Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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She’s the First to Finish School – Girls’ Education

She's the FirstOne of the side effects of poverty is an inability to start or finish one’s education. But one nonprofit is aiming to fight that effect by educating young women. She’s the First is a global nonprofit that “supports girls who will be the first in their families to graduate high school and trains students everywhere to be global citizens.” Their aim is to keep girls in school until they graduate so they can experience and learn more in school. In addition to poverty preventing young girls from finishing school, early marriage, long routes to school and expensive costs for higher schooling also affect girls’ education.

Two women wanted to combat all of that by helping young women get the education they need to succeed. She’s the First was started in November 2009 with a Youtube video and Facebook page by founders Tammy Tibbetts and Christen Brandt. Both had received scholarships for their schooling and wanted to do the same for other girls. It has been shown that education, specifically girls’ education, can help stop poverty.

It works with other international organizations to identify young women to sponsor. 11 countries are the current focus of the organization, including countries in West Africa, Eastern Africa, Latin America and East Asia.

Over 900 girls are She’s the First Scholars, meaning they have received a scholarship to allow them to pursue their education. The young women are provided with mentors in order to help them become successful leaders. These campus groups also aim to promote leadership and global citizenship within the campus community.

What are the benefits of improving education for young women? She’s the First says that a girl is likely to make “20 percent more per year of schooling she finishes”, is less likely to marry young and more likely to have fewer, but healthier, children.

Want to get involved? There are different levels of donor programs. You can become an Academic Ally, Equality Advocate, or a Girl Champion. There have also been more than 300 fundraisers to help raise money for the cause.

Since 2009, this organization has been able to help many young women finish school and give them the resources they need to do so. It has mobilized others across the country, specifically in communities and at universities. This organization’s message of investing in education to better the futures of these young women and girls is an amazing cause to help fight global poverty.

– Emilia Beuger

Photo: Pixabay

Trouble in Paradise: How to Help People in Mauritius

Help People in MauritiusThe Republic of Mauritius is an Indian Ocean archipelago that is located just off the south coast of Africa and is usually seen as a model of stability and economic prosperity in the region. Since becoming independent, Mauritius has developed from a low-income country with an economy based around agriculture to a middle-income country with an economy that is much more diversified. Many general improvements have come with this economic development, such as a drop in the infant mortality rate. Other improvements include universal access to health care, the elimination of polio and malaria and nearly the entire population having access to clean drinking water.

Despite this, there is still poverty and a significant need to figure out how to help people in Mauritius. Along with poverty still being present on the island, there are still issues of violence against women, children losing parental care due to poverty and the social exclusion that affects children with disabilities. With the island seeming more like a tropical paradise at times, it is important to keep in mind that there is still a great deal of disadvantaged and poor people in Mauritius, particularly in rural areas.

Another factor in Mauritius’ poverty situation is that there is no official poverty line in the country. They use a relative poverty line that is defined as “half median monthly household income per adult equivalent.” The poorest households usually satisfy three basic conditions: households that have difficulty obtaining daily basic food, households that consume government rice and households that buy food on credit.

Now we must consider the best ways of how to help people in Mauritius, allowing us to address these issues and achieve a better standard of living for the poor. The first solution undertaken by the government was implementing a social welfare program that aims to bridge the gap between the poor and the non-poor. The program focused on the distribution of social aid to needy people, subsidies on basic food items, improving the level of education, microfinancing small and medium enterprise and female empowerment in the labor market.

Social policies such as this are essential for combating poverty and for pinpointing how to help people in Mauritius effectively. Anthony Giddens, a British sociologist who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies, said: “Although being poor does not necessarily mean being permanently mired in poverty, effective social policies which maximize the power of human agency will be a key part of any solution.”

In 2017, Mauritius instituted the Marshall Plan Against Poverty, an ambitious reform aimed at addressing persistent pockets of poverty and social exclusion in the country. Though the plan refers to the official number of poor households as 33,600, the government is focusing on the absolute poorest, equaling about 10,000 households. So far, the plan has committed approximately 2.2 billion rupees, or $63 million, over the next three years as they continue to implement the Marshall Plan.

