Key articles and information on global poverty.

World’s 100 Richest People Could End Global Poverty

Billionaires_end_poverty_Warren_buffett
According to Oxfam, an international NGO committed to fighting poverty, the money made by the world’s top 100 billionaires in the last year alone could end global poverty four times over.

Oxfam asserts that the wealth amassed by the world’s richest is encouraging inequality and deepening a divide between those in abject poverty and the rest of the world – making it even more difficult to end poverty once and for all. They assert that the world’s rich are getting richer at the expense of those in extreme poverty, and that the $240 billion that was collected in 2012 by the wealthiest 100 billionaires could end global poverty four times over.

Although a few American billionaires have already pledged to donate much of their wealth back into the public sphere, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, the exact figure has not been disclosed, and foreign billionaires have not made any such pledge to match those given by Gates and Buffet.

The Chief Executive for Oxfam GB Barbara Stocking cites a report that will be unveiled at the upcoming World Economic Forum. The report, titled “The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All”, found that within the last 20 years, the wealthiest 1% have increased their wealth by 60%. Stocking points out that this trend has led to extreme poverty as low-income earners have taken home an even smaller share of the total income as the rich get richer, which has also stifled growth and investment.

The report states that this trend has affected even Westernized countries, citing levels of high income inequality in the UK and South Africa. The report points out that top earners in China own over 60% of the overall income, similar to the situation in South Africa, where income inequality has risen even past levels seen at the end of apartheid.

Income inequality also persists across the United States, where the portion of total national income going to the top 1% has doubled within the last 30 years – the top 1% now take home 20% of the national income.

Oxfam is urging global leaders to committ to lowering income inequality levels to those seen in the 1990s, and Stocking asserts that doing away with tax havens, which reportedly would create $189 billion in additional tax revenues, would help alleviate the problem.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have taken a similar stance, saying that income inequality hinders development and growth, and say that they aim to fund projects that limit the perpetual cycle of inequality.

– Christina Mattos Kindlon

Source: The Guardian

David Beckham Gives His Entire Salary Away to Charity

It’s always encouraging when those who have so much, give to those who have so little. David Beckham, an international celebrity and professional footballer, made a unique announcement upon signing with a new football league. He will give all of his salary to charity.

Beckham recently left the LA Galaxy team and has now signed a five-month contract with France’s Paris St. Germain (PSG) league. One of the special conditions that he and the team decided on was that all his earnings would go to a local charity in Paris, helping children. He has said the choice has made him very excited and proud to make the move to France, and it is one of the reasons he chose PSG, as many different teams were trying to sign him. No details have been given to the exact dollar amount, but Beckham said it would be a “huge sum.”

Every time an example is given of the super wealthy giving away money to charity, it gives precedent and pressure to all others in the same unique position, to take action and make real change in the world.

– Mary Purcell

Source: Sky News
Video: You Tube

Health Care Success in Rwanda

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1994 marked the end of genocide in Rwanda and the beginning of an effort to rebuild a country that was dismantled by genocide. Now, almost two decades later, Rwanda has become a story of evident progress.

In the last two decades, Rwanda has seen tremendous social and economic improvement. The percentage of the population living below the poverty line has sharply decreased from 78 percent in 1994 to 45 percent in 2013. The gross domestic product of Rwanda has more than tripled. Average life expectancy has doubled from 28 years to 56 years of age. Maternal mortality has decreased by 60 percent. The chance of a child under 5 dying has decreased by 70 percent. 99 percent of primary-school-age children are in school.

How has this happened?

According to a research study conducted by Partners in Health that was recently published in the British Medical Journal, improved health care has been the Rwandan answer.

Cameron Nutt, a member of the Partners in Health research team, stated, “The Rwandan government has attacked the deadliest diseases in the most vulnerable parts of the population”. It has subsidized the prices of many medicines and made it possible for nearly 98 percent of the population to have health insurance and access to preventative care, such as mosquito nets and vaccines. Rwandan leaders have taken a proactive approach to ensure the advancement of its health care system. The country has successfully utilized Western aid to train Rwandans in medical fields and improve the way in which major diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, are treated.

For Rwanda, health care has meant vast amounts of change and improvement. Health care has equated for fewer people living below the poverty line, more people living longer, and more people being able to work and contribute to their country. Health care has resulted in successful development.

– Angela Hooks

Sources: NY Times, The Dartmouth

Photo Source: PHR

30 Hour Famine Campaign in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

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From February 2nd to 3rd, over 50,000 Taiwanese attended the 30-hour famine campaign in Kaohsiung (a province of Taiwan). This was part of a larger 30-hour famine campaign, the 30 Hour Famine Hero Rally, run by “World Vision Taiwan.” It was the 24th year of this campaign, and it has been growing in strength as the years have passed.

