The Sherwood Foundation is a nonprofit organization that invests in organizations and initiatives dedicated to making an impact in Nebraskan local communities. To assist in this process, The Sherwood foundation provides grants for applicable organizations and initiatives.
The Sherwood Foundation’s vision statement is created around ideals of social justice and proactive reinforcement. It believes that social justice can only be achieved through the “establishment and maintenance of policies, practices, attitudes and actions that provide equitable power, access, opportunities, treatment, impact, and outcomes for all”.
Limiting assistance to non-profit organizations predominantly serving Nebraska, the Sherwood Foundation only funds tax-exempt organizations (under section 501(c)(3)), government entities, schools and churches of Nebraska.
The Sherwood Foundation limits grants to organizations addressing one of their focus- categories. Four categories constitute the foundation involvement: Urban Community Partnerships, Omaha Public Schools, Rural Community Partnerships, and Early Childhood Education. If an organization addresses one of the four categories and is in good standing with the Internal Revenue Service, they are applicable to apply for a Sherman Foundation grant.
Displayed on their website, The Sherwood Project gladly supports programs and practices that bridge the opportunity gap for families and promote student success, promote resources to education, health and societal contribution and encourage sustainable systems.
Some examples of programs funded by the Sherwood Project are discussed in a Youth Transition Funder Group (YTFG) interview with Sherwood Foundation’s Jerry Bexten.
According to Bexten, the foundation has organized many education and poverty programs. Bexten’s work with the organization is targeted towards 5-12 education and funded by early childhood education programs of the Buffet Early Childhood Fund. Represented through their education grants, the Sherwood Foundation supports the development of education and “strengthens focus on science maths and literacy”, Bexten tells TYFG.
In addition to their investment in early childhood education programs, this last school year, the foundation directed aid to school drop-outs and at-risk-youth. Opening a re-engagement center (the D2 (Directions and Diploma) Center), the foundation provided personalized education assistance and graduate programs for individuals aged 16 to 20.
Similarly, the Sherwood Foundation held a Multiple Pathways to Graduation summit last November. Bexten states that during this conference, through determining the locality of educational gaps, stakeholders assessed the development of future programs.
Sources: YTFG, Sherwood Foundation
Sources: Sherwood Foundation
The Secret to Combining Healthcare and Women’s Empowerment
For decades now BRAC, a Bangladeshi anti-poverty organization formerly known as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, has been providing a different approach to healthcare services. While most health care around the world is provided by doctors and nurses in a hospital setting, BRAC has been using a door-to-door method of healthcare. BRAC hires women to deliver primary health care or locally by visiting people at their homes without a doctor or nurse. Not only does this create healthier communities, but it also elevates these women to a higher status in society and broadens the perceptions of the role of women in these rural communities.
These women join BRAC as frontline community health promoters. After they receive training from BRAC, they travel from house to house in order to promote many health practices that we hold as staples in the Western world. Among these is the adoption of contraceptives, identifying pregnancy, proper health while with child, and education about children’s health. While there, the women also treat basic illnesses among family members. Further training from BRAC allows these women to raise awareness about other diseases like hypertension and diabetes while giving them access to equipment such as blood pressure gauges and primary medicines.
This sort of medical service without a doctor or nurse is made possible by the fact that many diseases in poverty-stricken and developing areas is the result of simple ailments that do not need extensive medical training to diagnose and treat successfully. One of the most significant examples of this is diarrhea. According to the World Health Organization’s website, “diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death in children under five years old…Globally, there are nearly 1.7 billion cases of diarrheal disease every year.” These women can help stave off the malnutrition which results from diarrhea with simple oral rehydration solutions.
BRAC has evolved from a small relief organization in 1972 into the largest development organization in the world by enacting these types of strategies that utilize poor communities’ own human and material resources to create environments and situations that enable the poor to take control of their own development. This community health program is a prime example of the best type of development strategy. It does not consist merely of throwing resources at a community but empowers members of that community to take an active role in development. This strategy holds even more impact because of its use of women as employees, as the empowerment of women is the key to overcoming global poverty, due to women’s large investment in their own communities.
