Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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How Poverty Affects Children’s Language Skills

How Poverty Affects Children’s Language Skills-TBP

Decades worth of research has shown that children from low-income families are at a higher risk of entering school with poor language skills compared to more privileged students. On average, they score two years behind on standardized language development tests.

New research has shown that this achievement gap could begin at as early as 18 months, and by the age of two, children from low-income families show a six-month gap in language proficiency. By the age of three, the difference in vocabulary can be so large that children would have to attend additional schooling to catch up. Furthermore, poor children have more difficulty understanding abstract language and possess lower reading and writing skills, which increases the odds that the child will drop out of school in the future. They often struggle with phonological awareness skills: the ability to consciously manipulate a language’s sound system.

There are many factors that contribute to this trend. Birth to the age of three is a critical period for language development, as the brain is rapidly growing and developing. Parents who are less educated may not know the importance of consistently using language with their baby, which can cause a delay in early language skills. Parental engagement from birth can help bridge this gap, regardless of income level.

Parents who are struggling financially may not have the time or resources to devote to reading to their children. This affects a child’s emerging literacy skills. Building a foundation for strong literacy skills must begin early, and the process of acquiring these skills begins at birth, so it is imperative that parents make an active effort to read to their children.

The vast difference in vocabulary between children of different income levels relates to their exposure to varied vocabulary at home. In the span of one year, children from poor families are exposed to 250,000 utterances at home, while children from wealthy families hear four million. Discussion in low-income households is often focused on daily living concerns, such as what to eat, what to do and other practical topics. Therefore, children may be unprepared for a different type of discussion in a school setting.

There are various strategies that educators and parents can use to close the achievement gap. Early education and intervention are extremely important. High-quality preschool programs produce the best results, particularly when children begin such programs during infancy. Equally important is educating and empowering families. Teaching parents the importance of reading to children, talking with their children as much as possible and building vocabulary by giving words meaningful context can lead to positive outcomes. Working with multiple generations of the family is the best way to promote literacy and language skills at home.

Language connects us all; therefore, it is necessary to foster children’s communications skills from a very young age. With the appropriate combination of early intervention and parental engagement, it is entirely possible for children from low-income families to overcome the language achievement gap.

– Jane Harkness

Sources: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Global Post, Stanford News
Photo: Flickr

Gentlemen, Here’s Your Summer 2015 Guide to Ethical Beachwear

Men's-Ethical-BeachwearIt’s the summer, and that means going to the beach. Finding ethical choices that look good may be difficult, but purchasing ethical clothing is also a highly important act in the war on poverty. So gentlemen, here’s a guide to styling summer clothes for your next day of fun in the sun.

Warby Parker Sunglasses: Abbot Jet Silver

Warby Parker’s Abbot Sunglasses have a rounded shape and metallic glow which encapsulates the aesthetic of the rock stars of old while still feeling fresh and new. With their great style, these sunglasses are a must in any activist’s summer wardrobe.

Along with looking great, Warby Parker trains nonprofit partners to sell glasses at affordable prices in the developing world for every pair sold. And with company that engages in social enterprise and looks great, these are truly some sweet shades.

Wear if you like: John Lennon, long discussions about philosophy, talking to friends about how awesome Woodstock would have been.

Riz Boardshorts-Burgh-Endangered Garden/Bolt

Sustainability is a major element in the war on global poverty, since so much of global poverty is based on a lack of resources, and with climate change being a major contributor to conditions of global hunger.

English swimwear brand Riz engages in a clothing recycling program in which customers are rewarded 25% off their next purchase after returning bathing suits to the site. In addition, Riz boardshorts are made from fully recycled and recylable fabrics.

These colorful shorts are a great and sustainable way to enjoy the ocean while keeping things sustainable. Between the exciting floral print and the oceanic blue background, these are a must wear for any surfing activist.

Wear if you like: The ocean, quoting “Pulp Fiction,” calling people “dude.”

soleRebels Sandals: Sushi Cross

soleRebels is a fair trade, non-GMO, vegan footwear brand.

