This information peaked my interest, as I have written extensively about diseases that plague third-world countries, and how important it is to educate the population in order to combat furthering of the disease. Education is especially important as it pertains to AIDS. If people could understand the way the disease works and is transmitted, it would help healthcare workers immensely. Swaziland is governed by a tyrannical king, who has attempted to stop the epidemic by suggesting condoms while having sexual intercourse. While condoms can help in a sense with keeping people from contracting AIDS, they are not an end-all. AIDS can be transmitted through ANY body fluid, as well as from mother to embryo. Instead of fully addressing the problem, and trying to reach out to his people and educate them in everything pertaining to AIDS, the king took a shortcut and proposed a feeble solution.

I was heartbroken as my friend was telling me about this, and I asked her if she had been around any government-sponsored healthcare professionals who were trying to educate people, or if she had seen any hospitals while she was there. She told me that some government-sponsored volunteers (primarily Americans) would reach out to village elders to try to educate them about AIDS, because Swaziland is essentially missing a generation (people in their 20s-30s). They have found it difficult to communicate with the young generation (1-20) because they are so ill-equipped to handle the information. As far as hospitals, the ones run by the Swazi people are frightful places. Dusty, unsanitary, and many times inhumane. My friend said that very sick children would sometimes be left by themselves all day, without getting fed or played with, ultimately neglected until Americans came to the hospital and interacted with them. This is a stunning development, one which frankly shocked me.

I was so horrified by everything she told me, that I asked her what the number one way I could help was. She said that what the Swazi people really need are volunteers willing to come to the country, get plugged in with an organization, and start reaching as many people as they could. This could be healthcare workers, general volunteers, or even people serving as missionaries. Swaziland is a dying country, and unfortunately not many people seem to care. This is a real way that you can help do something that could potentially save hundreds of lives – going to Swaziland and helping to educate the people, as well as providing for their material needs.

Jenny Combs

Team 2: Servant Scholars

Grade 12

Alabaster, AL

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Post tags: AIDS, awareness, Education, Health & Medicine, Service Scholars

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Her flagship organization is called the Barefoot Foundation. Here is the mission statement: “Education is the key to a better world for everyone, not just underprivileged children. Education is not just books and facts; it is also social and emotional growth. We help children exercise their basic right to an education, paving the way for their growth in society.” The name of the foundation is a double entendre – it both symbolizes the poverty the children who live in Colombia endure as well as being the name of Shakira’s album which made her famous.

The Barefoot Foundation hosts six schools in the Colombian cities of Barranquilla, Quibdo, and Altos de Cazuca. Around 5,000 Colombian children receive food, an education, and counseling services for themselves and their families from the Barefoot Foundation.

I have written in other articles about the worldwide epidemic of illiteracy, and its role in the vicious cycle of extreme poverty in countries such as Africa and Colombia. Shakira and her organization work not only directly with affected people but also with government officials, raising awareness about education issues as well as developing a Global Education Fund, which they hope to use to try to eradicate lack of education worldwide. The Barefoot Foundation works closely with donors and other non-profits to reach their yearly funding goal, which is 10 billion dollars.

It’s possible to work with the Barefoot Foundation and Shakira through several means. One possible way is to sponsor a Colombian child through the organization – $30 a month will go directly toward school books and clothes, food, and tutoring services. If you choose to sponsor a child, the Barefoot Foundation will send you a picture of the child along with a letter containing the child’s life story. Here’s the link if you decide that’s something you’d like to do: http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/barefoot-fundation/pages/howhelp/howhelp_sponsor_child_en.php

Donations are always accepted by the organization. You can donate directly online. $25 will actually pay for a child’s school supplies for a school year! Also, the Barefoot Foundation can always use furniture, books, and computers among other things for their schools. If any of that sounds like something you might be interested in, here’s the link: http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/barefoot-fundation/pages/howhelp/howhelp_donate_en.php

Lastly, the organization can always use volunteers to work hands-on in one of the three cities where the schools are located. If traveling to Colombia sounds like something you would love to participate in, check out the following link: http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/barefoot-fundation/pages/howhelp/howhelp_volunteer_en.php

Shakira’s story has given me hope that not all pop stars and celebrities consider themselves above the world they inhabit. She is a great example of someone who uses her influence to make a big difference in the world she knows.