– Martin Drake
Source: Huffington Post, World Health Organization, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee
Photo: Global Voices
Caterpillar’s Role in International Development
Caterpillar Inc. is an Illinois based company that plays a dominant role in energy, trade, and infrastructure for developing countries. Yet Caterpillar is more than just business. The philanthropic efforts of the Caterpillar Foundation, founded in 1952, have contributed more than $550 million towards human development around the world. The Foundation has partnered with a variety of key organizations to fund projects in the areas of environmental sustainability, access to education, and meeting basic human needs for food, shelter, and healthcare.
As a Fortune 100 company with 2012 sales and revenues of $65.875 billion, Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel-electric locomotives. They are best known for their big, yellow tractors. Caterpillar’s global reach and presence are unmatched in the industry. They have a presence in more than 180 countries around the globe and over 500 locations worldwide. More than half of their sales are outside the United States. As a powerful multinational corporation, Caterpillar has a very influential role in human development.
The Caterpillar Foundation invested $3 million during 2012 in a partnership with a World Resources Institute (WRI) project to promote the development of sustainable cities in China, India and Brazil. Through this “smart cities” initiative, WRI will work with five cities on strategies to increase energy efficiency, curb greenhouse gas emissions, and improve water quality, urban mobility and land use.
Specific project goals include solutions that will reach one billion people with new public transportation options; avoid 617,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions in the transportation area; reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia water pollution by 15 percent; and provide more reliable energy to 11 million industrial, corporate and residential consumers. In total, the Caterpillar Foundation expects to support this project with $12.5 million over five years – all in an effort to curb the negative environmental side effects of rapid urbanization in the developing countries.
The Resource Foundation is another partner of the Caterpillar Foundation. This $3 million partnership will reach more than 11,000 children in Latin America and the Caribbean over three years, beginning in January 2013. Through a regional strategy targeting specific communities in 10 countries, the program seeks to improve academic achievement, gender equity and life skills among primary school-age boys and girls from 54 schools.
The Caterpillar Foundation has also been a long-time supporter of Opportunity International’s microfinance programs in more than 20 countries around the world. The Caterpillar Foundation’s investment has helped Opportunity International provide life-changing microloans to more than 75,000 small entrepreneurs, create 30,000 jobs and give more than 60,000 rural families access to basic banking services. A majority of Opportunity International’s clients are women who reinvest more of their earnings into health care, education and their communities, which helps break the cycle of generational poverty. As of July 2012, Opportunity International has four million clients, 17,600 employees, 2.3 million insurance policies, and a 95 percent loan repayment rate.
– Maria Caluag
Source: Caterpillar,CSR Wire
Photo: Companies and Markets
The Butterfly Effect
Often, consumers in the developed world assume that the greatest impact they can have on developing countries is philanthropic: by choosing certain products, certain brands and certain charities, they can improve the lives of citizens far away. It is a widely held belief that the developed world’s major interaction with the developing is that of a benevolent elder sibling: offering advice and help when necessary, while also attending to their own, separate affairs.
A recent report by The Atlantic once again highlights how incorrect this idea is. Indeed, the activities of the first world often have profound consequences for the developing world as they bear the brunt of paying for the sins of those who are more advantaged.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, a famine devastated parts of northern Africa, leaving 100,000 dead and upward of 700,000 relying on foreign food aid for survival. Infamous across the world, photos of starving cattle marching across dusty plains and children with shriveled arms and distended bellies still remain burned in many minds. Initially, this was blamed on poor farming practices leading to desertification. New research by scientists, however, shows that the drought which caused the famine was triggered by the number of factory emissions from Western Europe and the United States of America. The release of sulfate aerosols, which cool the climate around them, disrupted rainfall patterns for decades until clean-air laws were passed in the industrialized countries.
It is an uncomfortable reality that the world is interconnected and that the decisions of one country will undoubtedly have ramifications for another. More than ever in today’s connected and globalized world, countries have to work in sincere cooperation, not just for individual benefit, but for the good of the international community.
The developed world, having such power, also carries an immense amount of responsibility in wielding it. To a large extent, it is failing at that responsibility: smartphones continue to fly off the shelves, despite the myriad controversies surrounding them, including Apple’s suicidal factory workers and the conflict minerals necessary for production. Fairtrade products are still pushing to be the norm, and clean energy bills struggle to be passed.
Too often, citizens rely on governments to take the initiative in social progress. As we continue to dive deeper and deeper into climate change and growing levels of inequality, however, the average citizen has to start harnessing their individual power. The old saying goes that a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane; while this may be an exaggeration, one must ask themselves what the potential impact of human life can be, even the most ordinary one, across the globe.
