Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

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Sustainable Land Management Practices

Sustainable Land Management Practices

Roughly 2 billion people across the globe rely on agriculture to make a living. However, due to unprecedented amounts of soil degradation (nearly a quarter of the world’s productive land is degraded), the livelihoods of farmers around the world are being threatened. Out of which, 40 percent of these degraded areas are located in extremely impoverished areas.  The UN-supported project “Sustainable Land Management Practices to Address Land Degradation and Mitigate Effects of Drought” (SLM Project) is attempting to teach farmers around the world sustainable farming practices that will reverse soil degradation and increase productivity.

The Problem

As previously mentioned, many small subsistence farmers are unknowingly contributing to the degradation of their own soil. This not only leads to less productivity for their farms, endangering their livelihoods but also contributes to deforestation which has massive effects on our whole environment. In the Philippines, the past 100 years has seen a near 50 percent drop in their forest cover and a massive spike in degraded lands, affecting around 33 million Filipinos. The farmers who are contributing to soil degradation and poor land health should not be blamed for their practices. Instead, we should follow the lead of the SLM Project and attempt to teach farmers sustainable farming practices that will protect their soil.

The Solution

Partnering with the Philippino Government’s Bureau of Soils and Water Management, the SLM Project has undergone the task of teaching countless Filipino farmers tactics to reverse soil degradation. Rosita Adalim, a Filipino farmer from the Bukidnon Province, is a perfect example of SLM’s preferred solution to the soil degradation problem. According to her, “Seminars on SLM helped improve my farming practices. I learned to adapt contour farming to prevent soil erosion especially in slope lands similar to my farm, which also restores soil fertility.”

After she was taught the science of soil degradation, Rosita became a “farmer-cooperator” or a local farmer taught by the SLM project who spreads the information she learned to the farmers in her community. Farmers like Lorenzo Caca have claimed that implementing the sustainable farming practices taught to him by the SLM project has led to his farm yield doubling.

These success stories make it clear that the SLM project has discovered a successful approach to protecting soil fertility while benefiting local farmers

The Implications

Reports from the United Nations’ Convention to Combat Desertification have concluded that “Land restoration is the cheapest solution to climate change and biodiversity loss.”  The World Wildlife Fund claims that increased soil erosion and degradation will likely lead to increased pollution, increased vulnerability to flooding and a myriad of other negative effects. There is considerable evidence that the declining productivity of farms due to soil degradation is also exacerbating poverty for subsistence farmers around the world.

If the global community follows the SLM Project’s lead, it will empower hundreds of millions of farmers by teaching them Sustainable Farming Practices. This will not only curtail soil degradation and increase food production, but these practices will likely lead to millions of impoverished farmers seeing improvements in their living conditions.

– Myles McBride Roach
Photo: Flickr

 

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The Worldwide Fight Against Asthma

Fight Against Asthma
When people think of asthma, the first thought is usually a minor annoyance at worst. It is far more crippling in lower-income countries, however, than it is in regions with widespread access to health care facilities. The fight against asthma may be a tough conflict, but there are plenty of allies working to make asthma a manageable disease.

Asthma: The Facts

Asthma is a widespread disease, however, there are still common misconceptions about how it functions, perpetuating the fight against asthma.

  • Asthma is a respiratory disease that people commonly associate with fits of breathlessness and coughing. The intensity and frequency are different from individual to individual.
  • When an asthma attack occurs, the bronchial tubes swell, restricting airflow to and from the lungs. These recurring attacks can cause truancy, fatigue and decreased activity levels.
  • Approximately 235 million people have asthma across the world.
  • Asthma has been on the rise the past few decades, with industrialized nations suffering the brunt of it.
  • There is a multitude of risk factors when it comes to asthma. These risk factors include genetic predisposition, obesity, living in an urban environment and lack of exposure to infections during childhood (the hygiene hypothesis).
  • Triggers for asthma are numerous and they include but are not limited to smoke, air pollution, pet dander and even extreme emotional duress (fear, anger, etc.).

While asthma may not be curable, it is not nearly as fatal as other respiratory diseases like COPD. With proper medication and avoidance of certain triggers, it is possible to live a normal, fulfilling life with asthma.

Asthma, Children and Poverty

Asthma is a disease that occurs predominantly in children, with 10 to 20 percent of children aged 13 to 14 in sub-Saharan Africa exhibiting asthmatic symptoms. Asthma has become far more prominent in lower to middle-income countries; suggestions state that this is due to increasing amounts of children living in urban environments.

A study that Addo-Yobo et al conducted in 1993 showed that children in urban rich schools within Ghana had exercise-induced bronchospasms (EIB) at a percentage of 4.2 percent. This is rather high as urban poor and rural schools had an EIB percentage of 1.4 and 2.2 percentages respectively.

