Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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How Gandhi Utilized Advocacy

Gandhi Utilized Advocacy
Martin Luther King Jr. once referred to Gandhi’s philosophy as “the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” Gandhi was an advocate for human rights and is largely known for initiating the idea of nonviolent resistance.

Gandhi’s journey as an advocate began in South Africa. As a young legal adviser, he saw firsthand the damage caused by race-oriented laws and class-based oppression.

This is when Gandhi began to teach his philosophy of passive resistance. Gandhi’s organization of the Indian community in South Africa began widespread social change.

When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he began working as an advocate for various local struggles concerning working conditions. Four years after his arrival home, British authorities passed the Rowlatt Acts, which allowed imprisonment without trial of any Indian accused of sedition.

Gandhi advocated through a national day of fasting and a refusal to work. He termed this as an act of Satyagraha, or love-force.

Gandhi eventually transformed the Indian National Congress into a large movement committed to nonviolent resistance in support of India’s independence, otherwise known as the non-cooperation movement.

As a consequence of his activism, he was arrested in March of 1922 and served two years for sedition.

Eight years later, in 1930, Gandhi organized 80 volunteers for a 200-mile march to the sea where the volunteers made salt out of seawater in protest of British Salt Laws. The movement eventually grew to 60,000 Indians who were all arrested and imprisoned for their defiance until Gandhi negotiated a truce with representative Lord Irwin.

After Irwin left office and his successor continued the oppressive measures taken against Indians, Gandhi began his movement once again and was immediately imprisoned. In prison, Gandhi began fasting in protest of a new Indian constitution, which was to include different representatives for the “untouchables” or members of India’s lowest level on the caste system.

His fasting gained international attention and was the precursor to the 1947 resolution, which made the discriminatory practice illegal. Britain left India that same year. Gandhi had won his country’s independence back, without the use of violence.

Gandhi’s approach to advocacy inspired many leaders, from Nelson Mandela to Martin Luther King Jr. The Dalai Lama, a follower of Gandhi, expressed, “As Mahatma Gandhi showed by his own example, nonviolence can be implemented not only in politics but also in day-to-day life. That was his great achievement. He showed that nonviolence should be active in helping others.”

– Christopher Kolezynski

Sources: Stanford University, New York Times, MSN News, The Borgen Project
Photo: Wikiphotos

Uganda Criminalizes HIV Transmission

This August, Uganda passed a landmark HIV bill which criminalizes HIV transmission. Experts say that with this law, the dreams of an “AIDS-free generation” have evaporated. With threats of fines and jail times, many HIV positive people will be dissuaded from taking proactive measures for their health.

According to the new bill, HIV sufferers cannot be legally charged with a crime if they didn’t knowingly infect someone with HIV. Thus, many people are now refusing to get tested as a loophole around the law.

Despite the United States, a large funder of HIV programs in Uganda, publicly denouncing the bill since its conception, the Ugandan president has still signed it into law. Even with these multinational efforts from the U.S. and elsewhere, the HIV infection rate has been steadily increasing in the past several years. The overall HIV positive rate is approximately 6.5 percent of the population, but higher among certain at-risk groups.

Among those specifically targeted by the bill are sexual assault survivors and pregnant women who are required to undergo routine blood testing for HIV. Pregnant women with HIV have been the victims of forced sterilization in the past, and the lack of privacy concerns are causing fears that these cases will increase.

While there are measures directly targeting women in this bill, the effects on both men and women are troublesome. Experts warn of the slippery slope of discrimination that this bill will cause. HIV/AIDS is already highly stigmatized in Uganda and this bill is thought likely to worsen the stigmas, shame and misconceptions surrounding the disease.

Many global health advocates view this bill as a setback for the HIV awareness community in Uganda. With a steady increase in the past few years of HIV positive rates, this law is projected to exacerbate the problem.

– Kristin Ronzi

Sources: Africa Science News, Human Rights Watch
Photo: Devex

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The Much Needed Release of Child Soldiers

Since 2013, various countries have taken steps to end child soldiering in order to meet international human rights standards.

In accordance with these standards, the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar Armed Forces, has released 176 child soldiers since signing a joint action plan to end the recruiting of children for military service.

