Posts Tagged ‘Poverty’

Obama Disappointed By Funding For Poverty Project

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Obama needs a hefty sum to implement his project, Promise Neighborhoods, and the senate and the house are reluctant to pay up.

  • It seems unlikely that President Obama will receive the full amount of funding he requested from next year’s budget for Promise Neighborhoods – a program that helps nonprofits set up anti poverty projects.
  • This year, only $10 million was delegated to the cause, however because the program was largely in the planning stages, it was sufficient to cover costs.
  • In order to implement the program over the next five years, a large increase in funds is required, an increase that the Senate and House appropriations committees will not dole out.

Facts & Figures

  • The Obama administration requested $210 million for the project.
  • The Senate allocated only $20 million to the cause.

Best Quote:

“Every significant policy decision made by the Department on Promise Neighborhoods has been made behind closed doors, with little or no public knowledge or input,” – Paul Lester, Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Promise Neighborhoods.

Founder of charity: water Explains What Happened

Friday, July 30th, 2010

scott-harrison.jpg Scott Harrison spent 10 years promoting chic events in New York City, but the lifestyle left him feeling selfish and empty. So he did what any late-night party type would do: he founded an innovative organization that provides clean water to communities in developing nations throughout the world. 1 billion people lack clean water to drink. But so far, charity: water has funded more than 2,500 water projects in 16 developing nations. Those projects will provide over 1,100,000 people with clean, safe drinking water. That’s cooler than any party we’ve ever been to.

TILE: Why should young people care about clean water?
Scott: Most of us never have to think about where our water comes from. We take it for granted, that we can turn on the faucet and it’s there. But right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us. It’s a big problem – but there are simple solutions that can help change it.

It’s really up to all of us, all ages, to help. But I think there’s a unique connection with young people. 4,500 kids a day die from water-related illnesses. And half the world’s schools don’t have clean water or sanitation. When we tell kids this, they’re devastated. We’ve had kids raise tens of thousands of dollars to help build clean water projects all on their own. The will of young people that try to imagine living like the almost one billion without water is incredible. And I really believe that if young people act now, they can see the water crisis end in their lifetime.

TILE: How did you get started in this work?
Scott: I worked years as a nightclub promoter in New York until I finally realized that I was an incredibly selfish person and I couldn’t keep denying my responsibility to give back to the world. I served as a volunteer photographer on a ship that provided surgeries and medicine to people on the coast of Liberia. My experience there changed my life forever. Many of the diseases we saw on the hospital ship were a direct result of contaminated water and lack of sanitation. So I made it my mission to provide clean and safe drinking water to those in need.

TILE: What’s the most important factor that influences whether someone has access to clean water?
Scott: There are many. Money and lack of infrastructure, mostly. Much of the world’s clean water resides right under us, in aquifers too deep in the ground to access with a simple shovel. Some areas, like many in East Africa, require digging deep boreholes – it’s an expensive project that governments don’t (or can’t) provide and local people don’t have the money to invest in. But once these deep water wells are drilled, the pumps can be maintained by the communities, which can collect minimal dues and take care of the spare parts and small repairs.

For other communities, lack of education or training limits safe water access. Take Cambodia, for example, where there is plenty of groundwater, but most of it is too contaminated to drink. Here, we help fund reliable filtering technologies that purify groundwater to be safe enough to use. Our program requires training and the families construct the filters themselves so they know how they work.

TILE: What’s the best advice you would give to your teenage self?
Scott: Go travel. It’s the most immediate and effective way to open up your mind and educate yourself on what’s going on in the world. If you don’t have the opportunity to travel, take advantage of everything that the Internet has to offer. Watch videos and documentaries, follow people you admire or can learn from on Twitter, keep up with them on Facebook. Technology has given us the chance to connect with people all over the world like we never could before. Tap into this. Figure out which issues ignite something in you.

