Hong Kong and Singapore have a significant number of cardboard collectors who are mostly elderly people, struggling to make a small income by selling to recyclers. There are between 4,000 and 7,000 cardboard collectors in Hong Kong and in Singapore, 23% of people over 65 had incomes of less than $700 per month. Nonetheless, there is good news as several organizations are helping cardboard collectors in Asia improve their well-being.
Youth with a Mission (YWAM)
YWAM (pronounced “WHY-wham”) is a global Christian family of ministries founded in 1960 working in more than 180 countries. Hong Kong’s YWAM chapter has launched “Shine Hong Kong,” which focuses on providing cardboard collectors with Shine Hong Kong Kits of helpful items including masks, hand sanitizer, food coupons and muscle balm. In addition to providing the collectors with the kits, the organization’s focus is for volunteers to interact with the collectors and show dignity and respect to a group of people who often go unnoticed.
Border Mission
Unlike YWAM, a global NGO, Border Mission is a small-scale organization. Founded by George Goh Ching Wah and Lysa Sumali, Border Mission operates in Singapore and in the Himilayas. Similar to YWAM, Border Mission strives to bring “hope to the unreached and forgotten.”
Border Mission observed that the cardboard collectors in Singapore, whom they call “urban recyclers,” struggle from receiving low prices for what they sell to recyclers. It views them as self-employed, hard-working seniors who deserve outside support. That’s why it launched its island-wide “Urban Recycler Project” in 2020. The NGO not only provides urban recyclers with better trolleys but also educates them on selling different types of recyclable materials. The organization also advocates for higher prices for the recyclers’ collections. Its 1,000 youth volunteers delivered 100 four-wheel trolleys and one tricycle trolley in 2021.
V Cycle
V Cycle, a local Hong Kong social enterprise, works with businesses and schools to teach them how to better reduce and recycle waste, particularly plastic bottles. In addition to helping the environment, the organization also attempts to reduce elderly poverty by helping cardboard collectors. It focuses on conducting care visits and creating job opportunities for cardboard collectors.
Visiting elderly cardboard collectors is a step for volunteers to gain the elderly’s trust and build relationships with them. During each visit, volunteers ask the elderly about their physical and mental health, as well as the difficulties that they encounter. That way, V Cycle can tailor solutions to each person’s needs.
To create employment opportunities, V Cycle invites the elderly to work at the organization’s waste plants to organize and process plastic bottles. This allows the elderly to work in a safe and secure environment.
Happy People Helping People (HPHP)
Like its name, Happy People Helping People (HPHP), this Singaporean NGO helps needy elderly; happily and enthusiastically. HPHP is helping cardboard collectors by offering them food and friendship. In turn, this addresses the physical and emotional needs of the elderly. Founded by Mohammad Nafiz Kamarudin in 2013, the organization began with Happy Sundays; during the first Sunday of each month, volunteers made meals for the cardboard collectors. Then the organization realized that the cardboard collectors needed more so they worked with food stalls to provide one hot meal a day. HPHP now provides free hot meals to cardboard collectors using an app, Secondmeal.
Invented by a HPHP staff member, the app allows the needy elderly to collect the meals of their choice at food stalls participating in the project by scanning the meal cards provided to them each month. HPHP then pays for amounts shown on the app system at the end of each month. According to the founder of HPHP, Mohammad Nafiz Kamarudin, the elderly collect over $10,000 worth of meals every month. With Secondmeal, the elderly receive help in a dignified way.
Looking Forward: Helping Cardboard Collectors in Asia
It is common for impoverished elderly to become cardboard collectors in Hong Kong and Singapore. To address the issue, the four organizations helping cardboard collectors do so by making life easier for them in different ways. For instance, while YWAM distributes Shine Hong Kong care kits to the elderly, HPHP offers hot meals for them. Border Mission provides them with better trolleys and V Cycle volunteers conduct care visits. Nonetheless, each of these organizations shares the same belief and aim: cardboard collectors in Asia are a disadvantaged and neglected group that more able people can help.
