Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Romanian Roma Children

romanian_roma_children
Often referred to as travellers or gypsies, the Romani or Roma, people constitute one of the largest minority groups in Romania. However, they are not welcomed. Originating from India, Roma people are vastly discriminated against and face a multitude of disadvantages in education, health, living conditions and job opportunities.

Approximately 90 percent of Roma people live below the poverty line, while almost 33 percent are unemployed. Unfortunately, there has been a purposeful exclusion of the Roma population from mainstream society.

Roma children continually face violations of their basic human rights all across Europe. Additionally, a Roma child is three times more likely to be born into poverty than all other Romanian children.

Health issues that often occur from poor nutrition in early childhood have been exacerbated by the lack of access to treatment and medical clinics. Marginalization and extreme poverty have also hindered the children’s ability to gain equal access to services, including schooling.

Families are not only unable to send children to school due to financial reasons, but also because parents cannot afford clothes or school supplies. There is also growing concern for the stigma and violence the Roma children may endure. For the small percentage of Roma children that do attend school, they face extreme prejudice and segregation. Much of the disapproval stems from the perception that all Roma people are thieves and crooks.

Children and young people make up a large portion of the Roma population, yet their voices are rarely heard. Many European governments overlook the existing policies and legislation that exist to protect minority populations, further reducing their participation in society.

While the Roma in Romania experience discrimination from the people around them, the Roma children bear the greatest burden.

– Leeda Jewayni

Sources: Roma Children, CNN, World Bank
Photo: Caritas

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Global Citizen Festival Raises Awareness

 

In many ways, Global Citizen reflects the mission of The Borgen Project by uniting American citizens in the fight to end global poverty. Global citizen is a website and mobile application that was developed to help the general population find ways to tackle extreme poverty. It is a tool to draw attention to the suffering of the 1.2 billion people in the world who live on less than $1 per day and to act upon this injustice.

A Global Citizen is one who “identifies with being part of an emerging world community and whose actions contribute to building this community’s values and practices”. It is up to the citizens of the globe to request change for the most vulnerable populations. The systems that perpetuate a cycle of poverty must be brought to light.

Although Global Citizen does not ask for donations or charity, they work to learn more about pertinent issues that relate to extreme poverty and ways we can overcome them. Initiated by the Global Poverty Project, the Global Citizen Festival kicked-off this past September in New York City for its third annual gathering.

Accompanying United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were stars such as Jay Z, No Doubt, Sting, Foo Fighters, John Legend, the Roots and many more. Almost 60,000 people joined the celebration of global unity and aspiration to address the world’s most urgent problems. Tickets were free for all audience members, who assisted or volunteered in some way to help spread awareness about global poverty.

This year’s Global Citizen Festival efforts were aimed in improving access to education, vaccination and sanitation. Although not an official event for the U.N. General Assembly, the Global Citizen Festival has assembled a host of world leaders who have voiced their commitment to focus and address the issues of extreme poverty, climate change and sustainable development.

With less than 465 days to achieve all eight of the Millennium Development Goals, Ki-moon reassured the crowd that “a better world was around the corner.”

– Leeda Jewayni

Sources: United Nations, Global Citizen, MSNBC, Kosmos JournalE
Photo: MSNBC

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Astellas Pharma Donates $2 Million

Astellas Pharma
About 75 percent of women with obstetric fistula have gone through labor that has lasted three days or more. Obstetric fistula affects mostly the poorest women who live in the poorest countries of the world because they do not have access to proper medical help. When a woman’s labor is obstructed she most likely could have intense pain for days before she actually has the baby.

So what exactly is an obstetric fistula?

“The soft tissues between the baby’s head and the pelvic bone are compressed and do not receive adequate blood flow … Her baby likely dies and she is often left with obstetric fistula, a small hole created by constant pressure from the fetus, which renders her incontinent.”

An estimated one million women get obstetric fistula and only 20,000 of those get treated a year. The surgery that these women would need takes under an hour and costs around $450. The need is there for these women to receive medical help and that is why Astellas Pharma EMEA decided to dedicate $2 million to help the cause.