TILE: How do you think young people can play a role in the changing landscape of philanthropy?
Scott: Young people want to actively participate. They don’t want to just write a check and call it good. They want to get deeply involved with what we do. One example – a nine-year-old girl named Riley Goodfellow from California. She asked her friends, family and church to help her fund a water project – she ate beans and rice for four months to prove she was serious – and ended up raising enough money for three (that’s more than $15,000). She’s not alone. Last September, we built a fundraising site to make it easy for people like Riley to join our mission. And since then, they’ve raised more than $2.5 million, all for clean water projects.

So how important are young people in changing philanthropy? Crucial. They get it done. They need little direction when they have passion for what they do. They just take care of it. The tens of thousands of mycharity: water members prove this. Every day, we’re excited to see more and more young people come up with creative ideas to fundraise for water projects. They’re changing the face of philanthropy by involving their personalities and their hobbies in giving and by trying to connect with those they help. It’s so exciting to see.

>> TILE brings you exclusive opinions, explanations, and interviews from experts in every industry. To read more, click on Ask the Experts in the TILE Library.

Have a burning question or an expert you’d like to see interviewed? Just Ask TILE!

What Does Health Mean? Interview with Health Leads CEO Rebecca Onie

Friday, July 30th, 2010

rebecca-onie.jpg Rebecca Onie is the founder and CEO of Project Health, which recently changed its name to Health Leads. Health Leads is a TILE partner charity that operates Family Help Desks in medical clinics. These resource desks support healthy lives by connecting patients with key community and government resources. In 1996, during her sophomore year at Harvard College, Rebecca Onie founded Project HEALTH with Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Chair of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center. A Harvard Law School graduate and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow, Rebecca leads the organization in realizing its vision of connecting low-income families to the resources they need to be healthy. Here she is:

TILE: How do the issues you work on affect young people?
Rebecca: There is a link between poverty and poor health. To break that link, Project HEALTH recruits motivated college students that work with families to make sure they get the help they need. It is a transforming life experience for our student volunteers. It changes their way of thinking, it makes them view healthcare differently, and may influence their political views or choice of careers.

TILE: What was the catalyst for you to start Project HEALTH?
Rebecca: When I was a sophomore in college I spent six months in Boston City Hospital talking with doctors about what they would give their patients in a perfect world. The doctors realized that the absence of essential services such as jobs, food, heat, and housing was having a larger effect on their patients than the medicines they were prescribing. A doctor can prescribe an antibiotic but if a family is living in a car, they’re not going to be healthy.

TILE: What is the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Rebecca: The organization’s time and resources are limited so we have to make strategic choices as to how to deploy those resources. We have to decide which opportunities to seize. There is a very fine balance between pursuing exciting big-picture opportunities and also making the work we do on the ground better and better each day.

TILE: What’s the best advice you would give to your teenage self?
Rebecca: I wish I knew how much change a single person can bring about. I didn’t realize how powerful one person with a vision can be. The world needs leaders! If you have an idea about how to make the world a more just place, you should pursue it vigorously. Listen to more experienced people around you, but don’t take no for an answer.

TILE: How do you think young people can play a role in the changing landscape of philanthropy?
Rebecca: Young people are the future of philanthropy. When you’re starting to think about your role in philanthropy, ask yourself two questions: 1) What am I truly passionate about?  And 2) How can I get involved? The best philanthropy isn’t just about giving money away. It’s about being really invested in the work that you’re supporting.

>> TILE brings you exclusive opinions, explanations, and interviews from experts in every industry. To read more, click on Ask the Experts in the TILE Library.

Have a burning question or an expert you’d like to see interviewed? Just Ask TILE!

Baltimore Hires For Healthy Food

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Providing healthy food to Baltimore’s poor residents has been given a face, and a salary

    • Baltimore recently became one of the first U.S. cities to hire a “food czar” – someone who works to make healthy food more accessible to the city’s poor residents.
    • But Holly Freishat, Baltimore’s food czar, lacks a budget for major food programs and so spends most of her time raising grant money.
    • Despite these challenges, Ms. Freishtat’s paid position signifies a hefty improvement in the effort to provide healthy food to a city’s residents. Though many cities have food-policy councils, few of them have managed to implement lasting changes.