Earlier this year, Yemen signed an action plan with the United Nations to end recruitment of child soldiers and by doing so, “formalized its commitment to protect its future generations,” says Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

Similarly, UNICEF and partners arranged for the release of over 1,000 children from military service in the Central African Republic after the country made headlines earlier this year for having over 6,000 children involved in armed conflict.

It is estimated that there are 300,000 child soldiers in the world today, and 40 percent of armed forces around the world use children to fight in their battles. Although the thought of a child soldier is foreign to Americans and citizens of developed countries, it is all too familiar to those of undeveloped nations. Child Soldiers International has reported that since January 2011, the use of child soldiers has been found in 19 different countries.

Children are taken by militias to fight because children are far more malleable than adults. They are also less costly due to the fact that they are given fewer resources and smaller weapons – although they are more likely to be seen on the front lines. Because of this, children are more likely to die in battle than adult soldiers.

Children who survive have lasting psychological effects, which include PTSD and stunted mental development. When there is failure to integrate back into society, there’s a likely chance these once child soldiers will return to battle because it’s all they’ve known.

If the children are released from duty with the help of UNICEF, like in the Central African Republic, they meet with social workers, are taken to a transition center where they can receive an education or learn a vocational skill and are given help in locating their families.

Upon the release of the child soldiers, UNICEF Representative in the Central African Republic Souleymane Diabaté said, “Every single child we spoke to said they wanted to leave the armed group and return to school. We cannot fail them.”

– Kori Withers

Sources: Child Soldiers International, Child Soldiers International: FAQ, Forbes, United States Institute of Peace, UN News Centre, UNICEF Press Centre 1, UNICEF Press Centre 2, UNICEF Connect
Photo: UN

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History of Advocacy 101

History of Advocacy
John Wilkes, a man from England born in the 18th century, is credited as the forefather of modern advocacy. Wilkes was critical of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War and was imprisoned for libel shortly thereafter, although he was later acquitted. After Wilkes’ act of defiance, a pro-abolition movement arose in England, effectively ending slavery in England.

The beginning of the 19th century was relatively quiet, but in the middle of the century, a philosopher coined the term social movement. The term was only used to describe relatively smaller events at the time.

Around the turn of the century, advocacy began to make progress. The socialist movement and the labor movement were the most popular, and were soon to be the model of contemporary advocacy. Out of these movements, the communist and democratic parties were born.

Following World War I, there was a renewed push for activism. This period led to a new classification of groups—the new social movements. The post-industrial economy gave way to a large number of groups, including women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights, the peace movement and the environmentalist movement. These movements stayed fairly static in terms of organization. More groups, such as the anti-nuclear movement, joined toward the middle of the century.

With the advent of the television, advocacy began to see incredible progression, which only foreshadowed the contemporary movement. The 1960s, in particular, were heavily influential, as civil rights took center stage.

The next step occurred around the 1990s. This period marked the era of global social activism, spurred on by the rise of the Internet. E-mail replaced postal mail and e-bulletin boards replaced traditional ones. The transition from analog to digital communication proved to be more effective in gathering support and more effective in increasing awareness. Groups that once couldn’t afford traditional publishing began to use the web as a platform for their activism.

Beyond Internet activism is the rise of social media and the role it plays in the history of advocacy. Popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter have begun to be utilized as platforms for advocacy. Sites like these allow people to connect and interact in ways that were previously impossible.

– Andrew Rywak

Sources: University of Michigan, Mashable, Academia.edu, The Borgen Project
Photo: GuardianLV

Protesters in Yemen Call for New Government

Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, on August 18. The protesters in Yemen were marching in support of the Houthi movement, which is the largest opposition group in the country. The Houthis are a religious group and social movement, but also they also have an armed wing.

The leader of the group, Abdulmalek al-Houthi, initially called for the protesters to occupy various public areas in Sanaa and elsewhere across the country. The protests are largely considered to be an attempt to rekindle some of the energy that was sparked in 2011 during the Arab Spring Revolutions.

