Posts Tagged ‘Health’

When Paying Less Attention To AIDS Is A Good Thing…

Monday, November 9th, 2009

A heated debate is under way over how money should be allocated to fight illnesses that affect young children in developing countries. While much headway has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, children continue to perish from simple dehydration.

  • The U.S. is receiving increased scrutiny from UNICEF and other humanitarian organizations about the percentage of foreign aid that goes to fighting childhood AIDS as opposed to other diseases that afflict children in the developing world.
  • President Obama has promised to put more emphasis on child and maternal health but has simultaneously committed to increase money given to fight AIDS.
  • Leaders in the movement to fight AIDS in Africa, such as Jeffrey Sachs, suggest that other Western nations focus on different global health priorities, since the U.S. is spending so much on AIDS specifically.

Facts & Figures

  • Diarrhea kills 1.5 million children a year in developing nations – more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.
  • Oral rehydration salts cost literally pennies, but only 4 in 10 children suffering from dehydration in developing countries receive this simple treatment.
  • In Africa’s two most populous nations, Nigeria and Ethiopia, 540,000 children under the age of 5 died of pneumonia and diarrhea in 2007, which is more than twice the total number of people who died of AIDS.

Best Quote:

“AIDS is still underfunded, no question. But maternal, newborn and child mortality is tremendous tragedy and gets peanuts.” – Jeremy Shiffman, Political Scientist at Syracuse University

Aren’t health and a clean environment human rights?

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Deciding which causes you want to support – with time or money – can be confusing. If you give to just one cause, you might feel like you’re neglecting something else you care about, and it seems like some of the categories overlap anyway. Aren’t health and a clean environment human rights? It depends on who you ask. Even defining exactly what it means to be or have a human right isn’t simple.

The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human rights and other major documents have listed health and a clean environment as “human rights,” but what might be more relevant for you as a budding philanthropist to realize is that giving to an organization with a specific mission can have a broad impact. Many microfinance and poverty causes aim to help their constituents develop sustainable livelihoods – which has environmental and health implications as well financial ones. Helping to preserve and restore local environments can have major health and economic benefits as well. All of these things make people better able to live happy, meaningful lives, which is the true spirit of human rights.

The point is to find a cause that excites you and in which you will enjoy becoming involved, whether by giving money or time. The impact you make might be far wider-reaching than you think.