    Facts & Figures

    • Ms. Freishat is paid for 30 hours of work per week
    • New York, Boston, and Kansas City have also hired food policy directors

    Beth Rhyne On Fighting Poverty with ACCION

    Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

    beth-rhyne.jpg Beth Rhyne is a true microfinance expert. In her career, she’s overseen microenterprise development at USAID and spent eight years in Kenya and Mozambique, consulting on microfinance policy and operations. From 2002 to 2008 she was the senior vice president of ACCION International, and today she’s the managing director of ACCION’s Center for Financial Inclusion. Beth earned both her master’s and her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard, and she’s written five books on microfinance (so far). We’re impressed, and really lucky to have her answer some of our questions. You can learn more about ACCION and donate on their cause page.

    TILE: What exactly is microfinance?
    Beth: Microfinance is about providing financial services to poor and low income families. When people have access to microfinance they can get loans, maintain savings, buy insurance, and send money safely to loved ones. We take these services for granted, but imagine what our lives would be like if we couldn’t do that. (What would your family’s life be like without a bank account, home mortgage, car or health insurance?) Even basic services make a big difference for poor people, and today more than 2 billion poor people worldwide lack access to them.

    TILE: Why not just give the money away instead of lending it?
    Beth: When you give money away, it gets spent and that’s the end of that. When you use it to make a loan, it gets used over and over. We care about the dignity of the person, and making loans promotes that. When someone becomes a valued customer of a bank, they gain a pride and a sense of worth that does not come from a handout. Unlike pure charity programs that treat people as passive and unable to care for themselves, we believe that people are their own best agents for working their way out of poverty.

    TILE: What motivated you to get involved with Accion/ fighting poverty?
    Beth: I got involved in microfinance while living in Kenya 25 years ago. I saw microfinance as a way to create a world in which the benefits of financial services would be available to everyone, not just the elite few. I was very happy to join ACCION 10 years ago because I had watched ACCION’s pioneering work in building microfinance into something that would make a long lasting difference in Latin America. I wanted to help bring that difference to Africa and Asia.

    TILE: What’s the hardest thing about working in microfinance?
    Beth:The hardest thing about working in microfinance is explaining how it works to people who have never heard of it, and raising the money from them to make it work better. The best thing (one of the best things) is having friends all over the world.

    TILE: How do you think young people can play an important role in the changing landscape of philanthropy, especially as it relates to poverty?
    Beth: Young people can change the face of philanthropy and poverty by nurturing their own passion for social change and by learning about how to make things happen. Some adults have lost the sense that the world can be made better by individual efforts, so when a young person can speak about a solution that really works, like microfinance, it inspires adults to contribute and get involved. And when you connect with your own friends in ways that are both fun and pro-philanthropy, you can influence a wider circle of people.

    TILE: What’s the best advice you would give to your teenage self?
    Beth: Become a seeker on the trail to answer these two questions: What do I most love to do? How can I use that passion to make the world a better place?

    >> TILE brings you exclusive opinions, explanations, and interviews from experts in every industry. To read more, click on Ask the Experts in the TILE Library.

    Have a burning question or an expert you’d like to see interviewed? Just Ask TILE!

    Combating Homelessness From Every Angle

    Monday, June 28th, 2010

    The Obama administration gets into the nitty-gritty of the helping the nation’s staggering number of homeless citizens.

    • The homeless population in the United States is growing and does not just include single adults but also countless American families.
    • On June 22nd, the Obama administration unveiled a plan to combat increasing homelessness. The plan, called “Opening Doors,” aims to eradicate homelessness for single adults, families, children, and veterans.
    • The first step will be to examine what strategies have worked in cities and counties across the nation. Chicago’s push for affordable housing was so successful that the Obama administration hopes to apply it nationwide.

    Facts & Figures

    • The number of homeless families had increased by 30% in the past two years
    • The number of homeless veterans of the Vietnam war is greater than the number that died in it.

    Best Quote

    “This is a tragedy we can solve.” – Shaun Donovan, Chair, Inter-agency Council on Homelessness.

