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3 charities helping refugees in the UK

Refugees in the UKWith multiple crises currently affecting the world, more and more people find themselves needing assistance. According to the U.N., 6.1 million people have been forced to flee from Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, with a further 1.5 million people fleeing from Afghanistan since the Taliban take over in 2021. Additionally, climate-related disasters cause people to flee to safer areas. In 2019 alone, 25 million people sought refuge in other countries as a result of weather events, such as fires, floods and droughts.

Refugees fleeing from extreme weather events will become more common as the climate crisis intensifies, according to the U.N.  Charities that seek to offer assistance to refugees are essential. The following are charities that are helping refugees in the U.K.

Refugee Action 

Refugee Action, founded in 1981, is a charity that provides refugees in the U.K. with the basic support that they need to survive. For instance, in 2019-2020 alone, 3,000 refugees were given accommodation and access to financial support. This support ensures that refugees in the U.K. have a stable foundation that they can build on. 

Ahmed’s story best exemplifies the work of Refugee Action. After fleeing Egypt in fear for his life, Ahmed was greeted with nothing but a place on the streets. He was homeless, with no hope of securing stable accommodations, due to the Home Office withholding access to identification. Fortunately, Refugee Action was able to intervene and help Ahmed secure long-term accommodation and provide him with official identification, so he could gain stable employment.

Refugee Council 

Refugee Council was founded in 1951, after the creation of the U.N. refugee convention. It is an organization that not only seeks to support refugees in the U.K. but also campaigns for a fairer and more just asylum system.

Each year, this organization provides several forms of assistance for 13,000 refugees in the U.K. This includes offering to support them while they integrate into their new society, along with supplying aid to children who have arrived without parents. Since the majority of refugees are fleeing from dangerous situations, it is likely that they have experienced some form of trauma. Because of this, Refugee Council offers mental health support to every refugee that they come into contact with. 

Additionally, this organization works to highlight and change the inequities in the U.K.’s asylum system. For example, 25% of asylum seekers wait four to six weeks for official documents. These documents enable them to gain official employment or accommodation.

Without these documents, refugees either cannot work or are forced to work in dangerous, low-paid and unregulated jobs. Furthermore, refugees in the U.K. are only permitted to stay in government accommodation for 28 days, so many refugees are forced into homelessness, while they wait for their documents. Refugee Council campaigns to bring an end to this policy, as it causes countless vulnerable refugees to become homeless.

Other campaigning work by this organization includes a successful effort to improve the protections offered to women who are fleeing abusive situations. Before Refugee Council’s campaign, adequate protections were not in place, and female refugees were still left vulnerable to the same kind of abuse that they had fled from.

Young Roots 

Young Roots, founded by Rachel Yarrow, Roz Evans and Kathy Brook in 2004, is a charity that works directly with refugees in the U.K. to improve their life chances. This organization employs refugees at all levels to ensure that the charity is driven by people with personal experience of the plight of refugees in the U.K. 

Focusing their efforts in Croydon and Brent, Young Roots provided casework services and advice hubs for 873 people in 2019 alone. These services provide refugees with legal support and offer therapy for those who need it. 

In addition, Young Roots seeks to increase the confidence of young refugees in the U.K. by offering different classes, such as dance and drama. 

Raena, who arrived in the U.K. in 2018, has benefited greatly from these classes. Upon arriving in the U.K., Raena was very shy and was also apprehensive about becoming a part of her new community. Fortunately, Young Roots reached out to her, and she began attending the young women’s group, where she could mix with other young, female refugees. Over time, her confidence grew, so she was now able to volunteer for the organization, offering interview classes for fellow young refugees. This improved Raena’s life chances, as holding the classes imparted her with valuable experience for taking part in interviews to get a job of her own. 

What’s Next?

While these three organizations are doing fantastic and much-needed work, there is still more to be done. Refugees in the U.K. are an incredibly vulnerable group, and they are only going to become increasingly common as the climate crisis intensifies.

– Tom Eccles
Photo: Flickr

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GivePower: Solar Technology Alleviating Poverty Worldwide

Solar Technology Alleviating PovertyGivePower, founded in 2013 by Hayes Barnard, is a nonprofit organization whose aim is to use solar technology in alleviating poverty worldwide. The United Nations reports that, as of 2019, “over two billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress, and about four billion people experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year.” These water-related stress levels are expected to rise with increased population growth and global economic development. Ultimately, yielding a rise in poverty.

