Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Interview with Mardge Cohen, Co-Founder of WE-ACTx

Interview With Mardge Cohen, Co-Founder of WE-ACTxWomen’s Equity in Access to Care & Treatment, or WE-ACTx, aims to provide the women and children of Rwanda with proper access to healthcare and treatment. Nearly 10 years after the Rwandan Genocide, this HIV/AIDS initiative brought much needed aid to communities of women and children in Kigali. Now, more than 12 years later, the organization continues its work, offering not only clinical care and mental health services for people infected with HIV/AIDS, but also youth programs and support with income generation—aimed at addressing both poverty and malnutrition.

I caught up with Mardge Cohen, co-founder of WE-ACTx, and spoke a bit about the organization’s origins, progress and successes, which have allowed this quite exceptional organization to thrive among the people of Kigali, Rwanda.

Tell me, how did WE-ACTx begin?

“The organization was started in 2004. We went to Rwanda because one of the other people who formed the organization, named Anne-Christine d’Adesky, a journalist, had been writing a book about HIV and women. She had been to Rwanda and these heads of associations talked to her about how the women of Rwanda, who had been raped during the genocide and were then infected with HIV, were not getting access to medicines for HIV. But the men who raped them, who were in jail, were getting medicines for their HIV. These women thought that was very unfair, and they asked Anne-Christine to bring a bunch of physicians and advocates to help fast-track medicine for these women because they were getting very sick and dying.

The genocide was in 1994 and this was in 2004, and it takes about a decade, 10 years, after you’re infected with HIV to become very sick. The women were just getting sick and the leaders of these associations wanted to do something about it.”

Do you feel that these at risk populations of Rwanda are ignored by the government, or were ignored?

“In 2004, nobody was getting medications for HIV. It was before PEPFAR (The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). It was before the global fund. It was at a time… you know I’d been working on HIV since 1987, and people were saying things about Africa: ‘Well, we’ll just give them medication for pneumonia, for prophylaxis. We can’t afford… and the people in Africa wouldn’t know how to manage, there isn’t a good enough infrastructure to manage the antiretroviral therapy, so we’ll just ride them off.’ And they were going to ride them off. You know, right now there are 36 million people living with HIV worldwide and 26 million of them are in Africa, and most of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

That’s an enormous number of people that people were thinking of just riding off, so the governments of those countries in Africa really had no wherewithal to actually help people. The drugs weren’t there. They weren’t letting the drugs get there, so my feeling is my experience in Rwanda was in fact the government seriously wanted to help people. Once medication became available, they figured out ways to actually control the dispersal of the medicine so that it got out to people, and they tested everybody. I was aware of some countries where tests got outdated, expired, in garages and never got to people—that’s not what happened in Rwanda. In Rwanda, they really tried.”

You didn’t face much resistance from the government?

“Well, our approach was a little bit different from the government’s because our approach was very women-centered and youth-centered, and their approach was more decentralized… sort of a public health model where people would just go to the nearest clinic to where they lived. Everybody would sort of be engaged in the healthcare system that way, but because HIV comes with a lot of stigma people didn’t really want to go to clinics near where they lived. Women sort of liked the idea of going to a place that cared about women and worried about their emotional reaction to HIV, gender-based violence and helping them try to become productive members of society—not just worrying about HIV as it affected the baby or the husband, but rather cared about them as real people. So, people wanted to come to our program even though it may not have been a neighborhood clinic.

That was a little bit problematic for the Rwandan government. They didn’t like that so much, but they then saw that we did very well with connecting women to care and having people with very good retention rates and adherence to medication. Then, after a while, we had a lot of good youth programming because we had so many women who they had kids—a lot of attention to youth friendly programs. Then we got on better with the Rwandan government public health system and now we’re in very good shape. We do a research program with their principal investigators, and we’re principal investigators; It’s much more collegial.”

What did you have to do to overcome cultural differences? I know that specifically in Rwanda, people don’t very much like to talk about things involving sex.

“So, there was a pretty big public health campaign to get people tested. And, you know, in Africa it’s said that one of the major risk factors for a woman having HIV was being in a monogamous relationship with her husband. It’s just that he probably is not in a monogamous relationship with her. Women who had done everything they were supposed to do, get married, have children, they were at risk for HIV. As a result, we didn’t really have to have that many difficult conversations with them, but they were reticent to talk about things… but after a while, we used a model of peer advocacy.