    White South Africans Fall On Hard Times

    Friday, June 25th, 2010

    Repairing apartheid in South Africa wasn’t beneficial for everyone…

    • In the last decade, the number of white South Africans living below the poverty line has greatly increased, contradicting the common stereotype of white South African privilege and black South African persecution.
    • In response to years of apartheid, the government removed some of the safety net that kept poor white citizens afloat, and replaced it with harsh affirmative action laws that guaranteed black South Africans more economic opportunities.
    • Today, many poor white South Africans have been forced to squat in cramped trailer parks, some without electricity or running water.

    Facts & Figures

    • White unemployment nearly doubled between 1995 and 2005
    • Ten percent of the white South African population live below the poverty line

    Best Quote

    “The vast number in black poverty does not mean we must ignore white poverty, which is becoming an embarrassment to talk about.” - Jacob Zuma, South African President

    Millionaire Moves To Ugandan Mud Hut

    Thursday, April 8th, 2010

    Successful British businessman Jon Pedley is leaving behind a life of luxury to move to Uganda and start a charity.

    • A self-made tycoon, Pedley experienced many setbacks in life – a criminal record, struggles with alcoholism, and a serious car crash that left him in a coma for 6 weeks.
    • Inspired by a friend who works in Uganda, Pedley is selling real estate and businesses to fund his new charity, Uganda Vision.
    • Uganda Vision connects troubled British youth to children in Uganda who are struggling with AIDS and poverty.

    Facts and Figures

    • The 41 year old is selling his 16th-century farmhouse to move to a mud hut in Uganda.
    • Pedley is also selling Empowered Communications and Eme Tech to raise funds.
    • After fully recovering from his car accident, he gave up alcohol and found religion.

    Best Quote

    “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.” – Jon Pedley

    If a bank won’t lend to someone, why would you?

    Thursday, November 5th, 2009

    For a long time, banks and economists thought that the millions of poor people who now use microfinance services simply couldn’t afford loans, and they were right. They couldn’t afford the relatively large loans that banks offer to people in the developed world because even the lowest interest payments on a big loan would be way too expensive for them to make. It wasn’t economical for banks to lend small amounts of money to people who were far away from traditional bank branches and had a limited history of borrowing.

    However, as many microfinance institutions have discovered in the last few decades, many of these people can afford a slightly different kind of loan: a microloan. Thus there are nonprofits and for-profit micro financiance institutions (MFIs) that realize it can be profitable to service the otherwise “unbanked” community.  Microfinance is self-sustaining when it attracts new kinds of investors who realize the potential and power in reaching the many more millions of people who desperately need, and want, access to financial services.
    While individuals, companies, and governments are beginning to see the potential size and impact of the market, there are still plenty of people that really can’t afford a loan and, for the most part, they don’t receive any. Many different organizations – mainly charities and governments – offer other types of services that don’t charge any interest so that eventually these people might be able to afford microfinance services.

    With the support of charitable organizations and everyone who donates to them, microfinance institutions and banks everywhere will be making lots more loans to people who can now afford them.

    When is a pig better than cash?

    Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

    For many of the poorest people around the world, holding onto cash is just as difficult as getting their hands on it in the first place. For one thing, lacking food or basic necessities, there are immediate needs that cash will go to right away. Nothing is invested, which makes it harder for a person to make more money and eventually, escape from poverty. Too many hungry children or parents in desperate need of medicine siphon off cash as soon as it appears, trapped in an endless cycle of poverty.

    For this reason, many microfinance and poverty-alleviation institutions are making loans of durable goods like pigs, bicycles, or refrigerators rather than cash. These are called in-kind loans. It’s much harder to give away pieces of a pig (until it’s eventually butchered of course), so it tends to last longer – hopefully long enough to grow from a small, inexpensive piglet to a fat hog that will fetch a good price at the market and allow its owner to repay the loan and, hopefully, reinvest the profit.

    This isn’t to say that cash loans don’t help – they can save lives – but it’s also important that the people receiving the loan know how and are able to turn that cash into a durable asset that will reap greater returns and profit in the long term.