MDGs: Reduce Child Mortality, Improve Maternal Health, Combat Diseases

This week we tackled quite a bit of information about the state of the world's health. What we learned is that someone's access to health services depends mostly on where he or she was born. Millions of people lack the basic necessities required for keeping them healthy: a doctor's office, affordable medicine, nutritious food, and sanitary living conditions. And as we discussed, this sad fact leads to lots of unnecessary suffering and death:

• Every minute, a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth
• Every hour, 300 people die of an AIDS-related illness
• Every day, 4,000 children die of diarrhea caused by dirty water

And those stats say nothing of the millions of children who die of malaria, or who are orphaned by their parents who died of AIDS. These stats don't tell us about children who never make it past the age of five because of lack of proper nutrients.

But that doesn't have to be the end of a very sad story -- this problem is big but it is not impossible to overcome! Things we take for granted, like a glass of clean water, like vaccines to protect us against deadly infections, are out of the reach for so many around the world. With a little effort by people and governments around the world, we can provide these resources for poor people. And there are several good reasons why we should feel responsible for seeing to it that this happens:

In the Universal Declaration of human rights, we are reminded that health is a human right:

Article 25 of UDHR states:

• Everyone has the right to health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and should be protected from suffering in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other circumstances beyond their control.
• Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.

Do you agree that governments should be expected to provide all the services described in Article 25? Does the United States provide for services such as food, housing and medical care? Who are these services provided for in this country? Who pays for them? What makes it difficult for many governments (in poor countries) to ensure the health of their citizens? (You can share your thoughts on these discussion questions in the comments section below.)

World leaders also PROMISED to reduce suffering worldwide when deciding on the Millennium Development Goals. Acknowledging that the loss of human life to these preventable causes is a human rights violation, world leaders agreed to three goals in the MDGs that would increase access to healthcare for millions of people, and decrease the number of needless deaths. There are three health-related goals in the MDGs that aim to promote the health of everyone around the world, especially in poor countries :

• GOAL 4: Reduce child mortality.
  
• GOAL 5: Improve maternal health.
  
• GOAL 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other preventable diseases.

It is important to achieve these goals because disease, malnourishment and bad health destroy lives and reduces productivity and income. People who are sick cannot go to school or work, and cannot afford to buy food, medicine or health services that can help them get better. Investing in the health of citizens is a smart investment for countries to make. Healthy citizens mean a healthy workforce to contribute to the country's production and wealth.

So then, what is needed to achieve these goals?

Health care for all is a massive challenge, but an achievable one. What’s needed is the will, and the funding. Governments of developing countries must devote more money to their health services. And rich countries like the US must solidly support them.

• Primary Health Services: People everywhere should be able to get to a doctor's office, clinic or hospital to receive medical care. However, there is a lack of hospitals and trained medical professionals to provide these services.
  
• Access to Medicine: The poorest people in the world cannot afford needed drugs – despite promises from international organizations to make medicines affordable and available to all. Campaigns targeting governments and drugs companies work to ensure developing countries get cheaper and better medicines quickly.
• Improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene: Without access to clean water and sanitation, people are constantly exposed to infections and diseases. The effects of these problems are compounded by poor hygiene -- for example, not washing hands helps spread infection.
  
• Money: Millions of children die needlessly every year because of causes that can be prevented. With education, proper nutrition, and medical care, we could stop children dying for no reason. This takes money, but if everyone chipped in, the costs would be minimal.

MDGs: END POVERTY AND HUNGER

This past week we focused on the Millennium Development Goal aiming to reduce poverty and hunger worldwide. Goal One is important because it relates to each of the other goals directly -- ending poverty requires educating children, improving health, and protecting the environment so we can use its valuable resources. Reducing poverty, therefore, is necessary in achieving development. IN ORDER FOR COUNTRIES TO GROW ECONOMICALLY AND FOR PEOPLE TO ENJOY HIGHER STANDARDS OF LIVING, WE HAVE TO GET MORE PEOPLE HEALTHY, EDUCATED AND WORKING. When people work, they contribute to the wealth of their country and the entire world. In our discussion we explored what poverty is, how big the problem of poverty is, why it's important to combat poverty, and how we can help. To help you in doing your journal activities, we've summarized this week's lesson below.

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first we focused on DEFINING POVERTY:
We considered what we think of when we hear the words "poverty" and "hunger" ... Do you think of homeless people roaming the streets begging for money? Do you remember the commercials you see about children suffering worldwide? Put yourself in the shoes of a poor person, and try to think of specific struggles you may face.

