Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

,

Child Abandonment in South Africa

Child Abandonment in South Africa
Someone finds a crying child in the desert, alone. Immediately, the blame goes to the mother because of the perception that she might be mad and stupid, too lazy to use birth control or too uncaring to put the child up for adoption. The reality, however, is that these women are merely scapegoats for the underlying problem. The number one cause of child abandonment in South Africa is poverty.

People desert over 3,500 unwanted babies every year. Child abandonment is an epidemic in South Africa with very little help from the government to create awareness about the growing crisis. Fortunately, there are relief organizations working to help save these innocent children.

3 Relief Organizations Tackling Child Abandonment in South Africa

  1. SOS Children’s Village: SOS Children’s Village is a global organization that works in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to create a protective environment for every child. SOS has four key action areas that it emphasizes including awareness, prevention, reporting and responding. Through its efforts in South Africa, SOS Children’s Village has managed to open 11 facilities, support 5,356 children and youth and ensure that over 52 percent of the youth leave the program as self-reliant individuals. With continued donations, SOS Children’s Village can expand its already fruitful impact in South Africa.
  2. Door of Hope: As the foremost home in Johannesburg for abandoned babies, Door of Hope cares for children who do not have a place at home. The Door of Hope has a hole in the wall of its church property where people can place abandoned babies at any time during the day. In the past two decades, Door of Hope has received over 1,500 infants, and it found at least 12 percent of those in the wall hatch.
  3. Courage: Launched by the National Adoption Coalition of South Africa (NACSA), Courage is a child protection toolkit that helps child protection organizations develop strategies by guiding them through the various factors they must consider. Additionally, the program offers support for women experiencing a crisis pregnancy through open counseling, in the hopes that they will not flee without their child. Past work has found that the Courage program helped in the practical implementation of the South African Children’s Act. The success of Courage goes beyond the borders of South Africa, and as the organization enters its global stage, it is looking to empower teenagers and young adults to make wise choices so that they can avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Abandoned babies that people never find usually end up buried, flushed down drains or eaten by animals or rodents. These babies do not have a life the minute they enter the world. The organizations above are doing justice by attempting to save these babies, but they require more manpower to solve the issue of child abandonment in South Africa. To make a difference, consider contributing to one of the organizations above.

– Shvetali Thatte
Photo: Flickr

, ,

Teaching Indonesia’s Impoverished Population to Fish 

Teaching Indonesia’s Impoverished Population to Fish “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” – Ancient Proverb. The Indonesian government is taking the above saying to heart. It is doing its best to teach the poor population how to provide for themselves rather than merely providing aid. The government has grouped poverty reduction programs in Indonesia into three clusters: Social assistance, community empowerment and microenterprise empowerment. Simply put, cluster one is similar to giving Indonesia’s impoverished population fish while cluster two is giving the population a fishing rod and teaching them to fish. Finally, cluster three is facilitating fishing by providing a boat.

The Three Clusters

  • Social Assistance – This cluster of poverty-reduction programs in Indonesia is focused on providing direct assistance to poor households. In the past, the government had taken measures to implement “a single ‘combo’ card-based cashless payment system” in order to promote financial inclusion. It also reallocated fuel subsidies to directly assist poor and vulnerable families. Furthermore, the non-cash food assistance program has transformed the delivery of nutrition-sensitive food assistance. This is the first step to reducing Indonesia’s impoverished population.
  • Community Empowerment – With a more macro focus when compared to social assistance, this cluster gives poor communities the social funds they need to improve basic social and economic services. The programs included in community empowerment fall under PNPM. PNPM is an umbrella policy that attempts to self-help community capacity by creating jobs and achieving a better standard of community welfare. Examples of PNPM programs include social activities, such as the activity of posyandu (a community-based vehicle to improve child development) and BKM, which provides free medical service. It also includes economic activities such as women entrepreneurs weaving traditional clothes and micro-credits for women entrepreneur groups. The PNPM programs have seen great success in recent years with the community participation level reaching 39 percent and per capita consumption increasing 9.1 percent.
  • Microenterprise Empowerment – This third cluster looks at providing access to credits for microenterprises without having them be “hindered by the requirement to provide collaterals.” Most of these enterprises are independent and “highly labor-intensive,” employing “low levels of skills and technology.” According to the SMERU Research Institute, microenterprises provide income and employment for significant portions of workers in rural and urban areas. Microenterprises comprise more than 50 percent of the nation’s GDP. Each unit microenterprise can absorb 1-5 workers. In addition to the independent enterprises, “the government provides a subsidized guarantee scheme at 70 percent in which the government pays the premium” to find unbankable businesses that lack collateral.

