Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

Nurses in Keralan Province the Future of India

In the thicketed tropical jungle of southern India is a burgeoning industry of female nurses. The Keralan province has garnered a reputation for the nursing programs that help create careers for the local women. According to the Indian Planning Commission, Keralan poverty rates are the second lowest in the entire country, and the statistics for infant mortality are among the lowest as well.

Part of the success is the educational training given to young women and girls to provide a sense of independence as well as financial stability. In speaking with a head nurse at a Keralan province hospital, she said that it is more common for someone to come in with car accident wounds than for people to arrive with tropical infections. She continued to say that though the cases did occur, they were still pretty rare. As medical advancements and accessibility increase, over time, the infant mortality rate has decreased and overall life expectancy has increased as well.

The hospital is near a nursing school, and after their shifts, the nurses in training gather in the dusty courtyard. These young nurses, most just around 20 years old, are the future of the Kerala economy. With the in-demand knowledge, young women in the nursing sector are becoming migrants in the Gulf region and Western nations. Contributing to the decrease of Keralan poverty, these immigrants often send back money to help the relatives that remain in Kerala.

The education of the nurses empowers them to be financially independent. The job opportunities for women in nursing are helping to decrease the margin of the gender gap in India. Additionally, women are more able to stand up to the existing patriarchy. They have the liberty to move to other Indian states or immigrate, if they choose.

Expanding the opportunities for women, as well as extending health care to the rural Keralan province, has helped changed the socioeconomic landscape of the state. With the movement of nurses to other states, the knowledge from these colleges goes with them. Proving that knowledge is power, the health care industry has been revitalized by this new generation of promising young nurses, and in turn gives hope for the ability of future generations of women to expand on these opportunities.

— Kristin Ronzi

Sources: The New Indian Express, InfoChange
Photo: The Hindu

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Entrepreneurs May Solve Global Poverty

According to the global entrepreneurship GEDI index, for the past 30 years almost half of all new jobs in the United States alone were created by businesses that are less than five years old. Globally, 65 million entrepreneurs each plan to create 20 or more jobs in the next five years.

Many of these start-up businesses offer products that are new to the market, according to a GEM report.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is sort of raise entrepreneurship to the level of the public policy agenda,” said Michael Dell. “If you look at what’s going on in the world today, in terms of where jobs are being created, we need more entrepreneurs. We need more risk-taking. High-risk entrepreneurs and bureaucratic U.N. officials might seem like a strange combination, but applying the problem-solving of a startup culture to global development is the idea.”

Around the world, over 565,000 small businesses start each month, and the products and profit they provide could be key to the recovery of the world economy as they create jobs, more global disposable income and new products. However, only 15 percent of entrepreneurs say that their country’s culture supports entrepreneurs, according to ey.com.

“Technology has enabled undeserved communities to get out of poverty,” said Ruma Bose, an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. “In the slums of India we saw a lot of hope and magic, there are thousands of new businesses there, and factories that generate millions in revenue and provide clean water. Even in the worst conditions the entrepreneurial spirit exists.”

Around 63 percent of women in the non-agricultural labor force are self-employed in the informal sector in Africa, a number which is twice the worldwide rate, according to the World Bank’s data — data which also shows that necessity is the main driving force behind female entrepreneurship in poor countries, not opportunity.

“Traditionally women would sit at home and wait for the man to return home with a bag of groceries, but this has been changing over time as women’s dependence gradually reduces,” said Thomas Bwire, an economist with Uganda’s central bank. “In a sign of the times, Ugandan women now even work at road construction sites.”

A report released earlier this year by Goldman Sachs stated that women’s “increased bargaining power has the potential to create a virtuous cycle” as women begin to spend more, thus fueling economic growth in the years ahead. According to the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank, an estimated $300 billion credit gap exists for female-owned businesses.

Other entrepreneurial companies, like Popinjay, have aided the advancement of many people around the world. Popinjay employs around 150 women who work four hours a day and at $3 an hour. “When I started Popinjay, my goal was really to get women to sustain themselves, but what I realized over time is that it wasn’t just about the money,” said Saba Gul, CEO and founder of Popinjay. “It was also about the fact that they gained so much dignity and pride in knowing that they were creating something with their own hands.”

