Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

Youth Fight Climate Change With Music

At the offices of the World Bank, 19 young people from 14 countries were honored at the “Connect4Climate: Right Here, Right Now” event for their photographs, videos, and podcasts about climate change. Chosen from more than 1000 entries from 116 countries, these 19 winners of the global Voices4Climate awards were celebrated in an event hosted by Connect4Climate centered on how youth fight climate change utilizing the power of creativity.

Coming in first place was Stephon Gabriel from Trinidad with his music video, “A Changing World.” Connect4Climate had also worked with Artists Project Earth (APE), a UK environmental and arts organization, to organize a charity album consisting of music by Eminem, Beyonce, Coldplay, Bruno Mars and other artists in support of climate change projects. Live performances were given by two of the album’s artists, award-winning Malian musician Rokia Traore and Kenyan rappers TSI, during the event organized by Connect4Climate in collaboration with MTV and TerrAfrica.

Speaking at the event was World Bank President Jim Yong Kim who encouraged young people to help fight climate change emphasizing the need to listen to and engage the youth. Also in attendance were Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams, co-founder of Community of Peace People in 1976, and Italian Minister for the Environment, Corrado Clini. Clini supported Connect4Climate’s mission of providing the youth a platform to tell their stories about climate change and bring their voices to the global conversation about climate change. Clini commented that Italy was proud to be a supporter of the project and that effective change is only possible when the voices of the youth are heard.

CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility, Dr. Naoko Ishii, spoke of the efficacy of youth to change the “business-as-usual approach” that has contributed to climate change. “Young people will inherit our environment, and Connect4Climate seeks to give them a voice,” said Dr. Ishii.

Working with leading media networks and academic institutions, Connect4Climate and TVN Media group have launched their next competition, i°Change, to find the best original video message addressing climate change issues and action. Winners will receive a scholarship, recognition at the Grand Prix of Advertising in Milan, and exposure at film festivals in Cannes, New York, and Beijing.

Founded by the World Bank, Italian Ministry of Environment, and Global Environment Facility in 2011, Connect4Climate is a global partnership dedicated to climate change communication and action. Connect4Climate is made up of a coalition of more than 150 partners and an online community of nearly half a million followers. Through social media and the web, C4C works to amplify the voices of local stakeholders who have stories to tell about climate change.

– Rafael Panlilio

Source: World Bank

The ‘Harlem Shake’ as a Form of Protest

harlemshake

The ‘Harlem Shake’ has become a viral video craze in the last few weeks. A typical ‘Harlem Shake’ video consists of a single person dancing crazily in a space while many other people are acting normal and seem oblivious to the dancing person. Then, all of a sudden the video cuts to the entire group of people dancing crazily in extravagant, yet often silly, costumes. Looking on youtube, you can find videos of swimwear models dancing in speedos, the entire Miami Heat basketball team dancing in their locker room, Norwegian army officers dancing in camouflage, and various college students dancing in college libraries, college houses, and classrooms.

You can also find videos of protestors partaking in the ‘Harlem Shake’ video craze. Yet, their videos are not just for fun but have become a new form of Middle East protest. Outside of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, a large group of protestors danced. In a Tunisian town plagued with uprisings in the Arab world, students utilized the ‘Harlem Shake’ video craze to clash with Salafists, super conservative Islamists.

The videos were streamed live, recorded by activists and later appeared on Egyptian news channels. They’ve made their way into other social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, spreading awareness and bringing attention to governmental clashes occurring in Tunisia and Egypt, leading to the arrest of at least 4 students in Egypt.

For many, the ‘Harlem Shake’ craze may seem like nonsensical fun but in the Middle East, the dance has become politicized as police and Islamist groups try to prevent these videos from happening and students and protestors stand up for their right to free expression and defy officials.

-Angela Hooks

Source: The Lede- NY Times, The Verge
Photo: The Lede- NY Times

Alternative Spring Break: Helping Out

alternative spring break
Mid-March is coming. This is a special time of year that college students around America know as Spring Break. For many people, the words “Spring Break” trigger images of a wild party of hooligans drinking as if it were the end of the world, moshing about in an endless sea of lacrosse shirts and Oakley glasses. Many students will spend their spring breaks doing just that in Panama City, Daytona, and most of the state of South Carolina, but more and more students are doing something else during their week off.

The idea of an “alternative spring break” has been around for quite some time. These are usually programs that allow students to spend their week away from school helping victims of disasters and poverty around the country and the world. Many of these programs are led by local churches and other faith-based organizations and more and more student-run groups are being started to create rewarding, safe, and productive opportunities for American college students to volunteer their time. Hundreds of students are already helping rebuild homes and clear debris from Superstorm Sandy on the Jersey Coast while more will soon be on their way. Other groups have organized trips to help in schools and community centers around the Americas.

Alternative spring breaks became very popular after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the trend doesn’t look like it will be going away anytime soon. Seeing the nation’s young students getting involved in efforts to help the poor in our country and abroad is a fantastic sight, and is something to be thankful for. Volunteers in a multitude of organizations around the world continue to take all the little steps that make a real difference, and their importance cannot be understated.