Over the course of three years, Astellas will be partnered with the Fistula Foundation and put that $2 million to work. This is believed to be the largest and most focused effort ever against fistula according to Kate Grant, CEO of the Fistula Foundation.

The money will allow 1,200 women to get surgery in Kenya for this life-changing condition. As part of Astellas heritage, one of the key things that this organization wants to bring to communities is hope.

“Astellas knows the difference good medicines make to peoples’ lives. That‘s why we focus on providing treatments that are a genuine advance on the current standards of care – particularly in disease areas where options are limited.”

Here in the United States, the obstetric fistula was a common term that most people knew about, until the early 20th century. Since the U.S. has the resources for great medical care, there are procedures like a cesarean section, that we can use to prevent fistula. Kenya doesn’t have what the U.S. does, so companies like Fistula Foundation and Astellas are doing something about it.

– Brooke Smith

Sources: ONE, Astellas, Fistula Foundaiton
Photo: Flickr

Crime in Mexico Affects the U.S.

crime in mexico
On October 1, one of the biggest names of drug trafficking in Mexico was captured. His name Hector Beltran Leyva. Leyva is one of the sole survivors of his gang of brothers; the others either dead or locked up. He was 49 at the day of capture.

For the country of Mexico, this represents a great feat in both ending drug connections and allowing for an intensified concentration on the economic system.

Unfortunately, gang related issues have not stopped at drug distribution. On September 28, gang-related violence resulted in the deaths of 11 men. This area of Northern Mexico is deemed a rival area for drug smuggling and thus one of the most dangerous areas of the country.

According to Reuters, since 2007 gang violence has taken the lives of over 90,000 people. Despite this alarming number, rates over the past year and a half have declined since president Enrique Pena Nieto took office.

The gang involvement affects much more than the lives of Mexicans. As Mexico’s neighbor to the north, the United States is hit hard by Mexico’s drug cartel. This drug war directly affects the U.S., who is the primary recipient of so many of these illegal drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin.

A Huffington Post article from April of 2013 pinpoints the extent of the drug cartel’s influence in the U.S. No longer have the drugs been found primarily in areas like New Mexico and Texas, states bordering Mexico, but the cartel has embedded itself into lands as deep into the country as Chicago.

In fact, one of Mexico’s leading drug lords was named Public Enemy No.1. In Chicago, this name was given only once, to the infamous Al Capone. This modern-day Mexican drug lord has never even visited Chicago, yet his presence has clearly been felt.

Despite the disheartening facts and figures, Mexico needs to continue to capitalize on triumphs like Leyva’s arrest. Arresting those highest in power on the cartel ladder is the only way crime can truly be eradicated in certain areas of Mexico. And with a fall in drug production and distribution, the U.S. will also see major improvements to safety and declining crime rates.

– Kathleen Lee

Sources: New York Times, Reuters, Reuters 2, Huffington Post CNN
Photo: Flickr

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Family Planning in Pakistan

Family_Planning
As the sixth most populous country in the world, Pakistan has an estimated population of 173 million people, with almost 55 percent being of childbearing age. Currently, the country has the highest total fertility rate in South Asia, which many attribute to the large amount of child marriages.

More than half of the women get married by the age of twenty, while almost 15 percent are married by the age of fifteen. Since females tend to marry young, contraceptive prevalence has remained at a mere 30 percent due to a lack of reproductive education and the fact that young girls are easily manipulated by their husbands to not use contraceptives. Lack of health education, lack of access to health facilities and lack of funding all lead to lower use of contraceptives.

A majority of Pakistan’s population is Muslim, and the influence of religion is prevalent in all aspects of life, including family planning. Women have a great fear of social disapproval by religious leaders and family members that would come from the use contraceptives.

With the Government of Pakistan only spending around 2 percent of its budget for education and health services, problems arise regarding access to health facilities and family planning services. The lack of funding has resulted in a very low contraceptive prevalence rate, leading to almost 25 percent of pregnancies being unintended. These higher rates of unwanted pregnancies contribute to unsafe abortions and higher maternal mortality rates.

