It was in 2010 when Emmy-award winning TV producer Kimba Langas partnered up with pastor and social entrepreneur Dave Terpstra to make a difference.
Dave had moved to Mozambique with his family to help rehabilitate women who were survivors of sex trafficking. He wanted to help the women find jobs in order to ensure themselves a sustainable income, thereby lessening their vulnerability. Trafficking is all about vulnerability, he explains; people who are desperate to work and make money are taken advantage of.
“He found his answer in the bustling used clothing markets of Mozambique,” writes CNN producer Lisa Cohen.
Selling bras seems like a unique, new and interesting idea, but it wasn’t based on a random decision. Dave noticed that these women could make a profit that was higher than the minimum wage by selling second-hand clothing, and bras are well-demanded. He went on to team up with Kimba Langas to address this idea, and they created the Free the Girls charity, which collected bra donations from all over the U.S.
Langas created a Facebook page to publicize the start-up fundraiser, and the bras started pouring in. She explains that a majority of women have a large collection of bras that don’t fit well anymore or bras that are not being used anymore. However, after a few months, Langas ran into a new issue concerning the 20,000+ bras she had been sent – the shipping alone would have cost her $6,500, well outside her budget for the project.
“That’s when the story was featured on CNN, and everything changed.”
Paul Jarzombek, Director of Operations at LR International, reached out to Langas since he has a shipping company in Chicago. A domino effect of kindness then occurred as a truck driver, Rick Youngquist, offered to deliver the bras from Denver to Chicago.
Rick had recently joined an organization called Truckers Against Trafficking where truck drivers learn about how to spot and respond to signs of human trafficking on the road. Although it took three months, the bras did eventually reach Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
According to Lisa Cohen, the success of this bra charity led the Free the Girls organization to target other places within Africa and beyond. For now, women survivors in Mozambique express their gratitude. One survivor has said, “I just want to tell the people in America, they’ve given us the strength we needed. Thank you very much.”
And that is how bras helped human trafficking survivors; anything is possible.
– Leen Abdallah
Source: CNN Freedom Project
10 Countries with the Shortest Life Expectancy
The 10 countries with the shortest life expectancy can be found in one continent, Africa, with the exception of Afghanistan. Short life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa can be caused by famine, poor governments, low levels of education (research has suggested that education correlates with healthcare awareness), availability of clean water and the existence of widespread AIDS. In Afghanistan, the main reason for short life expectancy has been due to infant mortality and women not surviving through childbirth. According to The Guardian, better access to healthcare in the last decade has helped cut infant mortality rates in Afghanistan.
What can we do? Well, donating and persuading our government to give more foreign aid helps solve the poverty issue. Once these countries move up, they can begin to fund higher levels of education, afford advanced agricultural tools which can help sustain growth, and improve healthcare.
(Listed top-to-bottom from the country with the shortest life expectancy)
– Leen Abdallah
Source: CIA World Factbook, The Guardian, Econs Guide
Photo: Google: Short Life Expectancy
What Exactly is Mobile Money?
Mobile money, or mobile payments/mobile banking, is a rapidly growing industry that serves as an alternative to traditional banking. What is mobile money and why is it important is a question most acutely significant to those in developing countries.
Of the 2.6 billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day, about 80 percent of them do not have access to a bank account. This is completely understandable due to banking fees and lack of access to banks. Thus, for this population, all transactions are chiefly done through “informal financial tools.”
Payments are made in cash or through physical bartering (e.g., food, livestock, traded goods, etc). Or, for bigger expenses, people are forced to go through other informal means of acquiring money like money lenders and payment couriers although these methods are unreliable, hard to access and can carry even higher fees. Meaning that those living in poverty are further hindered in breaking away from their circumstances.
At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) team believes that given the right financial tools like mobile money, poor households can capture more opportunities. Mobile phones serve as virtual devices for holding money and making payments electronically, like a bank account and/or credit card. Paychecks can even be credited to mobile devices. Access to mobile phones is widespread in all regions of the world, far more than traditional banks.
In an effort to further develop these technologies, FSP has partnered with the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) and created an industry-wide competition for finding new and innovative electronic payment methods via mobile banking.
This has “the potential to make a profound impact on the global market, particularly to un-banked or under-banked consumers in the developing world. Thus far, we have seen a large drop in costs and increased access when mobile channels are used,” says Megan Oxman, a program officer with the FSP.