World Vision Taiwan is part of World Vision: 30 Hour Famine, a global campaign to raise awareness of world hunger. The 30-hour famine is a worldwide experience that students, as well as anyone else, take part in once a year.

Participants gathered together and did not eat solid food for 30 hours, in order to experience what it feels like to live in poverty with scarce or no food. The 30-hour famine campaign in Kaohsiung, just like all of the 30-hour famine campaigns, had two parts: raising awareness about world hunger and fundraising for the hungry.

In the past twenty years, the 30-hour famine campaign in Kaohsiung is one event that has helped lower world hunger. The rate of hungry children has dropped by 50%. The goal of this rally was to raise $13.5 million U.S. dollars to help eradicate poverty and hunger not only in Taiwan but worldwide.

The donations do far more in disaster areas than they ever could do in countries like the United States. World Vision uses the donations to feed children and families in high-risk areas, but also teaches them how to overcome hunger on their own, and provides them with the proper tools to do it. Anyone can take part in a 30-hour famine, or host their own.

Visit the 30 Hour Famine website to learn how to host your own fasting event for the sake of world hunger.

– Corina Balsamo

Sources: Gospel Herald, World Vision Taiwan
Photo: Want China Times

The Queen of Katwe

Imagine living in a slum. There is little food to split between you and your family and you are a minority in your age group because you have regularly attended school before. This was exactly the situation that teenager Phiona Mutesi found herself in when she started learning chess.

The slum where Phiona lives is called Katwe, and it is located right in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where veteran and refugee Robert Katende began a chess program for children, giving them food in return for completing a lesson. Of his program, Katende has said that he had started it hoping to teach analytic and problem-solving skills that the children could apply to succeed in their own lives.

This was the program that would come to change Phiona’s life and turn her into “The Queen of Katwe”.

“I was living a hard life, where I was sleeping on the streets, and you couldn’t have anything to eat in the streets. So that’s when I decided for my brother to get a cup of porridge,” Mutesi told CNN.

Although she was unfamiliar with the game, as is most of Uganda, Phiona worked hard, practicing every day for a year. Eventually, she began to win against older children and compete for titles. Since those early days, Phiona has represented her country in several international chess competitions in countries such as Sudan, Siberia, and Istanbul.

Although life for her is still hard – she still lives in the Katwe slum with her family – winning competitions and working hard to one day become a Grandmaster keeps her hopeful. A grant that she has received through her competing has even allowed her to go back to school and develop her reading and writing skills.

While Phiona’s story of success has yet to win her the chess title of Grandmaster, she has gained another, unofficial reputation as the ultimate underdog. She is an underdog on the global chess stage both because she comes from Africa, a continent where chess is culturally absent in most countries, and because she is from Uganda specifically, a nation that is one of the poorest on the continent. The fact that she is from Katwe, a slum, is a strike against her even to other Ugandans. However, despite these odds, she has achieved enormous success given her circumstances.

Phiona Mutesi’s inspiring story was written into a book called “The Queen of Katwe,” by Tim Crothers, and was published in October of 2012. Since then, Disney has bought the rights to the story and has started making a movie to chronicle Phiona’s journey to the international chess stage. The Queen of Katwe remains steadfast in attaining her dream of becoming a Grandmaster and is an inspiration to us all.

– Nina Narang

Source: CNN

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Johns Hopkins’ Free Course On Food Systems

Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world.” For those prepared and passionate to change the world with the key to success, at a time when it is increasingly harder to achieve credentials and training through limited courses and high student loans, websites such as ‘Coursera’ are becoming an effective means of sharing and teaching the information we need to know how to change the world.

For those who want to become involved in foreign policy and understand the interconnected economies of the global food system, Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health recently started a 6 week long free course entitled, “An Introduction to the U.S. Food System: Perspectives from Public Health”.

Taught by Robert S. Lawrence, M.D., this introductory course on food systems discusses “activities, people and resources involved in getting food from field to plate.” Food production in the United States deals with not only the agriculture sector but our country’s economy, the population’s general well being and health, and political issues impacting all corners of the world.

Dr. Lawrence has an extensive and highly respected background in public health. He is currently a Professor of Health Policy and International health and the Center for a Livable Future, an institution which he helped establish in 1996. He has sat on multiple committees and was the director of Health Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation. Aside from himself, the course will also feature other faculty from the Center for a Livable Future as guest lecturers.

In order to create meaningful policy changes to reduce food insecurities and global poverty, courses such as this are extremely useful in introducing to the public the various connections that must be taken into consideration before embarking to ‘change the world’.