There are several other solutions that can help us find how to help people in Mauritius, such as introducing legislation for a national minimum wage for workers and taking an initiative in creating more jobs in the manufacturing sector and other industries. The minimum wage of a worker should be equal to or more than the revised figures published by the Household Budget Survey of Statistics Mauritius, as it is necessary to reduce income inequality and to help the poor find a decent life using their own efforts. Similarly, as other countries around the world have shown, there is a working-class population that will largely never earn a degree, prompting the need for an increase in jobs for the working class.

– Drew Fox

Photo: Unsplash

Patricia Arquette and Mohammad Ashour Conferred 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award

Patricia Arquette and Mohammad Ashour Conferred 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian AwardActor, writer and activist, Patricia Arquette, received a 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award on September 23, 2017. Arquette received the Lifetime Achievement award.

Arquette created the charity, GiveLove, a U.S. based skill-training non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to the instruction and promotion of Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan) and compost sanitation. Arquette founded GiveLove to assist after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred approximately 16 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

GiveLove works in emergency and development contexts to introduce low-cost, decentralized sanitation systems based on container-based sanitation and human manure composting approaches. Specializing in dry toilets, known as, “compost toilets,” GiveLove’s industrial partners operate in areas with high demand and dry areas to provide safe options for latrines dug in challenging environments.

GiveLove has implemented training programs in Haiti, Nicaragua, Colombia, Uganda, Kenya, India and the United States. The charity partners with NGOs, local community associations, schools, youth groups, universities and governments. GiveLove provides technical skills training, program design and support, staff training, monitoring and evaluation and design consultancy. GiveLove also instructs local organizations to advance sanitation in high-risk communities. Arquette’s company trains licensed sanitation builders, as well as district technicians, to apply and manage projects.

The Center bestowed a second 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award upon Mohammad Ashour.

During his acceptance speech for the Conviction Principle Award, Ashour promoted universal healthcare and condemned racism. Ashour’s enterprise, Aspire, operates in Ghana and the United States.

Aspire raises food-grade crickets on a commercial scale and actively works to normalize the consumption of insects in the western world. Ashour’s company, based in Austin, Texas, created a massive farm to raise crickets used to make mainstream snacks. The Center honored Ashour with the 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for pursuing his goal to produce a high-grade source of protein, while also reducing the carbon and land footprint that stems from farming cattle. Crickets are a healthy source of protein and offset the harmful effects that come from the reliance on beef production.

At the onset, employees fed the crickets. However, this system proved inefficient and ineffective, as humans work during daylight hours and crickets are nocturnal. Aspire subsequently incorporated a robotic system that provides the ideal amount of food to the crickets. These adjustments to the cricket’s diet created a better product.

Inside Aspire’s newest building, a robot feeds millions of crickets 24 hours a day. This facility is a 25,000-square-foot research and development center. Aspire plans to duplicate this technology on an additional farm that is 10 times the size of the present plant. It’s a scale that Ashour believes will propel crickets as a mainstream food in the United States. For an insect’s diet to meet its sustainable promise of supplying protein without the carbon and land footprint of beef, Aspire must increase production, making cricket protein widely available and affordable. Mohammad Ashour believes Aspire’s endeavor will make that possible.

According to The Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, the 2017 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award honored and extolled the valuable contributions of people from around the world.

– Heather Hopkins

Photo: Flickr

There’s an App for That: Middle Eastern Startups

Middle EastIt seems like every year, another company or app comes out that changes our lives and disrupts traditional businesses. Netflix changed movies and TV shows, Uber changed individual transportation and Airbnb changed the hotel industry. These new and innovative companies have allowed more people to access services that may have been out of reach in the past.

Now, this trend has taken hold in an unlikely place: the Middle East.

Currently, the two most prominent Middle Eastern startups in the region are Souq, an online e-commerce retailer and Careem, a ride-hailing service. While these firms are not based around wholly original ideas, the mere fact of their creation shows a desire for citizens in these countries to utilize smart technology to improve their daily lives.