The above programs have already achieved a great measure of success. They have reduced poverty by half from 24.3 percent in 1999 to 10.4 percent in 2013. However, there is room for further improvements. In 2014, “only one-fifth of the poorest 10 percent in Indonesia” had received all the benefits to which they were entitled.

Future Reformation

Possibilities for reformation in cluster one include a two-way updating system to the connection between the target database and the program-based beneficiary lists. This would help major social assistance programs reach the right people. Since needs change during certain times, having additional monitoring and evaluation to fill in the gaps in program design will improve the planning of the programs. Moreover, redesigning the Credit for People Initiatives by providing an incentive for smallholders for productive assets accumulation would leverage the poor with adequate access to the program and increase the impact of clusters two and three as well.

To add to the effectiveness of programs that are reducing Indonesia’s impoverished communities, the government has also established a national team, chaired by the Vice President. It is the Vice President’s hope that with the specific changes being looked at in each of the clusters, Indonesia will eventually bring the vast majority of those in poverty to a more sustainable economic situation.

– Shvetali Thatte
Photo: Flickr

10 Facts About Overpopulation in Africa

10 Facts About Overpopulation in AfricaAfrica as a continent is growing in many ways. Many of its countries’ economies are growing quickly, lifting people out of extreme poverty. As economies grow and escape extreme poverty, several countries are developing issues with overpopulation. Though the issues exist for many reasons, there are viable solutions that, in some cases, are already being implemented. Hopefully, some solutions will provide a path for the future of the developing continent. Below are the top 10 facts about overpopulation in Africa. They describe how the issue came about and what is being done to solve it.

10 Facts About Overpopulation in Africa

  1. By 2050 Africa’s population is predicted to double. With so many countries having such a high birth rate, the populations of African countries are rising very quickly. Africa’s current population of more than 1.1 billion is expected to exceed 2 billion in the next 30 years. The population is growing at a rate faster than any other continent.
  2. By 2100, five of the top 10 most populous countries will be in Africa. Currently, Nigeria is the only country in Africa with a population in the top 10. Its population is expected to grow by another 527 million people by that time. With African countries growing at such fast rates, it is estimated that by 2100 the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Egypt will join Nigeria in the top 10.
  3. Africa holds 27 out of 30 of the countries with the highest birth rates. An overwhelming majority of the countries with the highest birth rates reside in Africa. Niger, Angola and Mali all have an average of around six births per woman. These rates are much higher than in developed nations. To compare, the U.S. has a birth rate of 1.88. Other developing countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have birth rates around 2.1.
  4. Seventy percent of Africans are under 30 years old. The African population is the youngest in the world. As this younger population reaches working age, the demand for jobs will increase. Jobs will need to be developed to satisfy this job market.
  5. Africa is urbanizing quickly. Around 80 percent of Africa’s massive population growth will occur in cities. This is in addition to the massive rush to urbanization that has already occurred in Africa. While Africa may not be lacking land, its population is crowded into cities. In 2010, 90 percent of the continent’s population was living on only 21 percent of the land.
  6. Forty-seven percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population lives in slums. The influx of people into African cities is putting stress on the housing and living situations within the cities. Close to half of all people on the continent are living in slums. They live in conditions that are crowded, lacking proper sanitation and often poorly constructed.
  7. One cause of overpopulation is actually positive for Africa as a whole. One of the major causes for population increase is actually increased quality of life. More children surviving into adulthood and healthier adults have lowered the death rate in several African countries. The impact of healthcare is a major positive. However, if fertility rates do not fall while death rates continue to decrease, the population will boom and lead to overpopulation.
  8. There are known solutions to overpopulation. Education is one of the key ingredients to reducing overpopulation. Educating people on how to properly family plan can help them to keep families smaller. Along with this, people must be provided with the resources to implement what they have learned.
  9. Kenya serves as a model for other countries. In 2009, Kenya started a program called Vision 2030. this vision aimed to lower the country’s birth rate from five in 2009 to three by 2030. By 2018, Kenya had already achieved its goal with a fertility rate of 2.81. Vision 2030 accomplished this with funding from USAID along with education programs and policies that informed people about family planning.
  10. There are active organizations helping to reduce overpopulation. An organization called Rutgers is already active in Africa to fight overpopulation. This organization works to raise awareness about sexual reproductive health. It recently opened an office in Uganda to carry out its mission through partnerships with schools, government advocacy and local authorities.

These 10 facts about overpopulation in Africa show that it is an issue that continues to plague the continent. Despite the prevalence of the issue, however, there are known solutions that are being implemented to solve the problem.

