G8 seeks new drive to meet 2015 aid goals for poor

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes part in the G8/G20 National Youth Caucus on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, May 17, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Chris Wattie

Reuters) – The Group of Eight industrialized nations plan to invest in better health for mothers and young children in poor nations to meet faltering goals for slashing world poverty by 2015, a draft text for a G8 summit said.

The five-page draft for the June 25-26 summit in Canada, dated March 12, said the “greatest economic crisis in generations” had “jeopardized our ability to meet the 2015 targets” for aiding developing nations set in 2000.

It was unclear how far the text, obtained by Reuters on Monday and including references to progress toward world economic recovery, had changed in recent weeks with shockwaves from a debt crisis in Greece.

“We undertake to champion a new initiative on maternal, newborn and under-five child health,” according to the draft. It left a blank for how much money the eight nations would provide.

“Urgent collective action must be taken to regain lost ground and quicken the pace of progress” toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it said. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sought focus on women and children.

In 2000, world leaders agreed 2015 goals for slashing poverty, hunger, disease, maternal and child deaths, and for improving the environment, education and gender equality.

Among the goals lagging most, more than 500,000 women die every year from causes linked to pregnancy and nearly nine million children die before they reach the age of five, the G8 said.

CLIMATE

The draft also said G8 nations would seek a new legal framework for a U.N.-led deal to combat climate change after a U.N. summit in Copenhagen in December fell short of a treaty.

But the G8 nations — the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada — set no new dates for reaching an accord after Copenhagen overran a 2009 deadline.

In 2010 “we will strive to achieve a fair, effective and comprehensive post-2012 agreement that includes a robust system of emissions reductions monitoring, reporting and verification,” it said.

The G8 reaffirmed a goal set in a non-binding Copenhagen Accord of limiting a rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times.

“Achieving this global climate challenge requires global mitigation action,” it said, but omitted vital details of how the curbs on greenhouse gas emissions would be shared out.

It gave new support to a goal set at a G8 summit in 2008 of launching 20 large-scale demonstration projects for carbon capture and storage — trapping greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, for instance, and burying them underground.

“G8 leaders commit to take concrete actions to accelerate worldwide implementation of these projects and set a new goal to achieve this by 2015,” the statement said.

For Reuters latest environment blogs, click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/

Reference Link
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64U2KB20100531?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100

Courtesy
Thomson Reuters

She is one step away from realising her dream

T.V. Sivanandan

Difficulties didn’t deter this aspiring doctor

AGAINST ALL ODDS:Raheema Begum, daughter of Syed Chaush, a small farmer, had found it hard to pay fees for her PU course.

GULBARGA: Raheema Begum who almost discontinued her studies after her SSLC examination as she did not have Rs. 200 to pay as fees in the Government Pre-University College, is now on the verge of joining the medical course.

Hard work and perseverance paid rich dividends to this girl who against all odds is one step away from achieving her dream of becoming a doctor. In the family of two brothers and three sisters and aged parents, Raheema Begum is one bright spot and her father Syed Chaush, who owns one acre agriculture land, finds it difficult to meet both ends by growing vegetables.

Raheema Begum, who scored 68 per cent in the SSLC examination, could have easily got admission into a reputed college, but she did not have the resources to bear the expenses. She joined the Independent Government Pre University College at Jilanabad in Gulbarga. She almost gave up the idea of joining the Pre-University Course as her father could not provide Rs. 200 to pay the annual fee in the government college at that time.

“But for the timely help by one of my friends, I would not have managed to pay the fees of my daughter,” said Mr. Chaush.

Despite absence of teachers in key subjects she passed the PUC with a percentage of 57 and had given up all hopes of entering professional course. The month-long free coaching offered by the North Eastern Teachers Forum in Gulbarga for students appearing in the Common Entrance Test came as a flicker of hope for the girl. Raheema secured rank 3,230 in the medical stream of the CET has ensured that she would get a merit seat under reservation.

President of the North Eastern Teachers Forum M.B. Ambalagi told The Hindu that the forum would make all efforts to pool funds to pay the fees.

Reference Link: http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/30/stories/2010053050830600.htm

Courtesy : The Hindu

In the service of poor women

Sri Sathya Sai Eswaramma Welfare Trust+

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Sri Sathya Sai Eswaramma Welfare Trust rendering yeoman service

Awareness on nutrition:Members of Eswaramma Women’s Trust at a cooking demonstration.

Anantapur: Sri Sathya Sai Eswaramma Welfare Trust, named after the mother of Sri Sathya Sai Baba and run as a sister concern of the Sathya Sai Trusts, is rendering yeomen services to the poor, needy and pregnant women in the rural Puttaparthy mandal. It is engaged in health education with particular reference to preventive aspects of all women-related ailments, hygiene, economic empowerment of women, nutritional support to mothers and children, pre-natal and post-natal support and also encouraging institutional deliveries among rural women.

