Some Frank Talk about Haiti

You might be feeling overwhelmed or despondent about Haiti’s plight following the devastating earthquake on Jan 12.  Despite the millions of dollars that are being sent in aid from all over the world including the United States (over $22 million has been raised for the Red Cross by text messages alone), you might wonder if the money will be effectively used, or if it’s even enough to make much of a dent in helping Haiti build a stronger future than the impoverished one it has known for decades.

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof confronts some of these questions as well as some others that you might be afraid to ask, like “Why is Haiti so poor?”  ”Is Haiti hopeless?”  ”Will our billions in aid even help?”

I’ve reposted some of the article below.

Why is Haiti so poor? Is it because Haitians are dimwitted or incapable of getting their act together?

Haiti isn’t impoverished because the devil got his due; it’s impoverished partly because of debts due. France imposed a huge debt that strangled Haiti. And when foreigners weren’t looting Haiti, its own rulers were.

The greatest predation was the deforestation of Haiti, so that only 2 percent of the country is forested today. Some trees have been — and continue to be — cut by local peasants, but many were destroyed either by foreigners or to pay off debts to foreigners. Last year, I drove across the island of Hispaniola, and it was surreal: You traverse what in places is a Haitian moonscape until you reach the border with the Dominican Republic — and jungle.

Without trees, Haiti lost its topsoil through erosion, crippling agriculture.

To visit Haiti is to know that its problem isn’t its people. They are its treasure — smart, industrious and hospitable — and Haitians tend to be successful in the United States (and everywhere but in Haiti).

Read the rest here and don’t buy into the despair and hopelessness.

Haitians, like anyone else in times of trouble, needs compassion, hope and faith.  As one woman in our congregation with relatives in Haiti stated this past week: It’s not important to dwell on why this is happening but rather how God will use this tragedy for glory.  Because He will.

Believe that and please continue to pray and donate for Haiti.

Where in the world: Haiti

Read about Haiti on wikipedia, BBC country profile, BBC updates on the earthquake.

How you can help:
In addition to providing emergency relief, these organizations are providing the following aid to those in need:

Providing Basic Needs: • American Red Cross • CARE • World Vision • UNICEF USA • International Relief Teams • Save the Children • Catholic Relief Services • Samaritan’s Purse • American Jewish World Services • Clinton Foundation • Yéle Haiti • World Concern • Mercy Corps • Operation Blessing International • UN Central Emegergency Response Fund (CERF) • Mercy & Sharing Providing Shelter: • Shelterbox • Habitat for Humanity International

Providing Medical Aid: • Direct Relief International • International Medical Corps • Medical Teams International • Doctors Without Borders • Operation USA • MAP International • The International Committee of the Red Cross • World Health Organization • Americares • Project Medishare Providing Food: • World Food Programme • The Salvation Army • Compassion International • Food for the Poor

Haiti facts:

• Full name: Republic of Haiti
• Population: 10 million (UN, 2009)
• Capital: Port-au-Prince
• Area: 27,750 sq km (10,714 sq miles)
• Major languages: Creole, French
• Major religion: Christianity
• Life expectancy: 59 years (men), 63 years (women) (UN)
• Monetary unit: 1 gourde = 100 centimes
• Main exports: Light manufactures, coffee, oils, mangoes
• GNI per capita: US $660 (World Bank, 2008)
• Internet domain: .ht
• International dialling code: +509

Drought in Somalia and Kenya

Oxfam reported that 23 million people are at risk for starving across East Africa due to drought.  In some areas, it hasn’t rained a drop in years.

Somalia has suffered four years of drought and is now relying exclusively on food aid for survival.

Read the rest of the article here.  Pray.  Donate.  Raise awareness.

from the New York Times

This woman pictured on the cover of the NYT on September 8 died four days after this photograph was taken because she was too weak to take food.  23 million people are in the same crisis.

Update on Savedarfur @ the UN

We recently posted extensively about Savedarfur’s efforts to raise awareness for peace in Darfur at President Obama’s first address to the UN General Assembly.