– Josh Fritzjunker
Photo: Flickr

, , , ,

Top 4 Technologies Solving Water Scarcity

Top Four Technologies Solving Water Scarcity
Access to healthy drinking water is a basic human right and billions of people are suffering from water scarcity. The world has more salt water than fresh water, which makes it hard to find drinking water. Some have created technologies for this reason. Here are the top four technologies solving water scarcity all over the world.

Top 4 Technologies Solving Water Scarcity

  1. The WaterSeer: Among these top four technologies to solve water scarcity is a machine that VICI Labs developed called the WaterSeer. It can pull moisture from the air and produce up to 11 gallons of clean drinking water. It blows wind into an underground chamber that condenses and forms water. There have not been many field tests yet which has caused critics to raise an eyebrow. Hopefully, the machine does its job and can help produce clean drinking water for countries that have limited access to it.
  2. The Desolenator: Creating safe drinking water is very important but a machine needs to be sustainable enough to continue to give that resource. This is why this next technology ranks as one of the top five technologies solving water scarcity. The Desolenator is a solar desalination tool that removes 99 percent of contaminants from water. It is portable and can produce about 15 liters of fresh water a day. The company says that it has a 20-year life span making it an efficient and sustainable device for solving water scarcity. The reason for this device lies behind the Desolenator company’s philosophy on the importance of clean drinking water. The company’s philosophy is based on, “A desire to provide assured access to clean water in the toughest situations, whilst protecting the planet we depend on.” The Desolenator company aims to design a better water future for people and the planet.
  3. Janicki Omni Processor: The Janicki Omni Processor is another of the top four technologies trying to solve water scarcity. It was originally going to be a machine to clean waste in cities but it can produce clean drinking water from human feces as well. The way it works is a three-step process to create accessible drinking water. These steps include solid fuel combustion, steam power generation and water treatment. At the end of all these steps, water is then ready for human consumption.
  4. Desalination: Converting salt water into fresh water, is another way people can solve water scarcity. The process is called desalination, and it is a huge step towards ending water scarcity. The process may take a lot of energy to conduct but there are affordable ways to do so. Graphene filters are a way to waste less energy in the process of desalination. These filters could reduce the cost of the energy that desalination requires. The Lockheed Martin company has developed a filter that will take into account the amount of energy this process uses in the hopes of providing clean drinking water while also saving energy.

While these four technologies are working to solve water scarcity, there was also the Urban Drinking Water Challenge of 2018 working to eliminate water scarcity through innovations. This was a global innovation competition to identify and deploy drinking water solutions. The challenge provided $250,000 in awards to promising water technology startups. Those who participated in the challenge had to follow three themes that included alternative supply, distributed access and delivery and ecosystem health. This challenge presented opportunities for solutions that encompass the benefits of economies in urban settings to ensure affordability, reach and sustainability of drinking water services.

Water scarcity is a huge crisis, but with advanced technologies paving the way for change, there may be a solution.

– Jessica Jones
Photo: Flickr

,

Major Improvements for Deaf People in China

Improvements for Deaf People in China
There have been many improvements for deaf people in China, especially in the areas of education, language and health care. Providing a sense of self-worth and pride, deaf individuals globally are seeing a shift in their impairment. While people once considered deafness a weakness, this disability has become a model of strength and purpose.

China’s population of 1.3 billion includes 27.8 million who suffer from hearing loss. This figure involves an estimated 11 percent of people older than 60 years of age and 20 million in the elderly segment, who suffer from moderate to severe hearing problems. The Ministry of Health has identified 115,000 children under the age of 7 with severe to profound hearing loss. Further, 30,000 babies are born with hearing impairment each year.

The Challenges

Improvements for deaf people in China are still an ongoing process. Deaf students face significant challenges such as education, language and acceptance. Parents of deaf children fought against their children learning Chinese Sign Language (CSL) for the stigma of not being normal. Parents preferred a more mainstream learning environment.

Moreover, deaf students were at a disadvantage when applying for colleges. These students fell behind their hearing peers, despite the schools expecting them to keep pace. Fortunately for deaf students, soon came the introduction of bilingual learning; students could still learn CSL, as well as spoken and written Chinese. Also, to their benefit, adapted materials included the availability of the National Higher Education Examination.

Still, China has made significant progress. In the past decade, there has been an increase in education accessibility for schools exclusively for deaf individuals, as well as schools for all other forms of disability.

Programs Launched and Progress

The World Health Organization (WHO) has praised China for the improvements of the programs for deaf people. The population of focus includes children with deafness, growing children with hearing loss/problems and the elderly community.