A deficit in family planning services could potentially hinder Pakistan’s ability to reach several millennium development goals, including improving maternal health, empowering women and combating diseases like HIV/AIDS.

Poverty also plays a key role in determining the size of the family, with roughly 22 percent of citizens living below the poverty line. Many believe that having more children will generate a greater source of income for the family since those children can be put to work, but having more mouths to feed can also perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

In order to address the issues of family planning and maternal health, it is important for the government to address the root causes of the problem. There is significantly less access to healthcare in the rural parts of Pakistan, so there needs to be a push to improve infrastructure and establish health clinics closer to these parts of the country. Health and sex education is also essential in order to stop the country from overpopulating.

Unfortunately, the poor suffer disproportionately when accessing health care in underdeveloped countries. Poverty is associated with an increase in many of the medical risk factors associated with pregnancy outcomes. Success depends on gaining a local understanding of the dimensions of access to health care services, along with sustained efforts by national governments and the international community to improve family planning services for the poor.

– Leeda Jewayni

Sources: USAID, GHSP, JPMA
Photo: Flickr

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BeadforLife Empowers Women with Business Ed.

Beadsforlife
In 2004, BeadforLife was formed to provide women the opportunity to grow by giving them the tools to launch their own businesses. In the past 10 years, members of the beading program have initiated over 2,200 micro-businesses that operate on a very small scale.

Women who are part of the beading program have one task: rolling beads. By doing this, it gives the women a consistent source of income so they are no longer living on less than a dollar a day. The beading program is 18 months long, and every year, about three to four new groups are made. Each group consists of 40 to 60 women that go through three months of training on how to bead recycled paper into jewelry.

In addition to the training that the women get for beading, they also receive training in areas like business so that they will gain the skills needed to launch their own businesses one day. So far, statistical data has proven this method to be successful.

On average, while enrolled in the beading program, women’s income increases to seven to ten times their previous income. For these women, earning a steady income means more than just having money. An income means that they can eat healthier, get the right health care, put their kids in schools and also improve the living conditions for their family.

As part of the program, women must save some of their money so it can go toward a business of their own one day. This is a requirement, because it ensures that most of the women will continue to make money after the program. The promise of a stable future, makes the longevity of the program more effective. There are common businesses that women tend to open and those are: poultry rearing, restaurants, retail stores, vegetable stands, tailoring and renting rooms in their own homes.

BeadforLife has helped thousands of women get their families out of poverty. The organization reaches more than 1.2 million people and has raised millions to fight poverty. Due to the growth and success of the organization, it has expanded its line of products. In Northern Uganda the branch of the program buys Shea nuts. Currently, BeadforLife is partnered with over 760 women to buy Shea nuts during harvest. Products made from the women in this program are available for purchase on the organization’s website.

– Brooke Smith

Sources: BeadForLife, ONE
Photo: Flickr

Poverty in London: A Gap Being Masked

poverty in london
The U.K. has seen a positive economic growth rate of 0.8 over the last two quarters. This has been moderate growth since last year. This rate is comparatively a good sign when considering the -2.5 growth rate of 2009 and 2010. London especially is poised to bring in one-third of the economic growth for the U.K. London’s economy is forecasted to increase by 4.2 percent by the end of this year and another 3.4 percent in 2015. In the next five years, London’s economy is expected to increase by 15 percent, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

The forecast bodes well for the members of the upper class, but for the rapidly expanding lower class and the diminishing middle class, this means harder times and a larger socioeconomic gap to bridge. According to the London Poverty Profile, 28 percent of Londoners live below the poverty line. There are at least 20 extremely impoverished child areas, or English Authorities. Of them seven are inside the city limits of London. The unemployment rate is still a staggering 7 percent. The number of 16-24 years olds has increased in the city to one million, and the unemployment for this group has risen from 15 percent to 25 percent.

Londoner Jennifer Evans is a member of the shrinking middle class. As she has no car, she is much more exposed to London than those who drive to work in their own worlds. She explained how poverty in London affects her daily life: “I see homeless people asking for money often. Usually sitting in doorways in central areas or coming around and asking people that are standing outside bars and pubs.”