Amazon’s acquisition of Souq in 2017 showed the effectiveness of the firm in the region, considering that Amazon’s modus operandi when entering new regions involves launching its own platform paired with a substantial investment component. The efficiency of Souq, however, allowed Amazon to make a direct buyout instead.

Startups like those seen in other parts of the world are sprouting up in the region regardless of the challenging economic and political circumstances they face. In 2016, the top 100 startups in the region raised over $1.42 billion, with each firm raising at least $500,000. But this does not come easily.

Many Middle Eastern countries do not have a conducive climate for startups compared to western Europe and North America. Bankruptcy laws and overregulation have stifled innovation for decades. However, the increase in startup firms in a variety of sectors shows a young, tech-savvy population that seeks to innovate and reinvigorate the economies of the Arab world.

Jamalon, an online book-selling firm, was started by a Jordanian who grew up in Palestinian refugee camps. Ala’ Alsallal saw a need for greater access to Arabic-language books for people in the region, especially works that are banned by various governments in the region.

“You know what the censors told me? ‘We don’t want any books that can change the way people think,'” Alsallal told Forbes Magazine. “That doesn’t matter,” he says. “We just keep sending them.”

Entrepreneurship with a social mission is common among startups, and it is no different in the Middle East, as shown by Jamalon. Average citizens are destined to benefit immensely from these companies. If this trend continues, the advent of Middle Eastern startups will increase access to services and will improve the quality of life for the people of the region.

– Daniel Cavins
Photo: Flickr

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5 Things the US Needs to Know About Extreme Poverty

Extreme PovertyNot all poverty is created equal. Poverty in a developed country is not the same as poverty in a developing nation. Here are 5 things the U.S. needs to know about extreme poverty.

  1. People who live in extreme poverty are deprived of basic human needs such as access to food, clean water and shelter. To be classified as a person living in extreme poverty, one must be living on or below $1.90 a day.
  2. Extreme poverty in a developing nation is different from poverty in a developed nation. The U.S. is a developed nation. In the U.S., government benefits keep millions of Americans out of poverty. These programs mostly tend to target women, children and the elderly, the nation’s (and the world’s) most vulnerable populations. Due to programs such as Social Security, unemployment benefits and food stamps, these people are shielded from the harsh realities of extreme poverty.
  3. Unfortunately, government benefits tend not to exist in developing countries to aid their poor. In addition, due to fear of corruption, the world’s poorest do not receive as much foreign aid as their better-off peers. Low-income countries remain in poverty due to being too poor to be trusted with funds. An effect of this is that the most defenseless population in the world, children, suffers the consequences. The World Health Organization estimates that about 16,000 children under the age of five die each day from preventable causes associated with extreme poverty. The causes of death are lack of access to clean water, lack of access to healthcare, malaria, newborn infections, poor nutrition and diarrhea. Death from these ails is unfathomable in developed countries.
  4. An estimated 766,010,000 people live in extreme poverty today. This is double the size of the U.S.’s population
  5. The number of people in extreme poverty is declining. In 1990, there were 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty. Today the number is 766 million. This is an amazing feat that can be attributed to a combination of factors such as trade between developed nations and developing nations, foreign aid that reinvigorated economies, increased education, improved infrastructures and investment in basic health.

As with most things in life, poverty cannot be viewed through a single lens. It is a complex social issue, but gains over the past few decades have shown that it is a solvable issue. With continued foreign aid and trade, the world can get that much closer to realizing the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030.

– Jeanine Thomas

Photo: Flickr

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The Global Learning Crisis and How It Can Be Addressed

The Global Learning Crisis and How the Social Gap Continues to WidenAccording to a World Bank report, there is a global learning crisis that is continuing to threaten millions of young students, and as the social gaps widen, the learning crisis increasingly becomes a moral and economic crisis as well.

This current report states that without learning, education fails to deliver on its main goal of eliminating extreme poverty and creating important life opportunities for all. Even after spending several years in school, millions still cannot read, write or do basic mathematics.