It is expected that the mobile money market will grow from a $13.8 billion dollar business in 2013, to $278.9 billion by 2018. The more the industry grows, the more reliable and accessible this form of “banking” will become, allowing for more stability and development within impoverished communities.
– Mary Purcell
Source: Mobilepaymentstoday.com, PRnewswire.com
Photo: Gatesfoundation.org
How Bras Helped Human Trafficking Survivors
It was in 2010 when Emmy-award winning TV producer Kimba Langas partnered up with pastor and social entrepreneur Dave Terpstra to make a difference.
Dave had moved to Mozambique with his family to help rehabilitate women who were survivors of sex trafficking. He wanted to help the women find jobs in order to ensure themselves a sustainable income, thereby lessening their vulnerability. Trafficking is all about vulnerability, he explains; people who are desperate to work and make money are taken advantage of.
“He found his answer in the bustling used clothing markets of Mozambique,” writes CNN producer Lisa Cohen.
Selling bras seems like a unique, new and interesting idea, but it wasn’t based on a random decision. Dave noticed that these women could make a profit that was higher than the minimum wage by selling second-hand clothing, and bras are well-demanded. He went on to team up with Kimba Langas to address this idea, and they created the Free the Girls charity, which collected bra donations from all over the U.S.
Langas created a Facebook page to publicize the start-up fundraiser, and the bras started pouring in. She explains that a majority of women have a large collection of bras that don’t fit well anymore or bras that are not being used anymore. However, after a few months, Langas ran into a new issue concerning the 20,000+ bras she had been sent – the shipping alone would have cost her $6,500, well outside her budget for the project.
“That’s when the story was featured on CNN, and everything changed.”
Paul Jarzombek, Director of Operations at LR International, reached out to Langas since he has a shipping company in Chicago. A domino effect of kindness then occurred as a truck driver, Rick Youngquist, offered to deliver the bras from Denver to Chicago.
Rick had recently joined an organization called Truckers Against Trafficking where truck drivers learn about how to spot and respond to signs of human trafficking on the road. Although it took three months, the bras did eventually reach Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
According to Lisa Cohen, the success of this bra charity led the Free the Girls organization to target other places within Africa and beyond. For now, women survivors in Mozambique express their gratitude. One survivor has said, “I just want to tell the people in America, they’ve given us the strength we needed. Thank you very much.”
And that is how bras helped human trafficking survivors; anything is possible.
– Leen Abdallah
Source: CNN Freedom Project
“Frequency of Peace”: World Radio Day
February 13 was World Radio Day. Started in 2011 by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Radio Day is meant to commemorate the establishment of United Nations Radio in 1946. Since then, there have been unbelievable strides in mass-media and communication. According to UNESCO however, the radio still manages to reach 95 percent of the world, a feat neither television or the internet can claim to have achieved.
But what is it about the radio that has enabled it to be such a helpful tool for developing countries in times of war and general disconnect? Wave frequencies can be produced with the simplest transmitters. The actual radio itself, being portable and in many cases, battery-operated, makes it much more available than television and computers in villages and other rural areas where electrical outlets are hard to come by, let alone a stable flow of electricity.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commended the use of radio “as a channel for life-saving information”. Discussing his life growing up in a Korean village, Ban Ki-moon stresses the importance of the radio for emergency instructions in times of war as well as the main source of information and knowledge for many. Whether it delivers breaking news or issues warnings to those living far from civilization, radios save lives.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova gave a speech on World Radio Day that focused on the wide-spread use of radios not just on a global scale but in smaller communities. Even though the areas the waves reach may not be extensive, it gives the younger generation an opportunity to learn and experiment with technology. Community radio, Bokova says, helps address poverty and social exclusion as well as empowers marginalized rural groups, young people, and women.
As UENSCO optimistically revives the meaning and purpose of the radio, evidence of its pricelessness can be found everywhere. In November of last year, the non-profit THNKR, which is a Youtube channel that showcases people doing amazing things around the world that have the potential to change the way we think and view each others’ and our own potential, posted a video of Kelvin Doe. Kelvin, better known from his radio name as DJ Focus, comes from Sierra Leone. He has become quite famous over the past year for his talent and gift of being a self-taught engineer. By scraping together whatever metals he could, he built his own FM transmitter and generator. With his own radio station, DJ Focus broadcasts music, has an open forum and enjoys entertaining over the radio like any other 16-year-old would, taking full advantage of everything his small radio has to offer.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source:UN News Centre
Energy 101 at Georgia Tech
Whether it’s the annoying news reporter or that obnoxious know-it-all in your Air Pollution class, people everywhere seem to be making up facts and statistics about our energy consumption. Does charging your phone from a laptop save more energy than if you were to charge it from a wall plug? Would using solar energy to power factories actually reduce air pollution?