We found some Rwandan women who were HIV-infected who were sort of a bit more leader-ish and wanted to sort of help other women. We utilized them to help us understand what the cultural differences were and for them to sort of share with the other women what efficacy the drug we had and the approach we were taking. That really, really helps—a peer model really got through some of those cultural differences. I think one of the things that I learned was that you have to be very patient; I’m a very impatient person and things are very slow, and change happens over a long period of time. It’s not quick. There was a lot of stigma related to HIV and there still is because we went there 11 years ago and now its 2015 but there’s still a lot of stigma.”

Did you do some advocacy in the community to try to change that perception?

“We did, especially if there were kids in schools or if there were neighborhoods that were giving people a hard time or landlords who kicked people out of their homes. We did legal training of advocates to sort of have the people… you see, there aren’t that many lawyers in Rwanda and the case loads that they have are so great that there’s sort of a paralegal system and we try to train our patients—a significant number of them—to participate that way in dealing with those issues. That sort of helped. We also tried to provide a very joyous atmosphere for the children because their lives are pretty rough, and every year we have this thing called ‘Day of the African Child’—a big party for all the families, like 1,200-1,400 people come and have a big party and its just to celebrate that they’re alive. Those kind of thing help the parents and the patients realize that we were not trying to get away with anything or do anything bad, but really just trying to provide a better quality of life for people who are HIV-infected.”

Was it a bit difficult to break into the community in Kigali?

“Well, luckily, these groups—these women’s groups, these leaders who had spoken to my friend Anne-Christine d’Adesky—they were still there. Initially, it started with 5 groups, and they called us in and told us where to go and they told us what to do, so I never felt like I was . . . bringing our stuff and putting it on people in Rwanda. I felt that the Rwandans had called us in. I thought that we were very lucky to have that approach, and they told us what they wanted from us. That made it, I think, a good way to be in another culture, in another country, and we’ve maintained that. We have partner association meetings four times a year where we review what’s going. We didn’t have to put up a shingle and hope people would come. Basically, those associations keep bringing their members to us, so I think it a pretty good model for being connected to community groups. You know, AIDS groups, women groups, local groups, service groups…

Then there’s the issue of the genocide and I think those are some of the lessons we learned, too. In some of the groups, people didn’t always want to work together, and we had a sort of… We didn’t understand that, or we didn’t think of that as behind some of the problems that we encountered, but it sometimes was. But now, the staff is sort of mixed grouping and everybody have bought into the mission to provide good HIV care for children, women, their partners and their families. And I think everybody does the best they can to make that happen.”

Do you feel that a substantial amount of progress has been made?

“Oh yeah! I mean, HIV is a deadly disease. We now have about 2,600 people—I’d say 90 percent—of those over 25 adhere wonderfully to their medicines and are doing great. A small percentage need a lot more help to take their medicine and keep doing well. The younger people, who have had the disease longer because most of them were born with it, have sometimes become resistant to some of the medicine. So, we have to put them on more complicated regimens.

Some of the good medicines we have in this country are not readily available there. When I first started that was true. Then for a while, the medicines we had in Rwanda and the medicines we had in the U.S. were the same. Now the U.S. is way, way passed Rwanda and a lot of countries in Africa and Latin America. They don’t have the medicines we have, which are really excellent medications. So, that’s a problem, but there is generally progress. I watched, at this ‘Day of the African Child,’ I watched kids who I knew when they were 10 who are now 21 years of age, and they’re confident, they’re strong, they’re going to university—it’s amazing! It’s an enormous amount of progress!”

Was the genocide the main reason why you chose to work in Rwanda?

“It was more HIV, but in the context of the genocide. I had an interest in intimate partner violence because I had seen a lot of that in the care I gave women in Chicago who were HIV infected. We’ve done studies, and there’s just high prevalence of gender-based violence, like 62 percent lifetime—here [in the U.S.]—experience with either sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Then, we looked at it in Rwanda, in our clinic, post-genocide, and it was 62 percent also. It was the same in both countries—you know poor population, difficult situation of sexually transmitted disease where people go off to try to make a living somewhere else… In the U.S. there was lot of drug use and a lot of difficult relationships with partners. There had been issues [in Rwanda]—people had lost partners during the genocide, people had been raped during the genocide. I was interested in Rwanda because my friend had been here and we had been asked to go, but I thought that because of everything that I had learned related to women with HIV and their experiences, it would be useful in this ultimate experience of gender-based violence, which was the genocide, where about a quarter of a million women were raped. So it was sort of both things.”

