Social change is defined as “the alteration of mechanisms within the social structure, characterized by changes in cultural symbols, rules of behavior, social organizations or value systems.” Such changes affect our way of life on both a macro and micro level, with the former involving major social institutions, and the latter our value and belief systems.
Collaborative efforts between groups or organizations are becoming major sources of social change by establishing social solidarity, pooling of resources and empowering larger scale and more long-term efforts for reaching specific goals.
A multitude of factors can cause social change, including:
- technological and economic changes
- social structure/modernization/urbanization
- bureaucratization and institutions
- conflict and competition
- political and legal power
- ideas/ideologies/attitudes/values
- physical environment
- population changes
- isolation/contact
Activists for social change are no longer relegated to traditional outlets such as television, radio and newspaper.
Some use direct grassroots avenues such as “state and local ballot initiatives, electoral politics, lobbying and advocacy, direct action, media events and litigation.” Others are achieving previously impossible endeavors by reaching millions of people globally through online and social media activism.
For example, Breakthrough, a United States and India-based non-profit human rights organization, uses “media, arts, pop culture and technology to reach mass audiences, challenge norms and make human rights real and relevant.” Among its unique projects for social change was the launch of “America 2049” via Facebook games.
The game pits the player into the role of a special agent tasked with capturing a fugitive.
The player then faces a series of events forcing him or her to make tough decisions about pressing international issues. The fugitive is played by Harold Perrineau, an American actor most known for his role in the television series “Lost.” Perrineau talks about the importance of America 2049’s message, stating, “I hope that through playing America 2049, young people in particular will be inspired to help stop institutionalized hatred and intolerance – today.”
Alternately, there are those who are bringing social change by “injecting market principles into funding” and utilizing the strength of the business and economic sectors.
Toby Eccles, founder and development director of Social Finance, has pioneered such business models for change. Social Finance is a United Kingdom-based non-profit organization that operates under the belief that “if social problems are to be tackled successfully, organizations seeking to solve them need sustainable revenues and investment to innovate and grow.”
Eccles developed innovative outcomes-based contracts known as Social Impact Bonds and, more recently, Development Impact Bonds. In a talk he gave at Technology Entertainment Development Global in June 2013, Eccles said, “If you make the economic case, then the value of doing something would be completely compelling.”
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) “aim to improve the social outcomes of public services by making payment for those services conditional on achieving independently measurable outcomes.”
The bonds allow for private investments to provide upfront funds for prevention and early intervention services to be delivered by seasoned service providers; the public sector only pays back if the intervention is successful. Development Impact Bonds are the newest SIB spinoffs, where instead of governments being responsible for paying back investors, the onus is placed on international donors or development agencies.
– Rifk Ebeid
Sources: TED Talks, Encyclopedia Britannica, Sociology Guide, Social Finance, Salon
Photo: Be Social Change
What is Social Change?
Social change is defined as “the alteration of mechanisms within the social structure, characterized by changes in cultural symbols, rules of behavior, social organizations or value systems.” Such changes affect our way of life on both a macro and micro level, with the former involving major social institutions, and the latter our value and belief systems.
Collaborative efforts between groups or organizations are becoming major sources of social change by establishing social solidarity, pooling of resources and empowering larger scale and more long-term efforts for reaching specific goals.
A multitude of factors can cause social change, including:
Activists for social change are no longer relegated to traditional outlets such as television, radio and newspaper.
Some use direct grassroots avenues such as “state and local ballot initiatives, electoral politics, lobbying and advocacy, direct action, media events and litigation.” Others are achieving previously impossible endeavors by reaching millions of people globally through online and social media activism.
For example, Breakthrough, a United States and India-based non-profit human rights organization, uses “media, arts, pop culture and technology to reach mass audiences, challenge norms and make human rights real and relevant.” Among its unique projects for social change was the launch of “America 2049” via Facebook games.
The game pits the player into the role of a special agent tasked with capturing a fugitive.
The player then faces a series of events forcing him or her to make tough decisions about pressing international issues. The fugitive is played by Harold Perrineau, an American actor most known for his role in the television series “Lost.” Perrineau talks about the importance of America 2049’s message, stating, “I hope that through playing America 2049, young people in particular will be inspired to help stop institutionalized hatred and intolerance – today.”