Made in Addis Abba, the brand is bringing jobs to Ethiopia through the sustainable production of shoes. soleRebels pays its workers triple the industry average, embraces traditionally zero carbon methods of production and uses recycled car tires to make soles for its shoes. The result is a brand which is environmentally sustainable and economically working toward breaking the cycle of generational poverty.

The Sushi Cross sandals are themselves well-designed, replicating the image of sushi above the soles while the soles have an attractive, mat-based design.

Wear if you like: Traveling one mile or one million, sleeping under the stars, knowing that the journey is more important than the destination.

– Andrew Michaels

Sources: Boardshorts, soleRebels 1, soleRebels 2, Warby Parker 1, Warby Parker 2
Photo: Nonfashionista

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Rosenkranz Prize Winners Dedicated to Improving Healthcare in Developing Countries

Rosenkranz Prize
The Rosenkranz Prize aims to fund the work of Stanford University’s rising research stars who have the desire to improve healthcare in developing countries but who lack the necessary resources.

Most grants in the scientific field are awarded to established researchers. But because the Rosenkranz Prize is awarded to rising researchers, it is able to split funds between two young researchers.

Marcella Alsan, MD, PhD, is investigating how the division of labor among men and women begins at a young age in the developing world. Alsan theorizes that this is because young girls are responsible for taking care of younger siblings, missing endless days of school.

Alsan states, “Anecdotally, girls must sacrifice their education to help out with domestic tasks, including taking care of children, a job that becomes more onerous if their youngest siblings are ill.”

More than 100 million girls worldwide do not complete secondary school. Alsan will be analyzing whether medical interventions in children under the age of 5 show an increasing trend in schooling for their older sisters.

By analyzing this data, Alsan will be able to prove or disprove if sick siblings affect their older sister’s school participation. If this thesis proves true, implementing medical interventions in younger children will increase the number of girls in school. By completing school, girls will be able to not only take care of family and their own children but also have a strong background in education.

The second Rosenkranz Prize winner, Jason Andrews, an infectious disease specialist, is focusing his funds on the development of cheap, effective diagnostic tools for infectious diseases.

Andrews recalls working in rural Nepal as an undergraduate student and “founded a nonprofit organization that provides free medical services in one of the most remote and impoverished parts of the country . . . one of the consistent and critical challenges I encountered in this setting was routine diagnosis of infectious disease.”

Andrews realizes that the diagnoses are hindered by lack of electricity, limited laboratory resources and lack of trained personnel. To eliminate these obstacles, Andrews is developing “an electricity-free, culture-based incubation and identification for typhoid; low-cost portable microscopes to detect parasitic worm infections; and most recently an easy-to-use molecular diagnostic tool that does not require electricity.”

Andrews does not want to develop new diagnostic approaches. Rather, Andrews believes he can develop the diagnostic approaches already in place to function in an affordable and accessible manner.

With the Rosenkranz Prize, Andrews is also able to develop a simple, rapid, molecular diagnostic or cholera that is 10 times more sensitive than the tests currently available. Andrews plans to test this new technology in Nepal.

The Rosenkranz Prize has allowed two individuals dedicated to helping healthcare in developing countries by providing the necessary funding. With the help of Alsan, girls may be able to attend school without worrying about ill siblings, and Andrews has shed light on the problems facing many developing countries when providing medical help. But by further developing the diagnostic approaches available, healthcare will change for the better.

– Kerri Szulak

Sources: Scope, Stanford
Photo: PickPik

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STEM Education Grows in Developing Countries

STEM-Education-in-Developing-Countries

The fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are being heavily encouraged in developed countries, but developing regions are also encouraging and financing STEM education.

STEM focuses on the areas of education that have a scientific focus. Students who earn these types of degrees are able to gain employment in information technology (IT), medicine, higher education and many other fields.

Encouraging STEM growth in developing countries is important because many new jobs are being created in the booming medicine, computer and IT industries worldwide. Educating people in these fields is going to bring tremendous growth to the nation’s economy and help get people out of poverty.