Another study that Odhiambo et al conducted in remote and urban Kenya found that rural children had lower rates of asthma (3.0 percent) while their urban counterparts had far higher rates (9.5 percent). The factors influencing asthma formation in children are extremely varied; while location certainly plays a role in asthma formation, so too does socioeconomic status and lifestyle choices.

Global Alliance Against Chronic Respiratory Diseases

Thankfully, there are groups working around the clock to spread medication and asthma awareness. One such group is the Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases (GARD). GARD has recently enacted its Practical Approach to Lung Health in high-HIV prevalence countries (PALSA Plus) in South Africa to help combat asthma and other respiratory diseases. PALSA Plus works by ensuring primary care nurses have proper access to the corticosteroids that asthma sufferers need to manage their attacks while also giving guidelines for the treatment of high-priority respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis.

With the help of GARD and its PALSA Plus plan, the fight against asthma has never looked so promising. Asthma may be a debilitating disease, but with proper care, knowledge and support, anyone suffering from this disease can live a long, rich and prosperous life.

– Ryan Holman
Photo: Flickr

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Brazil’s Fight Against Leprosy

Brazil’s Fight Against Leprosy
When people think of leprosy, they may think of an extinct disease; a Biblical sickness that has long lived in the past. This could not be further from the truth, as leprosy or Hansen’s disease affects millions of poverty-stricken individuals throughout the world.  One of the largest concentrations of leprosy in the world is in Brazil, which combined with India and Indonesia, accounts for 81 percent of all leprosy cases worldwide. Here is some information about Brazil‘s fight against leprosy.

What is Leprosy?

While leprosy is a debilitating disease that has existed for centuries, there is a myriad of misconceptions about how it spreads and functions due to its ancient status. Leprosy is an infectious disease that the pathogen, Mycobacterium leprae, causes. It affects the skin, eyes, peripheral nerves and upper respiratory tract of its victims. Common symptoms are skin lesions, often accompanied by sensory deprivation and weakness of muscles near the afflicted area.

People currently do not know how leprosy spreads, but physical contact with an infected person or creature was the predominant theory for a long time. Recently, the theory that leprosy spreads through respiratory routes (i.e. coughing and sneezing) has been gaining traction. Leprosy infection can happen regardless of age, but 20 percent of registered cases occur before a child turns 10. While leprosy is just as likely to infect boys as girls, adult rates for leprosy show a different story. In fact, leprosy is twice as prevalent among adult males than it is among females.

If a person with leprosy does not receive treatment, it will often lead to blindness, loss of extremities (i.e. fingers and toes) and arthritis. Leprosy has crippled 1 to 2 million people across the globe. There is hope, however, as leprosy is curable with antibiotics and if a person receives treatment early enough, they can expect a full recovery with little to no complications.

Poverty and Leprosy

Poverty and leprosy go hand in hand. Wherever there is leprosy, poverty is sure to follow. There are a plethora of reasons why poverty and leprosy often co-exist, and one of the main reasons is that those with leprosy and unable to receive a cure will very often find themselves unable to work due to the crippling disabilities of the disease. Once the serious disabilities from leprosy settle in, sufferers are hard-pressed to survive, let alone work to make enough money to afford proper treatment. This subsequently traps them in a brutal cycle of poverty, unemployment and social pariah status.

However, there are many NGOs working to eradicate leprosy by taking on poverty as well.  One such NGO is the No Leprosy Remains group (NLR), which has been working towards the complete elimination of Hansen’s disease in Brazil since 1994. As of 2017, NLR’s main mission is to achieve a 90 percent decrease in the number of people needing treatment for neglected tropical diseases (leprosy being one of them). To reach this goal, NLR has enacted the PEP++ plan to preemptively treat over 600,000 people and reach a 50 percent reduction in new leprosy cases compared to its starting year.

Why Brazil?

Brazil’s fight against leprosy has been a tumultuous one; with Brazil contributing to 93 percent of all leprosy cases in the Americas in 2018. One can attribute Brazil’s status as a hotspot for leprosy to the fact that it is a very large country with many remote areas in hard to reach places, leading to difficulties in diagnosing people with leprosy, let alone curing it.

However, there is one cause of leprosy that is entirely unique to Brazil, the armadillo. In Brazil, testing determined that 62 percent of nine-banded armadillos were hosts to Mycobacterium leprae. Furthermore, Brazilians who ingested nine-banded armadillo meat on a regular basis had higher concentrations of leprosy antibodies in their bloodstream. This is problematic given that armadillo meat is a common source of protein for Brazilians in lower socioeconomic areas where food is not as plentiful. To counteract this, NLR’s PEP++ program has a focus on community education that aims to teach about the social impact of leprosy as well as techniques and knowledge that are vital to curbing this disease.