“Working poverty, which is essentially talking about people who are in full time work still being in poverty and not being able to afford to feed their families properly. This is a bigger problem in London because the cost of living is so high but wages, especially in lower paid jobs, do not match up,” said Evans.

Others have echoed similar sentiments. According to the BBC, the average monthly rent in England is 475 pounds, compared to outer London, which costs 950 pounds, and inner London, which costs 1,300 pounds. The Trust for London reinforced the lack of living wages for many Londoners when it reported that “Almost 1 in 5 working Londoners (17 percent) were paid below the London Living Wage in 2012.” This is “more than a 40% increase over 5 years – meaning there are 600,000 people in low-paid jobs.” Data Blog also noted that “for the fifth consecutive year, inflation was higher than the rise in median weekly earnings” in the U.K.

Evans notes that “The government has made some harsh changes to benefits, or welfare, recently. They have penalized people financially if they are out of work and miss a job interview or anything like that. There are cases where people have fallen into dire straights because of it.” For families with young children, poverty presents additional problems.

The BBC reported that the government allocates 15 hours a week of free daycare. However, if a parent were to leave their child in daycare for 25 hours a week, many parents would have to pay an extra seven pounds a week in addition to the earned wages. If the child were left in daycare for the full 40 hours a week, the parent would be spending an extra 25 pounds a week plus their extra wages for the child care.

One of the ways the homeless in England try to make money is by selling The Big Issue. The Big Issue is a publication made free to the homeless, who sell it on the streets to the passerby, like Evans. Evans said she feels that “inequality in the UK is really bad and is increasing. Government policies need to address this.” This is something that many others have spoken out about as well.

Hannah Aldridge, author of the London Poverty Report, wrote, “To tackle London’s poverty and inequality, policymakers must focus on solutions such as building more affordable housing and encouraging employers to pay a Living Wage.” The Mayor of London’s spokeswoman responded by saying that “The mayor continues to lobby the government on behalf of all Londoners for the critical funding and investment needed to help people facing financial hardship.”

– Frederick Wood II

Sources: BBC 1, BBC 2, The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2, Trading Economics, Trust for London, London’s Poverty Profile
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Ethiopian Sugar to Reduce Carbon Footprint

carbon footprint
Ethiopia has a bold and innovative plan to reduce the entire country’s carbon footprint to almost zero, and the country plans on achieving it by 2025.  The plan, currently set into motion, centers entirely around sugar.

Ethiopia’s day to day life relies heavily on sugar for their tea, coffee and cooking.  So much so that Ethiopia can’t meet its own sugar demands and has to import 200,000 tons of sugar a year. The cost of petroleum, used to refine the sugar, has also risen. Ethiopia does not produce its own oil and has to import petroleum, pushing the cost of sugar even higher.

Six years ago, the country turned to itself to solve its own problems. Implementing hydro-electric, geothermal, and wind energy, but Ethiopia found it could also produce molasses as a byproduct of sugar refinement. This molasses can then be turned into an ethanol based bio-fuel. Co-generation, which is the use of agricultural waste to create energy, began to be explored as well.

There are currently three sugar plants in full production producing over 300,000 tons of sugar a year as well as 62MW of electricity due to co-generation and ethanol production. These numbers are a significant increase since the program began when half of all power was used by the plant.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. “Ethiopia’s Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy, Gossaye Mengiste, was reported as saying that the country has the potential to produce 600MW of electricity once the 13 factories, currently under construction are complete.” Once complete the 16 factories are slated to generate exportable sugar quantity in excess of its 200,000 tons it already imports. This will give Ethiopia projection earnings of $300 million.

More importantly than making up the sugar deficit, the emissions produced by these sugar-based bio fuels, when used in cars, stoves and generators, are nearly zero.  The elimination of car emissions is one of the biggest steps to reducing the country’s carbon footprint and achieving its stated goal of zero emissions by 2025.