For someone with the desire to end world hunger, it is not enough to be equipped with a fire in their heart and a sociology degree in their hand.  By having widespread familiarity or in depth knowledge across multiple sectors, economics, diet and health, and global politics in this case, it will be easier to attack the problems we want to fix.

– Deena Dulgerian

Source:coursera

UN Central Emergency Response Fund

UN Central Emergency Response FundIn December of 2012, the United Nations had called for financial support for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) which has financed humanitarian programs that saved millions of lives. Donors pledged $384 million for 2013. On January 21, the United Nations announced that $100 million was to be allocated to 12 poorly-funded crises around the world.

Since 2006, the UN CERF has helped speed up relief efforts by collecting donations to ensure that programs providing life-saving assistance receive adequate funding. Since then, the Fund has managed to secure a total of $900 million to address crises. In 2012, CERF allocated a total of $465 million to programs delivering humanitarian aid in 49 countries including Syria, South Sudan, Haiti and Pakistan, the highest amount allocated in a year.

On December 11, 2012, in a statement at the high-level CERF conference, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, praised the Fund’s work in aiding those affected by crises. “CERF’s support has been critical to saving the lives and livelihoods of millions of people throughout the world,” Amos said. “It has bolstered the transformative agenda, which aims to strengthen humanitarian response, and our efforts to have a robust and well-coordinated UN-led humanitarian response in support of national efforts.”

Amos reviewed CERF’s work in supporting Syrians in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, refugees in South Sudan, and disaster response in Haiti and Cuba post-Hurricane Sandy. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had also praised the fund’s range of services: “From flood zones to war zones, CERF stops crises from turning into catastrophes.”  Ban Ki-Moon emphasized the Fund’s ability to mobilize funds “in stubbornly under-funded situations” through its “quick, targeted support” mechanism.

CERF supports the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Burundi, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen. CERF selection criteria include humanitarian needs and analysis of funding levels. These situations include the Sahrawi refugee operation in Algeria, life-saving programs in Eritrea and agencies working in Afghanistan.

The objective is to target ‘forgotten’ or ‘neglected’ emergencies. A second round of allocating funding will follow in July 2013. Amos reiterated that the CERF continues to help millions of people “after the media spotlight fades.” She hopes more governments will cooperate with CERF in providing funds to those trapped in “hidden emergencies.”

“CERF is more than a message from the international community – it is a real help for the most vulnerable members of our human family,” concluded Ki-Moon.

– Rafael Panlilio

Source: UN News, UN News, OCHA

Donald Girskis Visits Borgen Project Headquarters

Donald Girskis Visits Borgen Project HeadquartersDonald Girskis, a business guru who has created grand success with Boost Mobile and ShoreTel, brought enthusiasm and encouragement to The Borgen Project today as he visited headquarters for the first time here in Seattle.

Girskis’ business talent saw him at the start and formation of Boost Mobile, which under his leadership grew from an innovative idea to $1.8 billion in sales in just 5 years. Additionally, Girskis’ expertise in business then led him into the position of Senior Vice President, World Wide Sales, at ShoreTel, in which he resided from February 2008 to March 2012. This exemplary background in business has granted him the extraordinary opportunity to travel across the globe.

Through his travels across the globe, Girskis has seen the realities of both developed areas and less developed areas. Traveling to less developed countries and seeing the harsh realities of poverty has impressed upon him a calling to aid those who are less fortunate. He realizes the extremely difficult situation that millions are born into out of no fault of their own.

Girskis finds that The Borgen Project is important to the global humanitarian cause and he is passionate about becoming a part of this team. He was brought to this Project because he likes the fact that we can and do make a difference through advocacy for the world’s poor through our economic, humanitarian, and security perspective.

Girskis’ particular travel to Kenya has impacted the way he sees global development. He describes his trip to Kenya as an unusual juxtaposition between the traditional red masai robes and spears of the villagers and their possession of cellphones.  It was a prime example of how markets open for US companies when poverty is alleviated and poor people’s lives are elevated.  This reinforces that not only does foreign aid help the humanitarian cause, but it is good for job creation right here in the US. Girskis’ prime experience and passion is a great fit with The Borgen Project. The potential is exciting and unending, welcome aboard Donald Girskis!

– Evan Walker

A Penny Saved, A World Changed? Diverting

A Penny Saved, A World Changed? Diverting
Let me start by saying that I love my dog.

When I’m not working on this blog I am teaching English to Ethiopian immigrants here in Columbus, OH. I work mostly with adults and so far the class has been a great experience and I learn a few neat things as I teach and converse with the students. Just the other day we spent a long time learning the new term “pet”. Most English speakers will be able to recognize that word and meaning right away because they have heard it or used it many, many times and they have the linguistic competence to use the word without thinking much about it. The first step of explaining the new word was easy enough and led to the understanding that these “pets” where animals. We would ask “Did you have any pets back home?” “Yes, three cows and a goat.”