What do you think the main difference is between the government in Rwanda and in a country like Zimbabwe, which has seen a lot of resistance to NGOs that are trying to come into the country trying to help people with HIV?

“I think Rwanda sort of benefited post-genocide and by the 2001-2003 people coming in. A lot of Western and European countries that felt so guilty of not helping during the genocide were now giving lots of money. At the same time, there was lots of money going into HIV in a lot of countries, but the difference was that . . . there was money straight to the government and there was NGOs’ money, but what Rwanda did—very importantly—was it controlled the NGOs a lot, or tried to. There was a very strong government presence… very strong. One can’t write anything related to Rwanda without mentioning how wonderful the Rwandan government is. One can’t really be there without somehow being acknowledged by or understand the relationship with the Rwandan government, but its not just that; It’s that there was a lot of government will in Rwanda to do well in terms of the HIV epidemic, and in some sense, I think they wanted to be a poster-child for being able to distribute medicines well and lower the prevalence as opposed to be known for the genocide. It was a way to sort of make history—current history—much more positive as a country. And they were one of the best at utilizing the many millions of dollars that were given to them to help with the HIV epidemic. I think it was disproportionately more than what other countries got, but they utilized it extremely well. The other countries who maybe should have gotten more never used it well, often. There wasn’t the same governmental will, which I think you need.

It’s not just an issue of, are the NGOs disorganized? are they sort of stepping all over each other? and are they not doing what’s right? There are those issues, which I did see a bit in Rwanda and I had seen in a lot of other countries, but what I didn’t see in Rwanda was a government that wasn’t taking the epidemic seriously. They really put energy and resources… they used the resources they got to have a very strong public health system which helped HIV and other things along the way. It really addressed maternal mortality, infant mortality… When I started in Rwanda there were 30 doctors for 10 million people, and now there are so many more physicians and nurses who are trained related to HIV. And I think it’s an issue not just of the government’s relationship to NGOs, but of the government itself, having a strong presence related to the problems that the society is facing. I think that’s different from Zimbabwe and other countries.”

What do you think is lacking in terms of support for NGOs that do the same work that you do?

“Well, we have to do a lot of fundraising and I mean that is hard . . . that is one of our issues and it is a lot of work to raise money. I think what we do is really deliver the product we say we’re going to deliver, and I think that’s why we’ve been successful so far in our fundraising. We’ve been sustained for 11 years, so that speaks to our success in itself.

What I think we did that was good is that right now in Rwanda there is a local NGO called WE-ACT for Hope. It’s all Rwandan-run and they now manage the entire clinic, so our job is to fundraise a certain amount that we commit to, along with a few other groups that they get money from, and we do a lot of guidance related to program and other things, research… but they’re responsible—they are running the show. I think if you have local folks running the show, not just in a body, but rather the responsibility of a true locally credentialed NGO, which is also what Rwanda encourages, that’s a good way to go!”

– Jaime Longoria

Sources: Mother Jones, WE ACTx
Photo: WE ACT

Thailand: An Experiment in Family Planning

Thailand: An Experiment in Family PlanningIn Thailand in 1974 most families had seven children each, establishing an average growth rate of 3.3 percent. Having upwards of seven children put many women at risk for pregnancy-related deaths and often led to many children being raised in mother-less homes. With such a high growth rate, much of Thailand’s population was quickly descending into poverty as there was not enough money and there were too many mouths to feed.

In order to combat this decline, Mechai Viravaidya decided to start at the root of the issue ⁠— the women who had no control over how many children they would bear. After discussing family planning with several women, they decided that providing a pill was a great option for some women. However, this only covered around 20 percent of the population.

This did not hinder them.

Adapting the Coca-Cola model, Viravaidya and his team sought out well-respected individuals in each community to provide locals with family planning advice and devices, primarily birth control pills and condoms. It was the condom that took off. They were sold at local stores, on floating markets, handed out by the police, given to children in school, handed out in key chains, they were taking the nation by storm.