The protesters cited a variety of reasons for their most recent march. They demanded that fuel subsidies be reinstated, which were significantly cut earlier this July. The subsidies led to an increase in fuel price, which spiked at a 90 percent increase from prior rates. The new fuel prices drastically increased the cost of living for its population, which is the poorest in the Arab world. The protesters also demanded the current government to disband in favor of a more representative cabinet.

According to organizers between 10,000 and 100,000 people joined in the demonstrations, which included demonstrators that were bused in from other provinces of Yemen.

Many are concerned that the protests will spark conflicts between the Houthis, who are Shia, and the Islah party, which currently controls the government and is Shiite. One government official speaking on the condition of anonymity said “They [Houthis] build a presence, provoke violence and react with violence.” A spokesman for the Houthi movement responded by saying the protest was “aimed at meeting our goals, which are the goals of everyone in Yemen” and that the protests will be peaceful.

The protest has also attracted some people who are not members of the Houthi party but who wish to voice their general discontent with the current government. However, no other major political party in Yemen has backed the protests as of this writing. The effects of the protest remain to be seen, but many are watching the protests closely to see how (or if) they will cause a change in government or society.

– Andre Gobbo

Sources: Al Jazeera 1, Al Jazeera 2, Middle East Eye
Photo: NYTimes

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Children of Brazil Swamped in Garbage

Brazil Swamped in Garbage
Brazil’s metropolis, Recife, is often associated with mystical bridges, vibrant entertainment and picturesque beaches. The splendor of this tourist hub, however, has recently been blighted, when in November the Jornal do Commercio released a photo of a nine-year-old boy swimming in a garbage-filled canal beneath one of the most famous bridges. What’s more, he was picking cans out of the contaminated water so that he could sell them.

Although Brazil has the ninth largest economy in the world, it is fraught with extreme economic disparity. Half of the country’s income is enjoyed by a meager 10 percent of the population, while the poorest 10 percent receive less than one percent.

Half of the country’s 60 million children live in poverty.

The photo of nine-year-old Paulo Henrique exposes this grim reality. According to government accounts, in Recife alone nearly 65,000 children live in the slums in the Arruda and Campina Barreto neighborhoods on the city’s north side. And a good majority of them are making their fortunes by wading through waste.

In reaction to the photo, the Brazilian government promised to provide welfare for Paulo, his mother and his five siblings. As a more all-encompassing response to the issue of poverty, the country created the first global center for poverty reduction in March. Mundo Sem Pobreze (World Without Poverty), will become a market of ideas and experiences in applying programs to benefit the most disadvantaged citizens.

The inspiration behind Mundo Sem Pobreze came from Bolsa Familia, the most successful Brazilian program in history. In just one decade since its advent, the program has managed to reduce poverty by half in Brazil, 50 million people of which were low-income Brazilians.

Though the photo of Paulo is saddening and morose, it has opened up a national conversation in efforts to address the issue of poverty. Photos can often have a profound impact on society; historically, they have served as galvanizers of radical change. During the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the iconic photo of a young African American man being attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Alabama pushed the U.S Government to finally intervene after decades of discrimination and violence.

Photos have the capacity to reach an entire nation, even an entire world. The photo of Brazil swamped in garbage has created a dialogue that will hopefully set the pace for a united national movement to eradicate extreme poverty.

– Samantha Scheetz

Sources: Save The Children, Vice, World Bank
Photo: VICE

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ActionAid USA: Aiding Over 25 Million People

ActionAid USA
ActionAid USA is working to end global poverty and further enhance human rights. Operating in over 40 countries around the world, through their work the organization has been able to reach and impact the lives of approximately 25 million people.

ActionAid addresses a variety of issues that affect the daily lives of people in an assortment of countries. The organization works to change policies surrounding biofuels (in the hopes of stabilizing food prices) and to help countries in poverty adjust to the shifting changes in climate.

It also focuses its attention on aiding countries that are hit by natural disasters and do not have the resources to help themselves. In providing relief, they have been able to respond to 87 of these occurrences and help about 7 million people.

Additionally, the organization has been looking for new ways to empower women, engage the youth and improve the overall quality of life for people across the globe.

One of ActionAid’s most recent projects has been advocating for President Obama to approve the Assessing Progress in Haiti Act, which he signed on August 8, 2014.