We spent a few minutes more explaining the difference between domesticated pets and livestock and continued with the day’s lesson. One man asked whether pets should be called “it” or “he/she”. After answering that man’s question I realized how much we really do love our pets. To many pet owners, their animals are almost human. I’m much more than guilty of being “that dog guy”, I will talk to the dog of a stranger in a foggy park at dusk, I will share the bed with my dog and I’ll even talk to the dogs’ owners sometimes.

That being said, my dog is a dog. She (I still can’t call her “it”) may seem almost human, but she is just a dog. I was thinking about this recently as I stopped in the store to buy some dog food. My healthy, four-year-old dog eats generic, dry, boring dog food that comes in 50 lb. bags. Walking around the dog care aisle I saw designer foods that cost a hefty penny more and I remembered the simple fact that people love their dogs. But, what about the difference? One national name brand dog food is about $12.50 for about 18.5lbs. of food. One designer name brand food costs $29 for 15 lbs. Even if we disregard 3.5 lb. the difference in favor of the cheaper alternative that gives us about $16.50 saved. Now, $16.50 saved for every 15lbs of dog food will add up to a significant sum by the end of the year, especially with multiple dogs.

What if that money went to help other humans, other people? The idea of diverting isn’t anything new, save a bit of money on things here and there and give to a greater cause, but it does work. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t love animals, or that we shouldn’t occasionally spoil the creatures we spend so much time with, but maybe we could take a chunk of that saved change and share it with our human brothers and sisters as well, be it through groups like The Borgen Project or any organization you’d like.

– Kevin Sullivan

Photo: DoggySpace

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Bazaar Stars Charity Night


The Bazaar Stars Charity Night (BSCN) is the first charity auction party in China and also goes far in illustrating a new model of charity in China, which integrates fashion, charity, celebrities and the media while doing fundraising in the form of auctions.

Many national celebrities, including famous singers, actors, entrepreneurs and artists, attend the auction party and bid on luxury items each year, the funds of which go to those in need. The media and merchandise brand names are also very supportive.

Over the last 10 years, BSCN has collected about $25 million, sponsored 13 charity organizations and supported people and families in need. Moreover, in 2007, this event was the only charity event awarded with National Charity Award in China.

As more and more celebrities join the event, BSCN has become the biggest and most influential, non-governmental charity event in China.

Mang Su, the executive publisher of Harper’s Bazaar, initiated the event in 2003 and organizes it every year. In fact, Su is a leader in Chinese fashion and one of the top philanthropists in China. Her idea, “Making Charity Fashion,” has, moreover, created a new approach to philanthropy.

Su explained that philanthropy is not about living frugally and saving money for others, but about creating a more valuable society as a whole. “I want to contribute to charity in an innovative and fashionable way,” Su said. “Just like pursuing fashion, such as a gorgeous hairstyle or a beautiful lipstick. Everyone asks, ‘have you given to charity?’”

The purpose of the BSCN event is to help people to understand the importance of advancing society while creating their fortunes. “Not everyone can help others at the cost of his (or her) career, but everyone has a kind heart,” Su stated. “I hope this event can encourage people to express their kindness while fighting for their career and dreams.”

Xinyu Zhao, an investor of Gold Palm Club, bought a Dior sweet-smelling perfume for about $7,246.38. “I would never buy perfume for this amount normally, but this time it is for the charity. I feel very happy,” Zhao said.

Furthermore, Bingbing Li, a Chinese actress and singer, explained that the ten-year persistence of philanthropy is also a form of attitude.

At present, BSCN is not only an auction but also includes in its bag of delights, an evening banquet with dancing, which make the event even more fashionable. “With the development of society, more rich people are emerging. They have their own lifestyle,” Su said. She considers charity activities an elegant lifestyle and exclusive entertainment for the wealthy.

As more and more fashionable activities are related to some form of charity, Su believes charity events similar to the BSCN can bring wealthy celebrities closer to the idea of charity and bring them a deeper understanding of it.

“Some day, behind the rich lifestyle, people will find that it’s only by offering their love and generosity that they can realize their true class,” Su said.

Compared to China’s past charity activities, which were low key and mainly held by private individuals, current charity activities, such as the BSCN, have allowed the rich and famous of the Chinese nation to personally get involved to give back some of their fortunes openly and freely. More and more Chinese philanthropists are emerging, thus representing a new class of Chinese citizens who are on the way to understanding the concept of sharing.

– Liying Qian

Sources: Harper’s Bazaar, SINA, Trends, Women of China