The Future of Brazil’s Fight Against Leprosy

Brazil is making headway in its fight against leprosy.  The Brazilian government has been tackling the threat of leprosy with renewed vigor since 2003 and has shown remarkable improvement in the treatment and diagnosis of this disease. The Brazilian government, with the help of NLR and the World Health Organization, should meet PEP++’s 2030 end goal of a 90 percent reduction in leprosy cases annually.

– Ryan Holman
Photo: Flickr

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Female Empowerment Eliminating HIV In Kenya

Eliminating HIV In Kenya

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa affects adolescent girls more than any other group within the population. As a public health response, a new approach for the elimination of HIV in Kenya emerged which addresses the gender and economic inequality that aid in spreading the disease. This new approach is related to female empowerment eliminating HIV in Kenya with new effective methods.

Health Care System in Kenya

Kenya is home to the world’s third-largest HIV epidemic. Kenya’s diverse population of 39 million encompasses an estimate of 42 ethnic tribes, with most people living in urban areas. Research shows that about 1.5 million, or 7.1 percent of Kenya’s population live with HIV. The first reported cases of the disease in Kenya were reported by the World Health Organization between 1983 to 1985. During that time, many global health organizations increased their efforts to spread awareness about prevention methods for the disease and gave antiretroviral therapy (ART) to those who were already infected with the disease. In the 1990s, the rise of the HIV infected population in Kenya had risen to 100,000 which led to the development of the National AIDS Control Council. The elimination of HIV in Kenya then became a priority for every global health organization.

The health care system in Kenya is a referral system of hospitals, health clinics, and dispensaries that extends from Nairobi to rural areas. There are only about 7,000 physicians in total that work within the public and private sector of Kenya’s health care system. As the population increases and the HIV epidemic intensifies, it creates more strenuous conditions for most of the population in Kenya to get the healthcare they desperately need. It is estimated that more than 53 percent of people living with HIV in Kenya are uninformed of their HIV status.

In addition, HIV disproportionately affects women and young people. After an initiative implemented by UNAIDS in 2013 to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV through increased access to sex education and contraceptives, significantly fewer children are born with HIV. Today, 61 percent of children with HIV are receiving treatment. However, the young women (ages 15-24) in Kenya are still twice as likely to be infected with HIV as men their age. Overall HIV rates are continuing to decrease for other groups within the population, but studies show that 74 percent of new HIV cases in Kenya continue to be adolescent girls.

Female Empowerment Eliminating HIV in Kenya

Women’s empowerment is an overarching theme for the reasons that HIV is heavily impacting the young women in Kenya. A woman’s security in the idea that she is able to dictate personal choices for herself has the ability to hinder or help her well-being.
Female empowerment eliminating HIV in Kenya uses these four common conditions to eliminate HIV:

  1. Health Information – Many girls in Kenya lack adequate information and services about sexual and reproductive health. Some health services even require an age of consent, which only perpetuates the stigma towards sexual rights. Also, the few health services available are out of reach for poor girls in urban areas.
  2. Education – A lack of secondary education for young women and girls in Kenya often means that they are unaware of modern contraceptives. A girl that does not receive a secondary education is twice as likely to get HIV. To ensure that adolescent girls have access to sexuality education, the 2013 Ministerial Commitment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Eastern and Southern Africa guaranteed that African leaders will commit to these specific needs for young people.
  3. Intimate partner violence –  Countless young women and girls have reported domestic and sexual violence that led to them contracting HIV. Something as simple as trying to negotiate contraceptive use with their partners often prompts a violent response. There has been an increased effort to erase the social acceptability of violence in many Kenyan communities. An organization called, The Raising Voices of SASA! consists of over 25 organizations in sub-Saharan Africa that work to prevent violence against women and HIV.
  4. Societal norms – Some communities in Kenya still practice the tradition of arranged marriages, and often at very young ages for girls. The marriages usually result in early pregnancy and without proper sex education, women and babies are being infected with HIV at a higher rate. In 2014, the African Union Commission accelerated the end to child marriages by setting up a 2-year campaign in 10 African Countries to advocate for Law against child marriages. Research suggests that eliminating child marriages would decrease HIV cases, along with domestic violence, premature pregnancies by over 50 percent.

Young women in Kenya face various obstacles in order to live a healthy life, and poverty acts as a comprehensive factor. Studies show that a lack of limited job opportunities leads to an increase in high-risk behavior. Transactional sex becomes increasingly common for women under these conditions, while they also become more at risk for sexual violence. An estimated 29.3 percent of female sex workers in Kenya live with HIV.

