrhea that both worsens and is worsened by malnutrition.
A variety of factors cause malnutrition in Bangladesh, the two most prominent being poverty and food insecurity. These two problems limit one’s ability to live on a diet that provides all the nutrients necessary for healthy living, leading to malnutrition.
The country has high levels of absolute poverty, with nearly 50 million of its people unable to obtain food, clothing or shelter. Thus, even while Bangladesh has managed to reduce poverty by 50 percent since 1971, almost one-third of the population is still impoverished. Poverty is in turn exacerbated by a major distress to Bangladesh: natural disasters.
Consider the food crisis of 1974-75. A deluge destroyed two rice crops in a row, robbing heavily impoverished rural populations of their main source of income. In addition, the lack of rice contributed to malnutrition on an extreme scale. One in four children became “third-degree malnourished,” meaning they were less than 60 percent of a median weight-for-age measure.
Even more problematic, natural disasters in Bangladesh have been described as “frequent,” though not all have been as devastating as the ’74 flood.
In addition to and as a result of poverty, the people of Bangladesh suffer from high levels of food insecurity. The recently released Global Food Security Index (GFSI) ranked Bangladesh 88th out of 109 countries and reported that Bangladesh’s decline in food security was the ninth fastest in the world.
The Bangladeshi diet has the lowest share of non-starchy foods of all the countries studied in the GFSI. This indicates very poor nutrition and diet diversification, which of course induce micronutrient deficiencies.
Other causes of malnutrition in Bangladesh include the fact that many Bangladeshi mothers were never taught proper child-rearing behaviors; in addition, mothers often lack access to health services that are necessary to secure the health of their children.
Despite all of these problems, there is hope. Rates of childhood malnutrition have fallen recently, albeit gradually. In the past 15 years, vitamin A deficiencies among Bangladeshi children have been significantly reduced.
Also, income levels in Bangladesh are on the rise. Typically, this correlates with a decline in malnutrition, and while some South Asian countries mysteriously lack this correlation, Bangladesh is not one of them.
As International Food Policy Research Institute researcher Derek Headey noted in his 2013 study: “From 1997 to 2007, Bangladesh recorded one of the fastest prolonged reductions in child underweight and stunting prevalence in recorded history, 1.1. and 1.3 percentage points per year, respectively.”
Thus, while malnutrition in Bangladesh continues to be a major problem, some signs suggest the country is heading in the right direction for attacking that problem. Moreover, if the country’s overall food security increases somehow, a major reduction in malnutrition may follow.
– Ryan Yanke
Sources: The Hunger Project, JSTOR, FAO, World Food Programme, International Food Policy Research Institute, Global Food Security Index, NHS, Bread for the World, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
Photo: Axis of Logic
Poverty in Italy Today
Rome, Italy has a population of nearly 2.9 million people and is considered to be one of Europe’s most significant cities. Notwithstanding its status as a city rich with culture and history, Rome is also a victim of poverty.
Although the country has seem some economic stability during the past several years, Rome, as well as the rest of Italy, are not foreign to financial turmoil.
Several years ago, poverty in Italy reached its highest level in over 16 years. It resulted in high levels of unemployment and lower wages. Today, more than 16 percent of the country’s population lives in poverty.
In Italy, poverty is defined by a family of two living on a monthly income of 991 euros or less.
Similar to much of the industrialized world, Italy experienced an economic recession following the global stock market downturn of the late 2000s. Between 2011 and 2012, the nation saw its poverty levels increase.
Like the rest of the country, Rome’s economy is decidedly mixed. Even though Italy has seen some economic improvement in recent years, there continues to be some worrisome signs.
As a metropolitan city and popular tourist destination, Rome, like many of Europe’s cities, regularly sees its economy boosted by tourism. This is in conjunction with an increasingly significant number of African refugees who occupy isolated camps and villages around the city.
Unlike other countries, Italy does not provide refugees with adequate skill sets and chances to seek new economic opportunities. Many of these refugees, who are from the impoverished nations of the Horn of Africa, often find similar poverty conditions along the outskirts of Rome.