– Kevin Sullivan

Source: CBS
Photo: University of Pennsylvania

Grasshoppers are the Food of the Future

Grasshoppers are the Food of the FutureCould this be your next meal? It may have to be; grasshoppers are the food of the future.

Overpopulation is a real concern for the planet and for “quality of life standards” for every person on the planet. It is estimated that the global population will reach 8 to 10 billion in the next few decades, and with this, a whole new way of life will have to be adopted to meet our needs.

A major transition will have to occur in regards to the food we eat and how food is grown, managed and distributed. Current habits will not be able to keep pace with growing demands. One thing that will have to be downsized is the cattle industry. It is simply not sustainable and efficient for feeding beef to more and more people, and its environmental effects will become even more of a liability.

The solution? Farming and harvesting insects. It takes very little water and transport fuel compared to livestock, grains and even vegetables. It is also far more efficient than raising cattle. One hundred pounds of feed produces 10 pounds of beef. The same amount of feed would produce more than four times that amount in crickets. They are high in protein, iron and calcium, making them a logical food choice; it is already utilized in many regions of the world.

– Mary Purcell

Source: The Borgen Project, howstuffworks.com
Photo Source: thejackieblog.com

 

What Would an HIV Cure Mean for the World’s Poor?

What Would an HIV Cure Mean for the World's Poor?On March 3rd, doctors announced that they had “functionally cured” a Mississippi child born with HIV of the virus. A functional cure means that a patient has tested negative for the virus. In this case, the child no longer needs HIV medication and is very unlikely to pass the virus on to others.

Doctors have already achieved a 98-99% success rate in the US in preventing the passage of HIV from pregnant mothers to their newborn children. This is accomplished through aggressive retroviral drug treatment during pregnancy and continued treatment of the newborn after birth.

In the United States, about 0.3% of the population, or 1.1 million people, is living with HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 5% of the population is living with HIV/AIDS. That’s 22.5 million people: the combined population of Iowa and New York states.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the virus is particularly widespread among women and children. There, 387,500 children under the age of 14 were receiving anti-HIV drug treatment in 2010. The number of children who needed treatment but weren’t receiving it was estimated to be about 2 million. While African HIV infection rates have been dropping over the last decade as a result of better health care and education, the virus remains an epidemic.

What would an HIV cure mean for the world’s poor? Being able to cure babies and children of the virus, as well as stopping the spread of HIV from mothers to children, would eliminate the majority of new cases in sub-Saharan Africa. Curing newborns of HIV worldwide would mean a significant decrease in infant and child mortality, and healthier and easier lives for families. It would also eliminate the need for a lifetime of costly anti-viral drugs for those children cured.

– Kat Henrichs

Sources: Guardian, Avert, CDC
Photo:

Medicine Shortage in Greece Causes Crisis

Medicine Shortage in Greece Causes CrisisThe turmoil in Greece is beginning to have a dramatic effect on the healthcare of its citizens. Many pharmaceutical drugs are in extremely short supply; the government has accused the producers of halting shipments due to the current low prices in Greece. The medicine shortage has resulted in a feeling of panic across the country, as many Greeks cannot obtain the drugs they need on a daily basis.

From the corporations’ perspectives, these low prices would create opportunities for someone to purchase large quantities of drugs for a pittance in Greece. This middleman could then turn around and sell to the rest of Europe, where prices are higher, thereby drastically cutting into the profits of the drug makers.

The government, of course, is concerned with making sure that all its citizens have access to the medications that they need. Drugs for “arthritis, hepatitis C and hypertension, cholesterol-lowering agents, antipsychotics, antibiotics, [and] anaesthetics” are all in short supply — a recipe for a public health crisis.

The Secretary-General of the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association, Dimitris Karageorgiou, claims that drug “supplies are down by 90%,” calling the entire situation “a disgrace.” To solve the problem 0f medicine Shortage, drug companies want the government to implement a new pricing system so that middlemen will not be able to exploit price differentials between the European states. Hopefully, this standoff can be resolved so that Greek citizens can get access to the medications that they so desperately need.

– Jake Simon

Source: The Guardian

Science Reduces Poverty

Rio20_opt

Earlier this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 55 scientists from throughout the world met to discuss sustainable development solutions and how science can play a leading role in the fight against poverty. The goal is to explore the ways that science can help defeat such challenges faced by all human beings. Members of science academies who were involved in this meet are ones already involved in dealing with global warming, population growth, and evolution issues.

This meeting was organized most importantly to parallel the United Nation’s Millennium Goals of 2015 to end global poverty: “Based on the “Future We Want” document signed in Rio last June, the panel organized its meeting to find solutions for the welfare of mankind and for sustainable development.” Although industrialized developed countries were mainly prevalent to meet the Millennium Goals, recently there has been a need for input from developing nations as well.

