LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

2003 April 9	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 6 Number 11	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

Dying of AIDS, Parents Leave Memory Books

Borrowing an idea from cancer patients in Britain, health workers in Uganda are urging parents dying of AIDS to preserve memories for their children. Part photo album and part diary, memory books are becoming an increasingly popular way for dying Africans to continue coddling their beloved offspring from the grave.       Since Uganda adopted memory books in the mid-1990's, hundreds have been passed on to newly orphaned children. The idea has spread to neighboring Kenya and to other countries throughout a continent hit hard by AIDS, where tradition is often handed down face to face through stories and songs and ceremonies.       Many of Africa's orphans, and there are more on this continent than anywhere else, have only the vaguest memories of their lost parents, if they remember them at all. They do not know their birthplaces. They have no memory of who gave birth to them.       At tender ages the children are shunted off to relatives, orphanages or foster families, with many siblings separated in the process. In the worst cases, children are left to fend for themselves. The memories they hold on to can be unpleasant ones. The parents the orphans keep in their heads may be weak skeletons barely able to function, who drift off into perpetual sleep.       The memory books themselves are ordinary binders with plastic pages that allow written messages, photographs or anything else with sentimental value to be stuck inside. But there is nothing ordinary about the contents.       Source:  New York Times

EITC Reaches More Eligible Families

The three largest federal income-support programs for low-income households are the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), food stamps, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). While TANF and food stamps are traditional spending programs, the EITC provides more than $30 billion each year through the tax code.       The EITC appears to be quite successful in reaching low-income families with children. From 1990 to 1999, between 80% and 86% of eligible households with children claimed the EITC.       Full Report:  at the Urban Institute

Play Said to be Vital to Early Education

Middle-class parents are more likely than working-class ones to play learning games with young children, giving them an advantage as early as nursery school, says a recent Oxford University study. Reading children stories and asking them to solve problems were important aspects of basic education, according to researcher Kathy Sylva. But poorer parents had to be coaxed to do this by pre-school staff.       Late last month, a report released by a coalition of children's charities found the class divide in education began to set in at 22 months. Prof. Sylva said attending pre-schools made an "important contribution" to redressing the imbalance, and that "the most effective pedagogy is both 'teaching' and providing freely chosen yet potentially instructive play activities,"       Education minister Baroness Ashton said: "Disadvantaged children particularly benefit from good quality early years provision. That is why we are building on the success of local Sure Start programmes which have given children and families health, education and parenting support."       Source:   BBC

Nursing-Home Liberation

Says a group of disability rights advocates:       On Thursday, April 3, our bill passed the senate 45-0!       On Tuesday, the Money Follows the Individual Act (Maryland HB 478) sailed through the Senate Finance Committee. Committee members loved the fact that it saves the state money and frees people from nursing homes.       Ten ADAPTers and a throng of supporters made it to the hearing, some of whom were still trapped in nursing homes. Many of us have testified in Annapolis three or four times, in the House and Senate, and it is evident that our presence helped push this legislation through.       The Money Follows the Individual Act creates a provision in statute that will allow people living in nursing homes funded through Medicaid to use those funds to be supported in their own homes, rather than nursing homes. Amendments we added that would strengthen the bill were accepted without objection.       Now it's on to the Governor!       Source:  ADAPT of Maryland

Homelessness Rises in Japan

The number of homeless people in Japan stood at 25,296 earlier this year, according to a survey released late last month by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The figure--from the first such survey conducted nationwide-- was up 1,206 from the total homeless population counted by separate municipalities two years ago.       Interviews with some 2,000 homeless people showed that 35.6% are homeless because they cannot find enough work, 32.9% because they were laid off or their companies folded, and 18.8% because they could no longer work due to illness or old age.       About 30% of respondents said they became homeless within the past year, with the number rising to 70% when looked at over the past five years, suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship to the nation's severe economic condition in recent years.       The survey suggests that homelessness has been spreading to prefectures that have no major cities: Homeless people were found in all 47 prefectures.       The city of Osaka, which traditionally has the largest concentration of homeless people, marked a decline to 6,603 from 8,660 in the previous survey, the ministry officials said. The Osaka Municipal Government has actively addressed homelessness in recent years.       The survey says that 40.8% of the homeless people live in parks, 23.3% live along riverbanks and 17.2% on streets. The interviews with homeless people also indicated they had an average age of 55.9 years and that 47.4% have health problems. The interviews suggest that 84.1% have a fixed place of residence and 64.7% earn money by doing such things as collecting garbage for recycling. Some 49.7% said they wanted to work, while 13.1% said they liked things as they are.       Source: Japan Times