Such poverty is not limited to African refugees, however. Thousands of children in the city live in a state of poverty. Austerity measures, generated by the recession of recent years, have not had much of an effect.
Perhaps only time can help alleviate some of Rome’s economic suffering. With its notable tourism industry, Rome will likely remain one of Europe’s most prominent cities despite its lingering poverty problem.
– Ethan Safran
Sources: Reuters, Ansa Med, Open Society Foundations, Global Post, The Guardian
Photo: RT
5 Reasons To Give to Charity
In every place around the world regardless of religious tradition, culture and language, giving to others has always been an idea encouraged for thousands of years. From Lao Tzu to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Prophet Mohammed to St. Thomas Aquinas, the importance of giving to others has been written and spoken about extensively.
Yet, despite the long history of giving, many people today do not donate to any cause for various reasons. It may be that they are unsure how to navigate the vast array of organizations and causes, or that they are hesitant about how their money will be used, or simply they don’t realize what benefit it has on others.
As Aristotle said:
“To give away money is an easy matter and in any man’s power. But to decide to whom to give it, and how large and when, and for what purpose and how, is neither in every man’s power nor an easy matter.”
Giving is easy, but why and where to give are difficult questions to answer. Listed below are five great reasons why people should give to charity. Deciding where and how much is a personal decision, but there is not much to argue with when it comes to why. In fact, with Americans donating $335.17 billion in 2013 there seems to be some very good reasons for donating.
1. Sense of Purpose
Giving to charity helps you participate in a cause you feel strongly about. Even if you don’t have the time to volunteer, charitable gifts go a long way in helping organizations operate and impact those they help.
In addition, studies show that people who give to charity are happier people. So when faced with the decision of whether to buy an unneeded new pair of shoes or donate that money to a cause, choose the cause. You may not get new shoes, but you’ll be much happier in the long run.
2. You can make a difference
While it may seem that a small donation won’t make a big difference, however even small gifts can have a big impact.
For instance, through programs like Kiva, a nonprofit micro-lender, individuals can loan as little as $25 to help impoverished, would-be entrepreneurs in the developing world start a small business. Many of these people do not have access to a strong banking sector so these loans provide are a great method of empowerment.
To date Kiva has had 860,000 individual lenders participate and has a 99 percent loan payback rate.
3. Donations are often tax-deductible
Giving to money to most charitable organizations has the added benefit of being tax deductible. There are approximately 1, 536,084 charitable organizations in the U.S. according to 2013 data, which means that are plenty of places for people to give.
What does this mean in concrete terms? If someone were to give $100 to a tax-exempt organization of their choice, the donation may actually only turn out to be $65 or less due to tax refunds. The donation not only benefits the organization, but also the individual giving.
4. Matching Gifts can have a big impact
A great way to give to charity is to find an organization or corporation that will do a matching gift. Matching gifts are when a company will match dollar-for-dollar what their employee gives; maximizing the impact of the gift as well as creating a positive image for the company.
Corporations like General Electric, Gap Inc., Boeing, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft all offer some of the best employee matching gift programs.
5. Create a budget, plan ahead
Whether its $25 or $2500, donations are possible from every budget. Plan a charity budget that allows for a donation each year. Even two percent of your yearly income can make a big difference. For someone making $30,000, that could be around $500 – all of which can be deductible!
Before giving to charity, be sure to do research. Numerous websites exist to help potential donors find out what organizations are most legitimate and what cause they think could benefit most. Like all things in life, research will not only make potential donors better informed, but will also maximize the impact for each donation.
– Andrea Blinkhorn
Sources: Sweating the Big Stuff, Dime Spring, Giving What We Can, Gaiam, The Guardian,Bank Rate, NP Trust, Live Science
Photo: Business2Community
Clinton Drifts from Obama’s Foreign Policy
In an interview last Sunday with The Atlantic, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greatly distanced herself from President Obama’s foreign policy views.