Solution

The most practical solution to tackling the elimination of HIV in Kenya combines HIV prevention with economic empowerment for young girls. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an organization that has worked hard at implementing strategies, and interventions across Africa that highlight women’s access to job opportunities and education. In 10 different countries in Africa (including Kenya), young women can attend interventions in which they learn about small business loans, vocational training and entrepreneurship training. One way that more women in Kenya are able to gain control over their financial resources is by receiving village saving loans. To participate in village saving loans it requires a group of 20-30 to make deposits into a group fund each week. Women within these groups can access small loans, which enables them to increase their financial skills while gaining economic independence. The Global Fund to fight AIDS has cultivated a space for numerous empowerment groups for young women out of school called the RISE Young Women Club. The young women in these clubs often live in poverty and receive HIV testing as well as sexual health education.

Overall, the global health programs that aid in the elimination of HIV in Kenya are continuously improving their strategies by including young women in poverty. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Kenya steadily sees progress thanks to the collective efforts of programs that empower young women.

– Nia Coleman
Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About Sanitation in Mexico

10 Facts about Sanitation in Mexico
Although Mexico is still recovering from the Latin American Recession in 2008, the Mexican government is rebuilding infrastructure and has made strides to improve the country’s sanitation. Below are 10 facts about sanitation in Mexico and how the country is successfully mitigating its sanitation issues.

10 Facts About Sanitation in Mexico

  1. Sanitation in Mexico has improved drastically in the last three decades. Piped water supply to urban areas has increased from 88 percent to 93 percent, rural areas from 50 percent to 74 percent and overall access to sanitation from 64 percent to 85 percent. While these statistics are encouraging, Mexico still struggles to provide its citizens with safe drinking water, which causes both water scarcity and decreased access to safe utilities.
  2. The Mexico Water Utilities Efficiency Improvement Project, which implemented in 2015, installed 500 household meters, performed maintenance on existing pumps and trained 670 utility staff members to increase the efficiency of the water systems in Mexico. Over 20,000 individuals living in urban now have access to consistent water supplies and better sanitation.
  3. The Bill Ford Better World Challenge awarded a grant of $60,000 to projects to improve sanitation in Mexico. This grant went towards a community center in Guayacan that provides clean and running water to residents. It also went towards the installation of 750 filtration systems in private homes. This will increase private and public access to filtered water in Guayacan.
  4. Since 2001, Mexico has decreased its mortality rate from 122.7 per 100,000 people per year to 7.3 per 100,000 people per year. Investment in infrastructure since 2013 alone has increased to $471 million. This investment into sewer coverage, wastewater treatment plants and piped water sources are responsible for the significant decline in the mortality rate. Since 2001, malnutrition has decreased from 4.4 percent to 3.6 percent, anemia has decreased from 30.4 percent to 28.20 percent and agricultural practices have improved significantly.
  5. Community participation in sanitation efforts in Mexico is waning. While the Mexican government has been increasingly active in its efforts to combat sanitation issues, citizens have a moderate to low rate of participation and usage of sanitization. This is likely due to a lack of sanitation information distributed to rural populations.
  6. The United States and Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program has increased collaboration between the United States and Mexico to increase water quality. While this program began in 1983, it has grown exponentially in recent years. In 2011 alone, the program has successfully brought clean water to 55,000 homes and provided wastewater services to 500,000 homes in Mexico. This has helped preserve rivers in border communities and increase access to clean water.
  7. Solid waste facilities in Mexico are working with private partners to help close the sanitation gap that state authorities left. While the facilities safely collect and store only 84 percent of solid waste, states are working with the private market to implement safe and effective waste strategies. The National Infrastructure Project aims to increase wastewater treatment by 15.5 percent in four years.
  8. Innovators and nonprofits are partnering to end the water crisis. By refining NASA’s Water Recovery System and the Oxygen Generation System, Concern for Kids has successfully donated devices to Mexico that provide cities and individuals alike with water purification systems that allow them to reuse water. This innovation, which implemented in 2012, has already provided drinking water to 800 villages in Mexico.
  9. The Morelos State Project is providing wells to increase the quantity of clean water available. In 2015, Rotary partnered with the government of Xochitepec to provide clean water to 6,000 individuals who did not previously have clean water access. Due to the success of the project, WASRAG is expanding its efforts to six other districts in Mexico.
  10. The focus on cleaning the New River in Mexico has decreased the quantity of bacteria, pesticides, trash and industrial run-off present in the river and in groundwater. The New River Improvement Project, which started in 2009, has successfully decreased bacteria tenfold, along with nitrate and phosphorus (dangerous organic compounds) which have dropped below detection rates. These efforts have decreased sanitation-related diseases, as well as increased water and air quality.