As of 1999, China has initiated the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) on the recommendation of the Central Government. The UNHS involves screenings offered in hospital-based programs. Newborns from low-income families receive pre-screenings for hearing-aids, as well as pre-screenings for cochlear implants. Additionally, China provides free hearing aids to deaf or hearing-impaired adults over 60 years of age. To date, over 400,000 individuals have benefited from these programs.

Hearing Screening Process

There are three categories in the hearing screening process. The first category includes large cities with extensive resources that provide UNHS hospital-based programs. This has lead to the screening of 95 percent of babies. The second category involves targeted screenings of high-risk newborns. Within one month of birth, newborns may visit early screening centers upon referral. The last category consists of the wide dissemination of questionnaires and simple tests. These tests, that community doctors provide, monitor each child’s hearing.

According to the UNHS, hearing loss in babies ranges from three to six per 1,000 births. The Otoacoustic emissions/Automated Auditory brainstem response methods perform screenings. These methods (OAE/AABR) offer a simple pass/fail result or a referral-based result, depending on the recommendation of extensive tests.

The Impact

The improvements of deaf people in China continue today, including in areas of educational and career opportunities. China is encouraging feedback from the deaf community in decision making. Further, these efforts ensure a more inclusive and informed environment, that does not highlight limitations and welcomes diversity.

– Michelle White
Photo: Flickr

, ,

How Everest is Affecting Nepal

How Everest is Affecting NepalThe country of Nepal is often an afterthought to Mt. Everest, the mountaineering mecca of the world and the tallest peak. Unfortunately, tourism to Mt. Everest is affecting Nepal through the unstable economy it brings and sanitation concerns. The environment and the permanent residents of the mountain must be considered.

Tourism-based Economy

Throughout most of the cold war, Mt. Everest was closed on the Tibetan side and highly restricted within Nepal. Only climbers who were accompanied by scientists could climb. However, in 1993, the government relaxed the rules and regulations surrounding the mountain. Travel and adventure agencies began to crop up. They sell the dream, the ultimate bucket list item of summiting Everest.

Now, more than 7 percent of Nepal’s economy depends on the three months of March, April and May when people come from across the globe to take their shot at summiting one of the world’s seven wonders.  People from all across the world come to the region of Khumbu, located at the base of the mountain and home to the indigenous Sherpas. Between tourists and Nepali people coming from other areas to work, the population climbs from 40,000 to a staggering 700,000 people. However, this tourism-based economy is unstable and leaves many Nepali excluded from the enterprise.

Impact on Nepali People

Though this tourism boom has helped the Nepali government, its impact on the Nepali people is very isolated. The main benefactors are those connected to the few popular tourist attractions in the country, mainly Kathmandu and Everest. Tourism to Everest is Affecting Nepal. It is having a negative impact on sanitation in Khumbu. Climbers leave heaps of trash at camps, which becomes increasingly more difficult to remove as elevation rises. As the ice melts on the mountain, it washes the trash and human waste down into the villages bellow, creating an unsanitary environment and physical destruction from flooding.

However, despite these health and safety risks, the Nepali government has declined to stop tourism for any given time. While they have made some clean-up efforts throughout the past few years, sanitation continues to be an issue on the mountain and in the villages below.

Keeping the Mountain Clean

To help mitigate some of the impact made by tourists, organizations like KEEP (Kathmandu Environmental Education Program) have made efforts to educate both the Nepali people and tourists on how they can better care for the mountain and minimize their footprint. KEEP is a non-profit organization that works to conserve the mountains of Nepal. It has started programs in Eco-tourism, environmental awareness and rural community development.

In August of 2019, Nepal announced a ban of single-use plastics on the mountain, which will significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste that will be left behind by climbers. Additionally, in 2019 the country released the decision to make getting a climbing permit more difficult.

Economy or Environment?

The Nepali government is trying to decide what should and can be done about conserving Everest and other mountains in the country. If they limit the number of climbing permits allotted, it would improve the health of the mountain. However, it would take away money and a significant number of jobs from the Nepali people. Money from Everest has allowed people from one of the poorest countries in the world to send their children to secondary schools outside of the country. It has allowed people to create their own businesses. Also, it has fostered incomes for the Sherpas that far exceeds that of the average Nepali person.

Tourism-based income is unstable in the long run because it only provides a steady income for a short period of time. However, in the short term, it provides people with better living. Everest is affecting Nepal negatively in many ways, but the positives it brings cannot be ignored. It is difficult to know what to do about the issues tourism to Everest is causing when its short-term benefits have such a strong impact on the people of Nepal. Work is being done, but just like the trek to summiting Everest, this will be a long and challenging road for the Nepali people and government.