U.S. Agency Promotes Palestinian Health

Most Palestinian women are married by the age of 18, bearing children long before they are physically or emotionally prepared. In addition, they have one of the shortest average birth intervals in the world, only 18 months, adversely affecting the health of both mothers and children.       The overall nutritional status of children between 6 and 59 months and women of child-bearing age (15-49 years) has declined to alarming rates since the onset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Malnourished children are more susceptible to infection, and the severity and frequency of complications are higher than in healthy children.       Children and youth are faced with major psychosocial issues resulting from prolonged exposure to violence and hardship. In addition, they may not necessarily find appropriate support and refuge with their parents and teachers, who themselves are under significant stress.       Accessibility and availability of quality primary health care services have worsened since the onset of the Intifada. Patients have difficulty reaching the appropriate health care facilities, while health care providers face logistical, financial, and professional constraints to properly treat clients, especially those with chronic conditions or in need of physical rehabilitation.       In order to improve maternal and child healthcare, the United States Agency for International Development launched the "Maram" Project in June 2001. This project, whose name in Arabic means "Goal", includes establishing maternity homes to ensure accessible and high-quality obstetrical care, and training health care providers in counseling and best practices in areas such as antenatal and postpartum care. Telephone hotlines and information campaigns have also been introduced to ensure that useful information is received by women who may have limited or no access to primary health care facilities.       The Maram Project is also assisting the Ministry of Health in developing a coherent nutritional strategy. And USAID awarded $3 million to UNICEF to avert a risk of vaccine shortages.       In the psychosocial arena, USAID awarded Save the Children a $5.2 million grant to help children deal with the current conflict situation, and to help them grow up into productive and involved citizens of the future. The project provides for basic interaction with children through play and art activities, mostly in group settings but also through home visits as well as providing advice and instruction to parents and teachers.       More:  USAID West Bank & Gaza

Lutherans Discern 'Tough Times' for New Jerseyans

Times are rough for New Jersey residents, according to Jack DiMatteo, coordinator for Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR) in New Jersey. Since the 9-11 attacks, New Jerseyans continue to experience job layoffs and unemployment, post-traumatic stress and loss of financial resources.       "It is estimated that 20,000 New Jersey residents are still out of work" because of the events of Sept. 11, DiMatteo said. Significant numbers of airport personnel at Newark Liberty International Airport have been "laid off because business just isn't the same after Sept. 11," he said in a report to LDR staff.       DiMatteo said New Jersey's Food Bank is reporting a 50% increase in demand for food.       "Major agency caseworkers, such as the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities, are bringing more cases forward," DiMatteo said. "The number of cases has begun to proliferate, not settle down," and, "in some circumstances, these agencies have exhausted or 'capped out' on dollar amounts that they are able to distribute to individuals and families on a case-by-case basis."       The "wealthier Wall Street unemployed" residents of New Jersey, who previously lived on savings and exhausted credit cards "are now discovering that the cupboards are bare, that there is no more money left in savings, that federal and state disaster relief funding is ended, and there are still no employment offers for the near future,"       Source:  ELCA Disaster Response

Churches Send Help for Iraqi Children

Health and hygiene items have for years been in short supply in Iraq and may become even harder to get in the weeks and months ahead. Children, always the most vulnerable, may be the ones to go without, so CHURCH WORLD SERVICE is asking congregations and other groups to put together "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits as part of their "All Our Children" commitment to provide health and hygiene items to Iraqi children.       For information about putting together Health Kits for Iraqi children, please call your regional CWS office toll-free at 1-888-CWS-CROP (297-2767), or go to http://www.churchworldservice.org/kits/iraq-kits.html

Years After Hurricane, Still Recovering

Three years after Hurricane Floyd, "we still have flood survivors who don't have adequate housing," said C. Michael Shaw, a Baptist deacon and coordinator of the Twin County (North Carolina) Interfaith. That's one reason he'll be keeping the interfaith operational until September 2003. The other, he said, is community development--to make communities better than they were before Floyd, and "not just be a Band-Aid."       Locally, the economic situation is not very good. Major settlements against the tobacco companies haven't helped the Tobacco State, which has seen thousands of layoffs in the last few years as a result. Local textile companies and a diesel engine manufacturer have also let go of plenty of employees. "There are a lot of people in desperate situations," said Shaw.       But Shaw's effort to transform an interfaith disaster recovery group into a community development project hit a major roadblock--lack of funds. He said he applied for a grant from the Rural Development Committee, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. But the application was rejected. The letter from the department cited "a shift in priorities".       Hurricanes are hardly rare in North Carolina. Judging from a recent hurricane prediction issued by Dr. William Gray of the University of Colorado, the state may see some serious wind and water damage in 2003.       Source:  Disaster News Network