Soon, the team met some push-back from the religious community, but after talking with leaders, several monks actually blessed the condoms and contraceptives with holy water, thus making them something that everyone could utilize without feeling as if they were sinning. They then went to the military, which helped to advise local populations on the risks of HIV and AIDS, and they handed out condoms at traffic stops. Mechai became Thailand’s own “Mr. Condom.”

They soon went to the schools to educate children on the risks associated with unprotected sex, but they made it enjoyable. The team developed games that promoted family planning initiatives and condom balloon competitions, and in five years trained over 300,000 teachers in family planning methods. This meant that students now had people to talk to should they have any questions, and were thus able to advise their own parents on proper methods of family planning.

By 2000 the average amount of children per family was 1.5 and the growth rate had dropped to 0.5 percent, which meant that there were fewer individuals living in poverty and more children with greater opportunities for education and work in the future.

As the AIDS epidemic hit Thailand, their contraceptive commotion kicked into high gear, they were providing education on safe sex throughout all the villages, targeting high school students who then taught younger students, who then taught their parents. Thanks to the safe-sex brigade, Captain Condom and several other key players, the AIDS rate in Thailand went down by 90 percent, and the World Bank estimates that 7.7 million lives were saved because of this.

Thailand should act as an example for the rest of the world. Currently, sex and contraceptives have such a taboo upon them that several kids are petrified to even ask questions about basic safety precautions. They are afraid of judgment from store clerks and doctors, but if we normalize sex as a part of culture, we allow people to be more open and thus safer. If we take away the taboo associated with sex and perhaps even hand out free condoms and have free consultations with nurses and midwives about pills, we can reduce the rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs in our own nations. Although Thailand is a relatively small nation, it has shown us that small changes can make a huge difference.

– Sumita Tellakat

Sources: TED talks, Advocates for Youth
Photo: Flickr

Drug Wars Wounding HIV Prevention in Brazil

HIV_PreventionIn 2006, the Brazilian government made attempts to crack down on the drug problem that has ravaged most of South America. The Brazilian Congress did this by passing a law, known simply as the Drug Law. The strategy depersonalized drug possession for personal consumption and attempted to address it as a healthcare issue.

The strategy meant that citizens who would be caught using drugs, such as crack, would be sent to health facilities to be rehabbed, thus allowing law enforcement to deal with more pressing concerns, such as drug trafficking cartels.

Brazil is known to be one of the most dangerous and captivating places in the world. It is also one of the most active drug trafficking countries in the world. According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, Brazil has become the largest cocaine market in South America.

In 2014, the Brazilian government allocated over $2 billion on the “Crack: É Possível Vencer” law, which literally translates to “Crack: It Can Be Overcome.” The law is supposed to be managed by the healthcare, education and social justice ministry, but also includes funds for drug interdiction along Brazil’s borders.

Providing drug users with treatment would allow them to rejuvenate their life and help strengthen their communities. Unfortunately, standards such as the crack law have led to blurred policies that are crippling the healthcare system, specifically in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Police raids have led to many youths being incarcerated in the two cities. Most of these children are petty users or traffickers for bigger cartels. The police remove them off the streets and pressure them to feel that they need rehabilitation and treatment.

In turn, pressure from politicians in the city forces medical personnel to give these children medical treatment, even when it is unnecessary. Although it is campaigned as a successful and strategic method to clean up the city, it is in fact wasting precious resources that could be used to successfully fight problematic drug abuse or other diseases, such as HIV.

Brazil has one of the highest HIV rates in Latin America. This is troubling especially in light of the fact that it is considered to be one of the most developed countries in all of South and Central America. According to UNAIDS, Brazil, whose total population was about 200 million, had an HIV/AIDS population of 730,000 in 2013. Compare this to India, a country whose population is five times the size of Brazil’s but whose HIV/AIDS population is only 2.1 million.

HIV prevention and testing have suffered greatly due to these policies. There was a 32% increase in HIV testing between 2004 and 2013. By 2014, that progress had decreased by almost 13%. This is because resources are being strained by the drug prevention laws.

A shift in policies and implementation is needed in order to combat the real health issues in Brazil, which are diseases such as HIV. If the Brazilian government does not allocate resources correctly, the war on drugs will have failed on both fronts: Brazil will have failed to prevent both drugs from entering the country and HIV populations from increasing.

