Pure Water for the World (PWW) is an international nonprofit organization helping end the world water crisis. The organization currently works in Haiti and Honduras, bringing “water filtration, safe sanitation and hygiene education” to struggling communities.
Almost 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean water, and according to PWW, “Lack of clean water, lack of sanitation and unfamiliarity with good hygiene practices kill more people every year than all acts of war and violence, auto accidents and HIV/AIDS combined.”
It is clear the state of water is dismal, and PWW is doing something about it.
The organization has a community-based approach, with 90 percent of its employees operating on the ground in Haiti or Honduras “changing lives by empowering people to be a part of the solution.”
Functioning mainly in rural areas, PWW first scouts out potential communities by meeting with community leaders and assessing which areas need the most improvement.
In order to maximize the number of people that benefit from its work, PWW identifies key locations, often schools and health clinics, where it installs its water filtration technology and sanitation facilities.
While installing new technologies to create clean water is a useful strategy, educational training is the backbone of PWW’s programs.
In target communities, an individual is chosen by the locals to be trained to maintain and fix PWW’s systems. This allows for the region to become self-sufficient, so that when the organization leaves, the improvements can be maintained.
In addition to recognizing one community member as a sanitation leader, hygiene education is also given to communities at large.
If just one person misuses a central water source, contamination can occur; PWW makes efforts to ensure that all are educated about how to properly sustain hygiene. Education is essential to create long-term improvements.
The organization epitomized the importance of education when it said, “PWW can deliver safe water to a village, but without the knowledge of how and why this improves their lives, and the tools to reduce disease, water will be temporary medicine at best – treating the symptoms without rooting out the underlying causes.”
To ensure that all installations have gone as planned, PWW returns to communities three months after the initial work is finished to ensure that everyone has received proper training, and again after seven months to assess the overall effectiveness of its program.
These final evaluations allow for the organization to adapt to new challenges and to learn how to better tackle water crises.
As stated by PWW, “Improved water, sanitation and hygiene practices saves lives and has significant implications in reducing poverty.” By installing technology to create clean water, and by educating people about how to maintain clean water and prevent water-borne diseases, Pure Water for the World is helping eliminate poverty, and is making a difference in people’s lives.
— Emily Jablonski
Sources: Classy, Pure Water for the World
Photo: Pure Water for the World
Women and Environmental Protection
Women suffer the most when it comes to climate change and natural disasters, yet in many areas around the world, women do not have a large say in the policies surrounding environment or how finances are used towards environmental protection. In areas where it has been tested though, empowering women can lead to better preparedness for disasters and better governance of natural resources. Overall, gender equality can lead to better environmental governance.
Rachel Carson created the modern day environmental movement with her book Silent Spring. Today women following her footsteps around the world are essential in the protection of our environment.
In Nepal and India, when more than the minimum threshold of one-third women participated in forest committees, it resulted in forest regeneration and a decrease in illegal extraction of forest resources.
Another success story took place in Kenya and Ethiopia, where women took a leadership role managing the risks regarding the 2005-08 drought cycle. The women generated income by diversifying livelihoods and then saved using women’s savings and loan groups. By doing this, women were able to preserve resources, which then lead to better food security.
Women also play an important role in protecting the environment because they can have a strong impact on the amount of carbon emissions in our atmosphere.
Due to gender norms that exist regarding labor in the household, many of women’s day-to-day tasks have a direct impact on carbon emissions. This means that when a goal is set to reduce carbon emissions, it is up to women to make environmentally friendly decisions regarding cooking, farming and what they purchase for their families.
Women’s decisions regarding cooking fuel, cooking technology and which foods they choose to buy have an impact on the amount of carbon emission released. Women also often have a say in agricultural practices that have an impact because they can determine whether carbon is released or stored in agricultural soils and above ground biomass. In many areas, women are the ones making household purchasing decisions at markets. Because of this women directly impact the amount of carbon emitted through the production, distribution, use and disposal of goods.
From leadership roles to every day decisions, women are an important component in protecting the environment for now and for future generations.
– Kim Tierney
Sources: World Bank, UN Women
Photo: Environment and Society
Ales Belyatsky Released from Prison Early
Yet Belyatsky, whose arrest was deemed “politically motivated,” never pleaded guilty for his alleged crimes, and attributed the funds in the bank account to years of supporting victims of human rights abuses in Belarus. In fact, there are at least seven other human rights activists in Belarus currently imprisoned, and while Belyatsky has been released early, many attribute his release to internal–and external–pressure toward the regime. The United States, among other countries, has commended Belyatsky’s release and urged Belarus to do the same for the rest of their prisoners.