According to the Brazilian representative of the U.N. Development Program, science’s role is to change the very path of development which would thereby lead the world to a better outcome. Thus, this meeting will elaborate on the ways that science reduces poverty.

– Leen Abdallah

Source: Global Post
Photo: Google

Why Resilience in the Sahel is Crucial

Why Resilience in the Sahel is CrucialResilience is the ability of a family or community to survive shocks without going into financial ruin or facing hunger. In the case of the Sahel region in Africa, the shock that they must face every few years is drought. After three droughts in seven years, it becomes harder and harder for the citizens of the region to return to normalcy each time. Some of the consequences of these disasters are parents having to pull their children out of school, downgrades in the quality and amount of food they eat and going into debt. Resilience in the Sahel is a necessary part of solving these problems.

The key principle of resilience is to implement structures in the community that will last. There are no quick solutions because temporary cures will not stand up to the scrutiny of traumas over many years. Resilience in the Sahel will not only have to find a way to survive the drought this year but for the next decades to come in order to be truly successful.

As of now, there are two main interventions that organizations attempt to implement. The first, increased agriculture production, consists of assisting the farmers in the area to produce more and better quality stock from what they have. Unfortunately, this tactic only helps the large and medium farmers to stay afloat and not the rest of the community. The second tactic, social safety nets, is believed to help more of the marginalized people in a community. Social safety nets are finances provided to a single household that is in need to get them enough nutritious food.

In order for resilience in the Sahel to work, there needs to be a long commitment to the region. A five-year plan will be insufficient. Ten to twenty years are necessary to implement all of the best tactics and to make sure that they actually help the community to recover enough that they escape from the cycle of shock and bankruptcy.

 – Sean Morales

Source: The Guardian

Is an African Pope a Real Possibility?

pope

Over half of the 118 cardinals that will soon pick the new Pope are from European nations, hinting that the majority of the world’s Catholic members hail from European nations.

Yet, worldwide demographic trends show a different picture.  According to the CNN Belief Blog, growth of the Catholic population in European nations is practically stagnant. Whereas, Africa is seeing significant membership growth to the Roman Catholic Church. This increase in new membership in African countries creates a stronger voice for Catholicism outside of Europe, making it seem as if the next Pope could be African.

Posters have even been spotted in Rome endorsing a top African Pope contender, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana. Cardinal Turkson seems to be the most ideal and viable papal candidate coming out of Africa because of his age (by Vatican standards, being 64 is young), as well as the pastoral and Vatican exposure he has from running an archdiocese and being appointed by Pope Benedict to head the Council for Justice and Peace.

But should geographic background even be a part of the decision to find the next Pope? Reverend Emmanuel Katongole, a Ugandan Catholic priest, believes that “choosing the next Pope is an issue that must rise above geographic borders” because geography should theoretically have nothing to do with faith or loyalty to the Church.

Those 118 cardinals that will pick the Pope from amongst themselves should be basing their decisions on who they could see in that chair, leading the Roman Catholic Church. This seems to be the focus of the top ranking officials within the church who are focused on having a global vision. According to Bishop Thomas Paprocki, “The Pope has to be the visible shepherd of 1 billion Catholics in the world,” thus the nationality of the Pope is not the number one concern.

In the next 10 days, the cardinals will meet and the next Pope of the Roman Catholic Church will be chosen. Yet, the discussion surrounding whether or not the next Pope will be African shows a changing, more open, world.

– Angela Hooks

Sources: CNN Belief Blog, Voice of America, African Celebrities
Photo: Voice of America

Horse Meat and Social Responsibility

Horse Meat and Social Responsibility
The recent discovery of horse meat in fast food chains in the U.K. and around the world has started some interesting conversations. An inspection of 139 meat products showed that nearly two thirds of those products included unlisted ingredients such as donkey, goat, and water buffalo. The discoveries about what is in food has led many people to ask, “What else don’t we know about how our food is produced?”

Oxfam International has started a new project called Beyond the Brands. This project investigates how the world’s ten largest food and beverage companies operate and how they are fulfilling their social responsibilities to their workers and customers. Among the “Big 10” food companies are familiar names like Pepsico, Nestle, and Coca-Cola. These companies combined turn out huge profits around the world and, through their supply chains, employ the labor of millions in the developing world.

The companies are given scores in seven categories including women’s rights, business transparency, environmental responsibility, and workers’ access to land and clean water. The goal of the campaign is not only to pressure some of the world’s largest companies to do more but to help consumers know more about where their food is coming from and the conditions in which it is prepared. An Oxfam spokesperson claimed that these large food and beverage companies need to become more socially responsible. At the same time, most of these companies are doing just that, trying to be more responsible by offering solid employment, providing safe places to work, and working to create less pollution.

With this latest Oxfam initiative, the public can learn more about where food comes from, investigate how the workers are treated, and identify how responsible their employers are. Hopefully, this information will inspire these big businesses to focus on their own supply chains and maybe change the habits of thoughtful consumers. If “you are what you eat”, why not be a positive change?

– Kevin Sullivan

Source: IBI Times