Energy 101, a free online class offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology, sheds light on “the driving forces of energy used in transportation”, the production of energy-efficient products, and the process of converting renewable resources into a more desired form.
Dr. Sam Shelton, a veteran in energy systems, teaches the course. Aside from his multi-million dollar funded research and development, he is the founder of two companies that produce and market energy-efficient products. He was also a leading developer in the 1980s of the first commercial solar energy systems and investigated the efficiency of offshore wind farms.
The format of the Energy 101 is as simple as they come: over the span of nine weeks, lectures are taught in 5-12 minute videos. Quizzes are also given and upon finishing the program, students will receive a Certificate of Completion.
But what use is studying the complexities of thermodynamics to the average curious cat? For one thing, Dr. Shelton stresses the ‘no experience necessary’ aspect of the class. You don’t need to be able to understand physics or be able to use mathematical formulas to do well in the class. The information from this class can be put to use in a variety of settings from an elementary school classroom in Arkansas to sustainable farming training in Cambodia.
Understanding the truth about how we use energy and where it comes from will help dictate our policies on diverting our focus to the right alternatives.
Before even listening to one lecture, Dr. Shelton lets his potential students in on an unexpected secret, “Building nuclear, wind and solar energy systems does not save any oil in the U.S..” This only goes to illustrate the new and exciting information students of Energy 101 can look forward to learning that will enlighten them on the truth about energy consumption in the world.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source: Coursera.org
Nasty Secrets of Indian Healthcare
Private healthcare has grown in prominence in India, constituting 93 percent of all hospitals and 85 percentof doctors today. The government clinics are sparse, leaving Indians no choice but to seek private healthcare. With no real government regulations, many private practices are taking advantage of the poor, uneducated or illiterate patients, and especially women. By providing expensive treatments that are not necessary, many are left in atrocious debts and physical pain.
Oxfam personnel in India have obtained substantial evidence on these abuses committed against Indian women at these private clinics and hospitals. Doctors have coerced thousands of women to get unnecessary hysterectomies when they come in for treatment for stomachaches or abdominal problems. Akhil Bhartiya Grhak Panchayat, a local NGO in Dausa, has found that almost 70 percent of the women who have gone to the clinics, which the NGO obtained information from, have had hysterectomies performed on them. The investigation also revealed that many of these women were less than 29 years old.
Besides hysterectomies, many women were also tricked into having cesarean surgeries instead of a natural delivery. A cesarean operation can cost about four times as much as a normal delivery. In addition to the cost of the operation, the doctors would then charge for consultation and hospital beds. These unwarranted procedures leave the women deeply in debt, and sometimes in worse physical shape and unable to work.
These unnecessary treatments for financial gains are unethical and a violation of human rights. Oxfam urges the Indian government to regulate the private healthcare sector and work towards developing an affordable healthcare system for everyone in India. Oxfam is working to end this exploitation of women in need of health services.
– Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana
Source: Guardian
Photo: Time
Oxfam Provides Water from Lake to Lips in 6 Weeks
North of Lake Kivu in the city of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, civil strife has caused thousands of refugees to flee to the Bulengo Camp. Home to about 45,000, Bulengo has been given the remodeling of a lifetime thanks to the hard work of Oxfam volunteers. Over a six week period, a basic yet high-functioning water filtration system has been set up that provides enough clean water for the entire camp.
The entire system is comprised of hundreds of meters of piping. Water is pumped directly from Lake Kivu and sent to large tanks. Within these tanks, the water is filtered and chlorinated to prevent diseases such as cholera. The tanks can hold up to 70,000 liters (approximately 18,492 gallons) each and are filled twice a day.
An amazing aspect of this system, aside from the fact that it provides the most basic need to thousands, is that the system is managed by the refugees. They maintain the pipes and check the chlorination process to ensure everything runs smoothly from the lake to the lips of thirsty refugees. The best job, however, is that of the young children who run to the taps in the camp to freely fill up their buckets and bottles.