Belyatsky claims he still feels part of the system, and while his release was unexpected, he has remained vigilant against the Belarusian regime. The regime, which has kept a tight authoritative control over the years, has consistently worked to eliminate human rights groups, squandering their political rights. While Belaytsky’s release may be seen from the West as a sign of improvement, those from the country fear this may be a political move to ensure a renewal of dialogue with the European Nation.
Despite his stint in prison, Belyatsky does not regret his activism. “I am not sorry for those three years spent in prison,” he said. “This is the price you pay for making Belarus a free and democratic country.” Belyatsky hopes other human rights prisoners, who often face extreme measures of psychological abuse under imprisonment, will be granted the right to follow suit.
– Nick Magnanti
Sources: KyivPost, Reuters, Charter97, Index on Censorship
Photo: Ozera
Entrepreneurs May Solve Global Poverty
According to the global entrepreneurship GEDI index, for the past 30 years almost half of all new jobs in the United States alone were created by businesses that are less than five years old. Globally, 65 million entrepreneurs each plan to create 20 or more jobs in the next five years.
Many of these start-up businesses offer products that are new to the market, according to a GEM report.
“Part of what we’re trying to do is sort of raise entrepreneurship to the level of the public policy agenda,” said Michael Dell. “If you look at what’s going on in the world today, in terms of where jobs are being created, we need more entrepreneurs. We need more risk-taking. High-risk entrepreneurs and bureaucratic U.N. officials might seem like a strange combination, but applying the problem-solving of a startup culture to global development is the idea.”
Around the world, over 565,000 small businesses start each month, and the products and profit they provide could be key to the recovery of the world economy as they create jobs, more global disposable income and new products. However, only 15 percent of entrepreneurs say that their country’s culture supports entrepreneurs, according to ey.com.
“Technology has enabled undeserved communities to get out of poverty,” said Ruma Bose, an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. “In the slums of India we saw a lot of hope and magic, there are thousands of new businesses there, and factories that generate millions in revenue and provide clean water. Even in the worst conditions the entrepreneurial spirit exists.”
Around 63 percent of women in the non-agricultural labor force are self-employed in the informal sector in Africa, a number which is twice the worldwide rate, according to the World Bank’s data — data which also shows that necessity is the main driving force behind female entrepreneurship in poor countries, not opportunity.
“Traditionally women would sit at home and wait for the man to return home with a bag of groceries, but this has been changing over time as women’s dependence gradually reduces,” said Thomas Bwire, an economist with Uganda’s central bank. “In a sign of the times, Ugandan women now even work at road construction sites.”
A report released earlier this year by Goldman Sachs stated that women’s “increased bargaining power has the potential to create a virtuous cycle” as women begin to spend more, thus fueling economic growth in the years ahead. According to the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank, an estimated $300 billion credit gap exists for female-owned businesses.
Other entrepreneurial companies, like Popinjay, have aided the advancement of many people around the world. Popinjay employs around 150 women who work four hours a day and at $3 an hour. “When I started Popinjay, my goal was really to get women to sustain themselves, but what I realized over time is that it wasn’t just about the money,” said Saba Gul, CEO and founder of Popinjay. “It was also about the fact that they gained so much dignity and pride in knowing that they were creating something with their own hands.”
— Monica Newell
Sources: Deseret News National, Epoch Times
Photo: Tadias
USAID: Initiating Smart Investments in Kenya
In January of this year, USAID announced a new poverty reduction initiative in Kenya. In partnership with Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and General Electric (GE), USAID promotes investments in Kenya between the KCB and medical institutions that need financial assistance to offer appropriate medical care.
To provide this assistance, banks will grant loans to hospitals and other health centers. These investments in Kenya would have previously been considered unsafe and unlikely to be returned, but under the agreement with USAID, they are guaranteed reimbursement. If a full return cannot be made, USAID will pay back 50 percent of the loan.
The KCB, according to the deal, is obliged to divvy $1 million for medical equipment like MRIs, incubators and other standard-increasing machinery to be used in local health centers. GE has left $660,000 dollars for USAID to use as potential reimbursement funds, though only $500,000 (50 percent) should be used. In return, the Kenyan health services will purchase GE equipment, expanding GE’s global market.