India has been working hard to promote STEM in their educational programs. Even in the United States, the results of their nascent success are visible. However, regions all over Africa are also promoting STEM education to help bolster their economies.

India still suffers from tremendous poverty throughout the country, but the country is trying to change this partly through educational initiatives. The India STEM Foundation strives to build up STEM education as described in their vision: “To create a world where young people are encouraged to celebrate fun and excitement of science and technology, and inspire them to take science and technology based career paths to become tomorrow’s much needed technology leaders.”

To get that vision to come to life, the foundation supports robotics programs and competitions for children. They have many world partners helping to create these positive learning environments such as Lego, John Deere, Caterpillar and United Technologies, to name a few.

Africa is another place that is using education, specifically STEM education, to move people out of poverty. In 2014, the World Bank approved financing for “19 university-based Centers of Excellence in seven countries in West and Central Africa. These competitively selected centers will receive funding for advanced specialized studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related disciplines, as well as in agriculture and health.”

The World Bank is hopeful that this financing will help fill the shortage of skilled workers that Africa is facing in health, telecommunications and industry. Another benefit of financing universities in Africa will be that more students will have STEM education in relative proximity to their homes instead of having to travel abroad for education. This allows more students to have the option of a good higher education. Also, since those students will be trained in their own countries, the skilled workers have an incentive to remain in their regions strengthening the skilled labor force and even creating economic growth.

The United Nations has published findings that affirm that STEM education “can remove poverty and reduce inequality in developing countries.” However, there are several cultural challenges that countries face when implementing long-term improvements in STEM, including children losing interest in STEM classes and the gender stereotypes that often leave girls behind.

Those issues are being addressed. Robotic camps are popping up all over the world, not just in India, and they help encourage children’s interest in STEM fields through fun activities. In addition, more and more women are emerging into STEM fields and breaking down some common gender barriers.

STEM education is becoming more of a focus as our world becomes ever more digital. With the wonderful encouragement that children in developing parts of the world are getting, STEM education and the respective fields should continue improving.

– Megan Ivy

Sources: George Mason University, India STEM Foundation, UN, World Bank
Photo: Benignant De Eagle

Schools in Nairobi to Get Free Internet from the Wananchi Group

Schools-in-Nairobi-Free-InternetBecause of an amazing contribution from the Wananchi Group, over 2,000 public and private schools in Nairobi County will be receiving free, unlimited, high-speed fixed Internet. The Wananchi Group has invested two million dollars to provide this access.

Continuing a partnership with the Kenya Education Network (KENET) and the County Government of Nairobi, over 150 schools have been connected to fixed high-speed internet since the initial piloting trial in April 2014.

As this project supplements a recent government initiative to provide free laptops to schools across the country of Kenya, students will now be able to perform research with a broader collection of knowledge and information from different parts of the world. This will not only open up a previous barrier, but also increase the students’ awareness of global society.

The Wananchi Group is a part of the Zuku Fibre project, a private-public partnership that uses the Wananchi Group’s fiber infrastructure to provide these services. The partnership was created for the betterment of the country of Kenya as a whole.

In fact, this achievement is along the lines of the Vision 2030 initiative. Vision 2030 is Kenya’s development blueprint to transform Kenya into a “newly industrializing, middle income country providing a high quality life to all its citizens” by 2030. By making progress toward this step, Kenya can now continue to focus its efforts on other areas.

Perhaps they will focus next on the health sector to improve community health centers, or the environmental sector to improve waste disposal and sanitation measures, or the manufacturing sector to help revitalize industry. Regardless, within the Vision 2030 initiative, Kenyans will continue to make strides within economic, social and political spheres to improve Kenya as a country for its current and future generations. Providing free internet to schools is a monumental milestone toward these efforts.

– Alysha Biemolt

Sources: IT News Africa, Vision 2030
Photo: Computer Aid International

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New Rice Flour Key to Food Security

Rice-Flour-Food-SecurityNutrition is a basic human need, and the lack of nutrition is a sad result of the poverty plaguing so much of the world. South Asia, one of the largest producers of rice, also has the highest overall number of hungry people in the world, with a current estimate at 295 million. A new kind of rice flour could help.