Solar Technology: A Solution to Poverty

Solar technology presents a solution to this growing, global, water crisis. This is because solar technology holds the power to supply clean water and efficient energy systems to communities located in virtually any part of the world. Since 2013, GivePower has worked to help some of the world’s poorest countries gain access to a source of clean, renewable and resilient energy. This has in turn allowed for more readily available, clean drinking water, agricultural production and self-sustaining communities. For example, in 2018 alone, GivePower granted access to clean water, electricity and food to more than 30,000 people in five countries. Since its founding, GivePower has completed projects in the following six countries:

  1. Nicaragua: Though education through the primary stages is mandatory for Nicaraguans, school enrollment numbers are low. During its first-ever, solar microgrid installation in 2014, GivePower, recognized the importance of education. In this vein, GivePower shifted its resources toward powering a school in El Islote, Nicaragua. The school’s enrollment has improved tremendously, now offering classes and resources for both children and adults.
  2. Nepal: In Nepal, access to electricity has increased by nearly 10% for the entire Nepalese population, since GivePower began installing solar microgrids in 2015. Installation occurred throughout various parts of the country. Rural villages now have access to electricity — allowing schools, businesses, healthcare services, agricultural production and other forms of technology to prosper. Part of GivePower’s work in Nepal includes installing a 6kW microgrid on a medical clinic in a rural community, ensuring essential services.
  3. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): During 2016, the GivePower team reached the DRC, where civil war has ended in a struggle for both people and the country’s wildlife. The DRC is home to many of the world’s endangered species, making protection of the country’s wildlife essential. GivePower has successfully installed solar panels for ranger stations in one of Africa’s oldest national parks. In this way, wildlife thrives. This power provides a means for rangers to meet their basic needs and increases the likelihood that rangers can protect wildlife.
  4. Puerto Rico: In 2017, Hurricane Maria, a powerful category four hurricane, devastated Puerto Rico. The disaster left many without shelter, food, power or clean water for months. GivePower intervened, installing solar microgrids and reaching more than 23,000 people. The organization provided individual water purification systems to families without access to clean drinking water and installed solar microgrids. In this effort, the main goals were to restore and encourage more disaster relief, emergency and medical services. Furthermore, the refrigeration of food and medication and the continuation of educational services were paramount in these efforts.
  5. Kenya: Typically, only about 41% of Kenyans have access to clean water for fulfilling basic human needs. Notably, about 9.4 million Kenyans drink directly from contaminated surface water. During 2018, using solar technology in alleviating poverty, GivePower provided electricity to Kenyans living in Kiunga. Moreover, GivePower also increased access to clean water through a large-scale, microgrid water desalination farm. The water farm provides clean water for about 35,000 Kenyans, daily. The organization has also reached the Namunyak Wildlife Conservatory located in Samburu, Kenya. There, GivePower installed solar panels to ensure refrigeration and communications at the conservatory.
  6. Colombia: In 2019, GivePower installed solar microgrids in Colombia to preserve one of the country’s most famous cultural heritage sites. Moreover, the microgrids helped to support research conducted in the area. The grids installed have been able to sustain a 100-acre research field and cold storage units.

Solar Technology Alleviating Poverty: Today and Tomorrow

Renewable, clean and resilient energy has granted many populations the ability to innovate. In this way, other basic, yet vital human needs are met. Using solar technology alone in alleviating poverty has been enough to create water farms that provide clean water to thousands. With water and energy for innovation — agricultural production flourishes. This, in turn, addresses hunger issues while also working toward economic development. Having already touched the lives of more than 400,000 people, GivePower and solar technology present a promising solution in alleviating global poverty.

– Stacy Moses
Photo: Flickr

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4 Poverty Alleviation Schemes in India for Rural Development

Poverty Alleviation Schemes in India
Poverty is a multidimensional concept that encompasses the various deprivations that poor people experience in their daily lives. The first goal of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals is to end poverty in all its forms, everywhere. India has witnessed a decline in poverty through lifting 271 million people out of poverty from 2006 to 2016, according to U.N. reports. The Government of India has launched various poverty alleviation schemes to address poverty in rural areas and to ensure rural development.

4 Poverty Alleviation Schemes in India for Rural Development

  1. National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) was launched in 2011 by the Ministry of Rural Development and aided by the World Bank. NRLM aims to create an efficient and effective system for the rural poor to access financial services. To that end, the objective is to create sustainable opportunities by empowering and enabling the poor to increase their household income. In addition to income-generated assets to the poor — they would also be facilitated to achieve increased access to rights, entitlements and public services, diversified risk and better social indicators of empowerment. The mission aims at harnessing the innate capabilities of the poor and complements them with providing them the capacity to participate in the growing economy of the country. In 2015, the program was renamed to Deendayal Antayodaya Yojana (DAY-NRLM).
  2. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MNREGA). To ensure the security and livelihood of people in rural areas, this act guarantees a minimum of 100 days of wage employment. These measures apply to households whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled, manual work. All districts in India have coverage under MNREGA. Under this scheme, every person has the right to a job. If the state is unable to provide a job within 15 days of application, then the worker receives an entitlement to a daily unemployment allowance. To ensure social inclusion, women gain priority — such that some 33% of the beneficiaries under this scheme are women. Moreover, the robust institutions for grievance redressal and social auditing guarantee accountability and transparency.
  3. Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G). Due to the gaps in the earlier scheme for rural housing, titled Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) — it was restructured in 2016 to PMAY-G. Through this scheme, the government commits to realizing housing for all, by 2022. The aim is to provide solid and permanent housing with all the basic amenities including toilet, LPG connection, electricity connection and drinking water.
  4. Public Distribution System (PDS) aims to manage food scarcity and distributing essential food commodities at affordable prices. The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) launched in June 1997, to allocate food resources to the poor. The primary goal is to distribute essential food commodities like rice, wheat and kerosene at highly subsidized rates to the people living below the poverty line. This poverty alleviation scheme helps in addressing the issue of food insecurity in rural areas of India.