There are some, however, such as Monica Onyango of Boston University, who are afraid this may lead to an overstated importance of imported goods, when in fact, locally manufactured equipment is better for local economic development.
Michael Metzler, director of Development Credit Authority (which is the tool used by USAID to promote loans, as in the initiative in Kenya,) reassures skeptics like Onyango that local business and manufacturing will still have the power Kenya needs it to have to grow. Quoted recently in a Global Post article, Metzler said that “we’d be very sensitive to a deal in which that was the case.”
Aside from the deal’s economic influence, clearer effects of the enhanced medical treatment new loans insure will be seen in public health. This expedites poverty reduction in Kenya by reducing the number of deaths caused by preventable diseases thriving in impoverished communities. These include diseases such as HIV, diarrhea, tuberculosis and malaria.
Illness and poverty go hand in hand, and until one is dealt with, the other is likely to expand. This new USAID initiative incorporates this idea and acts accordingly.
— Adam Kaminski
Sources: Health Poverty Action, Global Post, Federal News Radio
Photo: USAID
The Hunger Project 101
While many poverty-reduction organizations implement a variety of different strategies to combat poverty and hunger, The Hunger Project’s methodology differentiates it from other nonprofit organizations.
Founded in 1977, The Hunger Project (THP) is a nonprofit, strategic organization with a focus on ending world hunger. With a global staff of over 300 people, the organization focuses its efforts in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It seeks to end hunger and poverty by “empowering people to lead lives of self-reliance, meet their own basic needs and build better futures for their children.” This includes sustainable, grassroots strategies in numerous countries throughout the world.
The Hunger Project also places a special emphasis on women and gender equality. “Women bear the major responsibility for meeting basic needs, yet are systematically denied the resources, freedom of action and voice in decision-making to fulfill that responsibility,” the organization states.
With its headquarters located in New York City, THP operates in 11 different countries, including a number of African countries, as well as Bangladesh, India and Mexico. The organization maintains a number of partnerships with developed countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Over the years, the organization has had to reinvent itself as a result of the shifting state of world hunger. In 2009, THP set a new strategic direction with an emphasis on partnerships, advocacy and impact.
THP’s board of directors, consisting of over a dozen people, includes a former president of Mozambique, a former vice president of Uganda, a Harvard economics professor and a former Secretary General of the U.N.
Recently, Anytime Fitness co-founder Jacinta McDonell Jimenez committed to raising $100,000 for THP. The money will provide 200 communities with the necessary funds to purchase food-processing equipment. Additionally, the money will train nearly 50,000 rural inhabitants in farming techniques as well as provide 2,000 people with loans to purchase seeds and fertilizer.
Through its mission to put an end to world hunger, THP maintains a set of 10 principles that it considers to be fundamental to its organization. Among them are human dignity, gender equality, sustainability and transformative leadership. Because it believes hunger is a human issue, THP states its principles are “consistent with our shared humanity.”
— Ethan Safran
Sources: The Hunger Project, Business Franchise Australia
Photo: Zander Bergen
Direct Relief International
Direct Relief International is a nonprofit dedicated to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergency situations.
The nonprofit, Direct Relief International, works through donations, with volunteers and through the use of advocacy in order to mobilize and provide essential medical care for people in need.
The nonprofit opened its doors in 1948 in order to help people in need confront enormous hardships and recover from natural disasters that have taken away their livelihood.
Direct Relief International was founded by William Zimdin, an Estonian immigrant. He used his good fortune and wealth to send relief packages containing food, clothing and medicine to friends and former employees who were trying to rebuild their lives after World War II.
Zimdin then formed the William Zimdin foundation in California in 1948, which was a precursor to what the nonprofit is today.
When Zimdin died in 1951, just a few years after opening the William Zimdin foundation, his close business associate Dezso Karczag, a Hungarian immigrant, became the foundation’s main manager. Six years later, they changed their name from The William Zimdin Foundation to Direct Relief International.
Direct Relief International provides direct and targeted assistance and does so with respect and involvement with the people it serves.
The nonprofit spends 98.7 percent of all donations and gifts on the programs it runs and manages in needy countries. These programs provide relief packages, vaccinations, vitamin injections, food and assistance to impoverished and displaced peoples.