Sources: http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/barefoot-fundation/index_en.php

Jenny Combs

Team 2: Servant Scholars

Grade 12

Alabaster, AL

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Right now, the Project is targeting Africa specifically because it has over 300 million people trying to survive on less than one dollar a day. It’s a tough cycle to break, especially in Africa, because of the high rates of disease, expensive transportation costs, and geographically challenging terrain. Rural communities become stuck in a vicious cycle, unable to begin to self-sustain themselves economically. Women have a 1/16 chance of dying in childbirth. Children die of malaria every second. Many children do not get the education they need to break the cycle and begin to earn money for themselves.

The Millennium Project has a long journey ahead of it. They have Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which they hope to implement by 2015 to “reduce extreme poverty and hunger by half and improve education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability.” They plan to reach their goals through community activism – they tailor directly to about 80 villages in rural Africa, designing specific plans of action for economic growth which will help them to meet the MDGs. The Millennium Villages Project gives villages important technological improvements like medicines and building materials which they hope will decrease mortality rates and create better environments for children to get an education. The Project won’t stop in 2015, however. The Project has built a solid relationship with government officials in the various villages, and hopes to continue the partnership for years to come in order to eradicate extreme poverty for good.

This organization does something crucial, and that is to train community health workers. These people haven’t been to nursing school, or to medical school, but they are taught the basics of health care in order to make rounds in the villages in order to decrease mortality rates. They have a year of training, but that year is proven to help workers save hundreds of lives. Many of the female community health workers have important tasks like attending to pregnant women during labor, encouraging women to have their babies in a hospital, tending the sick who cannot travel to a clinic, and following up on the sick they have already treated. It might not seem like much, but it has been proven time and again to substantially change the norm, and help break the vicious cycle of extreme poverty.

I believe in this Project. I hope one day that I might be able to travel overseas as a doctor, and treat those whom others have deemed untreatable. I highly advise donating to this organization – they have been harbingers of economic growth and sustainable change to the extreme poverty-stricken. Check out this website to donate, or even donate in honor of a loved one: https://secure2.convio.net/mp/site/Donation2?df_id=1800&1800.donation=form1&CFID=1708716&CFTOKEN=90066635 

Sources:

09/08 edition of Time magazine

http://millenniumvillages.org/about/

Jenny Combs

Team 2: Servant Scholars

Grade 11

Alabaster, AL

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The school system itself is faulty. Children normally don’t even go to school, if they even do, until about age 10. Because women are considered to be property used for bargaining in marriage, girls aren’t educated at all. There are massive other factors as well, such as disease, economic issues, malnutrition, and war, which I’m not factoring into the equation. Even though there is a negligible enrollment fee in the public schools, poor parents are still expected to pay for their child’s school supplies and uniforms. Schools themselves are underfunded by the government, with teachers making a maximum of 100 US dollars a month. They also don’t have enough money for textbooks, so students have to share them among themselves.

This creates a vicious cycle – children have to be educated to hold decent jobs to pay for their kids to go to school. But more and more, children aren’t going to school, and thus creating generations of illiterate, uneducated kids. Uganda is supposedly trying to help out with this growing crisis, by creating government incentive programs to help girls be able to get an education and children of poorer families be able to afford one. Under President Museveni, Universal Primary Education was started, which eliminates tuition, although not the cost of books or supplies. This has increased the literacy level somewhat, but not enough to make a big difference. It actually creates bigger problems.