Despite the limited quality and quantity of clean water, Mexico is significantly increasing access to safe water supplies and making strides to resolve dangerous sanitation issues. Non-governmental organizations, foreign direct investments and the Mexican government are improving sanitation and decreasing diseases related to a lack of access to clean water. These 10 facts about sanitation in Mexico show both the progress in sanitation and the solutions others are proposing to existing problems.

– Denise Sprimont
Photo: Flickr

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Vaccinating Animals for Neglected Zoonotic Diseases

Neglected zoonotic diseases

Zoonotic diseases disproportionally affect the poorest communities around the world. These diseases and infections, known as zoonoses, are transmitted between humans and animals. Except for large scale zoonoses like SARS and H5N1 (avian influenza), the majority of these diseases are not prioritized by national and international health systems and are considered neglected. Neglected Zoonotic Diseases (NZD) have the greatest negative impact on the economies and health services in developing countries where rural communities are dependent on livestock for transportation, food and farm labor. Tackling NZDs with education and vaccination is one way to alleviate poverty in developing countries.

Human and Animal Relationships

In the developing world, not only do animals and humans live close together, but humans are reliant on animals for everything from clothing and food to fertilizer and power. These animals represent financial security for smallholder farmers (SHFs) and marginalized populations (MPs). Globally, there are 191 million people categorized as rural poor. Of those, 411 million are livestock keepers. With animals directly contributing to the livelihoods of over 70 percent of rural poor communities, it’s crucial to keep livestock healthy for a sustainable existence. Healthy animals can be used for both base income or sold to supplement household income, therefore keeping livestock is recognized as one of the leading routes to alleviating poverty.

NZDs keep animals from achieving their full economic potential—either by dying from disease or transmitting the disease to humans. Despite existing vaccines that could be effective in the prevention and control of these diseases, many SHFs and MPs reside in low resource settings without access to health care services. Other reasons for a lack of knowledge and solutions include the irregular lifestyles of mobile pastoralists, religious and cultural beliefs, and small community numbers. One of the largest problems to consider when tackling NZDs is the fact that there is little incentive for the vaccination of livestock because the animals show no signs of the disease and their economic value does not increase after vaccination.

Sustainable Solutions

NZDs are neglected because the global demand for these vaccines is low. So, one of the first steps to creating sustainable solutions is to support regional manufacturers in developing countries. This would forge a path for stockpiles or antigen banks to be created in these small communities. Aside from the manufacturing aspect, community and social engagement are needed to incentivize SHFs to vaccinate their animals. If human health care initiatives can be integrated with animal health care initiatives, pastoral farming areas could simultaneously vaccinate both their human and animal populations. In order to improve the prevention and control of NZDs, there needs to be a multidisciplinary effort by agriculture, health and environment sectors at a national level.

Conclusion

Because these diseases are not considered major public health burdens like tuberculosis, malaria or HIV/AIDS, neglected zoonotic diseases do not garner the same media attention or monetary contributions from the public or private sectors. But, it’s important to look at the numbers—at least 61 percent of all human pathogens are zoonotic, representing 75 percent of all emerging pathogens in the last decade. These neglected zoonotic diseases that disproportionally affect the poorest communities globally have some of the largest impacts. One vaccine shot could be the difference in a life of poverty or a life of prosperity.

– Trey Ross
Photo: Flickr

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Rotary Club’s Water Relief in Haiti

Water Relief in Haiti

Political corruption and unstable governments can be a huge problem for organizations trying to bring aid to a developing country. On top of the already difficult logistics, corrupt governments can heap on restrictions, red tape and, at times, cause violence. The 2008 Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index ranked Haiti at number four of the most corrupt nations in the world. This same Index also ranked Haiti as the most corrupt country in the Caribbean region in a 2013 study. This political corruption was the main difficulty faced by Brian Merriam and his Rotary Club Chapter when they tried to aid efforts for water relief in Haiti in 2014.

The Rotary Club’s Contribution

For more than 110 years, Rotary Club International and its 1.2 million members have prided themselves in bringing aid to impoverished countries around the globe. With more than 35,000 chapters, Rotary Club is able to make a lasting worldwide change. Brian Merriam, a third-generation member of Rotary Club International, discussed his initial motivation and the challenges involved in helping Haiti.