Much of their relief work, besides providing beneficial relief packages, focuses on the care of pregnant mothers, child health, preventing disease and emergency preparedness programs. This is to ensure that those who live in areas of high disaster risk can be prepared, and major loss of life can be prevented.
Direct Relief International has helped countless people by providing direct medical care and emergency assistance to nations who need it most.
They help provide relief for natural as well as man-made disasters and use contributions from pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers to provide health care to those who need it most.
They employ 50 dedicated professional staff members and with the help of 400 volunteers, provide aid to thousands of people each year.
— Cara Morgan
Sources: Charity Navigator, Direct Relief International
Photo: SAP News Center
5 Facts about Education in Turkmenistan
After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Turkmenistan was granted independence for the first time in over 100 years.
According to data gathered by the Soviet government officials in 1991, at that time Turkmenistan’s population was nearly completely literate. Since its independence from the Soviet Union, education in Turkmenistan has significantly changed. Here are five facts about education in Turkmenistan.
1. Reform
President Berdimuhammedov, appointed in February 2007, encouraged hope for the people of Turkmenistan that reforms in education would occur. In addition, in 2007, Turkmenistan underwent an over 500 percent increase in their gross domestic product (GDP) due to increased oil and gas prices. Since 2007, the Turkmenistan government has made a number of educational reforms, such as raising the amount of compulsory education, the proliferation of “model schools” and the creation of curriculum guides.
2. Attendance
In Turkmenistan, there is a primary school attendance rate of 97 percent. However, there is only an 85 percent attendance rate for secondary schools.
3. Equality
Despite the relatively high percentage of attendance, education in Turkmenistan is not equal for all citizens. While there is near gender equality, there is significantly higher attendance in urban instead of rural areas. Enrollment in primary education is at 67 percent for Turkmenistan’s capital city, Ashgahat, but only 11 percent for Lebap, a rural region.
4. Completion
Only 0.1 percent of students who attend primary school in Turkmenistan drop out, while 0.8 percent of students in Turkmenistan repeat a grade. However, 99.8 percent of students who attend, finish primary school.
5. Infrastructure
A challenge that education in Turkmenistan is facing is the quality of its educational buildings. Due to the lack of investments in education prior to 2007, many school buildings are deteriorating. Around 15 percent of schools have structural problems that make them too dangerous to use for classes.
While there is a greater wealth access to education in Turkmenistan than in surrounding countries, there is still a necessity for further educational reforms in Turkmenistan.
— Lily Tyson
Sources: BBC, CountryStudies, UNICEF
Photo: Flickr
Forced Labor in Uzbekistan
The grave problem of forced labor in Uzbekistan in the cotton industry is in the news again as the United States placed the country at the very bottom of its annual State Department Trafficking in Persons Report this June.
Uzbekistan has been categorized as “Tier 3,” which means that the government does not “comply with minimum standards to combat human trafficking and fails to take adequate steps to address the problem.” A county placed in this category will potentially face sanctions.
Uzbekistan is a country of about 30 million and has been ruled by President Islam Karimov since 1989. Over 80 percent of the country is Muslim and only 36 percent live in urban areas. The poverty levels are not terribly high at 16 percent and the literacy rate is almost at 100 percent. However, these statistics do not explain the whole story and the serious problem of forced labor.
Just last year an organization called the Cotton Campaign finally got the government to significantly reduce forced labor of children. The campaign arranged for many garment companies to boycott Uzbek cotton. This was a victory for the children but not for their parents. Instead of forcing children to pick cotton for about a month each year, the Uzbek government has moved the labor onto adults. About a million Uzbek citizens are forced to pick cotton each year.
Doctors, teachers and government employees are among some of the laborers who are transported to the farms sometime during the harvest season between September and November. These laborers are not beaten or tortured into picking cotton, however, if they refuse they face arrest. The Uzbek government calls these laborers “volunteers” in an attempt to ignore the reality of the situation.
Rights organizations as well as the International Labor Organization have a difficult time assessing or regulating the situation. The Uzbek government heavily restricts their work in the country and cracks down on its own activists.
The problem also extends further than just the forced labor. The entire industry is controlled by the government, making it possible to take advantage of the farmers as well. The farmers have to meet quotas and sell the cotton back to the government well below market prices. The government then exports the cotton to foreign companies at huge profits.
Those fighting for the rights of these laborers are happy with the action taken by the U.S. government. It “sends a message of solidarity to the well over a million Uzbeks forced to pick the country’s cotton crop.” Putting Uzbekistan in Tier 3 will help pave the way for possible sanctions. If the money flow for the Uzbek government were to stop or at least decrease, they might notice and change their policies on forced labor.