– Emma Hodge
Photo: Flickr

,

Brazil’s Economic Recession and Poverty

Brazil’s Economic Recession
Brazil began the 21st century on an almost exclusively positive note. Before Brazil’s economic recession, people included it in the same conversation as Russia, India, China and South Africa, leaders of the developing world and countries poised to make considerable economic gains in the decades to come. The first years of the 2000s reinforced that perception, as Brazil’s economy continued to grow and expand. This prompted a bid for both the 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympic Games. In 2007, FIFA granted Brazil the event, and in 2009, the International Olympic Committee announced Rio de Janeiro as the host for the 2016 Games.

Economic Depression

These highly visible international events combined with the emergence of Brazil in the international arena seemed to legitimize the country’s efforts. However, after Dilma Rousseff took over for the highly popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, government spending ballooned, partly due to the infrastructure required to host international sporting events. Under her direction, Brazil suffered its worst economic depression on record.  The government’s spending, combined with mismanagement of inflation, a decrease in consumer spending and the sharp decline in oil prices in 2015, produced a two-year slide that embodied Brazil’s economic recession, and poverty naturally increased as a result of all of these factors.

 This sharply contrasts with the efforts that Lula da Silva undertook to mitigate poverty and economic hardship as the leader of Brazil’s Workers’ Party, lifting 36 million people out of poverty. In a resounding success for him and Rousseff, by 2014, unemployment reached its record low, the U.N. removed Brazil from its Hunger Map, and the number of people living during Brazil’s Economic Recession in poverty dropped to 5.2 million. In 2017, however, more than 14 million people found themselves homeless and in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank’s definition of less than $1.90 U.S. a day. The situation was more grave than just poverty and homelessness, as a study conducted between 2012 and 2017 intimately linked the effects of Brazil’s economic recession and poverty with adult mortality. It found that there was an uncanny correlation between the state unemployment rate and the mean municipal mortality rate.

Reasons for Brazil’s Economic Recession

How did a country with such promise and success completely reverse course and regress so quickly, resulting in Brazil’s economic recession and poverty? Dilma Rousseff increased public spending upon entering office in 2011, raising the minimum wage and promoting expanded lending by the state’s banks. Simultaneously, the central bank’s discount rate dropped, sparking inflation which Rousseff exacerbated by cutting sales tax and lowering prices on food, gasoline and bus fares. One entity hurt most by this was Petrobras, the Brazilian state-run oil company, as investments stalled. Rousseff boosted wages to combat inflation, but this did not work. Inflation outpaced wages and resulted in inhibited consumer spending. When oil prices fell in 2015, the dollar strengthened and companies cut production and jobs as the currency-the real-collapsed, increasing the expense of imports and further raising inflation. To make matters even worse, Brazil experienced a political crisis in the midst of this, as the government impeached Dilma Rousseff for improperly moving government funds between budgets, and threw Lula da Silva in jail for corruption.

Looking Forward

The peak of the crisis came in 2017, and the economy recovered to its 2014 level, but experts caution against optimism. A BBC article in May 2019 identified four things wrong with the Brazilian economy, recession and poverty. It said that no economic recovery lies on the horizon, unemployment still runs rampant at 12.7 percent, the election of Jair Bolsonaro did not bring the anticipated market rally and the fiscal deficit still grows. It looked in May like the worst would occur, as the country’s Gross Domestic Product shrank by 0.2 percent during the first quarter of 2019, even though it aligned with the forecasted 0.5 percent annual growth.

 Much to the relief of many, the second quarter provided a rebound of 0.4 percent, a surprise to those most knowledgeable in Brazil. Little consolation came to President Bolsonaro, though, as his reform agenda did not produce the immediate results he had hoped. Still, his administration intends to focus on reforms to pensions and the government’s overall structure, to the praise of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF said that these reforms could boost the Brazilian GDP by 2.4 percent in 2020 and that Brazil could make more improvements with an opening of the country’s tariff and non-tariff barriers and a commitment to closing the infrastructure gap. Reuters agrees that the future of Brazil as an economy and emerging market hinges on fiscal reforms, that will hopefully put the last five years of Brazil’s economic recession and poverty behind them and return to the pace that Lula and Rousseff set.

– Alex Myers
Photo: Flickr

, ,

10 Facts About the Importance of Primary Education

Importance of Primary EducationOf all the resources that may cause enrichment of a nation, none are as valuable as the cognitive attainments of its population. The issue of access to primary education remains a critical one for many nations, particularly those in the developing world. Access to primary education and the impediments to its universalization may determine a nation’s trajectory for many years. Below are 10 facts about the importance of primary education.