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, although billions of dollars were donated to Haiti, the money was not always  spent in the most efficient way. The new act  requires that the U.S. government submit an extremely detailed report stating exactly how the money donated to provide relief for the Haitian people is being spent.

The organization, however, is not so supportive of President Obama’s backing of the “New Alliance” plan regarding agriculture in Africa. It claims putting agriculture into the hands of big businesses will hurt smaller farming communities and increase poverty levels. Buba Khan, the ActionAid International Advocacy Officer, stated that, “Companies should be part of Africa’s cultural future, but profit should not be prioritized over people’s rights.”

 As part of their efforts to effectively combat global hunger and poverty, ActionAid works to make sure that their opinions on what the U.S. government is doing right and what the U.S. government is doing wrong are clearly expressed. 

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: Lee House
Photo: ActionAid USA

South Korea Donates to North Korea

Four years have passed since investigators discovered major fragments of a North Korean torpedo in a sunken South Korean warship. In the wake of this attack, South Korea imposed strict sanctions and refused to participate in any humanitarian aid helping North Korea, until now.

On August 11, South Korea pledged to donate $13.3 million to the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization. The aid South Korea donates will be strictly humanitarian and will provide food and medicine for malnourished babies and mothers.

The news is greatly welcomed by citizens of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, where assistance is sorely needed for a number of reasons. First, the country never quite recovered from a harsh famine in the 1990s. Secondly, two-thirds of the population relies on twice-monthly rations provided by the government. Even more distressing is the quality of the rations—they are often comprised of barley, maize, and rice, which means children and infants have severe protein deficiencies.

The North Korean government, which had already proved it was hardly capable of feeding 24 million citizens, suffered another setback due to a drought in 2012. Conditions worsened as a lack of clean water and sanitation led to diarrhea becoming the leading cause of death. In addition, North Korean healthcare, while free, is characterized by understaffed hospitals whose technology is decades old.

The promise of international foreign aid, especially from the state’s neighbor, is a gesture of goodwill and savvy politics in the context of previous fiascoes in foreign efforts.

The first of these was in 2011 when the U.N. called for $218 million in foreign aid for North Korea. Despite the dire need, only $85 million was reached. This is due in large to the fact that most of the world doesn’t trust Pyongyang to dole out the money for humanitarian efforts, but suspects money would be spent more on military efforts.

One year later, the U.N. again asked, this time for $198 million. The United States prepared 240,000 metric tons of food and other humanitarian aid. But the States retracted the offer when the benefactor-to-be tested a military rocket.

The proverbial door that South Korea has opened will have a positive net effect. Operating through the WFP and the WHO will make it more difficult for North Korea to allot funds for military opportunities. Yet the pledge was also the first step in reopening conversation between the countries separated by war six years ago.

The last high-level meeting between the two countries was in February, and was deemed a success. The Koreans managed to look past extreme tension caused by the North’s nuclear tests and threats of force, and agreed to let relatives from the countries visit one another for the first time in three years.

It is more than likely that South Korea will seek to arrange another grace period around September 8th. The day is the Korean Thanksgiving and is a holiday that places importance on the assembly of the family.

While North Korea has not responded yet, recent actions suggest the country has grown aware of the disadvantages of alienation and may place a higher premium on the quality of life of citizens. The country, once set on boycotting the Asian Games in the fall, has decided to send a national team to the event. It has also re-opened the case of two Japanese individuals who were kidnapped during the Cold War.

While the gestures might be symbolic, it is a step in the right direction.

– Andrew Rywak

Sources: New York Times 1, New York Times 2, Veooz, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, New York Times 3
Photo: The Guardian

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UNDP and Microsoft Partner in Ethiopia

The United Nations Development Programme in partnership with Microsoft East Africa Limited, has a launched an initiative to support the continued development of entrepreneurship activities in Ethiopia.

The initiative, which is a part of Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative, will bring mentoring and support to around 200,000 young entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs will also have access to Microsoft’s BizSpark program, which provides free software to start-up entrepreneurs, helping them to launch their products and gain global recognition.