– Adnan Khalid

Sources: UNAIDS 1, UNAIDS 2, UNAIDS 3, UNODC, Washington Office of Latin America
Photo: WBUR

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How Poverty Encourages Generational Prostitution in India

Poverty_encouraging_generational_prostitution_IndiaThere are 2.2 billion children in the world. One billion of those children live in poverty. Each day 22,000 children die from poverty and it is the rural areas that account for 75% of the world’s population living on less than $1 per day. The bulk of impoverished communities are found in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In brothels and small villages, generational prostitution occurs out of need. It is considered to be a strategic method of survival for those experiencing severe poverty.

One percent of the population of women in India are sex workers, accounting for 6,230, 000 people. Among that population, over 90% of the sex workers experience generational prostitution. In the Indian culture, in some castes it is traditional to engage in familial prostitution. The caste system in India is quite strong, and, therefore, most children will never have the opportunity for education or non-sexually based work. Most sex workers are born into it. In many areas in India, women have very little chance to escape the ramifications of being poor, regardless of a caste system or not.

Prostitution in India is an accepted way of life and it is confirmed through societal norms. Generational prostitution occurs at almost every brothel. Most brothels are owned by women who were former sex workers, who now employ their children because sexually enslaving one’s children is seen as a means to avoid living in complete poverty. The sex industry provides a large amount of income for urban areas. In New Delhi alone, $2 million is the annual profit of the sex and brothel workers. The average client pays $2.

In the village of Nat Purwa, India, the population suffers from abject poverty. In this community, prostitution is considered to be a hereditary occupation, passed on from one generation of women to the next. As a result of the “family dimension” to the sex trade, men are often involved, which makes sex work an important aspect of the family economy. Women and female children who sell themselves are often the family’s only source of income. Women are purchased for 500 rupees, or $8, and girls aged between 12 and 16 are purchased for 2,000 rupees or $32 dollars. Other villages that are similar to Nat Purwa are Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Bedias, Faasi and Banjar.

Generational prostitution is occurring around the globe in various countries even outside the areas of Asia and Africa, where it occurs most often. In Russia, married women work as prostitutes in full view and with encouragement from their husbands. Often, a husband will suggest this type of work for his wife and any female children they have.

The issue of global poverty needs to be addressed in order to address issues of human rights injustices, including generational prostitution. Generations to come are predetermined to their fate of becoming sex workers. Efforts to end this epidemic have made many countries strengthen their laws against human sex trafficking, prostitution and the purchasing of sex. In both Sweden and Norway, the purchase of sexual services has been made illegal. Studies from those countries indicate that having these new laws has had a profound impact on demand, causing human sex trafficking to decrease significantly. Proven results in other countries indicate that methods to curtail sex working as a generational means of survival is feasible.

– Erika Wright

Sources: Al Jazeera, Ashraya, BBC, Global Issues, PBS, Swasthya Mundial
Photo: Business Insider

Improved Data Standards Will Improve Development Efforts

data_standardsSetting higher standards for data reporting and compatibility is essential to track and foster progress in initiatives all over the world. That’s why two networks, Development Initiatives and Publish What You Find, are heading a project to develop more universally applicable data standards and help organizations and projects transform their data to match the new standard.

Improving data standards for organizations, particularly those administering aid in countries abroad, will help elucidate the work being done and facilitate collaboration and communication between groups in different sectors. These standards also allow for interoperability, which is defined as the ability for technology and software systems to communicate, exchange data and use this data for researchers to draw conclusions about projects.

Needless to say, higher standards for information will improve the efficiency and speed with which organizations analyze and improve their efforts and also allow them to share their efforts with other groups who can replicate them. Doing so will not only improve the way information it is collected but it will also make it more widely available — improving access to and understanding of the latest projects organizations all over the world that they are engaging in.

In investments directly related to foreign aid, such as those in healthcare, education, agriculture and water access, higher data standards will allow organizations to share the outcomes of their projects with donors who can track the flow of their funding. They can also publicize their findings with other organizations that can then compare and collaborate to find more efficient, cost-effective solutions.

Something as seemingly small as transforming and improving the way with which organizations report their statistics can make drastic improvements to people’s health and way of life all over the world. Examples of this are logging administration and efficacy of immunizations, schools or communities with the highest risks, spread of disease and robustness of food resources. Interoperability allows organizations and donors to link up and improve the work they are doing.