Merriam took to heart something that his father always said, “find the greatest problems in your community and find a way to solve them.” It was this motto that led him to first visit Haiti in 1999 with the Episcopalian organization, Food For The Poor. What Merriam saw shocked him, “I traveled the world when I was fifteen,” said Merriam “I’ve seen poverty but never the amount of Haiti.” With 59 percent of the country surviving on less than $2 a day, Haiti it the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

A Lack of Clean Drinking Water

After a few more visits to the country, Merriam knew something had to be done. Getting everyone from his Rotary Chapter to help was the easy part. Having been to Haiti several times Merriam knew the problems facing the nation and how to help. “Haiti isn’t lacking water,” said Merriam, “it’s lacking clean drinking water.” More than 90 percent of the country has been deforested, leading to poor soil quality. This combined with the country’s predominantly porous limestone bedrock makes the water that comes up from the earth unfiltered and unhealthy to drink.

The condition of the water supply is made only worse by the nation’s poverty. People wash themselves and their clothes in Haiti’s waterways, further contaminating the water. With more than two-thirds of the population unemployed, many families can’t afford bottled water. They are forced to drink from these polluted bodies of water instead. With this in mind, the Rotary Club Schenectady Chapter brought filtration systems to the community of Matogou in 2014 in order to boost water relief in Haiti.

Political Instability

Along with the many natural factors, an increase in political protests and the proceeding violence have further crippled the country’s ability to distribute aid. This has made it more difficult for organizations to facilitate water relief in Haiti. Large mobs, vandalism and blocked roads make it harder to get basic goods out to Haiti’s most needy.

The tumultuous protests are a reaction by the Haitian people to both the corruption of President Jovenel Moise’s and the ineptitude of the Haitian parliament. According to Haiti’s senate, President Moise and his predecessor, Michel Martelly, embezzled as much as $2 billion. That money was supposed to go to Haiti’s poor to improve their infrastructure, health and education systems. Adding to the instability, the Haitian parliament failed to ratify a government or appoint a new Prime Minister after the ousting of their last one, Jean-Henry Ceant.

Merriam knows firsthand the difficulties this kind of political instability can cause. The largest problem for the Rotary Club was not financial, nor was it logistical. Getting the water filtration systems to the intended people intact was the real difficulty. Merriam recalls having to sneak the filtration systems past customs, “We have to smuggle them into the country. Not cause they’re illegal but because I’ll get extorted at the airport if they know I have them.” After getting the filtration systems past customs, Rotary Club was ready to bring them into the communities that desperately needed water relief in Haiti.

One Success Story

The Rotary Club Schenectady Chapter has changed lives for the better by increasing water relief in Haiti. The water filtration systems Rotary installed have a shelf life of 10 years and can filter out 99.99 percent of bacteria from 1,000,000 gallons of water. Each system can provide clean water to 40 people per day. The organization shows communities how to maintain and clean the filtration systems. Rotary club exceeded its goal in providing 24-hour clean water to Matogou.

It is Merriam’s belief that people born into good fortune have to social obligation to help those less fortunate than themselves. “We are on this one globe and if we don’t make it better, we’ve squandered it,” said Merriam. It is this attitude that has led him to fight for the people of Haiti for 20 years. His actions through the Rotary Club have provided much-needed water relief in Haiti.

– Henry Burkert
Photo: Wikimedia

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4 Ways Augmented Reality Improves Global Health

Augmented Reality
About half of the world’s population lacks adequate access to necessary health care services. Medical expenses become high enough for some families that they often only have $1.90 a day to survive on. However, recent advancements in medicine, medical practice and medical technology plan to improve the situation of hundreds of millions of global citizens. The advancement of incorporating augmented reality technology into surgery, training and research shows great promise in bettering the access and cost-efficiency of health care to impoverished people.