Alternately, there are those who are bringing social change by “injecting market principles into funding” and utilizing the strength of the business and economic sectors.
Toby Eccles, founder and development director of Social Finance, has pioneered such business models for change. Social Finance is a United Kingdom-based non-profit organization that operates under the belief that “if social problems are to be tackled successfully, organizations seeking to solve them need sustainable revenues and investment to innovate and grow.”
Eccles developed innovative outcomes-based contracts known as Social Impact Bonds and, more recently, Development Impact Bonds. In a talk he gave at Technology Entertainment Development Global in June 2013, Eccles said, “If you make the economic case, then the value of doing something would be completely compelling.”
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) “aim to improve the social outcomes of public services by making payment for those services conditional on achieving independently measurable outcomes.”
The bonds allow for private investments to provide upfront funds for prevention and early intervention services to be delivered by seasoned service providers; the public sector only pays back if the intervention is successful. Development Impact Bonds are the newest SIB spinoffs, where instead of governments being responsible for paying back investors, the onus is placed on international donors or development agencies.
– Rifk Ebeid
Sources: TED Talks, Encyclopedia Britannica, Sociology Guide, Social Finance, Salon
Photo: Be Social Change
Malala Yousafzai Promotes Education in Syria
Malala Yousafzai has become one of the world’s most prominent advocates for children’s education, following an assassination attempt against her from the Taliban. This young girl, who almost died standing up for her right to learn, who lived to tell the tale of being shot in the head for simply going to school, has become a symbol for the dignity of an education.
At least three million children have been displaced as a result of the current conflict in Syria, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates. On average, these children are likely to spend 10 years in refugee camps or in temporary shelters. The right to receive an education or to be educated upon reaching adulthood and to experience childhood with dignity and hope for the future cannot wait.
Malala is making efforts to ensure that the masses of Syrian children are afforded these basic rights. On February 18, the 16-year-old girl visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan in an effort to raise money for children’s education in the camp.
“When I think of these children, I can feel what they would be feeling now and what they are suffering through. So that’s why I think that it’s a responsibility to protect these children,” Malala said.
Currently, 50,000 students are educated in only three schools. Despite the tremendous difficulties facing refugee camps, such as food, shelter and adequate hygiene, Malala expresses the importance of education for young children coming from violent circumstances. Whereas aggression and brutality can negatively influence a child’s behavior, education and school environments help teach children to work in groups and solve problems in a healthy manner.
In Lebanon, some schools are going on double shift in efforts to equip Syrian refugee children with a proper education. The double shifts allow more lessons for more students without requiring any new facilities. Within weeks, these institutions have shown results that children have started to recover from their traumatic experiences.
Malala Yousafzai has taught the world that an education is something worth fighting for. Home or no home, all children deserve to learn.
– Jaclyn Stutz
Sources: CNN, New York Daily News, NPR
Photo: Should-Know
Distinguishing Absolute, Overall, and Relative Poverty
Many reports discuss the high and unacceptable rates of poverty in wealthy countries such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. This can be confusing to readers when they think of images of people starving and dying of preventable conditions in the developing world. It is important to note that poverty in the developed world is very different in the developing world; therefore poverty means something different in the US than it does in does in the Democratic Republic of the Condo. Discussed below are terms frequently used to describe the different kinds of poverty: absolute, overall, and relative poverty.
Examining Absolute, Overall, and Relative Poverty
Absolute Poverty
In 1995 the United Nations defined absolute poverty as severe deprivation of basic human needs including food, shelter, safe drinking water, sanitation, healthcare, education, and access to information. This deprivation can either come from a lack of income or a lack of services.
Overall Poverty
The United Nations defined overall poverty as the lack of income or resources to avoid hunger or malnutrition, morbidity and mortality from illness, limited access to education, homelessness or inadequate housing, and social discrimination or exclusion. Overall poverty occurs in all countries, it is widespread in developing countries and is occurs in pockets in developed countries.