The success of Cotton Campaign last year to remove children as the primary cotton pickers is hope for the future. If boycotting can end child labor, perhaps sanctions could end the problem of forced labor entirely.
— Eleni Marino
Sources: UN, World Bank, Cotton Campaign, Human Rights Watch, New York Times
Photo: New York Times
Pure Water for the World
Pure Water for the World (PWW) is an international nonprofit organization helping end the world water crisis. The organization currently works in Haiti and Honduras, bringing “water filtration, safe sanitation and hygiene education” to struggling communities.
Almost 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean water, and according to PWW, “Lack of clean water, lack of sanitation and unfamiliarity with good hygiene practices kill more people every year than all acts of war and violence, auto accidents and HIV/AIDS combined.”
It is clear the state of water is dismal, and PWW is doing something about it.
The organization has a community-based approach, with 90 percent of its employees operating on the ground in Haiti or Honduras “changing lives by empowering people to be a part of the solution.”
Functioning mainly in rural areas, PWW first scouts out potential communities by meeting with community leaders and assessing which areas need the most improvement.
In order to maximize the number of people that benefit from its work, PWW identifies key locations, often schools and health clinics, where it installs its water filtration technology and sanitation facilities.
While installing new technologies to create clean water is a useful strategy, educational training is the backbone of PWW’s programs.
In target communities, an individual is chosen by the locals to be trained to maintain and fix PWW’s systems. This allows for the region to become self-sufficient, so that when the organization leaves, the improvements can be maintained.
In addition to recognizing one community member as a sanitation leader, hygiene education is also given to communities at large.
If just one person misuses a central water source, contamination can occur; PWW makes efforts to ensure that all are educated about how to properly sustain hygiene. Education is essential to create long-term improvements.
The organization epitomized the importance of education when it said, “PWW can deliver safe water to a village, but without the knowledge of how and why this improves their lives, and the tools to reduce disease, water will be temporary medicine at best – treating the symptoms without rooting out the underlying causes.”
To ensure that all installations have gone as planned, PWW returns to communities three months after the initial work is finished to ensure that everyone has received proper training, and again after seven months to assess the overall effectiveness of its program.
These final evaluations allow for the organization to adapt to new challenges and to learn how to better tackle water crises.
As stated by PWW, “Improved water, sanitation and hygiene practices saves lives and has significant implications in reducing poverty.” By installing technology to create clean water, and by educating people about how to maintain clean water and prevent water-borne diseases, Pure Water for the World is helping eliminate poverty, and is making a difference in people’s lives.
— Emily Jablonski
Sources: Classy, Pure Water for the World
Photo: Pure Water for the World
Chickungunya Virus Spreading Fast
North Carolina’s first case of the Chickungunya virus was confirmed on June 12. Seven days later Georgia confirmed its first case. Two days after that Tennessee confirmed its second. With over 30 cases already confirmed in Florida, this mosquito-borne virus is quickly spreading.
Until 2007, Chickungunya was only found in Africa, Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Then it appeared in Italy and slowly made its way throughout Europe. In December of this past year the first case of Chickungunya was reported in the Caribbean. Now, barely six months later, the Pan American Health Organization has confirmed 5,000 cases of the virus and suspects another 160,000 cases in the region.
There is currently no vaccine for the virus or treatment for the symptoms. Those symptoms include fever, rash, nausea, chronic joint pain, swelling and headache. They usually first appear within three to seven days after infection with most symptoms abating after about a week’s time. However, the joint pain often lasts for months.
There are now 20 afflicted states and islands in the Caribbean, with Cuba being the most recent. The Center for Disease Control has reported approximately 60 total cases in the continental United States thus far. All such cases have included patients who have made recent trips to the Caribbean. The virus has been linked to the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, both of which are fairly common in the U.S. The CDC has recommended that people who are traveling to the Caribbean use bug spray and dress in long sleeves and pants to avoid being bitten by either kind.
Despite rising concerns about possible contraction of the Chickungunya virus, trips to the Caribbean remain popular among American tourists. With cruise season currently in full swing, the number of cases in the U.S. is sure to rise.
— Taylor Dow
Sources: LA Times, Island Gazette, CNN, AJC, Medpage Today
Photo: Wageningen Ur