Food insecurity is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as “the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.”

Rice flour is a kind of flour made from finely milled rice. It can be a good substitute for wheat flour because it does not cause digestive system irritation. It is used in many of the foods eaten across South Asia, and although wheat flour is slightly higher in nutrition than rice flour, rice is grown in abundance compared to wheat across Asia.

The problem with “normal” rice flour is that it is typically not as efficient at making bread as wheat flour, due to the presence of a particular protein called PDIL1. Researchers studying protein compounds in rice flour at Yamagata University in Japan have discovered that rice flour deficient in the PDIL1 protein active during seed development can produce dough far superior to normal rice flour.

A type of rice flour better suited to make bread could be an incredible leap forward in the fight to end global poverty because more food could be made in a better way across the developing world where rice is widely grown, thus improving food security in poverty-stricken areas.

According to the World Food Programme, hunger kills more people every year than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active life. That’s about one in nine people on Earth.

The vast majority of the world’s hungry people live in developing countries, where 13.5% of the population is undernourished.

Asia is the continent with the most starving people—two-thirds of its total population. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in west Asia it has increased slightly.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.

Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five—3.1 million children each year.

One out of six children, roughly 100 million, in developing countries is underweight. One in four of the world’s children are stunted. In developing countries, the proportion can rise to one in three.

If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.

66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.

The World Food Programme calculates that $3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.

With the new improved rice flour, dough becomes easily stretched and less sticky. It also holds bubbles better during fermentation and baking, and holds its shape and texture after baking. Researchers are already experimenting with PDIL1-deficient rice plants that can be grown in varying climates to improve food security and nutrition globally.

– Jason Zimmerman

Sources: Economic Times, SciDev, Phys
Photo: Brittany Angell

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Water Energy: Where We Are Heading

Water-Energy
Over the last 10 years, the quality of renewable energy has steadily increased. According to the European Commission, between 2003 and 2013, the quality increased by 83.4% – an average of 6.3% per year. Throughout 2013, the European Union (EU) produced 192 million tons of oil – about 24.3% of all energy used.

Biomass and renewable waste are the primary clean energy sources in the EU. Hydropower, which uses water as a renewable energy source, closely follows.

Hydropower is a clean energy source that has yet to be used to its full potential. It “captures electricity by using water that flows through a pipe to turn micro turbines in a line, or by harvesting energy from stream flows in irrigation canals and streams,” as explained in a CNBC report.

At Columbia University, researchers looked at water energy in a different way – they used evaporated water as the source. The researchers took bacterial spores that contract and expand based on the humidity of the environment and placed them in rows on tape that were then put together. This created a mass of rows that contracted and expanded together based on the environment. The bacterial spores had enough power from the air to move a toy car.

The technology is not yet powerful enough to work in a real life scenario and cannot compete with solar energy in efficiency. However, researchers believe it could harness enough energy to power a phone, even if it will not change the transportation industry.

Over in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Navy is sponsoring another way to use hydropower – using waves and ocean currents. This is exactly what the Azura Wave Energy Device is testing in Hawaii. Azura is a 63-foot-long, 10-foot-wide, 45-ton device that rotates as the incoming wave approach to extract energy.

CEO and co-founder Steve Koft explains, “the wave energy is much more predictable than solar or wind.” They are hoping this is the future of clean energy, but Azura is still a prototype. By harnessing the energy of waves, they have potentially found a way to capture predictable, consistent and clean energy to use.

Water energy is being explored more in depth everyday, and has huge potential to reduce the use of nonrenewable energy sources.

– Hannah Resnick

Sources: CNBC, European Commission, KITV, Quartz
Photo: Institution of Chemical Engineers

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Substandard Medications Threaten the Eradication of Malaria 

medications
Health professionals attempting to treat patients with malaria are currently facing another complex obstacle in the developing world: the distribution of substandard, falsified and degraded antimalarial medications.