The medical teams of the Trust visit villages in Puttaparthy, Bukkapatnam, Kothacheruvu, Nallamada and Gorantla mandals throughmobile health units and offer care and support to pregnant and post-natal women apart from immunising children in the age group of 0 to 5 years. The Eswaramma Trust conducts medical camps every month in 30 odd villages in five mandals.

Inspiration

Chetana, chairperson of the Eswaramma Trust, told The Hindu that her inspiration to serve the poor came from Sri Sathya Sai Baba and her mother Eswaramma who gave to the world a divine personality.

The Trust is also organising ‘cooking demonstrations’ in rural areas to educate women on cooking affordable and nutritious food.

The Trust had been donating cycles to poor students, water filters to families in Amagundapalem, Bukkapatnam and Karnatnagepalle mandals. It also supplies hygienic and nutritious food to the devotees and tourists through its stalls. It is also promoting tailoring among rural women and also extending training in production of children’s napkins and sanitary kits.

Ms. Chetana says that before the Trust launched its activities in 2005, women preferred to deliver babies only at home but due to their education more than 75 percent of women had opted for institutional deliveries resulting in zero mortality rate among them.

Women in villages adopted by the Trust had been trained and rehabilitated in running community kitchens, juice centres and protected drinking water schemes.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/21/stories/2010052158940200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

WHO sees good progress on U.N. health goals for poor

(Reuters) – Far fewer children are dying and rates of malnutrition, HIV and tuberculosis are declining thanks to good progress on health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

In its annual health report for 2010, the U.N. body said some countries had made impressive gains, although others may struggle to meet some of the 2015 targets.

“With five years remaining to the MDG deadline in 2015 there are some striking improvements,” said the report, which is based on data collected from WHO’s 193 member states.

Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Rwanda had made progress on child mortality despite facing difficulties, WHO said.

However the group said global results mask inequalities between countries, and some nations’ progress had been slowed by conflict, poor governance or humanitarian and economic crises.

The Millennium Development Goals were set in 2000 by 189 heads of state seeking to drive global policy to tackle poverty, hunger, ill-health and lack of access to clean water, among other things.

The key findings of WHO’s report were that:

* Fewer children are dying, with annual global deaths of children under five falling to 8.8 million in 2008 – down by 30 percent since 1990;

* The estimated percentage of underweight children under five has dropped from 25 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010;

* The proportion of births attended by a skilled health worker has increased globally, but in the Africa and southeast Asia fewer than 50 percent of all births were attended;

* New HIV infections have declined by 16 percent globally from 2001 to 2008. In 2008, 2.7 million people contracted the human immunodeficiency virus which causes AIDS, and there were 2 million HIV/AIDS-related deaths;

* Existing cases of tuberculosis are declining, along with deaths among HIV-negative tuberculosis cases;

* The world is on track to achieve the MDG target on access to safe drinking water, but more needs to be done to achieve the sanitation target.

The water and sanitation goals call for the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation to be halved by 2015 from levels in 2000.

The WHO report found that the percentage of the world’s population with access to safe drinking water had increased from 77 percent to 87 percent, a rate of improvement it said would hit the MDG target if it keeps up.

“In low-income countries, however, the annual rate of increase needs to double in order to reach the target and a gap persists between urban and rural areas in many countries,” the report said.

On sanitation, the progress was less good: in 2008, 2.6 billion people had no access to a hygienic toilet and 1.1 billion were still defecating in the open, it said.

Poor sewerage can spread dangerous infections such as viral hepatitis and cholera.

The slowest improvement has been in Africa, where the percentage of the population using toilets or latrines increased from 30 percent in 1990 to 34 percent in 2008.

Reference Link
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6494TI20100511?feedType=nl&feedName=ushealth1100

Courtesy
Thomson Reuters.

Foundation gesture to poor

Coimbatore: Kovai City Baithulmal Welfare Foundation organised a free marriage for 25 poor young girls recently. The couple were provided with five sovereigns of gold and all other house hold items essential for starting a newly married life.

The foundation is also planning to provide interest free loan to the poor and needy people and medical aid to those ailing and who could not afford the cost of medical treatment. The foundation is also donating a Rs 5 lakh worth of dialysis machine to the Coimbatore Medical College hospital. For further details 99449-88766 and 93631-03265.

Course conducted

On directions from the Additional Director-General of Police (Prisons), K.R. Shyam Sunder, a course was conducted at the Coimbatore Central Prison to inculcate thoughts about principles of life in a bid to transform the lives.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/27/stories/2010042758750200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Keeping poor Syrian children in school

Mohammad has dropped out of school to earn $4 a day on a building site

Thirteen-year-old Mohammad no longer joins the morning walk to school with the other schoolchildren.