Development Initiatives and Publish What You Find hope their data allows people to make more efficient use of data, whether by directing the flow of funding or improving aid projects. Efforts like these will improve access to information on development flows and therefore their efficiency. This project is ambitious in its design of overhauling sector-level systems, but the change it will bring about will be much broad, influencing the lives of people all over the world.

– Jenny Wheeler

Sources: Omidyar, Devinit
Photo: University of Mary Washington

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Biking Across Canada to Raise Funds for Female Farmers in Ghana

Bike_to_GrowMay 15, 2015 was a big day for Sarah French and Mary Fehr. It was the day they began their fundraising campaign called Bike to Grow, in which both undertook an 8,710-kilometer trek across Canada.

Former interns at the Mennonite Economic Development Associations, or MEDA, French and Fehr were both inspired by their experiences and have since topped $100,000 in their crowdfunding campaign approaching Ontario. “Complete strangers have opened their homes, hearts and wallets to provide a place to sleep, a complimentary meal or a friendly face in unfamiliar places,” said French. “We’ve met so many people who are inspired by our efforts and MEDA’s work. Mary and I in turn are equally touched by their generosity and kindness.”

During their internships with MEDA, both saw poverty firsthand, witnessing it in Nicaragua and even experiencing it for themselves in Tanzania. One issue that stuck out to them was the inequality that female workers faced. In both Nicaragua and Tanzania, many women worked to help support their families, but they either couldn’t contribute as much as men could or they were single parents, among other situations. French and Fehr saw an opportunity to help change that with a project called GROW, which stands for “Greater Rural Opportunities for Women.”

In order to help families grow, each member who is contributing financially should be able to reap fair benefits, no matter the gender. Check out https://www.meda.org/bike-to-grow to donate and find out more information about Bike to Grow. The journey ends September 1, 2015 in Newfoundland.

– Anna Brailow

Sources: MEDA 1, MEDA 2, Upbeat
Photo: Lsuag Center

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Ending Child Marriage in Bangladesh

child_marriageIs it possible to end child marriage in Bangladesh, a country that has the highest rate of child marriage in the world? The Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization and other child and women activist groups are calling it an epidemic that can only be stopped with enforcement from the country’s government.

In October 2014, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, pledged that she would bring an end to child marriage of children under age 15 by the year 2021. She also promised to decrease the number of brides age 15-18 by a third and eventually end all child marriages by 2041.

Bangladesh made child marriage illegal back in 1929 and set the minimum age for marriage for girls at 18 in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the government neglects to legally enforce it or handle the problems that cause girls to get married so young.

HRW asks that the government authorize a plan to stop child marriages that would include required marriage registration for religions, an increase in national birth registration and help for young girls recently married or adults that were married below the minimum age.

Despite the government’s promises to tackle the problem, they have not followed through. Instead, it did not reply to HRW’s demands and Hasina has mentioned revising the Child Marriage Restraint Act (CMRA) by lowering the age limit for girls to just 16. The Act was originally passed to give family courts the ability to cancel marriages if necessary and mandate a penalty of two years in prison and a fine of Tk50,000 (US$647).

HRW responded in frustration, “The Bangladesh government has said some of the right things, but its proposal to lower the age of marriage for girls sends the opposite message. The government should act before another generation of girls is lost.”

HRW is not the only one displeased. Plan International Bangladesh, Save the Children and Girls Not Brides have all insisted that minimum age be left unchanged. Girls Not Brides is an organization made up of 450 members from more than 70 countries. They look to create national and global policies to bar child marriage.

HRW published a report, “Marry Before Your House is Swept Away,” that details the struggles of 59 girls and young women who were married before age 18 since 2010. One girl was married at just 10 years old. The 124-page report reveals what contributes to child marriage and how it affects these young brides. It contains interviews with parents and community leaders that help draw a larger picture of the situation.

In 2011, UNICEF estimates that 65 percent of women in Bangladesh aged 20 to 24 were married by the time they were 18, 29 percent by age 15. According to Girls Not Brides, one-third of girls worldwide are married before age 18. That is 5 million girls every year— 28 girls each minute. Some are as young as 8 years old.

In developing countries, girls are viewed as burdens to their families. It is one more person to feed, clothe, school, etc. The dowry a family must raise can be less if the girl is young and uneducated. Bangladesh is troubled with more natural disasters and effects from climate change than most other countries. These manage to bring people into worse poverty and even steal away their home and land.