Relative Poverty
Relative poverty is defined in relation to the income or consumption of others in the same region. For example, a girl who attends a school where all the other teenagers own smartphones when her parents cannot afford to buy her a cell phone would be experiencing relative poverty; she is poor in relation to those around her.
In the same way, poverty lines can be determined using absolute or relative poverty.
Absolute Poverty Line
Absolute poverty lines are based on absolute minimum standards of what families should be able to afford (either through income or services) in order to meet their basic needs. This is normally calculated by the amount needed to feed a family and cover basic necessities taking into account the cost-of-living in the area.
Relative Poverty Line
Here poverty can be measured in relation to the income of other members of the population, for example the poverty line may be an income that is less than 50% of the median income in the country. The OECD typically uses measures similar to this to measure poverty in developed countries.
It is argued that as large percentage of the population in developing countries are very poor and do not have the resources to meet their basic needs, poverty in these countries should be measured in absolute terms.
Therefore when reports are published on amount of poverty in the US it is important to remember that they are mostly likely talking about overall or relative poverty, whereas poverty in the developing world is often a mixture of overall and absolute poverty.
– Elizabeth Brown
Sources: The World Bank, UNESCO, PSE
Photo: Nathan Colquhoun
Starvation War Strategy in Syria
It is hunger, more than traditional warfare, that is taking the most lives and causing people to flee from Syria. Several parts of Syria have been cut off from food for several months and the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that three million people are hungry. The WFP has been able to deliver food aid to two million people, but over one million people are trapped in areas where no food is getting in and people cannot get out. Civilians who are in areas under siege are starving; hunger is being used as a weapon of war.
Hunger in Homs
In the city Homs, which has been under siege for the 18 months people are surviving on olives, “water soup” made of water and spices and grass and weeds picked from the street. As of mid-February, 1,300 people, including 500 children as well as and many women, elderly, and disabled persons fled the city with the help of Red Crescent and United Nations workers.
Men between the ages of 15 years old to 55 years old were forced to stay and fight. A temporary evacuation was allowed, but many evacuees and aid workers were wounded and many civilians were too afraid to try and leave.
Hunger forced the people to leave; food has dwindled down to nothing in the city and a one kilogram bag of rice costs $50. People were fighting over the small amount of food the U.N. was able to get into the city. Gerard Araud, France’s U.N. Ambassador was quoted saying “We are facing the worst humanitarian tragedy since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994…starvation is used as a weapon by the regime.'”
Children Starving to Death
CNN broadcasted video footage of an emaciated one-year girl at the National Hospital in suburbs of Damascus. The child’s organs were slowly deteriorating due to hunger and she reportedly died in hospital after her heart stopped. Her distraught mother reported that she had nothing to feed her child.
Doctors have told activists and journalists that this horror story is now happening frequently here. Starvation is being used as a weapon and infants are dying as their mother’s breast milk runs dry. The elderly, the sick and pregnant women are also especially vulnerable.
Parents are risking death by leaving their homes to look for food for their children. A nurse told Amnesty International that at least four people a day suffer gunshot wounds while picking plants and shrubs in the fields nearby the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp in Damascus.
Starvation War Strategy is a War Crime
Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been starving his citizens and blocking access to humanitarian aid as a war strategy and this is considered a war crime. Reuters reports that one Syrian security official called the situation the “Starvation Until Submission Campaign.”
Save the Child recently released a report stating that parts of Homs, Aleppo, Idlib and Damascus have been besieged. Talks between the U.N. and large humanitarian organizations are underway to negotiate a way to end the suffering of civilians.
The chief of Amnesty International said that European nations are not doing their part by taking in refugees. The five countries surrounding Syria are taking in 97 percent of the refugees and they are collapsing and now in need of help themselves. Wealthy European nations with space and resources need to step up to the plate.
– Elizabeth Brown
Sources: CNN, BBC, Arutz Sheva, Reuters, Al Arabiya
Photo: Spillers of Soup
Action Plan to 2014 Improves South African Education
At about seven percent of gross domestic product and 20 percent of total state expenditure, South Africa has one of the highest rates of public investments in education in the world. The South African Schools Act of 1996 makes education compulsory for all South Africans from the age of 7 to the age of 15.