4 Ways Augmented Reality Improves Global Health

  1. Surgical Procedures: Ian Khan, a self-identified “technology futurist” and three-time TedX speaker, focuses on “helping other organizations create unlimited value through multiple avenues and create positive business outcomes.” In this context, he works to simplify complex technological advancements while simultaneously enhancing the reach and application of said technology in real-world settings. Kahn believes augmented reality has the potential to provide medical professionals with an opportunity to safely practice complex surgeries in preparation for performing those surgeries on actual human subjects. This will lead to an overall increased surgery success rate as well as a decrease in the amount of time necessary to train for difficult procedures. Stat News reports that a trial of the supposed miracle-kidney procedure, SYMPLICITY HTN-3, initially reported unsuccessful results. But these results could be inaccurate representations due to the fact that at least half of the physicians who performed the operation had only practiced that very procedure two times before. With today’s constantly evolving field of medical technology, physicians will have to put greater effort into practicing procedures before performing them officially. In this way, augmented reality can effectively provide harmless extra practicum opportunities to a learning surgeon anytime they require. This advancement of overall-increased preparedness is especially useful for high-intensity working environments, like the neighborhoods and cities many people in poverty find themselves in.
  2. Augmented Reality: The surgical technique has improved and can further improve dramatically thanks to updated applications of AR technology. Natacha Rousseau, a marketing and medical research specialist who works with digital health entities and co-owns Rousseau Lineares, stated that augmented reality will allow medical professionals to conduct major surgeries without making a large incision, which comes quite in handy in locations where improperly sanitized procedures can lead to disastrous side results like blood-borne diseases. Augmented reality software can link to specialized goggles for surgeons to wear in surgical use. These goggles will more visually and vividly highlight the regions of the body that a surgeon must avoid during operation. It can also pinpoint areas that they must directly address. In essence, there is more precision in this new style of surgical procedure than ever before.
  3. Medical Professional Training: Training medical professionals will become much more feasible. The time it has taken to prepare professionals for difficult circumstances to practice medicine has always been an obstacle for scientific advancement. But now, some have reimagined the concept of this training. Touch Surgery is one of many companies that have created hundreds of procedural simulations for medical students to follow. More professionals will now have a greater grasp of concepts that before took a great deal of time, guidance and resources to fully understand. Proximie is another advancement allowing surgeons-in-training to access live-streams of operations from thousands of miles elsewhere when in need of visual representation. Such training will help in bringing about balance in access to medical care around the world. With around 67 percent of the world’s citizens currently having access to surgery and only 3 percent of surgeries even occurring in impoverished nations, using technology to grow the span of medical care access is one step in the right direction.
  4. People Can Be Their Own Doctor: Various technology companies have already come out with medical utilities and tests people can conduct on themselves in the comfort of their homes. One group, CliniCloud, has already introduced the world’s first for-home-use stethoscope. In addition, obtaining and prescribing medication could not be simpler. One can handle these crucial parts of a doctor’s visit with a few taps of a smart device and ship or send the results to a pharmacy near a patient’s home. Patients can even access refills and renewed subscriptions with the same ease. By investing smart devices and augmented reality technology in impoverished nations to improve their access to at-home care as well as nearing their proximity to accessible medication, people in poverty can only stand to benefit from AR in medical practice.

As of 2018, the poorest one-third of the world’s population received a minuscule 3.5 percent of all surgeries worldwide.  As advancements in biomedical research continue to progress, medical professionals more resoundingly agree that surgical procedures must see an increase in accessibility if the quality of life is to improve–particularly in the world’s most impoverished regions. With further investment in the growth of equal health care access that augmented reality promises, countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia that have a history of record low surgical procedures (between 50-500 total per capita of 100,000 individuals) are sure to see incredible improvements in the health of their citizens for years to come.

– Fatemeh Zahra Yarali
Photo: Flickr

 

 

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Nonprofits That Children Started

Nonprofits Started By Children
Charities and foundations all over the world work to eradicate global poverty and hunger. In fact, there are many memorable nonprofits that children started that now have a global reach and a large impact on people in developing countries. These nonprofits are working to break the cycle of poverty.

Caine’s Arcade (Imagination Foundation)

Nirvan Mullick walked into an auto shop one day where he saw 9-year-old Caine Monroy’s cardboard arcade. Mullick was Monroy’s first and only customer and inspired him to continue his project. Mullick then created an 11-minute video about Monroy’s journey and hope for customers. This video sparked international attention and led to a movement in which kids all around the world created cardboard arcades. The Imagination Foundation then formed to foster creativity globally by encouraging kids to take risks. Of the nonprofits started by children, this one has one of the most unique beginnings. 

WE Charity

The WE Charity, formerly Free the Children, is a remarkable nonprofit that a child started. At the age of 12 and in 1995, Craig Kielburger learned of the death of Iqbal Masih, a 12-year-old Pakistani, former-slave and human rights activist. This inspired Kielburger to start the WE Charity with the help of his seventh-grade classmates and brother, Marc. While the Kielburgers originally focused on ending child slavery, they decided to expand their focus to global poverty as a whole. Craig and Marc collaborated to create, Free the Children’s WE Villages, in which poor families received aid with education, clean water and sanitation, health care, food security and finding an alternative income. One can see the impact of this charity in numerous countries. Starting in 2012, the WE Charity helped quadruple primary school attendance rates in Haiti and rehabilitate two wells in Udawad. Additionally, it aided girls in focussing on education rather than walking miles to collect water.