Besides governmental intervention, education is necessary in the fight to stop child marriage. Studies find that when girls attend school for seven years or more, she marries, on average, four years later. Education is a source for empowerment, important skills and networks of support — essential tools needed to lift her family out of poverty.

The U.N. approved a resolution in November 2014 that encouraged countries to adopt new laws and policies to stop child marriages. Hopefully, laws to eliminate child marriage will be a part of the new Sustainable Development Goals to be implemented by the U.N. in September 2015.

– Lillian Sickler

Sources: The Guardian, Girls Not Brides, Dhaka Tribune, HRW, Al Jazeera
Photo: The Guardian

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USA Food Waste: 7 Surprising Facts

usa food wasteWhat’s the number one risk to worldwide health? The answer may surprise you–it’s not AIDS or malaria, but hunger and malnutrition. One in nine people in the world do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. And yet, in countries like the United States, there remains a shocking excess and waste of food products that could be used to feed millions around the globe. As people become increasingly conscious about recycling and the environment, they should also take a moment to turn their attention to how much they put on their plates. The following points are seven eye-opening facts that shed light on just how extensive the problem of American food waste is.

1. Let’s Talk Calories

The volume of American annual food waste might be better understood in terms of calories. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that each year, a staggering 141 trillion calories are gone unconsumed. This is equivalent to around 1,300 calories per capita, per day. This is approximately the number of calories consumed by a small adult or child in a day, meaning that these wasted calories could go toward nourishing several hungry people.

2. Just How Much Food Is 141 Trillion Calories?

Not everyone likes to count calories, and even fewer know what exactly a calorie is. To put it in different terms, over a third of the entire U.S. annual food supply is wasted, a total of 133 billion pounds. That equals more than 20 pounds of food per person per month. Most everyone knows what pounds are, and that’s a lot of them.

3. Americans Waste Some Foods More Than Others

According to the USDA, the top three kinds of food thrown away in 2010 were dairy (25 billion pounds), vegetables (25 billion pounds) and grains (18.5 billion pounds). These are three of the essential food groups on the food pyramid.

4. The U.S. Navy Throws Away What It Can’t Fit In Its Boats

The government provides the brave men and women of the U.S. Navy with the food and drink necessary to make their sea excursions bearable, but sometimes it isn’t possible to get all the food that is given to them into the storage space of their vessels, which are often very small. One might suppose that when this happens the food is donated to a local homeless shelter or food bank.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Because the U.S. government could be held liable for any sickness that might result from the consumption of a donated food product, the Navy is forced instead to throw surplus provisions away. The extra microwave pizzas and cereal pouches might not seem like much, but this wasted food could be used to feed a family in need.

5. Americans Throw Out More Food Than Pretty Much Anything Else

Food waste makes up over a fifth of American garbage, and half of the waste accumulates at landfills. America tosses more food into the trash than paper, plastic, metal or glass—with 5 million tons as the smallest discrepancy.

6. Food Waste Hurts The Environment

The aforementioned landfills are filled with decomposing organic waste that produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide. These landfills are the largest producer of methane emissions in the United States, making up almost a quarter of the total emissions, according to the NRDC.

7. On the Bright Side…

The amount of food wasted, not only by the United States but by other nations as well, suggests that alleviating world hunger isn’t a matter of producing more food. Instead, it is a matter of better managing the food that is already produced, by preserving it and distributing it more thoroughly. There is enough food to feed all 7 billion people in the world. It just needs to get to put in mouths instead of in the trash.

– Katharine Pickle

Sources: NPR, Washington Post
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Malala Celebrates Birthday with New School for Syrian Girls

z1 Syria flagJuly 12 marked the 18th birthday of the Pakistani education activist and youngest-ever Nobel Peace laureate, Malala Yousafzai. Considering her continued advocacy for children’s education despite being shot by the Taliban, it should be of no surprise that she celebrated her 18th birthday by opening a secondary school for Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, near Syria’s border.

The Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School is supported by the Malala Fund, Yousafzai’s nonprofit organization, which believes every girl should be able to achieve her dreams through education. The school will serve 200 Syrian girls between the ages of 14 and 18 living in refugee camps in the Bekaa Valley region along the Lebanese border. According to the U.N. Refugee Agency, Lebanon hosts more than 1 million of Syria’s 4 million refugees.