Empower the Rural Poor to Alleviate Poverty

According to the 2019 U.N. Human Development Report, 27.9% of the population in India is multidimensionally poor. With proper implementation of the poverty alleviation schemes, India can reduce poverty by empowering the rural poor with optimal use and management of resources. These schemes focus on targeting the multidimensional deprivations the poor face by providing them with food security, employment, housing and wages. Finally, the driver of these schemes is the objective to create sustainable mechanisms leading to rural development.

– Anandita Bardia
Photo: Wikipedia Commons

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UN Report on Global Unemployment

UN Report on Global Unemployment
Global unemployment plays a key role in global poverty. After all, the logic goes that employment leads to prosperity, even if little by little. Development economists proclaim the efficacy of providing jobs, however low paying, as the means to the end of escaping poverty, regardless of location. There is some evidence for this. According to the Brookings Institute, increasing work rates impacted poverty most, with education being second. With that said, a recent U.N. report on global unemployment clouds the future of international job growth since, for the first time in nearly a decade, the global unemployment rate has risen.

Previous Global Unemployment Rise

In 2008 and 2009, the Great Recession hamstrung the United States economy in the worst way since the Great Depression nearly 70 years prior. Unemployment soared, reaching 13.2 percent nationally and 5.6 percent globally. Between 2008 and 2009, the last time the U.N. reported on global unemployment rate increases, it increased by nearly a full percentage point, according to the World Bank. The stock market crash in the United States and Europe clearly caused this, but thankfully the rate recovered and surpassed the 2009 point in 2019, returning to about 4.9 percent.

Reasons for the Present Situation

A U.N. report on global unemployment in January 2020 indicated that this rise in the global unemployment rate was due largely to trade tensions. The United Nations said that these conflicts could seriously inhibit international efforts to address concerns of poverty in developing countries and shift focus away from efforts to decarbonize the global economy. Due to these strains, the report claims that 473 million people lack adequate job opportunities to accommodate their needs. Of those, some 190 million people are out of work, a rise of more than 2.5 million from last year. In addition, approximately 165 million people found employment, but in an insufficient amount of hours to garner wages to support themselves. These numbers pale in comparison to the 5.7 billion working-age people across the world but they concern economists nonetheless.

To compound the issue, the International Labor Organization said that vulnerable employment is on the rise as well, as people that do have jobs may find themselves out of one in the near future. A 2018 report estimated that nearly 1.4 billion workers lived in the world in 2017, and expected that 35 million more would join them by 2019.

The Implications

A rise in global unemployment, like that which the U.N. report on global unemployment forecasts, assuredly has an impact on global poverty. More people out of work necessarily means more people struggling to make ends meet. The World Economic and Social Outlook places this trend in a bigger context. Labor underutilization, meaning people working fewer hours than they would like or finding it difficult to access paid work, combined with deficits in work and persisting inequalities in labor markets means an overall stagnating global economy, according to the report.

Hope for the Future

First of all, stagnation is not a decline, and a trend of one year to the next does not necessarily indicate a predestined change for the years ahead. In fact, the World Bank points toward statistics that it issued at the end of the year to support the claim that every year, poverty reduces. In 2019, nearly 800 million people overcame extreme poverty from a sample of only 15 countries: Tanzania, Tajikistan, Chad, Republic of Congo, Kyrgyz Republic, China, India, Moldova, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Namibia. Over a 15-year period, roughly from 2000 to 2015, these 15 countries showed the greatest improvements in global poverty, contributing greatly to the reduction of the global rate of people living on $1.90 a day or less to below 10 percent. Additionally, efforts by organizations such as the International Development Association have funded the needs of the 76 poorest countries to the tune of $82 billion, promoting continued economic growth and assisting in making them more resilient to climate shocks and natural disasters.

While the U.N. report on global unemployment forecasts a hindrance to these improvements, hope is far from lost. The fight against global poverty continues with plenty of evidence of success and optimism for the future.

– Alex Myers
Photo: Flickr