Sole to Soul

After a disastrous fire in a school in Nairobi, Kenya, numerous pictures circulated of Kenyan children walking barefoot in the ruins of their destroyed community. Moved by the conditions in developing countries, sisters Vienna, Hayleigh and Sarah Scott from Nashua, New Hampshire decided to act. The sisters worked to send over nearly 1,200 shoes. The girls developed their charity as they walked door to door in their neighborhood collecting second-hand shoes that were in wearable condition. Taking the project one step further, the young girls ran public stalls in their hometown and successfully raised $33,000. This nonprofit that children started was able to provide shoes to over 1,500 kids in poor countries.

Hoops for Hope

At the age of 9, Austin Gutwein learned about the scarring effects of AIDS in developing countries. He proposed a solution that people would donate money for every successful basket he made while playing basketball. After a few years, Gutwein was able to transform this into an organization that consistently donates 100 percent of its proceedings. This nonprofit started with a child who works to educate people in developing countries about protected sex, as well as provide international relief. For every 500 kids who get together to shoot 500 free throws through Hoops for Hope, 500 kids that HIV/AIDS orphaned, receive representation and help. 

FundaField

The Weiss family was always fond of soccer, especially the kids Garrett, Kyla and Kira. After attending the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the contagious passion that Angolan fans had for their team inspired the Weiss kids. This sparked the FundaField movement, where this nonprofit started working on bringing soccer supplies to children growing up in developing countries. This unique movement uses the therapeutic abilities of team sports, in particular, to rehabilitate regions suffering post-conflict. The Weiss kids not only fund soccer fields and donate supplies but also host soccer tournaments to encourage competitive play.

Young children have creative minds and imaginative reach which enables them to be successful. Their age allows them to ignore any limitations and see with a pure heart. Nonprofits that children start are absolutely unique in their approach and serve as an inspiration for everyone. 

– Haarika Gurivireddygari
Photo: Flickr

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5 Reasons for The Rapid Pace Development of India

Development of India

Thirty years ago, India was considered by many to be the poster child for global poverty, with what the CIA World Factbook described as “environmental degradation, extensive poverty and widespread corruption.” However, in the decades since, India has grown tremendously, threatening to eclipse existing global superpowers, in fact, the country is projected to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2025. Here are five reasons for the rapid pace of development in India:

5 Reasons for the Rapid Pace Development of India

  1. Risk Management in Farming – Farmers are the backbone of a thriving society. However, the field of agriculture is full of risks, as bad crops, bad weather and other unexpected circumstances can lead to ruin for a would-be farmer, particularly in a country like India, which experiences ongoing monsoons that can completely ruin a farmer’s crops. This is why India has begun to implement risk management programs that insure farmers’ crops against monsoons and other disasters, a practice common in developed countries. When the Indian government implemented the PMFBY risk management scheme in 2016, the country saw the market premiums for agricultural goods increase by 300 percent.
  2. Quickly Growing Cities – A large part of India’s development has taken place in its cities. Two-thirds of the economic growth of the country comes from its cities, which are projected to have economies the size of small countries by 2030. This is largely due to the large influx of new citizens to the cities, which is projected to add 300 million residents by 2050. This comes at the cost of tremendous overcrowding in the cities, but India is working to develop new methods of urban sustainability that will keep the growth provided by its massive cities going.
  3. Investing in Renewable Energy – When India began to take off as a world power, the country was able to quickly develop its energy systems due to a rapid and early adoption of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy. This is because, due to the lack of preexisting infrastructure and the country’s sunny climate, it is cheaper for the Indian energy industry to harness solar energy than to harness energy from coal and gas. Today, solar energy alone makes up 30 percent of the energy produced in India and has the capacity to produce 30 GW of power in 2019. This access to cheap and reliable energy has helped India’s development by allowing the country to power its cities and even export energy to other countries. With that said, many households in India still lack access to electricity, which has caused many in the country to criticize the government’s export policies.
  4. Increased Focus on Breastfeeding – Although this point may seem oddly specific, it is vital to India’s development. The ability of children to breastfeed has been shown to improve their overall nutrition and reduce child mortality. Over the last 10 years, the percentage of babies who are breastfed in India has increased from 46.4 to 54.9 percent. This is partly due to a government program called Mother’s Absolute Affection, which works to make mothers and health care providers more aware of the benefits of breastfeeding and the nutritional needs of a developing baby.
  5. Thriving Tech Industry – In recent years, India has become almost ubiquitously known for being one of the largest tech powerhouses in the world. Most of this growth has been concentrated in start-up companies, turning India into a gigantic Silicon Valley. Of note, Bangalore, India’s biggest tech city, is considered by experts to be the second-fastest growing startup city in the world (behind Berlin) and the country has been rated the world’s top exporter of IT services.

Overall, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing countries and it is because of smart government policies, targeted economic development and stronger social services that help ensure that people aren’t left behind.

– Kelton Holsen
Photo: Flickr