Oxfam shows that through providing basic building materials, it is possible to greatly impact more than 45,000 people. It is proven through successful aid work that developing countries do not need the most modern technology; they do not only require a constant stream of millions of dollars but also the time and creativity of those willing to go out to these countries and help. In a matter of just six weeks, thousands of lives have instantly changed. There was no need for excessive donors, elongated presentations or even extensive research on how to solve the problem. Six weeks, plastic pipes and plastic bottles was all it took to get clean water from lake to lips.
– Deena Dulgerian
Source:Oxfam International
Bangladesh Poverty Reduction Story Wins UNDP Award
A story of poverty reduction in Bangladesh has come in second place in an annual U.N. Development Programme Competition. The purpose of the competition was to capture the result of transformative development in a story. “These stories highlight UNDP’s critical work on poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery and the environment and sustainable development,” said UNDP chief Helen Clark.
The story involves Shyamola Begum of Dhaka and how she managed to support herself and her two children after her husband left her. Shyamola’s situation is not uncommon in Dhaka. Every year, tens of thousands of women are left by their husbands who have given up hope in the face of poverty and lack of employment opportunities. However, after receiving an entrepreneur grant of roughly $30 from the UK’s Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction fund, Shyamola was able to open a tea stall. In just a few months, she had more than doubled her investment.
“Until I became destitute, I had never imagined I could run a business, that I could do accounts, that I could be successful,” said Shyamola.
Her success is also not uncommon. Over the past five years, 55,000 families like Shyamola’s all across Bangladesh have received similar assistance from UPPR, the largest urban poverty reduction initiative in Bangladesh. Over the past decade, Bangladesh’s poverty has decreased by half, 90 percent of young girls are enrolled in schools and child mortality has gone down by 60 percent.
Regarding the UNDP stories, Clark said, “They remind us that people are and always will be the center of UNDP’s work.”
– Rafael Panlilio
Source: The Daily Star, UNDP
Top 7 Celebrities Helping the World’s Poor
Sometimes we just want to know who is doing what to help those less fortunate, especially what celebrities are doing. Those special individuals who have tremendous wealth and are compelled to give some away in recognition of their good fortune, and in stark contrast to those who have so very little.
The site Look to the Stars lists celebrities and all their philanthropic contributions. The top 7 celebrities who are helping the world’s poor are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who together give to 27 charities and in 2006 alone gave away $8 million. Bono is next on the list, not only contributing to 14 specifically humanitarian groups but actively creating organizations, concerts, programs, strategies and even clothing to reduce poverty. Then, Bill Clinton follows with contributions to 13 organizations, but primarily focuses on the foundation he created in his name to help with humanitarian causes. Rock legend and well-known philanthropist Annie Lennox donates to 11 related charities, principally Amnesty International and Greenpeace. George Clooney not only contributes to 10 poverty groups but also created his own campaign specifically to help those suffering in Darfur – Not On Our Watch. The seventh leading celebrity actively addressing poverty issues is musician John Legend, supporting 7 related campaigns and starting his own with partner Jeffrey Sachs – the Poverty Action Tour, trying to educate and inspire U.S. university students to get involved in the cause.
Top charities being supported by celebrities to assist the world’s poor are UNICEF, Save the Children, Oxfam, Entertainment Industry Foundation, Comic Relief, Soles4Souls, Artists for Peace and Justice, ONE Campaign, Sport Relief, (RED).
Interestingly, Bono was compelled to start his charitable work after seeing The Secret Policeman’s Ball in 1979, and John Legend immediately took action after reading The End of Poverty by Earth Institute, director Dr. Jeffrey Sachs.
– Mary Purcell
Source: Look To The Stars
Photo: Hollywoodnose
Sting Promotes Indestructible Soccer Ball
Kids in war-torn Darfur playing soccer with a ball made from crumpled trash bags, encircled with twine was the catalyst for Tim Jahnigen’s invention of the indestructible soccer ball. His compassion for these kids who had suffered so much, but still had the spirit to play and thrive, compelled him to create a ball that would never wear out, never deflate, and never need a pump. His idea remained in the concept stage until Sting provided the support necessary to start the One World Futbol Project.
With Sting promoting the indestructible soccer ball, soon Chevrolet came on as the founding financial sponsor for the project, and now these supper soccer balls are distributed around the world. Through the group’s “Buy One, Give One” program, for every ball purchased they will donate another to an organization working with disadvantaged communities, including refugee camps, conflict zones, disaster areas, and inner cities. Overall, 100 organizations help to distribute balls in 120 countries – a symbol for kindness, caring, and compassion that does make us all One World.
– Mary Purcell
Source: You Tube