10 Facts About the Importance of Primary Education

  1. Primary Education Consequences: Major life-long consequences accrue from access to primary education. The cumulative nature of the learning process, whether in literacy or numeracy, requires the early internalization of basic abstractions. Without this process at a young age, children fall behind in the trajectory of cognitive development and fail to reach their potential. Moreover, primary educational access facilitates the identification of, and assistance to, both gifted and struggling young minds.
  2. Nations’ Development: A nation’s development relies considerably on the access of its population to educational institutions. Access to primary education, regardless of class or caste or income, levels the social playing field. Gender equality, another significant marker of national development, improves alongside the universalization of access to educational institutions, including primary schools.
  3. Refugee Children: According to the United Nations, roughly 39 percent of refugee children across the globe do not receive a primary school education. This enrollment statistic contrasts sharply with that of non-refugee children, with 92 percent receiving primary school education. From 2017 to 2018, the number of unenrolled primary-school-age refugee children rose to a total of four million.
  4. Teachers: UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics calculates that ensuring primary education access for all requires roughly 24.4 million more primary school teachers. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers a scarcity of primary school teachers in more than 70 percent of its constituent nation-states. South Asia falls directly behind Sub-Saharan Africa in its primary school teacher scarcity crisis, requiring approximately four million more teachers by 2030 to attain the goal of universal primary education.
  5. Disabled Children: A UNESCO study of 37 countries determined that children with disabilities face a greater likelihood than their non-disabled peers of total exclusion from primary school and are more likely to experience fewer years enrolled in school and suffer major literacy deficits. These disadvantages are more likely to afflict disabled girls, thus sharpening gender asymmetries. Of the studied countries, Cambodia exhibited the most dramatic gap between disabled students and their peers, with 57 percent of the former unenrolled compared to 7 percent of the latter.
  6. Gender Parity Improvements: Data suggests improvements in gender parity in access to primary education. Sub-Saharan Africa features a 2 percent gap between the genders in non-delayed access to primary education, with 29 percent of girls unenrolled compared to 27 percent of boys. However, of children two or more years above the standard enrollment age, girls remain at a disadvantage compared to boys, attesting to the persistent influence of gender expectations on access to primary education.
  7. Violence and Exploitation: Children deprived of access to primary education risk a greater likelihood of suffering violence and exploitation. Where educational deprivation results from conflict or natural catastrophe, the danger of child trafficking intensifies. Conflict and natural disasters impeded educational access for approximately 39 million girls in 2015. As girls face a greater likelihood of impeded educational access than boys in conflict-ridden or disaster-affected regions, girls likewise face an increased risk of child trafficking out of proportion with their population percentage.
  8. Education Cannot Wait (ECW): On December 11, 2019, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) announced a $64 million educational funding initiative in the conflict-ridden countries of Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Syria. Though targeting affected youth of all backgrounds, this project places particular focus on girls, disabled children and refugees. This initiative will facilitate teacher training and student enrollment in vulnerable regions. Ultimately, this project anticipates the mobilization of governments, NGOs and civilians for the growth and maintenance of secure and effective educational sectors.
  9. The LEGO Foundation: The LEGO Foundation announced a grant of $100 million on December 10, 2019, for an early learning solutions initiative targeting crisis-affected groups in Ethiopia and Uganda. Play-oriented learning programs will improve the skill sets of both primary-school-aged and pre-school children. These play-oriented learning strategies assist children in surmounting trauma that may otherwise impede their scholastic potential. Roughly 800,000 children will benefit from this project.
  10. The Global Partnership for Education: December 10, 2019, witnessed the grant of $100 million by The Global Partnership for Education for educational initiatives across Asia and Africa. Burkina Faso, for instance, plans investment of its four-year GPE grant of $21 million toward improving primary school enrollment and developing pedagogical infrastructure. The investment of $21 million in Somalia’s Somaliland region seeks to rectify gender imparity in access to primary education.

Access to primary education provides the foundation upon which the talents of a nation’s youth may grow. Moreover, there exists a strong relationship between primary education and the promotion of such values as gender equality and social mobility. Although an indispensable institution in the contemporary age, crises both man-made and natural threaten primary education across continents. Fortunately, initiatives involving NGOs and governments promise to overcome these impediments, the importance of primary education weighs more as a right rather than a mere privilege.

– Philip Daniel Glass
Photo: Flickr

,

The Issue of Chinese Re-Education Camps

Chinese Re-education Camps
Currently, China is holding Uyghur Muslim prisoners in what it calls re-education camps. China is holding them captive in its re-education camps without trial, with the excuse that these centers are voluntary and a way to fight Islamic extremism. However, police forces hold power over these places, making it impossible for the Uyghur people to leave by choice. Despite the negatives these camps represent, people can do remarkable things to help from wherever they are. This article covers information about the discovery of the Chinese re-education camps and how nations and people are taking action.