It’s been a few weeks since the address, and we want to give you an update.

from Mark Lotwis, Senior Director of Campaign Advocacy:

The best way I can thank you is to share a few moments when it really hit home to me that our message was being heard…

The first was during our street actions in New York when we delivered your 45,383 petition signatures to Special Envoy to Sudan General Scott Gration. In the short program before the Darfur/Darfur exhibit began, General Gration told the crowd:

“And this letter that I’ve got from you all is very important. I’ll make sure that the President gets this, and that he understands the concern that America has to solve this problem in a very expeditious way; a concern that we’ll see in these pictures… What you’re doing is so important to bring the visibility and the pressures to bear, so that we can take the appropriate actions in Darfur to make a difference in the lives of people who deserve this and a lot more.”

—Special Envoy to Sudan General Scott Gration

The second moment happened the next day when we heard President Obama address Darfur and Sudan during his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, stating:

“That is why we will strengthen our support for effective peacekeeping, while energizing our efforts to prevent conflicts before they take hold. We will pursue a lasting peace in Sudan through support for the people of Darfur, and the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, so that we secure the peace that the Sudanese people deserve.”

—President Barack Obama to the UN General Assembly

Only one day later President Obama drove by our street team in Pittsburgh—and waved at our activists holding signs reminding him that if he could read this, he could save lives in Sudan.

He read that sign. Thanks to you, we were able to remind President Obama and other world leaders via signs, TV ads, print and billboard ads that they can all save lives in Sudan.

We were also able to hold a live webcast policy briefing on “Sudan and the G20: what the world’s richest countries can do.”

It’s your persistence and dedication to the people of Sudan that has made all this possible through our “Don’t Forget Darfur” campaign. We couldn’t have made any of this progress without you.

Check out what you accomplished during our United Nations and G20 “Don’t Forget Darfur” campaign by taking a few minutes to see our TV and print ads, policy briefing, photos of our street actions, and our new “Don’t Forget Darfur” video on YouTube.

The Daughter Deficit

Have you heard?  Millions of girls are missing in the world.  Due to abortions, neglect after birth or infanticide, fewer girls are being born and reaching the age of five than their male counterparts.

Why?

In parts of the world where boys are culturally valued above girls, parents are choosing to invest in their male children rather than their female children.  Boys are seen as a kind of social security– able to provide for parents in their old age, able to inherit property, and confer social status as they age and (hopefully) prosper.  Even in countries where women are able to inherit land, many are pressured or even murdered when they try to claim what’s theirs.

In India and China, 1.5 million fewer girls are born each year than demographics would predict, and more girls die before they turn 5 than would be expected.  More grow up physically and intellectually stunted because they are denied access to healthcare and education that their brothers are allowed.

To make matters worse, studies have shown that development in some countries seems to raise the probability that a mother will favor boys over girls:

Among policymakers, the conventional wisdom is that such selective brutality toward girls can be mitigated by two factors. One is development: surely the wealthier the home, the more educated the parents, the more plugged in to the modern economy, the more a family will invest in its girls. The other is focusing aid on women. The idea is that a mother who has more money, knowledge and authority in the family will direct her resources toward all her children’s health and education. She will fight for her girls.

Yet these strategies — though invaluable — underestimate the complexity of the situation in certain countries. To be sure, China and India are poor. But in both nations, girls are actually more likely to be missing in richer areas than in poorer ones, and in cities than in rural areas. Having more money, a better education and (in India) belonging to a higher caste all raise the probability that a family will discriminate against its daughters. The bias against girls applies in some of the wealthiest and best-educated nations in the world, including, in recent years, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. It also holds among Indian immigrants in Britain and among Chinese, Indian and South Korean immigrants in the United States. In the last few years, the percentage of missing girls has been among the highest in the middle-income, high-education nations of the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Sadly, it seems that in some parts of South Asia, “When women’s power is increased, they use it to favor boys.”

What can be done?