– Mimosa Ngai
Photo: Flickr
Poverty Reduction Efforts by USAID In Ghana
Education
Education is one of the top five focuses of USAID in Ghana. This investment is critical because although Ghana reached a 100% primary school completion rate in 2020, many Ghanaian children reached the end of their primary education without basic literacy skills. For eight years and counting, the USAID Partnership for Education implements teacher-supported training for school officials, equipping them with tools to improve the quality of education. USAID also develops instructional materials that strike a balance between literacy in English and the 11 local languages spoken in Ghana.
Since 2014, USAID has provided learning materials for Ghanaian schools including teacher guides, alphabet cards and more all in hopes of crafting a new engaging curriculum and improving literacy rates. Most recently, in August 2022, USAID partnered with Ghana’s Ministry of Education to provide 3.7 million books to over 11,000 schools across Ghana. USAID chose material specifically designed to deliver interactive reading lessons to students. All the books selected were written, illustrated, edited and designed by Ghanaians to maintain a sense of relevancy and relatability to capture the attention of the students reading the material.
Overall, USAID’s partnership with the Government of Ghana resulted in the training of over 70,000 teachers, benefitting 750,000 students in some 16,000 schools across the country.
Agricultural and Food Security
Despite being one of the fast-growing economies in the world, low agricultural productivity negatively impacts Ghana’s long-term growth prospects. In response, USAID has provided $425 million to support Ghanaian farmers over the span of 10 years. USAID intervenes mainly in northern Ghana by promoting the production of diverse crop groups, improving storage and crop preservation and partnering with private firms to expand businesses.
Given ongoing global food security threats in 2022, USAID most recently provided emergency fertilizer assistance to smallholder farmers. The $2.5 million aid package ensures 100,000 smallholder farmers in Ghana have affordable fertilizer this planting season. In partnership with three other organizations, USAID delivered 360,000 bags of fertilizer, lifting the financial burden off the backs of these smallholder farmers who make up 70% of Ghanaian farmers.
Health
Despite advancements in health, northern Ghana struggles with high malnutrition rates in children under 5 and higher rates of child mortality. In response, USAID launched a five-year $29 million partnership with Ghana Health Services with the goal of improving maternal and newborn health. Through this effort, USAID focuses on best practices to help reduce preventable deaths. These include “sleeping under a treated bed net, delivering babies at health facilities, encouraging breastfeeding,” and more.
In the Future
According to the World Bank, Ghana’s poverty rate slightly increased to 25.5% in 2020 from 25% in 2019, reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, thanks to efforts by USAID and others, the goal is to aid as many vulnerable Ghanaians as possible to ensure prosperity for future generations.
– Blanly Rodriguez
Photo: Flickr
A Partnership for Women’s Economic Empowerment
One of the goals of decreasing global poverty is tackling historical inequities that disadvantage certain groups in society. Local, national and international institutions work to empower women in the economic sphere to bring together a variety of groups in society. Four agencies within the United Nations began a partnership to focus on economic empowerment for women in rural regions.
A new phase of the Joint Program: Accelerating Progress Toward Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment (JP RWEE) launched in March 2022 at the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. This program is a collaboration between five agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., the International Fund for Agricultural Development, U.N. Women, the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the World Food Program (WFP). As the breadth of involved agencies suggests, the program aims to build economic empowerment for rural women in the agricultural sector by increasing their ability to obtain resources and services enabling them to succeed in their own livelihoods. The intended result is a decrease in poverty in rural regions as women unify in communities and combat historically limiting social norms.
Phase 1
The first phase of the JW RWEE was launched in 2014 and ended in 2021. The focus regions were Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger and Rwanda. Results indicate that economic empowerment goals succeeded in raising agricultural production by 82% and assisting about 80,000 women. The new phase of the program also seeks to improve the lives of rural women through sustainable development.
The program is part of the larger 2030 Agenda to improve poverty in rural communities. Initiatives within the program include improving food security, increasing the income of rural women, strengthening skills in leadership and community and promoting gender inclusivity to complement the goal of economic empowerment. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish International Cooperation Agency provide funding.