— Monica Newell

Sources: Deseret News National, Epoch Times
Photo: Tadias

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Direct Relief International

Direct Relief International is a nonprofit dedicated to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergency situations.

The nonprofit, Direct Relief International, works through donations, with volunteers and through the use of advocacy in order to mobilize and provide essential medical care for people in need.

The nonprofit opened its doors in 1948 in order to help people in need confront enormous hardships and recover from natural disasters that have taken away their livelihood.

Direct Relief International was founded by William Zimdin, an Estonian immigrant. He used his good fortune and wealth to send relief packages containing food, clothing and medicine to friends and former employees who were trying to rebuild their lives after World War II.

Zimdin then formed the William Zimdin foundation in California in 1948, which was a precursor to what the nonprofit is today.

When Zimdin died in 1951, just a few years after opening the William Zimdin foundation, his close business associate Dezso Karczag, a Hungarian immigrant, became the foundation’s main manager. Six years later, they changed their name from The William Zimdin Foundation to Direct Relief International.

Direct Relief International provides direct and targeted assistance and does so with respect and involvement with the people it serves.

The nonprofit spends 98.7 percent of all donations and gifts on the programs it runs and manages in needy countries. These programs provide relief packages, vaccinations, vitamin injections, food and assistance to impoverished and displaced peoples.

Much of their relief work, besides providing beneficial relief packages, focuses on the care of pregnant mothers, child health, preventing disease and emergency preparedness programs. This is to ensure that those who live in areas of high disaster risk can be prepared, and major loss of life can be prevented.

Direct Relief International has helped countless people by providing direct medical care and emergency assistance to nations who need it most.

They help provide relief for natural as well as man-made disasters and use contributions from pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers to provide health care to those who need it most.

They employ 50 dedicated professional staff members and with the help of 400 volunteers, provide aid to thousands of people each year.

— Cara Morgan

Sources: Charity Navigator, Direct Relief International
Photo: SAP News Center

Forced Labor in Uzbekistan

The grave problem of forced labor in Uzbekistan in the cotton industry is in the news again as the United States placed the country at the very bottom of its annual State Department Trafficking in Persons Report this June.

Uzbekistan has been categorized as “Tier 3,” which means that the government does not “comply with minimum standards to combat human trafficking and fails to take adequate steps to address the problem.” A county placed in this category will potentially face sanctions.

Uzbekistan is a country of about 30 million and has been ruled by President Islam Karimov since 1989. Over 80 percent of the country is Muslim and only 36 percent live in urban areas. The poverty levels are not terribly high at 16 percent and the literacy rate is almost at 100 percent. However, these statistics do not explain the whole story and the serious problem of forced labor.

Just last year an organization called the Cotton Campaign finally got the government to significantly reduce forced labor of children. The campaign arranged for many garment companies to boycott Uzbek cotton. This was a victory for the children but not for their parents. Instead of forcing children to pick cotton for about a month each year, the Uzbek government has moved the labor onto adults. About a million Uzbek citizens are forced to pick cotton each year.

Doctors, teachers and government employees are among some of the laborers who are transported to the farms sometime during the harvest season between September and November. These laborers are not beaten or tortured into picking cotton, however, if they refuse they face arrest. The Uzbek government calls these laborers “volunteers” in an attempt to ignore the reality of the situation.

Rights organizations as well as the International Labor Organization have a difficult time assessing or regulating the situation. The Uzbek government heavily restricts their work in the country and cracks down on its own activists.

The problem also extends further than just the forced labor. The entire industry is controlled by the government, making it possible to take advantage of the farmers as well. The farmers have to meet quotas and sell the cotton back to the government well below market prices. The government then exports the cotton to foreign companies at huge profits.

Those fighting for the rights of these laborers are happy with the action taken by the U.S. government. It “sends a message of solidarity to the well over a million Uzbeks forced to pick the country’s cotton crop.” Putting Uzbekistan in Tier 3 will help pave the way for possible sanctions. If the money flow for the Uzbek government were to stop or at least decrease, they might notice and change their policies on forced labor.

The success of Cotton Campaign last year to remove children as the primary cotton pickers is hope for the future. If boycotting can end child labor, perhaps sanctions could end the problem of forced labor entirely.