According to the Malala Fund’s blog, the school’s curriculum allows students to receive baccalaureate or vocational degrees through the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education. It also gives students who cannot commit to the four-year baccalaureate the option to receive skills that will aid them in finding work and generating their own incomes.

At the inauguration of the Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School, Yousafzi said “I am honored to mark my 18th birthday with the brave and inspiring girls of Syria. I am here on behalf of the 28 million children who are kept from the classroom because of armed conflict. Their courage and dedication to continue their schooling in difficult conditions inspires people around the world and it is our duty to stand by them […] On this day, I have a message for the leaders of this country, this region and the world — you are failing the Syrian people, especially Syria’s children. This is a heartbreaking tragedy—the world’s worst refugee crisis in decades.”

Malala also called on world leaders to invest in “books not bullets.” She had previously asked world leaders to give an additional $39 billion each year to secure 12 years of free schooling for children around the world. According to the Malala Fund:

  • 62 million girls are not attending school around the world;
  • The poorest girls only spend an average of 3 years acquiring an education;
  • There are 70 countries where girls have faced violence for trying to go to school.

Isn’t it time we changed that so the world’s poor can have the opportunity for a better life?

– Paula Acevedo

Sources: The Malala Fund, NPR, PBS

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#Donate

#Donate
#Donate: If the single most characteristic feature of the 21st century was chosen, social media would definitely be among the forerunners for the title. In the past decade especially, the advent of social media has taken over our lives. From MySpace to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et cetera, the world of social media has become grown exceptionally.

The takeover by social networking sites and apps is generally taken in a negative context. There is always a never-ending stream of criticisms directed at the virtual world. The critics often propagate the notion of social media desensitizing people to the real world problems. These arguments, while not entirely untrue, completely disregard social media’s potential for positive impact, if used wisely.

Recently, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge campaign received much media frenzy. It was also successful in raising awareness as well as donations for its cause. The “tagging” process, such as #Donate, through social media websites led to a massive campaign, which also involved many celebrities.

Popular Facebook page “Humans of New York” managed to raise $1.2 million in a campaign for an inner-city school. The catalyst-a viral photograph of an inspiring middle school boy.

A photograph of a Filipino boy doing his homework under the light of a McDonald’s restaurant posted on Facebook went viral, as it was shared almost 7,000 times. The significant number of people interested in contributing to the boy’s education led to the establishment of an online fundraising campaign. The campaign generated enough funds to cover nine-year old Daniel up till college.

These stories, and many more like these, establish the significance of social media in modern world activism. The creation of social media websites has enabled an unprecedented platform to create awareness for the issues in the world. Pages like GoFundMe or Network For Good allow for anyone and everyone to start fundraising campaigns for a cause they hold near and dear.

In the fast world of social media however, fundraising can sometimes become a challenge as well. The campaigns like the ALS fundraiser require the donor to go to a separate website and then donate. As easy as it is to type a web address and make a few simple clicks, it is still somewhat of a hassle for social media users. Mostly attuned to “liking” or commenting on statuses, the process of redirecting to other websites can be annoying for the users.

This has given rise to “slacktivism”—where “activists” on social networking websites become slackers in actual donation process. In the ALS campaign, for example, the donors were far outnumbered by the people who shared the videos.

To assist the users in donating quickly and efficiently, a Washington DC-based startup Good World has come up with an innovative idea. They partner with a network of nonprofit charities. Users need a one-time signup for Good World to contribute to any charity of their choice within their network. To donate, the users simply need a hashtag of donation and their choice of amount of contribution typed into the comments section.

The system of commenting also simplifies the process of further promoting the campaign. Instead of having to “share” their donation through separate websites, the comment can be directly viewed by the user’s friends. This also gives them a faster way to make a contribution by simply commenting on the thread. The web service also forwards tax-deductible receipts to the registered email address.

The service has certain caveats: almost five percent of the donated amount is automatically deducted to fund the technology itself. There is also a 2.2 percent processing fee associated with the service. The additional charges may serve to distance some users.

In spite of the challenges, Good World is a valuable innovation in ensuring our technology remains up to speed with our generosity.

– Atifah Safi

Sources: Good World, Wall Street Journal, Daily Mail, PBS, Washington Business Journal
Photo: The Guardian