Now that education is more affordable, enrollment has gone through the roof. More children means having to include more funding, which is not possible. Teachers are overloaded with the work of having to teach hundreds of students at a time. Sometimes classes are held wherever possible, like outside instead of in a building. While the program seems great, illiteracy may actually increase because of the poor level of education a student gets. Even if a student completes primary education, secondary education is more than likely not an option because of the expense. More jobs may be open to a student, but better, more well-paying jobs could be open to a student if they held a college degree.

Perhaps if the Ugandan government, in partnership with wealthy private investors, made decreasing literacy first priority, more children could be educated (educated well) and could hold better jobs, thus increasing their economic status and making them a country of the modern era, instead of a “Third World country.”

Sources: http://livinginafrica.blogspot.com/2004/07/illiteracy-is-africas-most-virulent.html

http://www.kharigude.co.za/index.php/literacy-in-south-africa

Jenny Combs

Team 2: Servant Scholars                                                               

Alabaster, AL

Grade 11

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While we were there, I began to notice a rather disheartening trend. While there were obviously street vendors, a majority of them were children. I could stand in the street and have many come up to me, selling anything from carpets, to small toys, to expensive perfume. They were dressed shabbily, their hair unkempt and faces dirty. As with others on the trip, I felt terrible when I couldn’t buy anything from them, and after telling them no, they would continue walking around the streets, begging people to look down and notice them – to buy anything.

When I came home, I didn’t think much about this aspect of my trip until I saw a movie called “Cairo Time,” in which is displayed some aspects of street children in Egypt. The children on screen looked frighteningly like the young children I had seen in Turkey. So I did some research and was dumbfounded by what I discovered.

Yusuf Kulca is the president of the Umut (“hope”) Children’s Association, which tries to bring the staggering numbers of street children into safehouses until they can be reintegrated into society and an educational system. But he alone, even with the help of his organization, cannot solve the growing problem. It is estimated that about 4 million of 28 million children are working the streets every day. The numbers might be even higher, and are growing due to population booms and migrations into big city areas, such as Istanbul.

There are big concerns about the street children problem, and not only humanitarian ones. The fact that many are not getting educated leads to higher crime. Even though many of the children have the best of intentions, such as bringing in more money for their families, if they pursued education from the nation’s schools and universities, they could be paid more than they were and would also be valued members of society. Instead, they are working in dirty and unsafe conditions – many children are kidnapped, murdered, and abused due to their vulnerability in the streets.

Several organizations, including the Solid Waste Recycling Project and Mersin Street Children Association, are working hard to get children off the street and into school. They use environment-friendly methods, such as recycling, to earn money for their organizations. Their attempts have been successful, and have reported children that have gone through their programs have become valued members of society with well-paying jobs. But these organizations can’t do it by themselves. They need partnership from the Turkish government to truly eradicate the problem.

Sources:

http://streetkidnews.blogsome.com/category/1/europe-streetkid-news/turkey-streetkid-news/

http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Turkey.htm

Jenny Combs

Team Evss 2

Alabaster, AL

Grade 11

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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) currently has a program enlisting both male and female “culture changers”- people in rural Egyptian communities who have social influence – to give communities and specific families information about the health and safety risks of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation). They have already started to be successful, not only on a practical level but on a psychological and emotional one as well. They tell families that circumcision is not necessary and can bring with it numerous physical complications for young girls. To sway them, USAID employees bring along photos of actual procedures to show families what they are opening their young women up to. They also try to reach them from a cultural/sociological standpoint as well – they reassure them that circumcision is not necessary to keep girls pure – fighting the “lusts of the flesh,” as Paul says, can be done in the mind, not regulated by bodily mutilation.

These USAID attempts appear to be the most successful. When human rights groups and feminists try to enact social change, African women get very offended, viewing Westerners as condescending and disparaging about their cultural norms. They see them as hypocrites – even though they are told female circumcision is unnecessary, they view women having plastic surgery as unnecessary as well. The way that USAID changes the culture from the inside out is more effective than, as one Somalian said, Westerners coming to them and ordering them to change their social practice.