Phase 2
The second phase of the program will focus on Nepal, Niger, the Pacific Islands, Tanzania and Tunisia. Norway and Sweden donated $25 million toward the initiative. In October 2022, one component of the program began in Tanzania. Over the course of five years, the program will cost $5 million and will target the provinces of Singida, Dodoma and Zanzibar in Tanzania. In that nation, subsistence farming contributes 80% of women’s income. Thus, the five-year JP RWEE will deliver economic empowerment in the form of agricultural assistance to provide resources and skills to combat changes in climate and leadership.
In Africa, the first phase of the JP RWEE assisted Ethiopia, Liberia, Niger and Rwanda. The new phase of the program will continue to assist the country in gender equality and economic empowerment. In addition, all countries in Africa agreed to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and many also agreed to the African Charter on Human and Women’s Rights. However, despite these efforts, women in Africa still continue to face discrimination on a regular basis. The African Union’s ten-year strategy for gender equality lasts until 2028, but leaders have expressed their commitment to reinforcing gender equality across the continent beyond that timeframe.
– Kaylee Messick
Photo: Flickr
Addressing the Rise of Knee Osteoarthritis in India
One of the most common forms of OA occurs in the knee. Knee osteoarthritis is linked to heavy physical labor, which is widespread across India’s rural communities. A 2016 study also found that the prevalence of OA was more common in India’s lower socioeconomic classes, leaving many of the affected people without the necessary resources to treat the condition.
As of now, there is no cure for knee osteoarthritis. Doctors typically promote non-pharmaceutical measures, like losing weight or trying certain exercises. There are some medical treatments that can alleviate pain, like hyaluronate injections, physical therapy and even surgery. But these treatments can be expensive and difficult to access, and people living in India’s rural villages may struggle to get to the right clinics.
Rising Risk Factors Among Women and the Elderly
Due to the growing elderly population in India, the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis will increase over the next few decades. According to the National Statistical Office’s (NSO) Elderly in India Report authored in 2021, India’s elderly population is expected to reach 194 million by 2031 – a 41% increase over the next decade. The report emphasized the country’s rapidly changing population structure and stressed the importance of addressing the health of India’s elderly.
Among the elderly population, women are at particular risk for knee OA. While it does tend to affect men more than women before age 45, the disease is more common in women aged 45 and older. In the NSO’s 2021 report, researchers stated there would be 93 million males and 100 million females in 2031. With the increase in the elderly population, and with the majority of the elderly being female, knee OA is becoming a larger concern in India.
In addition, there has also been significant research on other risk factors for knee OA, including the role of obesity, inactivity and manual labor jobs. As emphasized in a Nigerian study, the occupational risk factors in manual labor professions — such as farming, trading and artisanship — can put individuals at a higher risk for developing knee OA. Twisting, awkward postures, heavy lifting and bending and frequent movement can all cause knee OA.
Seeking a Solution
Although there is currently no cure for knee OA, a group of researchers in India has made a medical breakthrough. In September 2022, the Drug Controller General of India approved Stempeutics’ StemOne, a new stem cell therapy for knee OA. StemOne will become India’s first commercially-available allogeneic cell therapy treatment for knee OA.
The Bangalore-based biotech company, Stempeutics, created StemOne using healthy bone marrow. With anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties aimed at reducing pain in the knee joint, the treatment can make daily tasks easier and the possibility of knee replacement surgery less likely. By stalling further deterioration in the joint cartilage, StemOne can deter future expenses and the lifelong disabilities caused by knee OA.
The treatment currently costs 125,000 Indian rupees, or roughly $1,500. Although a single injection can have effects lasting up to two years, the cost is still out of many peoples’ price range. For individuals with knee OA in rural communities or without the financial resources to afford StemOne, there are relatively few treatments available.
However, with more innovations like StemOne underway, there has been more attention on the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis in India. Because of these research efforts, there is hope that there will be more accessible treatment options for all affected individuals in the future.
– Anna Lee
Photo: Flickr
Organizations Improving Health care Services in India
Rural Health Care Foundation
Founded in 2009, the Rural Health Care Foundation (RHCF) works to ensure that marginalized and poor communities in rural and urban areas have access to quality primary health care. The Rural Health Care Foundation mainly targets West Bengal. Across West Bengal, the Rural Health Care Foundation has over 20 clinics that have treated over 22 lakh patients. The Rural Health Care Foundation supplies their patients with “affordable medical consultations along with a week’s supply of free medication.”