President Jacob Zuma told Parliament on February 13 that the country’s matric pass rate went up from about 61 percent in 2009 to 78 percent last year. The matric pass rate is calculated by annual national assessments.
South Africa has 23 state-funded post-secondary institutions, 11 universities, six universities of technology and six comprehensive institutions.
As a result of education inequalities during apartheid, 18 percent of adults are illiterate. Today, almost 59 percent of whites attend higher education institutions; only 14 percent of blacks attend. The disparate percentage is a consequence of inadequate primary and secondary schooling due to apartheid.
The Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative has delivered 370 new schools throughout the country. The program replaces unsuitable infrastructure with schools.
Meanwhile, enrollment at universities has increased 13 percent since 2009 and Further Education and Training (FET) college enrollments have increased by 90 percent.
South Africa has implemented a plan for schools called Action Plan to 2014, a part of a larger vision called Schooling 2025, which aims to improve learning and teacher training. By 2025, South Africa wants to see students attend school every day and are on time. The country aims for schools to be accessible, clean and safe learning environments.
The program also includes teacher training, which will improve their capabilities and confidence. The focus of the program is on literacy and numeracy. This curriculum is known as the national Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS,) which provides specific guidelines for what is taught in schools.
Improving educational opportunities helps create tomorrow’s leaders. By giving students the opportunity to learn in a safe, clean and accessible environment, South Africa is helping to alleviate poverty, one step at a time.
Sources: All Africa, South Africa Info
Photo: YWC Project
Violence Against Polio Workers in Pakistan Escalates
In the most recent attack against health workers, one doctor, three guards and two local employees of the World Health Organization (WHO) were kidnapped while administering polio vaccine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a north western region of Pakistan.
Although no group has yet claimed responsibility, militants in the area have a history of inflicting violence against polio vaccinators, whom they accuse of sterilizing their children and being United States spies.
This attack follows a bombing in Peshawar, where a bomb targeting another polio vaccination team killed a policeman.
Polio workers have encountered violence in Pakistan since late 2006, when Taliban officials took control of Swat in the Himalayan region. They prohibited polio vaccination campaigns and vilified Lady Health Workers, many of whom stopped working due to direct threats to their lives.
Matters escalated even further after the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Under the ruse of a vaccination-campaign, CIA operatives infiltrated Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, which allowed them to test his children’s blood and guarantee his presence at the complex.
Since then, Taliban violence against polio workers has continued unabated, with more than 40 people, including health workers, the police teams guarding them and bystanders having been killed in Pakistan. Torture is also not unheard of, as experienced by three members of a polio vaccination team late last year.
After a particularly violent week against workers in December of 2012, UNICEF and the WHO issued a joint statement condemning polio attacks.
“Those killed or injured, many of whom are women, are among hundreds of thousands of heroes who work selflessly to eradicate polio and provide other health services to children in Pakistan,” said the statement. “Such attacks deprive children in Pakistan of their right to basic life-saving health interventions and place them at risk for a disease that causes lifelong disability.”
Typically affected children under the age of 5, the virus may result in paralysis and death.
Polio remains endemic only three countries in the world, including Pakistan, but if left untreated, officials warn it could trigger as many as 200,000 new cases every year.
– Emily Bajet
Sources: UNICEF, The Express Tribune, The Guardian, Newsweek Pakistan, Open Democracy
Photo: Washington Post
Mexican Vigilantes Battle Cartels
The cancerous effect of drug-related violence over the past six years has nearly stripped Mexico’s resources to the bone. Drug lords and cartel members have continued to control the better part of the region by striking fear into residents through brutal extortions, kidnappings, and murders.
This has all but halted the local economy, as many business owners are afraid to open up shop out of fear of reprisal. With more than 70,000 lives already lost to gang and drug-related violence, a recently approved initiative by the Mexican government has started to build its foundation in an effort to put an affirmative end to the war.
“Guys from the self-defense groups are moving around the city, co-operating in certain ways with the federal government. Many, many people have been detained,” said Hipolito Mora, the leader of an unlikely group of vigilantes who have arrested approximately 200 gang members.