Life-Net News Extras

Antiwar Marchers Invoke Dr. King's Legacy

Numerous anti-war demonstrations last week centered around the anniversary of the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King. "We are children of King," said the Rev. James Fitzgerald, an associate minister at Riverside Church, New York City, and a protest organizer.       One year before the day he was killed, on April 4, 1967, King delivered a speech at Riverside Church that outlined, for the first time, his opposition to the Vietnam War. He risked the anger of President Lyndon Johnson, and of fellow civil rights leaders who thought that speaking out against the war undermined the effort for racial equality. While the speech is not among his most remembered, scholars say it gave an important lift to the antiwar movement.       These days, religious leaders and peace proponents hail the speech for connecting opposition to war to the fight for social justice. They also invoke King's doctrine of nonviolence in the struggle for racial equality.       In his speech at Riverside in 1967, Dr. King called the war "an enemy of the poor" that sapped the nation's ability to fight poverty, "like some demonic, destructive suction tube." A country that spends more on defense than on social programs "is approaching spiritual death," he said.       He spoke of the "cruel irony" of young black men and young white men dying together in Vietnam but unable to sit together in some schools. He said he could not condemn violence in the civil rights struggle while at the same time failing to raise his voice against "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government."       Source:  New York Times

No More Back Door Deals with Dictators

From commentator Uriah Kriegel:       During the Cold War, we all too often struck deals with various devils in order to keep the spread of communism in check. To some extent, this was justified: none of the small-time tyrants we supported around Latin America and South Asia was anything as abhorrent or as inherently dangerous as Stalinism. But in the long run, we paid quite a price for these backdoor deals, in terms of credibility and moral authority. Now, the threat of Islamic terrorism is at least in some ways more dangerous than the threat of Stalinism, namely, that while the communists loved life more than they hated us, the bin Laden folks hate us more than they love life. And yet it appears that the Bush administration has refused to strike morally dubious deals to make things easier for itself.       In particular, it is hugely significant that we have refused to give anything to the Turks in exchange for a northern front on Baghdad, which would have certainly made the war much easier to orchestrate and fight. The Turks insisted that the US let their army enter northern Iraq and effectively terrorize the Kurds out of their self-determination ambitions. But unlike oftentimes in the past, it really does look as though this time around we are not going to sell out the small fry to make friends with hideous medium-size fish.       Source:  Washington Dispatch

The Homogenization of Broadcast Radio

A generation ago, radio was one of the great joys of the mythic American cross-country drive. Barreling across the continent, you could hear the accents and musical preferences change with the landscape outside your car window. Today it doesn't matter if you are in Springfield, Missouri, or Springfield, Massachusetts. The music, the voices, and even most of the ads are the same. The airwaves are one big interstate strip of chain stores.       For six decades there were limits on how many stations any single company could own, nationwide or in any given market. This kept radio locally based and relatively accessible, at least compared to network-dominated television. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 repealed all limits on station ownership.       Since then, 10 companies have come to control two-thirds of the radio audience share and revenues. Two of those companies--Clear Channel and Viacom--control 42% of the radio audience and take in 45% of the radio-related dollars. Clear Channel is the Wal-Mart and McDonald's of radio monopolization. Since 1996, the Clear Channel chain has grown from 40 stations to 1,240. Meanwhile, in any given week, between 80% and 100% of the songs on the various radio charts (pop, r&b, country, rock, etc.) are released by only five major record companies.       As a result, there is simply no more room in America's cultural mainstream for local, innovative, or original human voices. Many chain stations, in fact, carry the same programming, with the same announcers, from coast to coast. Radio used to be the most local of media. It was where you turned for high school basketball games, farm-market reports, and local church broadcasts.       Today when you visit your local radio station, there's a good chance that you won't even find a disc jockey. Instead there will be a computer receiving and broadcasting the feed from some undisclosed location in the ether.       Since the 1930s, American law has held the broadcast airwaves (now including the frequencies for cell phones and wireless Internet) to be the property of the American people as a whole, held in trust by our elected national government. This notion was, and is, anathema to the new breed of free market Republicans. And in the Telecommunications Act, they did everything they could to wipe it out. The entire media industry, from The Washington Post and The New York Times to the Hollywood studios, jumped on the bandwagon. That industry, of course, includes many of the big funders of the Democratic Party, so the opposition was marginal. The Telecommunications Act rolled through Congress and was signed by President Clinton, right alongside the 1996 welfare reform.       In 1996, Federal Communications Commission chair Reed Hundt claimed that the new changes in broadcasting rules would "promote diversity in programming and diversity in the viewpoints expressed" on the radio. Clearly, the opposite has occurred.       Source:  Sojourners

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