Drugs classified as substandard are medicines that have insufficient amounts of the necessary active ingredient. In order to effectively kill the bacteria and other harmful organisms thriving inside a malaria patient, the full, prescribed dose of the drug needs to be ingested.

When anything less than the full dose is ingested, these organisms not only continue to survive, but also develop a resistance to the drug entirely. This renders current anti-malaria drugs completely ineffective.

“Poor quality antimalarial drugs are very likely to jeopardize the unprecedented progress and investments in control and elimination of malaria made in the past decade,” according to Fogarty scientist, Gaurvika M.L. Nayyar.

Since the early 2000s, the World Health Organization has recommended artemisinin as the first line of treatment for malaria patients, since “artemisinin and its derivatives are powerful medicines known for their ability to swiftly reduce the number of Plasmodium parasites in the blood of patients with malaria.”

Artemisinin is combined with other supplementary drugs in Artemisinin Combination Therapy treatments in order to effectively assist those diagnosed with malaria. However, these substandard drugs are causing an increase in bacterial resistance to artemisinin treatments, rendering the first line of malaria defense utterly useless.

According to a study done by National Public Radio in 2012, “a third of all anti-malarial drugs taken off the shelf in nonrandom surveys in Africa and Asia were absolutely fake. In about 4,000 samples, there was not a drop of active ingredient there.”

The distribution of these partially active medications has recently been classified as a “global pandemic” affecting the poorest parts of the world, specifically West Africa and Southeast Asia, where drug regulatory systems are weak.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, “Counterfeiting occurs throughout the world, but it is most common in countries where there are few or no rules about making drugs. An estimated 10 percent to 30 percent of medicines sold in developing countries are counterfeit. In the industrialized world (countries such as the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and those in the European Union), estimates suggest that less than one percent of medicines sold are counterfeit.”

On April 20, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene released a special issue, titled “The Global Pandemic of Falsified Medicines: Laboratory and Field Innovations and Policy Perspectives,” which contained a series of 17 papers. Each is written by a different author from a different university or institution, yet all cover the implications surrounding the distribution of substandard medicines throughout the developing world.

According to one of the studies, over 122,350 child deaths were caused by insufficient or partially-active anti-malaria drugs in 2013 alone. This figure represents one-fifth of all deaths caused by malaria.

“These findings are a wake-up call demanding a series of interventions to better define and eliminate both criminal production and poor manufacturing of antimalarial drugs,” Nayyar said.

– Hanna Darroll

Sources: NPR, FIC, ASTMH, WHO
Photo: TheraBreath

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United Nations Sets Sustainable Development Goals to End Global Poverty

sustainable_development_goals
The United Nations released the first draft of their Sustainable Development Goals this month in preparation for the expiration of the Millennium Development Goals, which were established in 2000.

In 17 simple steps, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to eliminate poverty, grow economies, increase equality and promote sustainable industry.

The overall goals, as defined in the official draft of the United Nations Development Agenda, are:

1) End poverty and hunger

This specifically aims to “end poverty in all forms everywhere.” According to an article published by The Guardian, Goal 1 seeks to reduce global poverty by at least half by 2030. The drafted plan calls for establishing equal access to economic resources, equal rights of ownership, and the creation of a firm policy framework at all levels in order to promote sustainable and accelerated economic growth.

2) Secure education, health and basic services for all

Goal 2 seeks to eliminate global food insecurity and promote sustainable agriculture. Again by 2030, the United Nations hopes to establish sustainable and year-round access to nutritious food, especially for the most poor and vulnerable. The goal is to establish sustainable agriculture and encourage investment in rural areas. The details of Goal 2 also include measures to address inequality among markets and trade restrictions, and to ensure the proper operation of food markets.

3) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

This goal is to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” This goal broadly encompasses many aspects of health and well-being across society. These aspects include reducing maternal mortality and the preventable deaths of newborns and infants, ending epidemics caused by communicable diseases, achieving universal healthcare coverage and more.