To date, there are 625 start-ups supported through this program. In addition, specific assistance geared toward micro and small business entrepreneurs will be included through a ‘Build Your Own Business’ training program.

Ethiopia has a population of 96 million, the second largest of all African countries. With over 40 percent of those 96 million between the ages of 0-14 and 20 percent between 15-24, creating an entrepreneur program geared toward younger people interested in business can have a powerful long-term effect.

As UNDP is Ethiopia’s first private sector partnership, there are high expectations on all ends. However, UNDP and Microsoft have successfully worked together and built programs in the past which now promote sustainable development, work to eradicate poverty, advance women’s rights agendas and encourage good governance.

This newest program is focused on empowering citizens and preparing them to join both their local and the global workforce. Based on the belief that technology can and will have a big role to play in Africa, the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative provides one step forward in empowering local people through practical skills.

Microsoft has been active in Africa since 1992 and currently has 22 offices in 14 countries. It has also been named one of the top employers in Africa in both 2012 and 2013 by Certified Top Employers.

Empowerment through skill training is a good way to provide Africans a way to enter the global marketplace, contribute their ideas and raise their level of income and that of those living around them. Eradicating poverty is a battle that can be fought on many different fronts and the new partnership in Ethiopia is one step toward making eradication in that country a reality.

 – Andrea Blinkhorn

Sources: Biztech Africa, BERNAMA, Microsoft 1, Microsoft 2, Microsoft 3, The Borgen Project, CIA
Photo: Africatime

Poverty in Film

Director Ermanno Olmi’s masterpiece “The Tree of Wooden Clogs,” a Palme d’Or winner from 1978, remains today a poignant depiction of poverty in film, despite its temporal setting of 1898. Interestingly, viewers of the film sometimes disagree in their interpretations of the main characters’ poverty: some see it as a positive, some as a negative and some as a little of both.

“The Tree of Wooden Clogs” portrays peasant life on a farmstead in Lombardy, a northern region of Italy. The peasants’ life can be summarized, as one critic has said, as: “Plant. Cultivate. Harvest. Eat. Drink. Sleep.” This simple lifestyle tends to charm viewers who discover a kind of nobility in the rural rhythms of peasant life.

However, one cannot ignore the harsh realities of that life, which are not a focus of the film but are essential parts nonetheless.

In his review of Olmi’s film, critic Roger Ebert wrote: “We grow devout in the presence of poverty, particularly when it is not our own.” His point is that people who don’t live in poverty often idealize it when they see it, especially the agrarian poverty depicted so vividly in the film. Olmi does encourage viewers to admire peasant life at times, but ever present in his movie are the oppressive realities of nature that make an idealization of poverty impossible.

Those realities create “natural drama” in a film that occasionally borders on documentary. In one scene, a family finds their cow has become sick and call a veterinarian. The veterinarian advises them to butcher the cow for the few coins it will afford them before the animal dies of natural causes. The family’s matriarch responds, “Not this too, you can see what condition we’re in. We don’t have enough to live.”

The film swings between the stark desperation of these moments and the positivity of other scenes that depict life’s fundamental joys.

Olmi, a son of peasants, perhaps reveals his own mild bias toward the simple pleasures of peasant life from time to time. This seems especially evident during a scene in which three families do nothing but sing and shuck corn together. The images, photographed at eye-level and bathed in a soft yellow light, exude only warmth and positivity—a testament to humankind’s ability to find joy even in harsh circumstances.

But Olmi’s film goes on to show that the hardships of the peasant’s poverty cannot be suppressed for long. Specifically, he blames the social system in northern Italy for exacerbating those hardships. The message is universal, though, for social systems the world over are actively keeping populations in poverty.

One must recognize the ways in which the film is universal, or else the characters’ poverty will get cast aside as a historical phenomenon only. Today, 1.2 billion people live with $1.25 or less a day in income and are deprived of healthcare and education, as the peasants in Olmi’s film were.

For this reason, “The Tree of Wooden Clogs” is still an effective way to learn about the struggles of the modern poor through the vicarious experience of fiction.

– Ryan Yanke

Sources: UNDP, Roger Ebert, The New York Times, The Guardian
Photo: Mubi