The China Cables Leak

Currently, estimates state that China is holding somewhere between one and three million Uyghur Muslim prisoners in what it calls re-education camps. This number would equate to around 10 percent of the Uyghur Muslim population in China, which is about 10 million. The government is claiming that these centers are voluntary and a way to fight extremism. However, after the leak of the China Cables, China had a difficult time sustaining this narrative.

The China Cables refer to the leak of the operating manual for the Chinese re-education camps, which people formally knew as the Xinjian re-education camps. Prisoners only obtain weekly phone calls and a monthly video call with relatives. Other than that, any other contact can result in their suspension. The Chinese camps have high security and prisoners are under constant surveillance, which makes it nearly impossible for them to contact the outside without someone catching them.

One can mostly trace the documents back to 2017, and they explicitly reveal the government’s plans to use these facilities to forcibly teach manners and ideologies to the prisoners. Even though the government says the people can leave the camps and are there voluntarily, the China Cables state that the camps would only release the students after a year and only after achieving a minimum point score. Despite the evidence, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, said: “What we established are vocational training centers — they are not concentration camps as called by some people.”

The World’s Action

The world has been noticeably quiet about this issue. However, some U.S. representatives have provided comments and critiques about the camps. Mike Pompeo, the United States’ Secretary of State, has called the treatment of the Uyghurs “the stain of the century.” Deputy John Sullivan called it a “horrific campaign of repression.”

Even though it took some time, the U.S. government finally took concrete action. The administration blocked Chinese officials who carry out the repression from gaining visas to the U.S. The Commerce Department sanctioned Xinjiang’s Public Security Bureau, its subsidiaries and eight companies for their involvement in the persecution, detention and surveillance of the Chinese camps. China has used the camps as a testing ground for intrusive surveillance of the Uyghur.

Outside of the U.S., other nations are taking action. The United Kingdom has urged China to give U.N. observers access to detention camps. Belgium stated that it would continue raising the issue of human rights violations in these centers. Finally, 22 countries at the U.N. issued a joint statement directed to China to end the detentions and human rights violations of Muslims. The U.K., Canada and Australia are amongst the countries that signed.

Opensource Research

Any of these things would not be possible if it were not for the power of the people, beginning with the leak of the China Cables and opensource research. Opensource research is the type of research that includes sources available to everyone on the internet. German academic Adrian Zenz followed this type of research by using a Chinese search engine, Baidu, to discover documents that proved the existence of these camps.

Shawn Zhang is another significant contributor, who is a law student that used satellite imagery to investigate the location and size of the camps. Both of their research has supplied evidence and images to news outlets. It has also helped disprove the Chinese government’s denial of the camps. One should never underestimate the importance of the power of the people. Zhang says: “During my research, I have felt a lot of pressure from the Chinese government (…) [but] I think it is worth it because there are so many Uighur people held there. They just totally vanished, they disappear, like going into a black hole. They’ve lost contact with their families. At least my research can help international society to pressure the Chinese government so there can be a better chance of a peaceful solution.”

The Save Uighur Campaign

There has also been an increase in coverage of this issue, particularly in social media, through the hashtag #SaveUyghur. It is essential to keep talking about this, so more people become aware, and those in power feel pressured to exercise change. Finally, there are also nonprofits such as The Save Uighur Campaign, where people can donate and contact Congress. This NGO’s mission is to help the Uyghur Muslims suffering from the Chinese re-education camps. In its own words, “The project is a concerted effort to tie media exposure, public relations, and government action together into a single strategy aimed at the liberation of the Uighurs from the oppression they face at the hands of the Chinese government.” It is prompting people to protest and giving them the resources to do so as well.

A popular way of protesting, which Save Uighur also promotes, is Fast From China. China bans Muslims from fasting, which is part of their religion. As a way of protest and an act of solidarity, people stop eating Chinese products during the month of Ramadan. There is even a hashtag for this, #FastFromChina.

The Save Uighur NGO does something fundamental by encouraging people to contact Congress, as this is where one can see the most tangible progress when fighting for this issue. Congress is considering two bills that support Uighur Muslims. The Senate has already passed one, while the House of Representatives is yet to pass the other one. One can find the tools to support it and contact leaders on the Save Uighur website.