These arrests come at the heels of a recently passed initiative allowing “self-defense” movements to assimilate and work with federal forces to combat violence and gang activities. These quasi-military units have sprouted up around Michoacan and have seen their membership grow into 20,000 strong.
The agreement was formed between the leaders of the Mexican vigilantes, army and police officers; President Enrique Pena Nieto’s envoy to Michoacan, Alfredo Castillo. Wearing white-T-shirts as a symbol of identification, the Rural Defense Corps, as referred to by government officials, recently breached the central square of Apatzingan, a stronghold and command base for the Knights Templar drug cartel.
Working with governmental forces, the Rural Defense Corps cleared the area out of cartel gunman who notoriously fired upon them in October 2013, when they entered the city unarmed in a convoy of hundreds. The recent presence of vigilante forces is a much needed boost for residents who have been forced to live under viscous rule for several years.
“We need to enter Apatzingan, which is the heart of the whole region and, as we all know, of vital importance for the criminal organization,” Mora said. Currently, the Knights Templar survives off a steady supply of methamphetamine and marijuana smuggling in addition to extortion and a controlling thumb over the local economy.
Since the beginning of January, these “self-defense” vigilante groups have launched a series of attacks against the Knights Templar gang in order to take back several overthrown municipalities in Michoaca in hopes of liberating communities. Many offenders have been arrested and detained through roadblocks around western Mexico in addition to door to door searches.
While such news is encouraging, atrocities and violence continue to remain a looming factor for rising forces. Recently, a mass grave with approximately 20 bodies was discovered in the Michoacan town of Tinguindin as well as four other murders in the nearby village of Zacan. While Mora believes these acts of violence to be retaliation for his group’s recent triumphs, he remains determined. “There can’t be any further delay, as that would put under risk the lives of so many people who are supporting our movement.”
– Jeffrey Scott Haley
Feature Writer
Sources: The Guardian, BBC, Daily Mail
Photo: Borderland Beat
ChildFund International Tackles World Hunger
The United States Census Bureau has forecasted the population of the world to reach eight billion by the year 2025. In terms of hunger this can be considered an extremely daunting statistic. How will eight billion people eat in the future when people cannot even adequately feed everyone living on Earth today? Eliminating global poverty and giving children necessary skills to survive and thrive in the coming years are crucial parts of the world hunger solution.
ChildFund International is one organization that focuses mainly on children and improving their quality of life in order to sustain a better future. It is known for sponsoring children in over 50 countries. Giving to countries in need with specific guidelines involving nutrition and social development have been proven effective in comparison with unspecific cash donations.
Focusing on making sure children and families have access to food and health living environments is a great strategy for charities to implement. Once starvation is off the table, kids can go to school and parents to work. Eventually they can become self-sufficient, disbarring the notion of welfare dependency.
Supporting children with food, water, school supplies, and access to decent medical care is all part of the sponsorship benefits that ChildFund International distributes. A recent article on their website notes how population increases are only exacerbating the problem of widespread hunger. Developing countries are becoming more urban; building cities means destroying farmland. Farmland is necessary for agricultural production, and the less natural farmland there is, the more difficult it becomes to produce food.
Solving global poverty and solving world hunger are interrelated goals. Providing access to clean drinking water, food and medical care boosts the economy by increasing the number of healthy learning and working children in a community. The more educated the children are, the more likely they are to grow up and secure sustainable employment.
Having a stable job will mean having a stable income and the ability to break the vicious cycle of poverty. Studies have shown that poverty in the United States has decreased significantly over the past 50 years and the goal of eradicating poverty altogether is very possible with governmental assistance and appropriate policy implementation. However, poverty is still a huge issue in foreign nations and every effort is needed to help resolve it.
There are still billions of people living on barely $2 per day and suffering from hunger and the absence of clean water. Foundations like ChildFund International and everyone who gets involved can make sure everyone has the chance at a better tomorrow.