Discussing her opinions with Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton criticized Obama’s catch phrase for foreign policy, which is said to be, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”
According to Clinton, this is not exactly an effective approach. “Great nations need organizing principles,” Clinton told Goldberg when he mentioned Obama’s doctrine. Clinton described such organizing principles as peace, prosperity and progress.
Apart from her general philosophy on foreign policy, Clinton elaborated on specifics, insisting that the United States should have intervened early in the Syrian war in order to avoid al-Qaeda-inspired groups from seizing control of the rebel side against the Assad regime. She noted that in failing to assist in building up a credible fighting force on the rebellion’s side, a large hole was left, increasingly filled by Jihadists.
The pointed evaluation from Clinton comes at an interesting time period, as she is rumored to be a potential candidate for the 2016 presidential election.
Despite Clinton’s critique, she continued to defend Obama as far as his intentions, explaining to Goldberg that Obama was, “trying to communicate to the American people that he’s not going to do something crazy” (as far as foreign policy).
Given Obama’s second term has been dominated by foreign policy issues including the rise of ISIS in Iraq, the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the rising aggression of Russia against Ukraine, Clinton’s criticism is hard-hitting.
Although she did not outright state as much, Clinton’s interview suggests that she is worried that the United States is removing itself from the world stage as a leader in foreign policy and conflict. More than this, she subtly hints that if she were in charge in the near future, she would approach foreign policy differently.
In her recently released book “Hard Choices,” Clinton details how she and Obama disagreed on how to handle the situation in Syria, especially when it came to the question of whether or not to arm the rebel factions.
Clinton continued to qualify her comments during the interview, stating: “I’ve sat in too many rooms with the president. He’s thoughtful, he’s incredibly smart, and able to analyze a lot of different factors that are all moving at the same time. I think he is cautious because he knows what he inherited.”
In this way, Clinton has propped herself strategically in-between the President and former President George W. Bush on the scale of advocating for military intervention.
According to CNN, those close to Clinton gave the Obama administration a warning that the interview was coming. In response to the interview, White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes stated that Hillary was “fully-on-board” during her time as Secretary of State with respect to the administration’s foreign policy strategy.
– Caroline Logan
Sources: CNN, Sun Herald, The Atlantic
Photo: US News
Canada Sends $5M in Aid to Iraq
As the U.S. carries out air strikes against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, Canada is delivering $5 million of humanitarian aid to the country. The money will fund new assistance projects, and half of the aid money will immediately go to three of the Canadian government’s on-ground humanitarian partners – the International Red Cross, Mercy Corps and Save the Children Canada.
International Development Minister Christian Paradis said that the contribution will be allocated to food distribution, cooking materials, blankets, tents, hygiene kits and other needed supplies, and will also be used to improve the citizens’ information access and repair essential water and sanitation facilities. Canada’s assistance will reach approximately 850,000 displaced Iraqis.
The prime minister’s office condemned the anti-Christian attacks, made by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, previously known in Iraq as Al Qaeda. Ottawa declared ISIS a terrorist organization in 2012. Thousands of Iraq’s minorities have fled from their homes in fear of the extremist Sunni militants, who have violently and forcefully seized large sections of northern Iraq. ISIS fighters have expelled significant numbers of Iraq’s Christian and Shiite Muslim population, viewing these other religious assemblies as heretical groups to be executed or brutally ruled.
“Canada continues to stand by the people of Iraq in these difficult times and condemns the terrorist actions of ISIS and the killing of innocent civilians in northern Iraq in the strongest possible terms,” said Paradis.
The three trusted on-ground organizations will receive an immediate $2.25 million, with the International Red Cross getting $1 million, Save the Children receiving $750,000 and Mercy Corps attaining $500,000. The remaining $2.75 million will be distributed to other units after Canada confers with its partners in Iraq.
“Canada will continue working closely with our allies to determine how we can best continue to support the needs of Iraqi civilians, particularly religious minorities,” said Paradis.