— Eleni Marino

Sources: UN, World Bank, Cotton Campaign, Human Rights Watch, New York Times
Photo: New York Times

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Pure Water for the World

Pure Water for the World (PWW) is an international nonprofit organization helping end the world water crisis. The organization currently works in Haiti and Honduras, bringing “water filtration, safe sanitation and hygiene education” to struggling communities.

Almost 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean water, and according to PWW, “Lack of clean water, lack of sanitation and unfamiliarity with good hygiene practices kill more people every year than all acts of war and violence, auto accidents and HIV/AIDS combined.”

It is clear the state of water is dismal, and PWW is doing something about it.

The organization has a community-based approach, with 90 percent of its employees operating on the ground in Haiti or Honduras “changing lives by empowering people to be a part of the solution.”

Functioning mainly in rural areas, PWW first scouts out potential communities by meeting with community leaders and assessing which areas need the most improvement.

In order to maximize the number of people that benefit from its work, PWW identifies key locations, often schools and health clinics, where it installs its water filtration technology and sanitation facilities.

While installing new technologies to create clean water is a useful strategy, educational training is the backbone of PWW’s programs.

In target communities, an individual is chosen by the locals to be trained to maintain and fix PWW’s systems. This allows for the region to become self-sufficient, so that when the organization leaves, the improvements can be maintained.

In addition to recognizing one community member as a sanitation leader, hygiene education is also given to communities at large.

If just one person misuses a central water source, contamination can occur; PWW makes efforts to ensure that all are educated about how to properly sustain hygiene. Education is essential to create long-term improvements.

The organization epitomized the importance of education when it said, “PWW can deliver safe water to a village, but without the knowledge of how and why this improves their lives, and the tools to reduce disease, water will be temporary medicine at best – treating the symptoms without rooting out the underlying causes.”

To ensure that all installations have gone as planned, PWW returns to communities three months after the initial work is finished to ensure that everyone has received proper training, and again after seven months to assess the overall effectiveness of its program.

These final evaluations allow for the organization to adapt to new challenges and to learn how to better tackle water crises.

As stated by PWW, “Improved water, sanitation and hygiene practices saves lives and has significant implications in reducing poverty.” By installing technology to create clean water, and by educating people about how to maintain clean water and prevent water-borne diseases, Pure Water for the World is helping eliminate poverty, and is making a difference in people’s lives.

— Emily Jablonski

Sources: Classy, Pure Water for the World
Photo: Pure Water for the World

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Malnutrition in Pakistan

Children are more prone to malnutrition than adults. Half of the children in Pakistan are malnourished, leading to mental and physical health problems. These children are often living in poverty.

Malnutrition caused 54 percent of children’s deaths in 2001. Babies are often underweight from birth due to their mothers’ malnourishment while bearing them. It was reported in 2001 that 14 percent of pregnant women were underweight and 2.5 percent of them were extremely thin. Malnourished children often get infectious diseases and since they do not have the right nutrients to fight off these diseases, it often leads to a never-ending cycle.

Many surveys have indicated that sub-clinical deficiencies in iron, zinc and Vitamin A are widespread among schoolchildren and pregnant women. In the national nutrition survey in 2001 to 2002, it was implied that 66.5 percent of 0-5 year olds were found to be iron deficient, 37 percent with zinc deficiency and 12.5 percent had VAD. It has been found that 5.9 percent, 36.5 percent, 41 percent and 45 percent of pregnant women had sub-clinical deficiencies in VA, iodine, zinc and iron respectively.

One of the more significant, potential causes for malnutrition in Pakistan is the low production of food. Cereal is a big part of Pakistan’s diet, making 62 percent of a person’s energy. Pakistan is one of the few countries to primarily consume milk, but the consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and fish is very low. The reason fruits and vegetables are hardly consumed in Pakistan is due to the weather conditions being inadequate for growing crops, and there being hardly any market facilities for the products.

Other causes for malnutrition include poverty, unawareness, population growth, political instability, loss of food stock due to poor harvest and natural calamities. Undernourishment in children has been directly linked with illiterate mothers, low incomes and bigger families.

Here are a few ways malnourishment in Pakistan can be fixed — better farming techniques like using fertilizer that can produce better crops, government policies that ensure food security, programs educating people on how to eat cheaply properly, family planning and a controlled population.