Atrocities are happening in China, but people are doing some things about them. People can start taking action and changing the circumstances by informing themselves and contacting their leaders. Some fantastic ideas are already in motion to fight against these Chinese re-education camps, both from the government and the people. From discovering the China Cables to a hashtag, everything counts in this battle. Despite the negatives these camps represent, people can do remarkable things to help from wherever they are.

– Johanna Leo
Photo: Flickr

,

Pioneering Technology in Mexico

Technology in Mexico
Mexico’s image tends to receive negative portrayal in news reports depicting violence and crime. However, advancements of technology in Mexico provide an alternate image of the country as a pioneer in the Latin American technological scene. Here are five key facts that represent the country’s incredible achievements.

Guadalajara is a Growing Tech Hub

Located in Jalisco, Guadalajara presents itself as Mexico’s own Silicon Valley due to its massive community of 600 tech companies, 35 design centers and four research centers. With this cluster of tech companies, Jaslico exports more than $148 billion tech products to global consumers.

Guadalajara houses 13 universities such as Tecnologico de Monterrey, which graduates 85,000 students in IT yearly. This is especially notable considering that the city has 78,000 employed IT professionals, 57 percent of whom come from Guadalajara, presenting an excellent investment into the growth of the Mexican IT community for a sustainable tech hub.

Technological Outsourcing and Nearshoring Favors Mexico’s Location

Up until the 1990s, outsourcing in Mexico existed mostly in manufacturing capacities, such as Ford manufacturing at the south of the border. Now, thanks to the startup movement in the 2010s, Mexico is also an outsourcing hub for nearshoring. This is the process of conducting business operations in a nearby country that shares the same time zone. This results in convenience, consistency and better collaboration. For example, border neighbors such as the U.S. and Mexico adopt this relationship in software development companies such as ITexico, which have relationships with U.S. clients such as McDonalds and IBM. With low labor costs and a thriving technological community, companies such as ITexico with revenues of $5 million view Mexico as a great source of outsourced nearshoring.

Technology in Mexico Receives Vast Amounts of Venture Capitalist Investments Yearly

From 2014-2016, the U.S. invested nearly $120 million into 300 Guadalajara startups. In 2017, out of all Latin American countries, Mexico received one-quarter of total investment at $80 million in funding for 59 venture deals. Viewing investments from a grander scale, nearly 1,900 venture capitalists received $22 billion in investments between 2010 and 2018.

Investments per company vary between $80,000 – $120,000. Companies such as Voxfeed provide investors with a great return on investment considering its $2 million in revenue.

Such financial growth benefits the Mexican economy as it is currently the world’s 11th largest economy. It has the potential to gain $245 billion GDP by 2025, and the possibility of being the world’s largest economy by 2050.

Fintech Growth in Mexico Surpasses Other Latin American Countries

In 2017, Mexico led Latin America with the growth of 80 Fintech companies in 10 months, amounting to a total of 238, and ahead of Brazil which had 230. In 2018, Mexico retained its lead with 394 Fintech startups, still ahead of Brazil which had 380.

Fintech is continually growing thanks to entrepreneurship to create Fintech startups, as well as low banking and lending. For instance, 44 percent of the population does not use any banking products.

In this sense, growth not only increases the size of this sector but also aids the Mexican population in becoming more financially secure with platforms like Konfio that assists individuals and businesses with access to affordable loans.

Aside from Fintech expanding the function of technology in Mexico, investors such as Goldman Sachs view the sector as an opportunity for growth. Just recently, in September 2019, Goldman Sachs invested $100 million into Konfio, a small business loan lender. This allows $250 million in loans to 25,000 companies.

Technology in Mexico Advances With New Urban Landscapes

As Mexico advances technologically, the city landscape in Guadalajara does so to sustain a future generation of tech. As part of the 2012 Ciudad Creativa Digital project, the city has undergone construction to reinvent the historic district of Parque Morelos with the aim of creating a more urban, media/tech center and a 21st-century creative workspace. Developers envision Guadalajara with new educational and cultural institutions such as the Digital Creative Institute, as well as a Middle School in Visual Arts. On a cultural scale, institutions such as The Mexican Marketing Museum and Media Center engage the public to learn more about media. Outdoor theatres, pools and playgrounds provide a recreational experience.

By investing in this new landscape, Mexico will tap into the $1.5 trillion media and entertainment sector. Allowing more revenue, jobs and new technology to overall ensure a durable urban fabric to foster the growth of media in Mexico.

These five facts prove the successes of technology in Mexico in the forms of a new tech hub, nearshoring, venture capital investment, Fintech growth and a media/tech-oriented environment. Such successes in investing and growing a solid tech foundation will allow the country to sustain a future in the continuously digitizing world.

– Elizabeth Yusuff
Photo: Wikipedia Commons