The Helan Centre is one of the 20 centers founded by the RHCF. On December 30, 2017, the Helan Centre opened its doors in the Hooghly district. A variety of services are provided at the Helan Centre such as dentistry and optometry. This center is open six days a week for patients between 9 am and 5 pm. More than 37,000 patients have been seen and treated.
Foundation for Mother and Child Health
Foundation for Mother and Child Health is a grassroots organization that focuses on malnutrition and maternal health. It provides information sessions to inform marginalized families, especially mothers and pregnant women about developing healthy nutrition habits to prevent anemia and maternal mortality.
The organization mainly targets poor communities in Mumbai, assisting more than 60,000 low-income families in the city. In addition to this, birth weights have increased to 2.7kg from 1.5kg. Plus, through a few interventions, breastfeeding rates have increased by 70%. Notably, more than 900 lactating and pregnant women have greatly benefited from the various counseling and education session programs provided by Foundation for Mother and Child.
Doctors for You
Created in 2007, Doctors for You is an organization made up of doctors and medical students as well as those with a passion to see everyone in India get free access to health care services. There are many critical areas of focus for this humanitarian organization. Supplying medical care to marginalized areas during emergency situations is one way Doctors for You is providing access to necessary medical services.
Delhi is one of many cities hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. In an effort to help those living in Delhi receive proper treatment, Doctors for You assisted in operating a COVID-19 facility. It consisted of 100 beds in Shehnai Banquet Hall. Doctors for You also ran a facility that consisted of two intensive care units and 150 beds as well as two outpatient departments.
Final Thoughts
Rural Health Care Foundation, Foundation for Mother and Child Health and Doctors for You are just three organizations of many that help marginalized families access health care services in India. These organizations potentially saved a lot of lives, especially the lives of children and newborn babies. Groups like these want every person living in India to have a better and brighter future, and that starts with access to health care. Without proper access to health care, the cycle of poverty and malnutrition will never end in India. These organizations do a tremendous job looking out for poor communities that are often overlooked.
– Yonina Anglin
Photo: Flickr
5 Facts About the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Rhoe Camp
5 Facts About the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Rhoe Camp
Although the DRC’s Rhoe Camp is still undergoing extensive humanitarian problems, the camp is making steady improvements due to international efforts. The U.N. and other global organizations are teaming up to distribute critical resources to the impoverished, alleviating the adversities faced by its inhabitants little by little.
– Emma He
Photo: Flickr
Fighting Poverty with the Waste-to-Income Strategy in Nigeria
Scrapays
One popular waste-to-income strategy in Nigeria involves using technology to enable business agents to manage waste collection and disposal. The Scrapays startup aims to facilitate the recovery of recyclable waste in Nigeria using a decentralized ecosystem. Launched in 2019 by Tope Sulaimon, Boluwatife Arewa and Olumide Ogunleye, the company uses USSD, mobile app, web app and Internet of Things technology. The waste allocation starts with a waste producer placing a pickup order with a collector who has to weigh the items at the pickup point and pays the producer accordingly.
Typically, collectors are young and low-income individuals who carry out on-demand recovery tasks in a specific area. Next, the agents gather the waste from multiple collectors to dispose of them at the processing point. According to Arewa, Scrapays’ collectors’ network has grown by 25% monthly. Among the company agents, a commercial tricycle vendor makes around 1.3 million Nigerian nairas ($3,000) every six weeks from selling the vehicles’ packaging materials – cartons, plastic stretch wraps and light metals.
Mygbolat Waste Management
Another company that adopted a waste-to-income strategy in Nigeria is Mygbolat Waste Management. Established in 2021 by former banker Olatunji Olaribigbe, the company proposes to fight unemployment by addressing Nigeria’s trash crisis. More than 50 people currently work directly for Olaribigbe, as well as freelancers and contractors he pays on commission. He strives to expand the business to different locales to employ as many people as possible.