The best way to enact social change is by doing it, well, socially. Several ways are by informing communities through workers such as USAID has, putting together alternative ways of ushering girls into womanhood (such as parties instead of circumcision), and having dramatizations for men, showing them what they are subjecting their female family members to.

Legal attempts have failed miserably in the past, and have only increased the amount of girls getting circumcised. Currently, the numbers of women still being circumcised are bleak. The way to enact substantial culture change is by teaching communities about the value of women to culture, so that men don’t seem them as property to be bartered. Statistics show that if women are educated, they are many times less likely to be circumcised, and their children are even less likely to be circumcised as well. Women are so dependent on men in many cultures that they see circumcision as their duty – a way to show their loyalty and willingness to be dutiful wives and mothers. But the cost is great to them – a life filled with horrifying pain and health complications await them.

Female circumcision is taboo – it is hard to think about, and even harder to do something about. The practice has been engrained in many cultures for centuries. But women and girls the world over deserve so much better. They deserve a chance at a normal life with a healthy body. Help spread the word.

Sources:

http://www.usaid.gov/stories/egypt/ss_egy_cutting.html

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2313097.html

Jenny Combs

Team2: Servant Scholars

Grade 11

Alabaster, AL

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The most prevalent form of human rights abuse in Burma today is forced labour, including military forced labour (such as portering military supplies, standing sentry, building and maintaining Army camps, and going as human minesweepers), infrastructure forced labour (building and maintaining military supply roads, railways, hydro dams, etc.), forced labour growing cash crops and logging for the military, and many other kinds of labour. There is a common misconception that portering and other military forced labour only occurs in conflict areas, but in reality portering happens in rural areas nationwide wherever there are no roads, and military camp labour occurs everywhere, as SLORC (State Law & Order Restoration Council) continues to send more battalions into every part of the country to control the population.

Children are used for many kinds of forced labour by the Army. Usually as soon as a child is large enough to carry a basket or break a rock, he or she must go for labour with the adults. The youngest children taken for road and railway building are usually aged 8 or 10, while the youngest taken for heavy portering duties are usually 12-year-old boys and 14-year-old girls. As one 17-year-old girl recently said that she’s had to go since 5 years ago, when she was 12 years old. She and others had to go anytime their boss ordered, because if they didn’t their boss would come and catch them. As she grew older they noticed, so the boss gave her heavier and heavier-loads. She’s carried weapons, bullets, 5 big shells….Conditions for porters are brutal, including forced marches over mountainswith heavy loads, given only handfuls of rice per day or forced to bring their own food, being beaten for going too slowly and left to die if they get sick or weak. The smaller children are generally given lighter loads, but they are still sometimes beaten and they are also sent in front of the military column with the others as human minesweepers and shields. In one typical case in January 1995, Naw Sah Mu, a 15-year-old girl from Papun District in Karen State, stepped on a landmine while portering and had her right leg blown off, while her 16-year-old girlfriend Zaw Zaw Oo was hit in the face by the shrapnel and blinded. Many children die after they get back home from diseases contracted while portering combined with exhaustion.

SLORC battalions generally prefer male porters because they can carry heavier loads, but some battalions deliberately demand or capture women porters in order to rape them at night. SLORC soldiers generally select young unmarried girls under 18 for rape. We have interviewed 15-year-old girls who have been taken as porters, forced to carry 15-20 kg. loads all day and then raped at gunpoint by one or more soldiers every night for a whole month. On returning home, some discover they are pregnant and attempt to abort using primitive methods, sometimes dying in the process. The girls fear that if the village learns that she has been raped, no one will want to marry her.

Women and men with small infants also have to go as porters. In some cases, a woman can be seen carrying a baby on her chest and a heavy load of mortar shells on her back. In other cases, the soldiers order her to leave the infant behind in the village, where she must hope the other villagers will take care of it. Many of these infants are still breastfeeding.