Globally, approximately 264 million lives are shy of achieving the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG4), quality education for all. Some of the hardest hit by this global learning crisis are youths in countries such as Syria, Yemen and Sudan, as well as thousands of Rohingya children that were driven from their homes by the Myanmar government.

The report also notes that when leaders of countries make “learning for all” a national priority for its citizens, education standards can improve dramatically. South Korea is an excellent example of this. What was once a war-torn country with very low literacy rates achieved universal enrollment by 1995, and its youth performed at some of the highest levels when it came to international learning assessments.

Not all hope is lost, however. Some countries have decided to take action when it comes to combating the global learning crisis, and in particular, there is one region that happens to be facing the most severe cases of these challenges. Ghana’s government has been actively investing in its future and is completely on board with SDG4 by pursuing innovative strategies that will ensure girls, in particular, can continue their education.

In all, World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer states that “The only way to make profess is to ‘find the truth from facts.’ If we let them, the facts about education reveal a painful truth. For too many children, schooling does not mean learning.” Three factors that will work towards combating the global learning crisis include assessing learning, making schools work for all children and mobilizing anyone and everyone who has a stake in learning.

– Sara Venusti
Photo: Flickr

The Benefits of Solar Power in Botswana

Benefits of Solar Power
Solar panels are making a major impact on the lives of rural families in Botswana. About 80 percent of people in Botswana have been utilizing firewood for sources of light and heat. Unfortunately, many acres of forest have been destroyed due to the loss of trees used for their light and heat. Now that the UNDP-supported Rural Electrification Program is in place, life in Botswana has changed for the better. The goal of the program is to provide 65,000 homes with solar power.

A benefit of solar power is the time saved by women and girls. Retrieving wood and constantly tending to the fire to maintain light and heat in the home can be a time-consuming task. Newer wood-saving stoves being used in Botswana can cook a four-person meal with only a kilogram of wood, which reduces the wood gathering time and intensive work. This gives people more time to invest in other needs.

There are many benefits of solar power compared to other forms of fossil fuel energy. For example, solar power does not release any pollutants into the environment. Solar panels are a good investment because they are cheap and can supply power indefinitely with no ongoing costs. For countries struggling with poverty in Africa, cheap energy is a smart, long-term solution.

Solar power in countries like Botswana allows families to focus on other important things in their life, as opposed to constantly retrieving wood just to fulfill their basic needs. Botswana is one of Africa’s more stable countries, mostly free of corruption. The country is the world’s largest producer of diamonds, making the country a middle-income nation. The benefits of solar power are an important move in powering the country in the right direction.

– Chloe Turner

Photo: Google

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House Bill to Combat Human Rights Abuses in North Korea

Human Rights Abuses in North Korea
The Kim regime has continued to inflict disturbing human rights abuses in North Korea on its people. As a result, to help keep America as well as innocent citizens of North Korea safe, the House has voted unanimously on a critical and bipartisan North Korea human rights bill.

According to Newsweek, North Korea’s authoritarian regime has “snatched” teenagers out of their schools to be Kim Jong-un’s apparent sex slaves, forces members of the country’s upper class to watch executions and its leaders are perfectly content to eat expensive foods while the rest of his people subsist on grass.

Reuters recently reported that executions are often carried out in prison camps to instill fear and intimation among prison inmates that are contemplating an escape attempt. Public executions are carried out for minor crimes and distribution of South Korean media can also lead to execution.

According to NK Daily, a person in North Korea can be sentenced to death for communicating with the outside world, and a minimum of ten years of reeducation is the punishment for listening to South Korean media or another foreign radio.

The bill to combat human rights abuses in North Korea is a reauthorization of a 2004 North Korea human rights law that will add to the measure of new provisions aimed at spreading uncensored information throughout the country to inform the citizens of North Korea what is happening in the outside world. It will enact important snippets of updates that have to do with freedom and technological advances that are beyond radio broadcasting.