To be sure, development can eventually lead to more equal treatment for girls: South Korea’s birth ratios are now approaching normality. But policymakers need to realize that this type of development works slowly and mainly indirectly, by softening a son-centered culture. The solution is not to abandon development or to stop providing, say, microcredit to women. But these efforts should be joined by an awareness of the unintended consequences of development and by efforts, aimed at parents, to weaken the cultural preference for sons.

Read the rest of the article here.  In the meantime, love love love your girls.

photo credit

Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution…

…to ease poverty and extremism, as it turns out, among other issues.

Back in August, the New York Times featured a very enlightening article on the evolving roles of women in countries where women and girls have traditionally been oppressed and excluded from important decision-making roles in their families’ finances, health, and education.

We’ll quote the article to give you a taste:

In the 19th Century, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’sJoint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.

You’ll want to read the rest of the article to find out how certain microfinancing tactics (lending tiny amounts of money– as small as two dollars–to women to help them start businesses such as embroidering or making jewelry) are making a huge impact in women’s ability to provide for their families, with the result that their children are able to receive critical vaccines and attend school.  You’ll also hear some very strong opinions– strong medicine– about changes we need to start seeing in the world in order to more effectively, more quickly eradicate poverty.

For instance:

Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children (2 percent). If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.

In Ivory Coast, one research project examined the different crops that men and women grow for their private kitties: men grow coffee, cocoa and pineapple, and women grow plantains, bananas, coconuts and vegetables. Some years the “men’s crops” have good harvests and the men are flush with cash, and other years it is the women who prosper. Money is to some extent shared. But even so, the economist Esther Duflo of M.I.T. found that when the men’s crops flourish, the household spends more money on alcohol and tobacco. When the women have a good crop, the households spend more money on food. “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves,” Duflo says.

Such research has concrete implications: for example, donor countries should nudge poor countries to adjust their laws so that when a man dies, his property is passed on to his widow rather than to his brothers. Governments should make it easy for women to hold property and bank accounts — 1 percent of the world’s landowners are women — and they should make it much easier for microfinance institutions to start banks so that women can save money.

Reporters for the story, husband and wife Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, have written a book from their research called Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, which we hope to review on this blog soon.

In the meantime, read the article.  This is fifteen or twenty minutes very well spent.

STAND UP: October 16-18

Following up on some of the UN campaigns to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, we want to bring attention to the STAND UP TAKE ACTION campaign happening this October 16-18.

Last year over 116 million people participated in events all over the world to to demand that world leaders end poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  This movement set and broke the Guinness World Record for the largest mobilization around a single cause in recorded history.  (Yay!)

With the global financial crisis having a devastating impact on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, it is even more important to focus attention on the goals promised by world leaders.

It may be too late to organize your own event (or it may not!) but we wanted to bring awareness to the events that are happening in our area and around the world (link goes to world map of events).

For example:

• Oct 16: The Hillsdale Effect, a microloan club at Hillsdale High School, working together with NamasteDirect and San Mateo Rotary, plans to have the entire school stand up against poverty.  Participating goal= 1200.
• Oct 16: 2000 City College of New York students will stand up at the North Academic Center and Stand Up Against Poverty.
• Oct 16: Marymount School (NYC) will host a presentation of a student video entitled “Agents of Change” and create symbolic stand up rings in Central Park.
• Oct 16, 5:30-6:30pm: Wagner International Students Society (WISS) in association with Wagner Student Alliance For Africa (WSAFA) of New York University (NYU) will Stand Up in support of the United Nations and the end of poverty. Photos and interviews will be taken to document the occasion, and they will be sent to the UN for displaying alongside other campaigns around the world.  You can join them by RSVP-ing here.

If you want to Stand Up, you can RSVP to the NYU event or inquire about other events in the area.  STAND UP 2009 is only 17 days away, but STAND UP 2010 is a year and 17 days away.  Plenty of time to plan your very own STAND UP.

Hear and read amazing STAND UP stories here.  Watch the video below for images from past STAND UP events.

Eyes on Darfur

from savedarfur.org:

The U.N. General Assembly has begun and through our “Don’t Forget Darfur” campaign, you are putting the people of Sudan front and center.

But if we want to help head off Sudan’s current slide back into violence, we have to keep our momentum going—before the world looks away.