How would you define poverty if you were a world leader trying to solve it? For these people, poverty is more complicated than how someone dresses or what they do or do not eat. Leaders had to agree on a definition of poverty before they could begin addressing it because without a standard definition, they would not know who to help ... or HOW MANY people need help. When determining what poverty is, they had to consider three things:

1. Poverty Line: The poverty line is the level of income below which a person cannot afford to buy basic necessities. It is the least amount of money a person would need to survive. This amount changes depending on where you live, and how many people are in your family.
2. Absolute Poverty: Living below the poverty line; not being able to buy basic necessities.
3. Relative Poverty: a level of income that may be above the poverty line, but is still much lower than average members of a society or group. If a man makes less than one thousand dollars a year, can afford to buy most of the things he needs, but lives in a country where the average person makes 100,000 dollars, he is considered "relatively" poor. While inequality in income is not necessarily a bad thing, if the poorest people in a country cannot afford basic needs and have little opportunity to improve their status, it could lead to conflict (violence) and instability (poor government control).

The first goal of the MDGs shows what poverty line the world leaders determined would identify those they would help. In calling for a reduction of those living on less that $1 a day, world leaders acknowledged that people making less than that amount are most in need of help.

Using the $1 a day poverty line, we can determine how many people in the world live in absolute poverty:

• Here, we see that 880 million people live on less than $1 a day (meaning they make less than $365 a year).
• If we increase the poverty line to just $2 a day (or $730 a year), we see that 2.6 billion people live below this amount.
• By raising the poverty line to just $2.50, we learn that half the world's population is considered poor at this level. More than 3 BILLION people live on less than $2 a day.

Poverty isn't just a dollar amount, however. To get a better idea of what poverty is, we focused on how poverty affects the lives of these billions of people.

Poverty affects people of all ages, genders and ethnicities. Women, children and Africans are, however, more likely to be poor. Furthermore, even though poverty exists everywhere, areas in South Asia, South America and sub-Saharan Africa suffer the most. People in these regions of the world constantly face threat of drought, spread of disease, and/or high numbers of preventable deaths.

Poverty affects all aspects of a person's life:

1. Their HEALTH is often at risk: poor children face high mortality rates and malnourishment; poor people in many regions face the threat of diseases they cannot afford to prevent.
   
2. Their chance of receiving sufficient and quality EDUCATION is usually small: more than a billion people in the world cannot read or write -- often people sacrifice education to help support their families as a child, or because they cannot afford the fees for schooling.
3. Poor people also have little ACCESS TO BASIC NEEDS: more than a billion people lack access to clean water; a third of the world's people have no sanitation system. This not only presents practical challenges to daily life (how would you cope with having to walk miles carrying all the water you would use for the day), but also leads to widespread diseases.
4. Poor people also lack POLITICAL POWER: they have little say in the laws that affect them, and little influence on whether or not governments will address their needs ... governments tend to listen only to those with money and power.

In these ways, poverty enslaves people -- it becomes impossible to escape the bonds of poverty. If people aren't given the opportunity to educate themselves, if they are too sick or malnourished to work, they will never lift themselves out of poverty. And, often, their children will suffer the same fate.

That's why we must do something. People and governments must act together to end poverty. World leaders, especially rich nations, recognize their duty to do something, but they will not act unless enough people demand that they do -- we have to hold them accountable. And without our help, billions of people will continue suffering needlessly. We have a stake in their suffering and in their success. If we let the problem continue, we lose potential workers and thinkers. If they are able to work, they will contribute to the world's wealth and we all benefit. Most importantly, we must act because we can. Even children can make change, and you have numerous advantages that allow you to speak freely and fight for those who have no voice.

We must make sure governments do everything they can, which includes:

• change unfair trade laws
• provide debt relief and better aid
• educate all children
• improve sanitation conditions and access to water
• and provide quality healthcare to poor people

We know that's a lot of information to try to grasp, so if you're having trouble, leave a comment and let us know what parts are unclear. You can also send us an e-mail at cpe.network@gmail.com.

The most important thing we want you to consider is how you can be a part of the solution to poverty. How can you make sure governments are doing everything they can? How can you get others to convince governments to fight poverty? Are there any organizations or groups in Atlanta that tackle poverty and hunger right here in our community? How can you help them?

Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day, so we wanted each of you to take a moment to celebrate the contributions women make in our society and recognize the struggles women still face around the world. Women have come a long way, especially in this country. Not only are women just as competitive as men in the labor market, more women are receiving college degrees than men. Women are also taking on more and more leadership roles worldwide. While we celebrated the viability of a female candidate for president in the United States two years ago, other countries in the developed and developing world already had women heads-of-state (Angela Merkel, prime minister of Germany) and representatives (55% of the seats in Rwanda's lower house of representatives are held by women). Women are also making valuable contributions to the world -- and finally getting recognized for it. In 2009, three women won Nobel Prizes for science.

And that's not all.

Increasingly, leaders and organizations are recognizing that women are the key to development. By educating girls and empowering women, we are able to lift families and communities out of poverty. In "The Women's Crusade," journalists tell the story of Saima, a wife and mother in Pakistan who was once beaten by her husband and taunted by other women in the community for not being able to feed her family and provide sons to work. She had no self-respect and was devastated when her husband considered getting a second wife. When she applied for and received a $65 loan, she was able to buy materials to begin her own embroidery business. Soon she was making enough money to send her three daughters to school, renovate their home, employ many of her neighbors and pay off her husband's debt. By giving a small amount to one women, the benefits were spread throughout the community. Furthermore, Saima can hold her head up high, and her husband no longer takes out his frustrations on her violently. By putting money in the hands of women, we can better ensure that the money will go directly toward providing nourishment and education for children, since men are more likely to waste money on alcohol and other unnecessary items. Still, women throughout the world are in danger everyday.

• Millions of girls are sold to men as modern-day slaves.
  
• Three-fourths of the hundreds of millions who cannot read are women.
  
• One woman every two minutes is killed in India because her dowry is insufficient or her husband wants to remarry.
  
• Girls there are also less likely than boys to be vaccinated and receive medical attention when they are sick. As a result, girls between 1 and 5 are 50% more likely to die than boys of the same age. --"The Women's Crusade," New York Times. 17 Aug. 2009 and UNDP
  

I could go on, but I'm sure by now you can understand the shockingly brutal reality many women face around the world. Women's rights are supposed to be protected, not only in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which demands equality and respect for everyone, but also in a separate rights document called the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Countries that adopt the Convention are required to eliminate all laws that are discriminatory based on gender, punish those who discriminate against and abuse women, and establish institutions that see to it that womens' rights are being protected.

The Millennium Development Goals also call for empowering and protecting women. Goal Two, ensuring universal primary education will mostly benefit girls who are forced to stay home and take care of chores rather than learn valuable skills. The third goal directly aims to empower women and end gender inequality through education and helping women finance small businesses. Improving maternal health, goal five, will also save millions of womens' lives who receive inadequate care during childbirth.

Boys and girls like you should join the fight to protect and empower women, because when women win, everyone wins. Stand up for women who are victims of abuse here in the US and across the globe. Celebrate the achievements of women throughout history. NY Times provides some ideas about exploring women's rights issues.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

An Introduction: Amnesty International and Human Rights

In this week's lesson, we discussed the legend of Amnesty International's founding. The organization was started in 1961, by a British lawyer named Peter Benenson (pictured on the right) after he read about two college students in Portugal who raised their glasses in celebration of liberty. Because Portugal was run by a strict dictator at the time, the students were arrested and imprisoned for this act. Peter Benenson, outraged, wrote a letter in the newspaper, urging people to write to the Portuguese government, demanding that the students be released. He felt people should not be persecuted for their beliefs or ideas. People all over the world responded by sending letters in support of the students and, soon, they were released.

Peter Benenson went on to found Amnesty International with the belief that no one should be imprisoned for expressing their beliefs. More than that, he believed that by imprisoning these students, as well as through other injustices he saw around the world, that people were being denied the ability to be human. Only in a world where people are able to live up to their full potential would peace and prosperity be possible for everyone. So with a mission to ensure that everyone could enjoy to the fullest extent the freedoms and dignity of being human, Amnesty International joined a global effort to create a better world where this ideal could be realized…



AI armed itself with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (discussed in the video) to protect our humanity and to realize this world we envisioned. Amnesty Is able to continue its work protecting those who have had their rights violated because of the numerous members that make up its international network. And our work at CPE is part of Amnesty International’s mission to also promote human rights through education and action.

You also have an important role in promoting and protecting human rights. As stated in the video, human rights are the choices we make every day as human beings, and our shared responsibilities to help, respect and protect each other. This year, with these lessons, we will encourage you to internalize your rights and to respect the rights of others. How could you change your behavior to exhibit a respect for human rights?