His morning starts at 6am. He is now out earning money for his family. Before the end of his preparatory schooling, he started working in construction workshop, leaving behind a dream of an education and becoming a doctor.

Parents and five children are gathered around the wood burner in the 3m sq room that makes up almost half of their mud-built house.

Kassem Motlak, Mohammed’s 45-year-old father, works for the municipality as a cleaner. He earns around US $220 (£143) a month, and barely manages to feed his family.

“I had to take Mohammad out of school. I can’t pay the expenses any more,” Mr Motlak said bitterly.

Mohammad brings in $3 a day. He is not the only working child in the family.

His elder sister Zainab, 15, also works at a chocolate factory, earning $4. She quit school two years ago.

Legal framework

Education in Syria is free up to the end of preparatory school, for children aged six to 12, and it is compulsory.

CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 96% of school age children are registered at a school, but up to 18% drop out Child labour: 4% of children Child marriage: 13% Youth literacy: Male 95%, female 92% 8.8 million Syrians are under 18 out of a population of about 22 million 17 % of Syrians use the internet

But recent statistics show about 18% of school children drop out. This is double the average for counties in the Middle East and North Africa.

Syria is on the right track in terms of legal framework regarding child rights, labour and banning violence against children according to the UN’s children’s fund, Unicef.

But monitoring implementation of these policies is hard and a lot still needs to be done.

The Syrian government is trying to offer incentives to people to keep their children in school.

The ministry of education have recently started a program, with Unicef, of paying $1 daily for each child kept in school by families in certain deprived areas.

Deprived areas

Laws and programmes to keep children in schools may not be enough to improve children’s rights in Syria. Some argue that society needs to change as well as the educational system.

Some Syrian families cannot send their children to school when they could be earning an income

Unicef is working to provide support for schools, in co-operation with the ministry of education. So far, they have provided support for around 100 schools by providing training for teachers and help upgrading the infrastructure.

Unicef’s chief of mission in Syria Sherazade Boualia says the agency is running a programme to support schools in some of the most deprived areas in the country.

“We are looking at schools through this from a comprehensive perspective – the structure of the school, the way it looks, the sanitation, water, clean classrooms, the quality of teachers themselves,” she says.

Fun learning

In recent years, many civil organisations and non-governmental organisations have been established to try to improve the situation of children in Syria.

Massar is one of them. It is part of a larger NGO project; Syria Trust for Development.

An artist’s impression of what the Discovery Centre will look like in central Damascus

The non-profit project, funded by government grant and private donations, started almost five years ago. It aims to provide alternative, non-traditional, means for children to gain an education and skills.

Masa al-Mufti, a director at Massar, says the programme is designed to reach all Syrian children.

“Massar builds for a long-term development, which aims to foster citizenship and capacity building for children. It introduces a new concept, which is the informal learning, so children will have another space where they can have fun and enjoy while learning,” says Ms Mufti.

‘Effective citizens’

Massar is aiming to build a regional Child Discovery Centre in each of Syria’s 13 administrative divisions – a unique project for Syria.

In the heart of the capital Damascus, Massar is building a cultural centre for children activities in a public park. The building will take the shape of a Damascene Rose and aims, eventually to receive 500,000 visitors a year.

The project is designed to offer students a more engaging experience than traditional education.

It hopes to allow children to be more creative, to stimulate individual thinking and to build team spirit.

“Massar aims to engage children, not only to enhance their skills through education but to enable them to become the agent for change in their community and effective citizens of the future,” says Masa al-Mufti.

Reference Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8631921.stm

Courtesy
BBC News

Poultry development programme to alleviate poverty launched

Birds will be distributed to BPL families

State to provide them veterinary care

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CHENNAI, India: A new poverty alleviation programme to benefit those Below Poverty Line has been launched by the Union Ministry of Agriculture, said P.K. Shukla, Joint Commissioner, Poultry, Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, here on Thursday.

Explaining the programme, Dr. Shukla said under the Rural Backyard Poultry Development Programme endemic birds would be distributed to BPL families. The programme was launched in Bihar, Kerala, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Sikkim in August last year and birds that required minimum care and feed, bred by the Indian Council of Agriculture and State Agriculture Universities, distributed.

The BPL families would get four-week old chicks and the government would also provide them a subsidy of Rs.750 for bird shelters. Each family would get totally 45 birds in three instalments, which would be distributed at a gap of 16 weeks each. The Department had identified 20 endemic birds.