GIVO
GIVO (Garbage In Value Out), which Victor Boyle-Komolafe founded, is a tech company that enables other companies to assume circular business practices. Boyle-Komolafe’s goal is to eliminate plastic waste in Nigeria. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company started recycling plastic, producing 10,000 plastic face shields. Ten percent of the shields went to frontline workers in Nigeria, like doctors, nurses and teachers as well as people with poor health. In 2021, Boyle-Komolafe said that the company strives to recycle 150 million plastic bottles over the next five years.
Africa Creativity and Sustainability Hub
In Ibadan City, Umoke Olowokere is an artist and former teacher who runs a small organization dedicated to creating and innovating “new ways to reuse plastics, nylons, bottles, [tires], papers, dead plants, bamboo scrap fabrics, food wastes, old wood, and other wastes into functional interior and exterior products that are durable and cheaper.” To celebrate her 40th birthday in 2019, Olowokere donated outdoor play equipment to 40 schools in the city that their students helped make. The entrepreneur has also opened the Waste Museum with the goal of training individuals and organizations on sustainable ways of creating wealth through recycling and upcycling their waste.
The waste-to-income strategy in Nigeria is a revolutionary vision to address global challenges. Such companies are setting an example of how to tackle environmental issues while fighting against poverty.
– Caterina Rossi
Photo: Flickr
La Bonne Etoile: Helping Children in Vietnam
Services Offered
La Bonne Étoile is a nonprofit organization that began in March 2012. The charity “builds schools, rehabilitates social centers, finances training workshops, provides support for health professionals in orphanages, subsidizes medical equipment and participates in emergency food aid in pediatric hospitals.”
The Thuy An MOLISA Center is a rehabilitation and vocational training center where 240 children aged 6 to 18 live in Vietnam. These children are mostly orphans. This Center offers them medical care, physical rehabilitation, access to primary school and vocational training adapted to their disabilities. It is a unique center in northern Vietnam that provides comprehensive rehabilitation (physical and mental) and trains caregivers in others in the region.
In five years, from 2017 to 2021, La Belle Etoile helped this center in many ways such as financing a new professional training workshop in pyrography, a dance class and a course on the hygiene of life and everyday gestures for children with a more severe handicap.
Beyond Vietnam
In 2016, the organization decided to expand its efforts beyond the borders of Vietnam. The charity began its interventions in France with a project to help children in great distress by funding protected hearing rooms within the hospital. These rooms are a reassuring setting for children so they can tell their stories without having to move from one place to another. In this context, La Bonne Etoile worked with Le Rire Médecin to bring joy to children through comedy.
La Bonne Etoile also wanted to devote its energy to helping children in Africa. In 2019, the charity decided to fully finance the construction of a school for refugee children of the village of Visiki in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to provide them access to education and the opportunity to evolve in good conditions to prepare for their future. In early 2022, the charity also took charge of building a maternity ward in the Visiki hospital.
Final Thoughts
La Bonne Etoile continues its actions to help children in Vietnam and the world. In October 2022, the charity organized a month-long event for its 10th birthday, in which people could buy raffle tickets to win gorgeous gifts and experiences while helping children. La Bonne Etoile has helped 2,000 children and organized 20 actions. According to the charity, 11 projects are in progress.
– Olivia Roy Fritsch
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Maternal Mortality in Papua New Guinea
For many, the birth of a child is a cause for joy, but it is an experience that instills apprehension in many women in Papua New Guinea (commonly known as PNG). Their fear is understandable — UNICEF estimates that, annually, 580 women die during childbirth in the island nation, equalling one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Understanding the reasons behind these high rates of maternal mortality in Papua New Guinea is instrumental in implementing solutions to save the lives of new mothers.
4 Key Facts About Maternal Mortality in Papua New Guinea
Making a Difference
Send Hope Not Flowers is a charitable organization founded in Australia that “aims to help mothers to survive childbirth in the developing world.”
In 2015, it partnered with Living Child to send medical supplies and resources to training programs in villages in Papua New Guinea. Send Hope Not Flowers even secured a grant of $20,000 AUD to supply models for medical personnel in training to work on for a better understanding of how to deal with medical emergencies during childbirth.