Raising $125,000 by the end of our fiscal year on September 30 will launch new programs we know can promote peace in Sudan. Will you help?

Make a donation to support this critical work now. When you give $50 or more, we’ll send you the inspiring book of essays, Dedicated to the People of Darfur.

Time is precious. Right now, escalating violence in South Sudan threatens to reignite the brutal North/South civil war that ended in 2005. If our leaders do nothing to prevent war, the violence will almost certainly destabilize all of Sudan, including Darfur.

But if you donate today, we’ll be able to promote peace in Sudan by:

• Demanding political action in high-level meetings. With the support of activists like you, we have been able to get high-level meetings with Congress, the Obama administration, the UN, and foreign governments to ensure that they make peace in Sudan a priority.
• Maintaining stability and supplies in the camps. We’ll keep working with Congress to make sure the millions of Sudanese people still living in displacement camps have adequate funding for humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and civilian policing support, and diplomatic efforts to resolve the underlying crisis.
  
• Ending escalating violence against women by supporting the international 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence starting in November. The campaign will promote women’s economic empowerment and create a speaker’s bureau to raise awareness of this growing problem.
  
• Launching Moved by Faith: A Call for Peace with the Sudan Interfaith Working Group. Already, thousands of religious leaders have signed a peace letter to President Obama calling on him to exercise moral leadership and outlining a path for future action. The letter will be delivered to the White House on October 2.

Don’t Forget Darfur

President Obama will be delivering his first address to the UN General Assembly this Wednesday, September 23.

World leaders will be discussing humanity’s most pressing issues.  But will they make peace in Sudan a priority?

The Save Darfur Coalition is inspiring action, raising awareness and speaking truth to power on behalf of the people of Darfur.  You can add your voice to end genocide by signing the petition (text below).

Petition to President Obama

Subject: Don’t Forget Darfur

Your leadership today is critical to resolving the crisis in Darfur and building a better tomorrow for civilians throughout Sudan. Helping to bring peace to Sudan is not something the U.S. can accomplish alone. U.S. leadership must play a central role in galvanizing the peacemakers in Sudan and the international community to finally solve Sudan’s recurrent crises.

The upcoming session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York and meeting of the G-20 nations in Pittsburgh offer two ideal opportunities to lend the weight of your personal engagement to your policy plan for Sudan.

During the UN General Assembly, I therefore call on you to:

- Include a section on Darfur and Sudan in your speech to the General Assembly

- Raise Darfur and Sudan during any head of state session of the Security Council

- Bring up Darfur and Sudan in bilateral meetings with key heads of state

During the G-20 meeting, I likewise call on you to:

- Raise Darfur and Sudan in talks with key heads of state

- Condition a debt forgiveness package for Sudan directly on progress in Darfur and full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

There are no easy fixes for Sudan, and real progress will likely take time. But the wait for peace will be shorter and the lives lost will be fewer with your robust personal engagement. Thank you for your commitment to bringing peace to Sudan. I look forward to your leadership at this critical time.

Listen to an update on the Coalition’s work from its president, Jerry Fowler, below.

End Poverty 2015

We promised a follow-up post about the UN Millennium Development Goals and now you’ve got it.  Are you ready for it?  There’s a lot here.

Some background…

In September 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations conferences and summits, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets – with a deadline of 2015 – that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

1. End Poverty and Hunger
2. Universal Education
3. Gender Equality
4. Child Health
5. Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS
7. Environmental Sustainability
8. Global Partnership

Progress

Want to know how we’re doing so far?  You can read annual progress reports from 2005 to 2008 here.

Take action

The UN proposes the following ways YOU can get involved.

• Millennium Campaign
• Stand Up Against Poverty
• UN Works
• Global Call for Action Against Poverty
• Civil Society Action
• Millennium Promise

Overwhelmed?  Us too.  We’ll be doing (yet more) follow up posts on each of the above ways you can get involved in the End Poverty 2015 campaign.

In the meantime, you have a lot of clicking and reading to do.  Get to it!