— Priscilla Rodarte

Sources: World Bank, JPMA, The News, FAO
Photo: Save the Children

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Clean Water From a Box

As of 2005, one in six people are without access to clean water. Perhaps they spend a huge fraction of their income to gain access to a truck that distributes clean water to them, which, ultimately, might not even be clean. They might simply drink available water that holds dangerous bacteria, or that is laced with chemicals. Slightly less than 1 billion people wake up knowing that their first demand of the day is to find any source of water at all.

It isn’t as if water purification hasn’t been perfected in a number of other contexts. Drug companies purify water in huge quantities to produce medicine. The U.S. Navy found methods by which drinking water could be desalinated.

But both of these methods lack the level of portability needed to address the issue of water deprivation in impoverished regions. Methods like chlorine tablets exist, along with reverse osmosis plants. Yet problems of portability persist. It’s possible only some pollutants get purified, and others remain. Sometimes parts are too expensive to replace or are difficult to find.

The struggle with water purification for those in poverty has obviously been a long one, but it looks like the end might be in sight. It comes in the form of a plain-looking box, no larger than a mini refrigerator. Behind its design is a unique story, and its benefits have been a long time coming.

Dean Kamen has been working on what he calls the Slingshot for over 10 years. The inventor of the Segway, Kamen came to the project when Baxter International asked for his help. They had built a device to perform a procedure called peritoneal dialysis, which uses sterile saline to filter a patient’s blood. Kamen’s job was to refine and improve the machine.

It required huge amounts of purified water, or what amounted to multiple gallons a day for each patient. Kamen and his team turned to a simple scientific principle to solve their problem: they recycled the energy used when water evaporates. Now, Kamen has a device that he says can “take any input water, whether it’s got bioburden, organics, inorganics, chrome and… make pure water come out.” Kamen explains that the Slingshot could provide perfectly clean water using less power than a typical hairdryer.

Kamen’s last challenge is getting the Slingshot where it needs to go. Alongside Coca-Cola in October of 2012, Kamen announced plans with the company to bring the Slingshot to remote regions of Africa and Latin America. The partnership had already sent 15 of the machines to Ghana in 2011. Also involved in the process were the Inter-American Development Bank and Africare.

But Kamen has even bigger plans. His next project will work to reach even more people in need of clean water with his energy-efficient Stirling generator, solving the lack of electricity that could inhibit the use of the Slingshot. In the near future, Kamen has made it quite possible that millions of people will no longer face water insecurity.

— Rachel Davis

Sources: Popular Science, HowStuffWorks, Coca-Cola
Photo: Business Week

Genetically Modified Bacteria

Over the course of the past 50 years, scientists, engineers and academics have unlocked the secrets of energy efficiency by producing technologies with the capacity to harness wind, solar and nuclear power. Scientists have additionally focused their research on developing viable oil substitutes – particularly ethanol and biomass energies – that can be used to produce heat and electricity. Yet the future of global sustainability and decreased warming will depend on the expansion and improvement of these technologies.

The Huffington Post and The Mother Nature Network recently released profiles on Dr. Ka-Yiu San, a bioengineer who discovered a method for turning plant waste into fatty acid. This fatty acid is the beginning ‘ingredient’ in a synthetic compound – a compound that can be converted into an artificial diesel fuel or oil-like lubricant. The base of the compound comes from a genetically modified bacteria, and specifically a strain of the E. coli bacteria, which “converts sugar-heavy hydrolysate (inedible cellulose from sorghum) into fatty acids.”

According to his reports, San’s fermentation process of the genetically modified bacteria “generates an 80 percent to 90 percent yield of fatty acids from what the science team calls ‘model sugars’”– a process he believes has the potential for an even greater yield. It may take numerous rounds of tests and several years, however, before the E. coli strain is ready to be used in a wide industrial setting.

San’s research hasn’t been adapted into a large scale project, but the implications of his discovery are immense for developing countries. Though some biofuels have potential drawbacks such as aggressive land, water and resource requirements, air and water pollution and increased food costs, San’s research is promising. His E. coli strand can use plant waste efficiently; this provides an avenue for agriculture based societies – like those in Africa and rural Asia – to use their abundant plant waste in a productive way. In areas where electricity and energy access is scarce, a technology like this could have an unspeakably large impact.