Chairman Ed Royce and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently stated that “the truth is Kim Jong-un’s greatest enemy. So as we step up sanctions to cut off the cash that funds Kim’s nuclear program, we must also break down barriers to truth in North Korea. This bill will update critical efforts to get real, accurate information into the hands of North Koreans through radio broadcasts, USB drives, mobile devices, and more. When Kim Jong-un has to answer to the North Korean people, he will pose far less danger to us.”

– Sara Venusti

Photo: Flickr

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How to Help People in Brunei

How to Help People in Brunei Darussalam

Brunei is a small nation located in the northern coastal area of the island of Borneo, which also encompasses parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. Brunei‘s territory extends itself through an area of 5,765 kilometers of land, where about 423,000 citizens live.

How to help people in Brunei is not an easy question to answer at first glance. The fact is that despite its size, Brunei’s economy is considered to be one of the best performing in the world.

The country mainly exports liquefied gas and crude oil across the globe; natural gas and petroleum represent 60% of the country’s economy. Brunei’s extended forest territory allows it to produce abundant amounts of non-renewable resources and energy.

In spite of Brunei’s level of productivity, the issue of how to help people in Brunei remains because, despite the country’s great wealth, the social and political system causes difficulty for Brunei’s citizens.

As an absolute monarchy led by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, freedom of speech has been limited within the media, including radio, television, and print, as well as for citizens.

In 2014, Brunei adopted sharia law, a list of laws based on the religion of Islam. Consisting of three phases, two of which have to be yet implemented, sharia law is currently enforced among Brunei’s citizens.

The only approved phase for the moment includes prison sentences for what most developed first world countries would consider minor. Pregnancy outside marriage, failing to attend Friday prayers, propagating religion other than Islam, among other offenses, are severely punished with prison sentences or fines.

Organizations such as the United Nations have spoken out regarding Bolkiah’s intentions, but despite commenting on the sultan’s ideas for the future of Brunei, the country remains part of the United Nations due to providing free medical care, education and more to its citizens.

Boycotts of the Beverly Hills Hotel and other properties that Bolkiah owns have been enacted by numerous international companies to put pressure on the sultan to repeal sharia law. Celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres and Elton John have taken up the issue to bring awareness to the inequality and discrimination that is currently taking place in Brunei.

How to help people in Brunei is a social issue rather than an economic one. Brunei is a country that violates human rights every day and no organizations are actively fighting against it. The imposition of sharia law in Brunei is continuous and awareness is key in order to eradicate such human rights violations.

– Paula Gibson

Photo: Flickr

Children Return to School in the Greater Kasai Region

Hundreds of Thousands Children Return to School in the Greater Kasai Region

The Greater Kasai region is one of 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Beginning in August 2016, it was the scene of a local conflict between the Congolese government and a traditional leader of the region, who was later killed while fighting with security forces. The local conflict, however, turned into a confrontation between militias and government security forces, which led to violence and instability among the entire Kasai region.

The violence within the region also had a major impact on the education of tens of thousands of children. UNICEF announced a total of 440,000 children in the five most affected provinces of the Kasai region, who were unable to finish the school year and complete their education because of insecurity. With more than 400 schools attacked, parents are resistant to keep sending their children to school, leading to more than 150,000 children missing out on education.

Conflicts have also affected health systems within the region, as one in three health centers got destroyed, increasing the risks of disease among children. The main goal was then to help hundreds of thousands of children return to school in the Greater Kasai region. UNICEF started a campaign and achieved this goal at the start of the 2017 school year.

In addition to encouraging parents to get their children back into the classroom, this campaign allowed for the distribution of school materials for children and training for a total of 2,750 teachers in peace-education and psychosocial support. This back-to-school campaign has also raised awareness among communities regarding the risks within the classroom that are related to mines and war remnants.

UNICEF has also responded to the Greater Kasai region with other major projects geared toward health, nutrition, protection and education. Previously detained in the Kasai region, 384 children were released through the help of UNICEF, as well.

As hundreds of thousands of children return to school in the Greater Kasai region, hope for a better future returns in terms of education, safety and healthcare. As violence decreases and peace makes a fragile return, the Kasai region is on a better path for success.

– Sarah Soutoul

Photo: Flickr