Women with infants must also go for rotating shifts (usually 3 to 7 days) building and maintaining Army camps, cooking, cleaning and doing errands for the soldiers, and standing sentry. These labour assignments are rotated by family, so if a family’s turn comes and there are no able-bodied adults, a child must go. Young girls who go are often raped by soldiers at the camp. In conflict areas, able-bodied men are often afraid to go because the soldiers often accuse able-bodied men of being rebels and torture or execute them, so a woman or child is sent instead. Along military supply roads in conflict areas, women and children are often ordered out every morning to sweep the road to expose any vehicle landmines. Sometimes the soldiers will then force a large number of children to climb on board an Army truck or bullock cart and pass slowly along the road (the soldiers know that the villagers support opposition groups, so they hope that the villagers will then tell the opposition not to lay any mines in fear for their children).

Forced labour on roads, railways and other infrastructure is becoming ever more prevalent as SLORC pushes its “development” agenda. On these projects, SLORC usually sends written orders to villages demanding a quota of one or more labourers per household for shifts of one or two weeks; usually a family’s turn will occur once per month on each project in their area (this is in addition to all other forced labour as porters and at army camps). Theyreceive no pay and have to take all their own food and tools. Children often go because their parents must stay home to work the fields and get food for the family. No excuses are accepted; even if the parents are sick or if the household consists of a grandmother caring for her orphaned grandchild, someone must go or a replacement must be hired. On many projects, the Army assigns each village or family a specific work quota each time rather than a time period, so parents take along their children in order to finish the work assignment as quickly as possible so they can return home. On major projects such as the Ye-Tavoy railway line in southern Burma, families must send someone for 2-week shifts every month, and children as young as 8 or 10 make up a large part of the labour force – particularly in rainy season, because then the parents must work in the ricefields. Rainy season is also when railway labour is the most brutal, and mud embankments collapse killing the workers. (to be continued…)

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Of the 52 million children in Myanmar (Burma), 40% are children and young people. Many don’t have access to medical care or enough to eat. One child in ten dies before reaching their fifth birthday and half the country’s children fail to complete their schooling. 400,000 people are affected by Cyclone Giri, which struck Myanmar on 22 November 2010 – two years after Cylone Nargis devastatedthe country, killing more than 130,000 people, half of whom were children.

But the worst problems facing Burma’s children today is the Burmese army is forcibly recruiting children to cover gaps left by a lack of adult recruits. In Burma the Tatmadaw (Army) exercises absolute power of life and death over every civilian, including children. Soldiers act with complete impunity, particularly in rural areas, and are not answerable to any laws which exist on paper in Rangoon. Children are often shot on sight in free-fire zones, tortured or executed as “suspected rebels”, used for forced labour, forcibly conscripted into the Army and otherwise subject to direct abuse. They also suffer from the destruction of the village environment and the economy under SLORC (State Law & Order Restoration Council) policies, which are leading to widespread malnutrition and the death of children, the lack of educational opportunities, and other factors which rob them of a childhood.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says children as young as 10 are beaten or threatened with arrest to make them enlist. Both the army and ethnic rebels have been accused of using children before. But the timing of this report is particularly damaging for the military, which is already under pressure after a crackdown on anti-government protests. The military insists it is opposed to the use of child soldiers, but HRW says the abuses were extensive and systemic. It said it had published the report to try to urge the United Nations Security Council to tackle the issue…(to be continue)

Sources: Wikipedia and BBC

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Paper cutting is one of the traditional art forms in China. In order to continue and develop this art, as well as to help some poor farmers and unemployed people supplement their income and improve their living standards, Shanxi Evergreen Service developed a new paper cutting project.

These beautiful cards were individually hand cut. We incorporate high quality imported paper with the art of Chinese paper cutting to produce greeting cards for sale at home and abroad. All profit from these cards will be used to assist low income families in urban and rural areas through Evergreen’s scholarship and community center programs.

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