These ambitious talks have come under fire by some who say that it is a “condescending plan drawn up mainly by people living in highland areas but affecting the lowland population.” Sugar plantations require huge tracts of land. Many officials are turning to pastoralists to solve this problem.  The pastoralist people are southern nomadic groups that herd grazing animals from pasture to pasture.  They comprise roughly 11 percent of the population and use about 63 percent of the land.

The Ethiopian Sugar Development Agency cautioned the government about this as early as 2008, saying, “Government’s strong support in clearly defining the policy with respect to bagasse energy development is critical to the successful achievements of substituting bagasse cogeneration for imported fossil fuels or diversifying electric energy source based on renewable energy source.”

– Frederick Wood II

Sources: New Agriculturist, Reuters, ESI-AFRICA
Photo: AFK Insider

Child Poverty In the UK

Poverty In the UK
Child poverty in the UK? According to child protection and poverty charities, child poverty is rising in the United Kingdom, despite the government’s promise to eradicate it by 2020.

Bernado’s children’s charity and Child Poverty Action Group say that 3.5 million children live in poverty in Britain today. The government measures child poverty differently, not accounting for housing costs, and so they claim that the number is in fact 2.3 million.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions spoke to the BBC about the need for “better measures of child poverty that are not so heavily dependent on where we draw the poverty line.”

Child poverty charities also accuse the government of perusing a series of economic cuts, which have hit the poor hardest and caused an unprecedented number of children to be living under the poverty line, but actually living in working homes.

On their Website, The Child Poverty Action Group remarks about the increasing trend for children living in poverty being from working homes: “Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Two-thirds [66 percent] of children growing up in poverty live in a family where at least one member works.”

They predict that the government will not fulfil its promise to eradicate child poverty in 2020 and claim that due to current government policies, 4.7 million children will be living in poverty in the UK by 2020.

Statistics released last year also reveal that child poverty is unevenly dispersed across England, with urban areas most affected and no rural areas featuring in the top 20 list of worst affected constituencies. Manchester Central reported that 47 percent of children lived in poverty where as a few miles north in the picturesque countryside constituency of Ribble Valley, child poverty is less that 7 percent.

In London Councils, the average child poverty rate is 21 percent; however the disparity between councils can easily be seen when considering that 57 percent of children who live in Tower Hamlets in East London live in poverty, compared to only 6 percent in Wimbledon.

– Charles Bell

Sources: BBC 1, BBC 2, Child Poverty Action Group, Barnados
Photo: The Guardian

Returning the Rainforest to the Awa

returning-the-rainforest-to-the-awa
For decades, illegal loggers have invaded the Awa’s ancestral lands, which lie deep in the eastern corners of the Amazon rainforest. After them, settlers arrived, who farmed and built structures where there was once an abundance of nature, wildlife and a source of food for the Awa.

As their land has been ripped up by deforestation, most of the Awa have given up on their traditional lifestyle and moved into villages for protection.

Illegal loggers have often been aggressive to the tribe when they have been confronted, and loggers have even shot and killed indigenous people in the past.

Many of the Awa can tell stories of being on the run from the loggers and being driven away from the lands, on which their families have lived in for generations. Some have missing children who got lost when it became necessary to flee from the loggers, their machines and the destruction, which always follows the loggers’ arrival.

But now the Brazilian government is taking a stand and trying harder than ever to protect the rights of the Awa.

Dubbed “Operation Awa,” the government is cracking down on illegal logging farms and resettling the people who occupy areas where there was once rainforest. Families are given notice to pack up and are offered new homes on legal territory by the state.

The great news is that it seems to be working.

The Brazilian environmental agency is working alongside the military police and air force and ripping down any illegal structures they find. They often bring indigenous people along so the Awa can personally witness the efforts being made to help them claim back their land.

The Awa are thought to number around 450, with some still living in the rainforest uncontested. Brazil‘s National Indian Foundation believes that there are 77 isolated indigenous tribes in the amazon, while in 2013, only 30 had been located.

– Charles Bell

Sources: BBC 1, BBC 2 Survival International
Photo: Crystal Links