Since the beginning of the year, Canada has delivered $16 million of aid to Iraq, as the country is a recent addition to Canada’s development country partners. $9.5 million was dedicated to helping refugees of the Syrian crisis, while $6.8 million was allocated to victims of civil unrest.
According to Lois Brown, the parliamentary secretary for the Minister of International Cooperation, Canada is particularly attentive to Iraq’s affairs because almost 20,000 Iraqi refugees have flocked to Canada since last year.
“We have seen a vibrant Iraqi community here, and those people are very concerned about their family back home,” said Brown. “The Canadian government condemns in the strongest terms the violent acts of this terrorist group that is killing innocent civilians.”
– Annie Jung
Sources: Huffington Post, Global News, CTV News
Photo: CTV News
Major League Baseball & Dominican Republic
On Oct. 25, 1971, a fifth child was born to Dominicans Paolino Martinez, a janitor, and Leopoldina Martinez, a laundress—a couple who had to raise their children in a dwelling that had a tin roof and dirt floors. Forty years and nearly $150 million in career earnings later, that child would return to his hometown Manoguayabo to build schools, roads, homes and churches through a charity he founded.
The story of Pedro Martinez, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball’s history, spurs innumerable poor Dominican youths to play the game. Poverty and poor economic prospects motivates them to put in the requisite hours of practice, and a large baseball infrastructure, which includes training academies developed by Major League teams, validates these youths’ dreams of wealth.
Or maybe the numbers alone are validation.
An article in the International Business Times reported the average salary of major leaguers to be $3.4 million. Compare that to the annual income of a Dominican worker: $5,130.
Of the 224 foreigners playing for Major League Baseball in 2014, 83 hail from the Dominican Republic. The DR beat historical baseball powerhouses Cuba (19), Puerto Rico (11) and Venezuela (59) for the title of top overseas producer of major leaguers.
It is unclear if this success will translate into significant poverty reduction back in the DR.
Certainly, the DR’s economy has been growing in the recent past. If one ignores the relatively minor economic crisis of 2003 – “minor” in terms of impact on GDP – GDP growth has been impressive in past years: “9.5 percent in 2005, 10.7 percent in 2006 and 8 percent in 2007,” according to one study.
However, that same study concluded the MLB’s impact on this economic growth was marginal compared to the effect of remittances and the development of a tourist economy, though the construction of baseball academies does always create jobs.
In any case, poverty has remained a persistent problem in the DR despite the country’s economic growth. 40.9 percent of the population is at or below the national poverty line. Half of all children are impoverished. The tourist economy has failed to create jobs for the masses of poor, with unemployment at 15 percent.
Thus, the MLB will continue to be a source of hope for many Dominicans. To Dominican players, a signing bonus of $5,000-$8,000 on its own is worth the time investment. Should their career end shortly after receiving such a bonus, at least they received enough money to support their families or to invest in a business enterprise.
And, of course, each player might just be the next Pedro Martinez.
Unfortunately, the hope that such possibilities inspire is intermixed with desperation. In their hunger to secure a better life for themselves and for their families, many Dominican players have turned to using steroids, which are relatively easy to procure in the DR. Drug usage is seen by many young Dominicans as a way to “cheat the system,” and wherever desperation exists, people are likely to try to cheat.
“Buscones” are another source of controversy in Dominican baseball. These player agents find talent, develop it and take a cut of any signing bonuses. The players that make it to the MLB mostly express their gratitude to these agents, but buscones also “have been accused of corruption, embezzlement and feeding steroid drugs to young prospects,” according to an article by Palash Ghosh at the International Business Times.
One cannot conclude from all of this that the MLB will have much to do with the eradication of poverty in the DR, but one also cannot deny the organization’s potential to do both good and bad in the country.
– Ryan Yanke
Sources: George Mason University, MLB, The World Bank, Forbes, International Business Times, Baseball Reference, Boston Globe, SABR, Huffington Post
Photo: Latin Trends