4) Combat inequalities within and between countries

5) Foster inclusive economic growth, shared prosperity and sustainable lifestyles for all

Goal 4 and 5 address access to education and gender equality. These goals include guaranteeing free and quality primary and secondary education for all children, providing equal educational opportunities to both boys and girls, eliminating violence against women and undertaking reform to ensure equal economic opportunity for women. The fifth goal goes further and calls for the creation of enforceable policies to protect the rights of women.

6) Promote safe and inclusive cities and human settlements

7) Protect the planet, fight climate change, use natural resources sustainably and safeguard our ocean

The remaining goals outline plans to create and maintain sustainability in multiple sectors. These goals include sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture and industry, sustainable use of the environment and sustainable economic structures. Some of the goals also specifically address the idea of “sustainable societies” and outline measures to reduce violence, increase equality between nations and promote global connections.

Although the initial response to the United Nations’ plan has been mixed, and some, according to another article by The Guardian, have warned that the plan has some serious holes, the ambitious set of goals sets a precedent for efforts to end global poverty and will serve as a benchmark for future endeavors.

– Gina Lecher

Sources: Sustainable Development, The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2
Photo: Flickr

Child Marriage in India

Child_Marriage_in_India
Each year, approximately 15 million girls under the age of 18 are forced into marriage. These child brides normally have their husbands selected for them by their fathers, and they are not given any power or choice when it comes to their marriage. Many of them are forced to marry men much older than they are.

Child marriage is most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. India accounts for one-third of the total child brides worldwide, even though the legal marrying age in India is 21 for men and 18 for women, as established by the 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.

The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act did not cause a significant decrease in the amount of child marriages that take place in India, where 47% of girls marry before the age of 18. Child marriage in India is more common in rural areas, where 56% of girls marry before the age of 18, than they are in urban areas, where 29% of girls marry before 18.

Societal traditions and norms allow child marriage to persist despite its illegality. Many brides are forced to marry early because the later they are married, the larger their dowry will have to be. It is still common in India to give a dowry or a present from the bride’s family to the groom’s at the time of marriage, although the practice was banned in 1961.

As The Guardian states, another reason why some parents marry their daughter at a young age is because they fear that their daughter might have sexual relations when she is a teenager, therefore shaming her family and lowering her chances of getting married later on. Child marriage is also widespread because poor families realize that marrying their daughter means that they have one less child to feed, since brides tend to go live with their husband’s family.

Since child marriage is illegal, weddings normally take place in the evening or at night. Police officers are bribed to not report the marriage.

The consequences of child marriage are devastating. Girls who marry young are not able to complete their education and are therefore forced to rely on their husband and his family. Even on the rare occasion that they have the chance to end the marriage, they are often not able to because they have nowhere to go and no way to support themselves. Girls under the age of 15 are also five times more likely to die in childbirth than those over the age of 20. Young brides are also more likely to contract HIV because they are forced to marry older men.

The International Center for Research on Women reports that girls in India who marry under the age of 18 are twice as likely to experience domestic violence. Child brides also experience sexual abuse, and many suffer from PTSD and severe depression.

Some girls are forced to enter a marriage agreement at an extremely young age and then go to live with their husbands when they reach puberty. This was supposed to be the case for Santa Devi Maghwal, an Indian girl from Rajasthan who was married at 11 months old and told that she would have to live with her husband when she turned 16. Maghwal is currently working with child right’s campaigner Kriti Bharti to annul the marriage. Luckily, Maghwal is not the only one who has turned to the law in order to end her marriage. Bharti made history in 2012 when she obtained India’s first annulment of a child marriage for sixteen year old Laxmi Sagara. Since then, Bharti has won 27 more annulments. While divorce is hard to come by in India, since courts are overburdened and take a long time to rule, annulments can be achieved as long as there is some proof — such as a birth or school certificate — that the bride was married before the age of 18.

Bharti has made progress, but India still has a way to go before it can truly end child marriage. For child marriages to end, societal norms and patriarchal customs need to end as well.

– Ashrita Rau

Sources: ICRW, CBN, National Geographic 1, National Geographic 2, UNICEF, Girls not Brides, The Guardian
Photo: Huffington Post