The Highlands Foundation tackles maternal mortality in Papua New Guinea by sending volunteers, who include trained medical personnel, to travel to the country to assist staff in looking after patients, and in some cases, train new doctors, nurses and midwives.
The Foundation also provides kits to health workers to provide the necessary care to women during pregnancy and childbirth. These contain essential medical supplies, like thermometers and disposable gloves and masks, which birth attendants can easily transport to remote areas. Access to these supplies is potentially life-saving, especially in areas with no nearby health care facilities.
Looking Ahead
Maternal mortality in Papua New Guinea is a solvable problem. More detailed research paired with regular and accurate data collection will reveal key areas to focus on and more funding will provide rural areas with better tools and facilities to fight complications and, in some cases, prevent them altogether.
– Abbi Powell
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
4 Organizations Helping Cardboard Collectors in Asia
Youth with a Mission (YWAM)
YWAM (pronounced “WHY-wham”) is a global Christian family of ministries founded in 1960 working in more than 180 countries. Hong Kong’s YWAM chapter has launched “Shine Hong Kong,” which focuses on providing cardboard collectors with Shine Hong Kong Kits of helpful items including masks, hand sanitizer, food coupons and muscle balm. In addition to providing the collectors with the kits, the organization’s focus is for volunteers to interact with the collectors and show dignity and respect to a group of people who often go unnoticed.
Border Mission
Unlike YWAM, a global NGO, Border Mission is a small-scale organization. Founded by George Goh Ching Wah and Lysa Sumali, Border Mission operates in Singapore and in the Himilayas. Similar to YWAM, Border Mission strives to bring “hope to the unreached and forgotten.”
Border Mission observed that the cardboard collectors in Singapore, whom they call “urban recyclers,” struggle from receiving low prices for what they sell to recyclers. It views them as self-employed, hard-working seniors who deserve outside support. That’s why it launched its island-wide “Urban Recycler Project” in 2020. The NGO not only provides urban recyclers with better trolleys but also educates them on selling different types of recyclable materials. The organization also advocates for higher prices for the recyclers’ collections. Its 1,000 youth volunteers delivered 100 four-wheel trolleys and one tricycle trolley in 2021.
V Cycle
V Cycle, a local Hong Kong social enterprise, works with businesses and schools to teach them how to better reduce and recycle waste, particularly plastic bottles. In addition to helping the environment, the organization also attempts to reduce elderly poverty by helping cardboard collectors. It focuses on conducting care visits and creating job opportunities for cardboard collectors.
Visiting elderly cardboard collectors is a step for volunteers to gain the elderly’s trust and build relationships with them. During each visit, volunteers ask the elderly about their physical and mental health, as well as the difficulties that they encounter. That way, V Cycle can tailor solutions to each person’s needs.
To create employment opportunities, V Cycle invites the elderly to work at the organization’s waste plants to organize and process plastic bottles. This allows the elderly to work in a safe and secure environment.
Happy People Helping People (HPHP)
Like its name, Happy People Helping People (HPHP), this Singaporean NGO helps needy elderly; happily and enthusiastically. HPHP is helping cardboard collectors by offering them food and friendship. In turn, this addresses the physical and emotional needs of the elderly. Founded by Mohammad Nafiz Kamarudin in 2013, the organization began with Happy Sundays; during the first Sunday of each month, volunteers made meals for the cardboard collectors. Then the organization realized that the cardboard collectors needed more so they worked with food stalls to provide one hot meal a day. HPHP now provides free hot meals to cardboard collectors using an app, Secondmeal.
Invented by a HPHP staff member, the app allows the needy elderly to collect the meals of their choice at food stalls participating in the project by scanning the meal cards provided to them each month. HPHP then pays for amounts shown on the app system at the end of each month. According to the founder of HPHP, Mohammad Nafiz Kamarudin, the elderly collect over $10,000 worth of meals every month. With Secondmeal, the elderly receive help in a dignified way.