— Allison Heymann

Sources: The National Resources Defense Council, Huffington Post, EPA
Photo: ScienceDaily

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Public Libraries in Zambia Flourish

The first library of the Lubuto Library Project was completed on September 1, 2007 in Lusaka, Zambia. The smashing success of that library has sparked an ambitious plan by the Lubuto Library Project to build 100 public libraries across Africa in the next 10 years.

That first library started as little more than an unofficial reading room at the Fountain of Hope, which is a shelter in Lusaka. As the reading program expanded, it attracted a wide variety of volunteers to contribute to this new educational opportunity.

As more and more children came off the streets to practice reading and writing, the reading room expanded to a fully-functioning library. It was built out of nothing more than a used shipping container.

The library proved an instant success. The library was a shelter, a classroom and a social space all-in-one. Seeing hope for the future of education in Zambia, the Lubuto Library project was created. Construction on a series of similar libraries began immediately.

Those libraries in Zambia now act as safe havens for Zambian street children. The population in Zambia has been ravaged by the HIV epidemic, and the children there have been particularly damaged by the disease. Over half the population of Zambia is youth, and of that youth, one-fifth have been orphaned by the epidemic.

Most of those children are outside the reach of social services. They are forced to live on the streets. The Lubuto Library Project aims to not only take these kids off the streets by providing shelter, but also to give them a quality education in the process.

Some of the kids even used the libraries in Zambia to study for the entrance exam which allowed them to gain access to a public high school education.

The particular curriculum that the project utilizes involves increasing access to local-language literature — something which has been woefully lacking in recent years. The libraries hold frequent storytelling events to bring the kids together in a social learning environment. At the same time, there are private reading rooms for children who wish to learn on their own.

Finally, the libraries in Zambia have been using laptops to encourage reading and writing and to advance the children’s computer skills.

For this innovative solution to the educational crisis in Zambia, the Lubuto Library Project has been awarded a $300,000 grant from USAID to continue its mission across Africa. The project will use that money to expand its operations, with plans to eventually incorporate mobile technology to its libraries.

But in the end, it’s not fancy technology that’s helping these orphans; it’s having access to a safe space where the kids can express themselves and escape from the harsh life of being an orphan in Zambia. It’s being comforted by caring volunteers and mentors who sacrifice their time to give hope to these children. It’s reading and writing imaginative stories that help them dream again.

That is the driving force that has allowed these libraries to become so instrumental to the education system in Zambia.

— Sam Hillestad

Sources: Lubuto Library Project 1, USAID
Photo: Lubuto Library Project 2

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Toilet Hackers

A total of 2.5 billion, or about 40 percent of the world’s population, go through their daily lives without toilets and without satisfying basic sanitation needs. For lack of access to sanitation, one out of every three girls in sub-Saharan Africa drops out of school when they start menstruating, and a child dies every 17 seconds as a result of unclean water and poor hygiene. The members of Toilet Hackers have made it their mission to revolutionize the way people experience hygiene all over the globe.

Toilet Hackers is a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and implementing successful sanitation projects in regions that lack adequate access to toilets. Their ultimate goal is to provide, in 10 years, a network of 10 million toilets worldwide.

In their first year, Toilet Hackers provided toilets in Kenya, Rwanda and Peru. In their second year, they provided toilets in Colombia, Uganda and Mumbai. In their third year, they have provided toilets in Brazil and Pune.

Additionally, Toilet Hackers clearly outlines how each donation impacts their cause. Their chart features three sections: cost, impact and system. For example, $12.50 impacts one child and can fund a hygiene scholarship, while $10,000 can fund hygiene training and 10 public latrines for up to 800 children and students. For donations in between, $50 can fund a ventilated latrine pit for a family of seven and a donation of $5,000 can fund a sanitation entrepreneur that will provide a village with education, training and access to better sanitation. Moreover, a donation of $1,000 can provide one public toilet with integrated hygiene training for 80 kids or people in a community.

Organizations such as UNICEF, Sprint, Water for People, Expedition Everest, MAMA Hope, Gensler, Falcon Waterfree Technologies, International Medical Corps, Second Muse, Random Hacks of Kindness and the Water and Sanitation Program have all partnered with Toilet Hackers to help them achieve their goal.

— Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: Huff Post, Gloabal Citizen, Toilet Hackers
Photo: WordPress