– Kaitlin Sutherby
Sources: The Economist, The Huffington Post
Photo: TriCounty Sentry
Promoting Liberian Education System Essential
Liberia has a unique connection to the United States. African Americans immigrating from the U.S. to the West African Coast officially founded the nation in 1847. While the country has struggled to achieve prosperity and economic stability for its citizens, the Liberian education system has made considerable recent progress.
Liberia is still recovering from the civil wars that began in 1980 and lasted until 2003. As a result, Liberia ranks near the bottom of the United Nations Development Program Human Development Index at 174th out of 187. Correspondingly, nearly 36 percent of the Liberian population suffers from malnutrition.
During the years of civil car, educational systems were almost nonexistent. This leaves a massive gap in skilled workers entering the job market and by extension, extreme unemployment (close to 80 percent) and poverty. Liberia has a literacy rate of 60.8 percent, and an education system described as “a mess” by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Not all news about the Liberian education system is bleak, however. In 2011, President Sirleaf signed into law the Education Reform Act, which seeks to decentralize the education system and help create a new educational management structure more locally focused. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has also instituted the Liberia Teacher Training Program to help train, develop and recruit more teachers for the nation.
An additional component of USAID’s work in Liberia is encouraging participation in education by girls and women. The Girls’ Opportunities Access Learning Program hopes to increase school enrollment and retention for girls by identifying key policy issues with Liberia’s Ministry of Education.
According to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Corporal Organization’s Education for All Initiative, at least 15 percent of a nation’s budget should be allocated for education. Currently, Liberia only spends around 3 percent of its national budget on education. In order to fully jumpstart educational progress in Liberia, there is much more to be done.
– Taylor Diamond
Sources: The Guardian, USAID, WFP, Liberian Education Trust
Photo: International Book Bank
Poverty and Violence in Honduras
Birthplace of the term “banana republic” and victim of the brutal fruit companies-led coup, Honduras is among the countries with the lowest incomes in Latin America, poverty is very pronounced problem in this Central American nation. Despite an economic growth of around 3 percent per annum, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of the country remains stagnant.
This discrepancy could indicate that there is a widening disparity gap.
In fact, since the coup d’état in 2009, Honduras witnesses the most rapid rise in inequality in Latin America, a factor that contributes to prevailing climate of violence. Equally frustrating, the top 10 percent of the population also earns virtually all of the republic’s real income gains.
Furthermore, the 2009 coup d’état had increased the overall rates of poverty and extreme poverty. This climate of political crisis had reverted the economic advances that took place in the country. In addition, the government of President Porfirio Lobo, who came into power after the post-coup elections of 2010, had reduced social spending despite the boost in public spending.
It is estimated that 71 percent of the 8.3 million Hondurans live in poverty, a major problem that contributes to the frequent instances of violence that plague the nation. Because of this astronomic number of people living in poverty, a large sector of Honduras’ population is also deprived of education.
Only a lucky few can afford any education beyond sixth grade.
What’s more, Honduras has the highest rate of homicide in the world, with the average of 20 people murdered daily, 90 percent of whom are male victims. This frightening data stem from the burgeoning narcotic business, which has given rise to many organized crimes. This epidemic problem of homicides also takes away from the country’s meager income by necessitating the Honduran government to spend 10.5 percent of the national GDP in the combat of violence.
Due to Honduras’ constant history of political instability, there has always been very little opportunity for Honduras to develop democratic institutions to impose the rule of law. Instead, centuries of colonialism and decades of dictatorship have marginalized the poor, leaving them with minimal choices to make a living.
This scarcity of upward economic mobility and grinding poverty have driven many towards illicit ways of earning money.
In its attempt to encourage Honduras to alleviate poverty, the World Bank has suggested the country to support the stability and the growth of its macro-economy as well as to improve the quality of its education. But, these key options to improve the situation of the country are easier said (or suggested) than done. Development and democracy are not phenomena whose advent can be brought about at an instant.
Instead, they require years of institutional and systematic reforms for a society to have a functional democracy and a sustainable development.
– Peewara Sapsuwan
Sources: El Pais Internacional, El Heraldo, El Heraldo, Los Angeles Times, World Bank, World Bank
Photo: Zimbio