Looking Forward: Helping Cardboard Collectors in Asia
It is common for impoverished elderly to become cardboard collectors in Hong Kong and Singapore. To address the issue, the four organizations helping cardboard collectors do so by making life easier for them in different ways. For instance, while YWAM distributes Shine Hong Kong care kits to the elderly, HPHP offers hot meals for them. Border Mission provides them with better trolleys and V Cycle volunteers conduct care visits. Nonetheless, each of these organizations shares the same belief and aim: cardboard collectors in Asia are a disadvantaged and neglected group that more able people can help.
– Mimosa Ngai
Photo: Flickr
Positives from Brazil’s Election
On October 30, 2022, Brazil’s presidential race between incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and ‘Lula’ da Silva came to a close, with Lula narrowly edging out a victory with 50.9% of the vote. As news agencies, foreign leaders and millions of people all over Brazil accepted the results of Brazil’s election, one figure remained notably silent: President Bolsonaro. Though he did not expressly concede, Bolsonaro half-heartedly signaled that the transition process could begin. Prior to the election result, Bolsonaro made baseless claims of electoral fraud, stirring up unrest among his supporters. However, Brazil still expects a smooth presidential transition.
Post-Election Protests
Soon after the election, pro-Bolsonaro supporters began protesting against the election results and demanded military intervention. Protesters then blocked Brazil’s major highways with barricades, with some policemen encouraging the blockades. Breaking his silence on the Tuesday after the election, President Bolsonaro “tacitly backed the protestors,” saying the “current popular movements are the fruit of indignation and a feeling of injustice about how the electoral process played out,” the Guardian reports.
In Paranagua, a commercially critical city in Brazil’s south, the port authority said vehicles transporting grain exports could not access the port due to protester blockades. Other blockades of trade routes across the nation also impacted the transportation of agricultural exports such as soybean, corn, fertilizer and meat. This has ignited concerns for Brazil’s fragile economy.
In a relieving turn of events for Brazil’s democracy and economy, officials and everyday citizens have helped to restore order following the elections. Brazil’s highway police cleared more than 600 of the barricades within three days of the election, easing fears of shortages across the country. Local soccer fans, some inspired to defend their democracy and others wanting to get to their games, also played an important part in clearing roads.
Fragility in Brazil
Brazil’s stability is of paramount importance as the world economy threatens to enter a recession. Although world inflation could rise substantially through 2022, inflation in Brazil started to ease in August 2022. Food and supply shortages could significantly raise the price of everyday goods, sending the country’s economy into a tailspin. According to the World Bank, 28.4% of Brazil’s population lived in poverty in 2021 and a political struggle with economic damage could exacerbate poverty levels in the country.
A New Presidency Brings Hope
President Bolsonaro’s successor, Luis Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, promised to prioritize poverty during his previous four years in office. During his presidency from 2003 to 2010, Lula created one of the most successful conditional cash transfer programs in modern history, Bolsa Familia. By making welfare conditional on health checkups and children’s school attendance, the program reduced extreme poverty by about 25%. This made Lula immensely popular among Brazil’s poor, with most of his support coming from the two poorest regions in Brazil: the north and northeast.
Although President Bolsonaro kept a modified version of Bolsa Familia under the name Auxilio Brasil, his efforts have seen significantly less success. In 2019, Bolsonaro reduced the number of program beneficiaries, precisely when impoverished citizens needed aid the most, during the COVID-19 pandemic. President-elect Lula put this issue at the forefront of his campaign and victory speech, promising an end to hunger and an increase in the minimum wage.
Looking Ahead
Brazil’s Defense Ministry also published its own report on November 9, 2022, which “did not point to the existence of any fraud or inconsistency in the electronic voting machines and 2022 electoral process.” The report did, however, bring to the forefront shortcomings in the electoral process and outlined suggestions to strengthen it.
The end of Brazil’s election drama comes as a comforting conclusion for the country, especially given the many issues it still has to contend with. Still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, a prolonged political struggle would stretch the economy to the limit while exacerbating tensions that the election has laid bare. Despite the temporary scare, the rapid response of Brazil’s institutions and people to the protests reassures outside observers of the country’s commitment to democracy. Due to his past successes, President Lula’s reign brings hope of reduced hunger, lower inequality and decreased poverty.
– Samuel Bowles
Photo: Wikipedia Commons