– Farahnaz Mohammed
Source: Science Daily,The Atlantic
Photo: The Guardian
Fragile But Not Helpless
Rates of acute and chronic malnutrition are estimated to be 50 percent higher in countries marred by conflict than in more stable places, according to a new report by World Vision U.K. entitled “Fragile But Not Helpless.”
Because war-torn and violent countries often allocate all efforts toward the alleviation of conflict, the issue of malnutrition is often sidelined. The progress in these countries is in danger of reversing if nothing is done. While the pursuit of peace in conflict-torn countries is extremely important, the alleviation of life-threatening issues such as malnutrition should not be neglected, according to David Thomson of World Vision UK.
More children worldwide die from malnutrition than from conflict, even in violent countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, South Sudan and Afghanistan. Though significant progress has been made in the alleviation of malnutrition, 2.3 million children still die from the condition every year. And yet, war-torn countries divert an average of 60% of their budget to the military and only a fraction of that toward malnutrition.
World Vision UK suggests that “donors simply need to re-prioritize if we’re to ensure the benefits of this progress reach a generation of children in the world’s most fragile states.”
The organization is calling on donor states to encourage conflict-affected states to join their “Scaling Up Nutrition” movement. This movement is a global collective effort involving governments, the United Nations, private donors, civil society, businesses and researchers to improve nutrition.
Their approaches include making nutritious food more accessible, improving access to clean water and improving access to adequate healthcare services. Recently, they have expanded their initiatives to focusing on nutritional development in what they call FCAS, or fragile and conflict-affected states.
With their new report, they aim to encourage G8 leaders to provide funding and technical support to FCAS that have demonstrated a concerted effort to tackle malnutrition. With consistent funding and political attention, Thomson is hopeful that malnutrition can be addressed and alleviated in fragile states.
– Kathryn Cassibry
Sources: World Vision UK, TRUST
Photo: The Guardian
Food Insecurity in Pakistan
Pakistan has been pummeled by three consecutive years of flooding resulting in destroyed crops and forced evacuations. Coupled with tribal violence this situation has prompted the UN to declare Pakistan in a state of food “emergency.” However, aid may be slow in coming.
Forty-five percent of Pakistan’s population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. Flooding in 2007, 2010, and 2012 coupled with earthquakes in 2005 and 2008 severely affected Pakistan’s food production. Wheat production, a major component of Pakistan’s food supply, was affected in 2008 but has since recovered some. However, rice production, a significant export, is still down from its high. This Spring the Indus river, providing much of the irrigation for production areas in Pakistan’s coastal district is unusually low. The colder winter has delayed glacier melt which feeds the River. Scientists believe climate change will continue to affect glacier melt and lead to increased flooding and drought.
Malnourishment is another result of these natural disasters and unrest in Pakistan. Fifteen percent of Pakistani children are malnourished. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) works to combat this nutrient deficiency in Pakistan with locally produced products called “Wawa Mum” and “Acha Mum.” Programs providing children aged six to fifty-nine months with this nutrient-rich product has seen positive results. Reaching more children in the most remote parts of the country requires additional resources, however.
In addition to the crops lost to natural disasters the evacuation of rural populations also leads to food insecurity. The population dependent on sustenance farming is forced to abandon their production and livestock when moved to safe areas. The loss in this production and investment is difficult to monetize. Areas bordering Afghanistan affected by tribal violence and spill-over from conflict across the border also lead to evacuations and loss in property. Even when refugees are able to return to their homes their houses and property are often destroyed, making food production difficult if not impossible.
A program launched in May 2009 by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and implemented in conjunction with the WFP is designed to assist the rural population with food production and re-building local agricultural infrastructure. The 24.7 million Euro project targets families growing staple foods. In addition to this funding, the FAO works to assist agriculture production in conflict areas of Pakistan.
Despite these programs, the WFP chief says aid for Pakistan food security has been rerouted to assist with the Syrian refugee crisis. The WFP spends $19 million monthly on Syria operations. With the increasing violence in Syria, and the refugee numbers climbing, Pakistan may see a further drop in its food aid.
– Callie D. Coleman
Sources: Global Post, Food Security Portal, WFP
Photo: Spark
The Sherwood Foundation 101
The Sherwood Foundation is a nonprofit organization that invests in organizations and initiatives dedicated to making an impact in Nebraskan local communities. To assist in this process, The Sherwood foundation provides grants for applicable organizations and initiatives.
The Sherwood Foundation’s vision statement is created around ideals of social justice and proactive reinforcement. It believes that social justice can only be achieved through the “establishment and maintenance of policies, practices, attitudes and actions that provide equitable power, access, opportunities, treatment, impact, and outcomes for all”.
Limiting assistance to non-profit organizations predominantly serving Nebraska, the Sherwood Foundation only funds tax-exempt organizations (under section 501(c)(3)), government entities, schools and churches of Nebraska.
The Sherwood Foundation limits grants to organizations addressing one of their focus- categories. Four categories constitute the foundation involvement: Urban Community Partnerships, Omaha Public Schools, Rural Community Partnerships, and Early Childhood Education. If an organization addresses one of the four categories and is in good standing with the Internal Revenue Service, they are applicable to apply for a Sherman Foundation grant.
Displayed on their website, The Sherwood Project gladly supports programs and practices that bridge the opportunity gap for families and promote student success, promote resources to education, health and societal contribution and encourage sustainable systems.
Some examples of programs funded by the Sherwood Project are discussed in a Youth Transition Funder Group (YTFG) interview with Sherwood Foundation’s Jerry Bexten.
According to Bexten, the foundation has organized many education and poverty programs. Bexten’s work with the organization is targeted towards 5-12 education and funded by early childhood education programs of the Buffet Early Childhood Fund. Represented through their education grants, the Sherwood Foundation supports the development of education and “strengthens focus on science maths and literacy”, Bexten tells TYFG.
In addition to their investment in early childhood education programs, this last school year, the foundation directed aid to school drop-outs and at-risk-youth. Opening a re-engagement center (the D2 (Directions and Diploma) Center), the foundation provided personalized education assistance and graduate programs for individuals aged 16 to 20.
Similarly, the Sherwood Foundation held a Multiple Pathways to Graduation summit last November. Bexten states that during this conference, through determining the locality of educational gaps, stakeholders assessed the development of future programs.
Sources: YTFG, Sherwood Foundation
Sources: Sherwood Foundation
Birth Rates and Poverty in Niger
Niger is the seventh poorest country in the world. It is an example of the multitudinous effects of extreme poverty. With high political instability, high levels of gender inequality, high birth rates, high levels of malnutrition and ethnic conflict, attempts to lift Niger out of poverty have often failed because of the magnitude and multitude of problems to be faced.
The population of Niger works largely in fishing and farming. As a result, they are unusually susceptible to natural disasters and climate conditions. A 2005 drought that led to a massive food shortage had devastating effects on the people and the economy, with the IMF forgiving 100% of the nation’s debt, roughly $86 million USD. In 2010, famine wiped out many people and the country reported the outbreak of multiple diseases, with deaths due to diarrhea, starvation, gastroenteritis, malnutrition and respiratory diseases.
Education levels in Niger are among the lowest in the world, with many children unenrolled and children often forced to work instead of study. Nomadic children often do not have access to schools.
The high birth-rates in Niger are a problem, as they contribute to an expanding population whose families cannot support them. This is partly as a result of the belief that the greater the number of children one family has, the greater the chance that a family will be lifted out of poverty when one finds success.
– Farahnaz Mohammed
Source: Richest.org, DW.DE
Photo: Niger Delta Rising
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Poverty in Rwanda
Rwanda has made vast improvements in reducing poverty in the past decade. Nevertheless, the majority of their population lives below the poverty line. Discussed below are the leading and somewhat surprising facts about poverty in Rwanda.
Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Rwanda
The Bad News
1. 57% of Rwandans live below the poverty line and 37% live in extreme poverty.
2. Rwanda is the most densely packed country in Africa. With an annual population growth rate of around 3%, the population will have an additional 12 million people by 2015.
3. The 1994 genocide, which killed about 1 million people, changed the demographic structure of the country. Women now account for 54% of the population, and women and orphans were left as the heads of many households.
4. 44% of Rwandan children suffer from stunting. This means that they are unable to grow to their full potential because of a lack of adequate nutrition.
5. Agriculture employs 80% of the labor force, but only accounts for a third of the country’s GDP. Nearly half of Rwandan agricultural households experience food insecurity.
…The Good News
6. At least 1 million Rwandans have been lifted out of poverty in the last five years. This has been attributed to an increase in agricultural incomes and income transfers.
7. Between 2006-2011, Rwanda posted an average annual growth of real GDP of 8.4%. This was driven mainly by higher productivity in the agricultural and industrial sectors.
8. Since 2005 the mortality rate of children under 5 has been halved from 152 to 76 deaths per thousand.
9. Immediately following the genocide, 100 percent of the government budget came from foreign aid. In 2011, the figure had fallen to 40%.
10. Participation in secondary schooling has doubled since 2006, and primary education has far exceeded the set target.
Rwanda still has a long way to go, but the recent successes provide hope for the 10 million people living within its borders. A combination of government programs, foreign aid, and a continued focus on agricultural production promises to bring more and more people out of poverty in Rwanda every day.
– Kathryn Cassibry
Sources: World Bank, Rural Poverty, Feed the Future, UNDP
Photo: The Telegraph
Zainab Salbi and Women for Women International
This is a global humanitarian Zainab Salbi. She is an Iraqi-born humanitarian that founded the organization Women for Women International. Salbi has dedicated the majority of her life to helping women in war-torn countries rebuild their lives and their communities. Growing up, her father was Saddam Hussein’s personal pilot and her family was firmly in the clutches of Hussein’s inner circle. After an unsuccessful arranged marriage in America to avoid the clasp of Hussein, Zainab remarried and founded Women for Women International.
In 1993 the news of rapes in concentration camps during the conflict in Bosnia propelled Salbi to found an organization to help female victims of war. The organization provides economic aid, emotional support, job skills training, and rights education to empower women and stop the cycle of violence.
Women for Women International currently works in eight war-torn countries. The organization provides a one-year program for women to receive job and business training, enabling them to earn a living. This program helps women understand their rights and liberties and provides them with the opportunity to become leaders in their communities.
Women for Women International has mobilized more than 300,000 people in 185 countries to support female victims of war. Their support has provided assistance to more than 351,000 women through education, microfinance programs, and small business development, as well as other initiatives. Women for Women International has been able to distribute $108 million in direct aid to women.
Women for Women International works in four modules. They aim to help women sustain incomes, be aware of their rights, be educated as family and community decision-makers, and provide them with social networks and safety nets for support.
Zainab Salbi has founded a massively successful and vitally important international aid organization. Women for Women International places female empowerment and recovery at the center of its philosophy to create positive social change in the world.
– Caitlin Zusy
Source: Women for Women International Ted Talk Profile
Photo: Zimbio
Ryan Gosling on Poverty
The only thing better than Ryan Gosling himself is a movie with Ryan Gosling in it. From the romantic classic The Notebook to the more recent rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love, Mr. Gosling has bewitched moviegoers everywhere. While Gosling himself is an avid supporter of social causes such as PETA, Invisible Children, and the Enough Project, his movies teach the audience a wider and more important lesson about poverty.
The Notebook
In The Notebook, Ryan plays a persistent lover named Noah who transcends society’s expectations to win the love of his life. Even with hardships and distance, Noah’s love never deters and his determination pays off in the end. The Notebook teaches us that perseverance rewards. Poverty is a problem that will continue to persist the world unless we take action to fight it. Just as Noah never gives up, the world cannot back down against the global fight against poverty.
Crazy, Stupid, Love
In this romcom, Gosling plays a suave, young man named Jacob who leads a flashy lifestyle. He takes pity on a man named Cal whom he meets at a bar and he soon transforms Cal’s life by providing him with a debonair wardrobe and a new sense of confidence. This movie reflects how intervention can be transformative. From a grassroots approach to a more wide-scale effort, every bit of action is transformative and helpful in the fight against poverty. Crazy, Stupid, Love teaches us to be agents of change when fighting poverty.
Lars and the Real Girl
In this comedy film, Gosling is Lars, a quirky and socially awkward young man, who develops a relationship with a blowup doll named Bianca. Although all of Lars’ friends and family are initially hesitant to accept his relationship, Bianca comes to touch each of their lives. This movie shows us that poverty can affect every individual in different ways. Even if one is not directly living in poverty, the effects of poverty can be felt worldwide through limited job markets, increased security threats, and a vast untapped potential market. The solutions to poverty must be innovative and far-reaching, as seen by the popularity and universality of Ryan Gosling movies.
– Ananya Marathe
Source: The Internet Movie Database -IMDb
Photo: Poodle Stalkers