State governments should prepare a project and send a proposal to the Union Agriculture Ministry for implementing the programme. A total of 40,000 beneficiaries would be covered under the programme in the five States. In the 11 {+t} {+h} Five Year Plan the Ministry had fixed the target of beneficiaries to be 3.85 lakh people across the country. Both non-governmental organisations and women self-help groups could participate in the programme for setting up mother units to raise the chicks. For this interest-free loan of Rs.36,000 would be given to them through NABARD. The State government should provide veterinary care for the birds, he said.

More research on breeding, nutrition and health care of alternative poultry was the need of the hour, said N. Daniel Joy Chandran, Registrar, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. G.M. Lingaraju, Scientist ‘C’, Department of Bio-technology, Union Ministry of Science and Technology and R. Prabakaran, Dean, Madras Veterinary College, spoke. The programme was organised by the Centre for Animal Production Studies, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/23/stories/2010042360060500.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Life-saving stoves in Congo

Fuel-efficient stoves could save the lives of displaced women and help the environment in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, aid workers say. Conflict has consigned hundreds of thousands of people to camps. The demand for firewood – to use as cooking fuel – is causing severe deforestation. And as trees are cut down, women venture into more dangerous areas. In a survey conducted in 2008 at the displacement camps, 90% of the women who took part said they had been harassed, raped or experienced violence while collecting firewood. Families typically need 6.8kg (15lb) of wood a day when cooking over an open fire. But daily firewood consumption can be reduced by up to 70% with inexpensive fuel-efficient stoves. The stoves are built using bricks, metal and rocks. If 10,000 families use the stoves daily for a year, 12,775 tonnes of firewood would be saved and the deforestation of more than 600 acres would be avoided, says Mercy Corps. A group of Congolese women has learnt how to make biomass briquettes – a renewable energy source and an environmentally-friendly wood and charcoal substitute – to use with the stoves. The women make them by mixing sawdust and waste with water, shaping them into blocks and then leaving them to dry in the sun. Local materials are used to make the biomass briquettes and they are sold at prices cheaper than charcoal. This provides an income for those who make them while also reducing carbon emissions. Kahindo, who has been threatened with rape while collecting firewood, says the stoves project has improved security for women like herself. And the money she earns making them allows her to buy food for her family. Zabayo Clementine was one of the first to join the project in late 2008. She says the stove means she is safer than before as she has no need to leave the camp. [Pictures by Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps] Reference Link http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8580967.stm Courtesy BBC News

Weaving magic on stage

Talented:Children staging ‘Kogile Gana’ in Gulbarga on Monday.

GULBARGA, India: A drama staged here by schoolchildren from a remote village was yet another pointer to the fact that if children are encouraged, they can weave magic. The drama ‘Kogile Gana’ was staged at S.M. Pandit Rangamandira here on Monday evening.

The children, mostly from poor Dalit families, are students of the Deshi Kendriya Residential School run by Kalyana Karnataka Samskrutika Parishat at Navadgi (B) village in Gulbarga taluk. The drama they staged is based on the famous book The Nightingale by H. Christian Anderson.

Its import

The drama speaks of how one should respect the freedom of others and how greed will ultimately cause harm. The way in which the children sent the message across in their 50-minute show surprised many. There were no hiccups in dialogue delivery or acting.

Short notice

R.K. Hudgi, president of the Gulbarga chapter of Samudaya, a socio-cultural group, told The Hindu that the 22-member drama team from the school was trained to perform in just 20 days by director Shankarayya Ghanti. “That was enough for them to hone their skills,” he added.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/21/stories/2010042150820200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Montek for 35-kg grain a month to the poor

NEW DELHI, India: Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia is pitching for supply of 35 kg of foodgrains every month at Rs. 3 a kg to the poor, up from 25 kg proposed under the new Food Security Act.

“Not unreasonable if it is for the poor”

It is not wrong or unreasonable to increase the quantity. “This will be costlier but if we are doing it for the poor, it will not be unreasonable,” he told journalists on the sidelines of a CII-organised interaction with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner here on Tuesday night.

Mr. Ahluwalia’s remarks came a day after the Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, asked the Commission to provide an exact definition of Below the Poverty Line (BPL) families which are entitled to a specified quantity of rice or wheat every month.

‘Under study’

As for the Suresh Tendulkar Committee report on measuring poverty, he said: “We are examining it. We will certainly prepare an estimate of BPL households on the basis of the Committee report.”

The government, he said, would have to decide which data to use while providing the needy food security: the poverty line fixed in the 2004-05 survey or the one to be obtained from the ongoing survey (2009-10) or from a new census (2011).

“The Tendulkar Committee has suggested some increase in the poverty line for rural areas. I don’t think it is unreasonable.”

The 2004-05 survey put the number of BPL families at 6.5 crore. It would increase to a little over eight crore, if the methodology suggested by the committee was taken in account.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/08/stories/2010040862241000.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu