LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

2003 November 19	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 7 Number 19	All-Volunteer

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

UNDP Honors Top Poverty Fighters

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has fallen on October 17, every year since 1993. Since 1997 an award ceremony has taken place close to that date to increase public awareness of poverty eradication activities. People heading effective anti-poverty organizations are nominated by the country offices of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) as outstanding contributors to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have been aimed at halving extreme poverty worldwide by 2015.       This year's five winners:       Founding Executive Director Helen Ditsebe-Mhone of the Coping Centre for People Living with HIV/AIDS (Botswana): She left the management of one of Botswana's leading hotels when she tested HIV-positive. She went public about her diagnosis and founded the Coping Centre to battle the stigma attached to the disease. The center also provides services to many others who are affected.       Founding Executive Director Jimmy Bhojedat of Lifeline Counselling Services (Guyana): He expanded his organization, which at the outset served 70 people living with HIV/AIDS, to one now serving 40,000 people. He also supervises 150 counsellors and 1,000 educators, including 190 youth-peers.       Founder Achmad Ramadhan of the Centre for Information and HIV/AIDS Counselling (Indonesia): An Islamic preacher, he challenged cultural traditions by speaking publicly about HIV/AIDS in a community that considered the topic taboo. His center now works with 50 Islamic organizations to raise awareness about the disease and to mobilize volunteers in the effort to teach prevention. "He has directly helped more than 10,000 people and indirectly reached more than 100,000," UNDP said.       Minister of State and government spokesperson Asma Khader, founder of the National Network for Poverty Alleviation (Jordan): A lawyer, writer and human rights activist, Ms. Khader, before her appointment last month as a minister of state, had linked representatives of ministries, national commissions, and non-governmental organizations, as well as individual activists, into a productive network combating poverty.       Economy Minister Lydia Shouleva (Bulgaria): She created a program, From Social Assistance to Employment, that has found public works jobs for 80,000 previously unemployed Bulgarians. The program includes literacy classes and vocational training and gives tax breaks to corporations investing in low-income regions. She also incorporated the MDGs into her country's first comprehensive National Strategy for Poverty Eradication and Social Inclusion.       Source:  United Nations

New Hampshire Most Miserly; Mississippi Most Generous

New Hampshire is holding tightly its distinction as the stingiest state, according to an annual index of charitable giving. In the ranking, of giving compared to income, New Hampshire has been at the bottom for three of the last five years, surrendering this distinction to Rhode Island the other two years, according to The Catalogue for Philanthropy. The index is based on the average adjusted income of residents and the value of itemized charitable donations reported on the latest available (2001) federal tax returns.       New Hampshire residents donated $462 million, an average of about $2,400 per taxpayer. The nation averaged $3,500. The state looks especially miserly considering its relative wealth: New Hampshire's average income of $51,000 is the eighth highest in the country, while its average giving ranks 48th. By comparison, Mississippi, the most generous state, had an average income of $34,000 -- the lowest in the country -- but residents still gave enough to match the national average.       Overall, the country's average adjusted gross income fell 3% from 2000 to 2001, and itemized charitable donations fell more quickly, by 4%. Some states responded with increased charitable giving; others reduced it. In New Hampshire, income fell 6.5%, and giving declined 12.3%.       New Hampshire's New England neighbors, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut and Maine are all among the 20 least generous states. By comparison, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and South Carolina are all among the top ten. The regional difference has been attributed to the Southern Christian practice of tithing -- giving a tenth of your income to the church.       Source:  Concord Monitor and New Hampshire Patriot

The Proliferation of AIDS Orphans in Guatemala

Guatemala has emerged as the nation with the most AIDS orphans in Central America, where the disease is spreading rapidly and tens of thousands of children have lost parents to the disease. Some of the orphans are healthy. But many are infected, some of them born to prostitutes who charged an extra dollar to customers who didn't want to use a condom. Many other children were born to women whose husbands brought the disease home.       "We feel that because we are not as bad off as Africa, no one is paying attention to what is happening right next door to the United States," said Eduardo Arathoon, a leading Guatemalan AIDS specialist.       Guatemala is among the poorest countries in the Americas; millions survive on a few dollars a day. For decades, its governments have been widely criticized for corruption and inefficiency. On top of that, Arathoon said, AIDS is not seen here as a politically elegant cause for politicians to champion. AIDS specialists and patients are pursuing a lawsuit against the Guatemalan government to try to force it to respond more to the crisis.       Arathoon said clinics have been forced to hold lotteries to see which patients would get medicine: "We feel like we are playing God. But without universal access to medicine, you always discriminate."       While other nations have placed political and moral pressure on US pharmaceutical giants to gain access to cheap generic drugs, the government here has not fought for those drugs, said Luis Villa, a physician who heads the Guatemala office of Doctors Without Borders. A few companies hold all the patents on the medicine, driving the price up. Villa said an intellectual property rights provision backed by US government negotiators in the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas would make it even harder to import generic drugs. From Africa to neighboring Mexico, those generic drugs are 90% cheaper than the AIDS medicine sold here.       Several recent studies have tracked AIDS among those who migrate to the US from Central America and Mexico. They traced it to the prostitutes who sell their services near the apple orchards and construction sites where the migrants find work. When the workers return home, they often unknowingly infect their wives with AIDS. As those parents die, children are left behind in growing numbers. Sometimes grandparents and relatives take them in, but the stigma of AIDS and a lack of understanding about the disease has led many relatives to abandon the orphans.       Source:   Washington Post

States Flout the Odds, Go Gambling

The budget deficits hitting many states have sent elected officials scurrying after new ways to increase tax revenue. Some have put forward the idea of expanding the legalization and promotion of gambling. The State of Michigan, for example, has recently introduced new gambling opportunities for bar patrons, with the hope that "Michigan's schoolchildren will benefit from the extra $50 million these new games are expected to generate."       Given the history of state governments and their stewardship of state lotteries, is there any reason to doubt that the move to expand gambling is simply a way to find new foraging ground for bloated, ever-voracious bureaucracies? Michigan State Senator Michael Switalski (D) detailed an example of the "bait-and-switch" technique used by his state in advertising lotteries as a way to increase funding for public schools. The amount of money spent on public schools was never increased; the lottery revenues simply allowed money to be reallocated elsewhere.       Using the argument that further legalization of gambling ought to be pursued because it will open up new tax fields is a sure path into a moral quagmire. Some elected officials have already made similar "bottom-line" arguments for the legalization and taxation of prostitution and marijuana. Why not legalize assisted suicide and tax it to the hilt? The government leviathan's appetite, if left unchecked, will face us with terrible imponderables.       This question requires moral discernment and concern of a sort not easily found in the modern political arena. As Lord Acton said: "Political economy cannot be [the] supreme arbiter in politics. Else you might defend slavery where it is economically sound."       On November 4, voters in many states drew the line. Measures intended to expand casino gambling were voted down in Maine, Iowa, Colorado and Michigan.       Source:  Acton Institute

French Homeless Offered Virtual Houses

Parisians who don't have a place to sleep now have access to a secure place to store their important documents -- cyberspace. Homelessness charity Emmaus said on Friday it had set up its first Internet center in a day shelter in central Paris. The center's dozen volunteers will show homeless people how to create email accounts and personal websites.       "We allow them to create their own site so that they can store all their important documents in a virtual house," said Emmaus spokesperson Helene Thouluc. "For people who live on the streets and who get their things stolen all the time, this allows them to create a protected space."       The day shelter, which helps 500 homeless people a day, has nine new PCs donated by software giant Microsoft. Emmaus plans to open four more Internet centers in the Paris region in early 2004.       Source:  Independent Online

Religious Leaders Attack NJ Housing Standards

Clergy leaders and activists for faith-based anti-poverty agencies called on Gov. James E. McGreevey Monday to reject his administration's new affordable housing standards, saying they promote racial and economic segregation and underestimate the need for decent housing. The proposal by the state Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) would change the way the state calculates how much affordable housing cities and towns should provide to comply with the state Supreme Court's Mt. Laurel fair-share housing ruling.       In the Mt. Laurel ruling, 28 years ago, the court held that Mt. Laurel's large-lot zoning discriminated against lower-income people seeking housing in the suburbs. In that decision and several more Mt. Laurel cases, the court said every municipality had an obligation to provide a "fair share" of housing for low- and moderate-income people. Under the state's fair housing law, that allocation was to be determined by the COAH.       The Council's new rules, however, exclude towns that say they do not want any kind of new development. For the others they require one unit of low-income housing for every 10 new market-priced homes and every 30 jobs that new commercial development creates.       More than half the municipalities in the state have not met their original Mt. Laurel obligations. More recently, many have satisfied them by taking advantage of a rule that lets them accept projects for the elderly or contribute to housing in other cities.       The proposal now under consideration encourages new housing in mainly urban areas and allows suburban towns to place money in a state-controlled fund that would finance housing in cities. It also would allow towns to meet their entire affordable housing obligation with senior citizen housing.       COAH has decided 48,000 affordable housing units are needed statewide over the next decade. Clergy and activists representing 18 different denominations say they intend to oppose the changes from the pulpit this weekend and in public hearings next week in Trenton.       "We believe that COAH's projection of need for affordable housing over the next 10 years significantly underestimates the current housing crisis in New Jersey for low-wage earners, the disabled and our growing senior population," said the Rev. Bruce H. Davidson, director of the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry in New Jersey. "And we are deeply concerned that the current plan does nothing to combat growing racial and economic segregation in this state, and may in fact institutionalize it."       Marlene Lao-Collins, associate director of social concerns for the New Jersey Catholic Conference, said the affordable housing need over the next decade is greater than 600,000 units -- more than 12 times the COAH estimate.       "Any allegation that this new system isolates the poor is unfounded and without merit," said COAH executive director Lucy Voorhoeve in a statement. "The new COAH methodology represents a comprehensive overhaul of the existing system based on actual population and job growth. This growth share model will provide more affordable housing in communities across the state in a way that is consistent with smart planning."       COAH will have public hearings on the regulations next week. The public comment period ends December 5.       Source:  Newark Star-Ledger

Court: Indigenous Peoples Own Their Own Land

In a decision of historic importance to indigenous peoples, the Constitutional Court of South Africa on October 14 ruled that an indigenous people had both communal land ownership and mineral rights over their territory. Laws which tried to dispossess them were 'racial discrimination'.       The case concerned the 3,000 Richtersveld people who live in Northern Cape Province. They are from the Nama subgroup of Khoikhoi peoples and have always lived in the area called Richtersveld until they were evicted in the 1950s to make way for a diamond mine, now owned by the South African government. Five years ago, the people took both the government and the mining company to court, claiming ownership rights over the 85,000 hectares of land and the minerals it contains. They lost the case but then appealed, and the appeal court ruled in their favor. But then the mining company itself appealed the decision. The October judgment, from the Constitutional Court, is final.       The decision is that indigenous people who own land under their own, unwritten, law have the right to have this upheld in spite of other legal systems which are subsequently imposed by the state.       It has very important implications for countries like Botswana, which also operate under the same 'Roman-Dutch' legal system, and where indigenous 'Bushmen' tribes -- long discriminated against by the dominant Tswana tribes -- are now being forcibly evicted from their reserve in the central Kalahari. Many Bushmen believe this is to make way for diamond mining in the future.       After Richtersveld, it will no longer be possible for Botswana to deny the Bushmen their land rights on the ground that those rights have never been formally 'recognized', or to argue that hunter-gatherers are somehow beyond the protection of the law. The South African court decided that racial discrimination is the key; Botswana's constitution protects all citizens against discrimination on the grounds of race.       Source:  Survival International

Life-Net News Extras

A Cornerstone of Culinary Charity

It's a head count that most likely would be the envy of the finest restaurateur. At quarter to five each weekday, the red wooden double doors open, and by the time they close an hour or so later, more than 300 people have been fed.       The maitre d' is a retired nun. There is one entree, usually meatloaf, spaghetti and meatballs, or fried chicken and rice, with a soda or fruit juice and a Tastykake -- and it is free. This is Cathedral Kitchen in Camden, run on a shoestring budget and a lot of faith.       "Sometimes I'm certain we're going to run out of food, but just as we're getting low, our chef performs a miracle and pulls something good out of the kitchen," said Karen Talarico, executive director since May.       At the beginning of the month, Cathedral Kitchen serves about 150 people a night, many of them single, often homeless. By the end of the month, Talarico sees about 375. "When the food or money runs out at the end of the month, we see more people, particularly families with young children and now, more than ever, older teens and young adults," said Talarico, who blames the weakened economy.       Cathedral Kitchen, which has been in the gym of the old Camden Catholic High School at Broadway and Federal Streets for a little over a year, feeds about 6,500 people each month -- a figure that has increased steadily from 4,633 last January. Now that Cathedral Kitchen's location, its seventh in 27 years, is expected to be permanent, Talarico expects the 6,500 figure to go higher.       Groups that feed the hungry in Camden try to coordinate their hours so that no one organization is overwhelmed, she said. "It's a real food quilt here. Some places are only open for breakfast and others just open for lunch and still others only open on weekends."       Although Cathedral Kitchen receives support from the Diocese of Camden, it operates independently. The enterprise, with a yearly budget of about $200,000, is part of Camden's Feed Consortium, various agencies that provide emergency food assistance.       The kitchen, which features a sink, a barely functioning electric stove, and what Talarico calls a "teeny tiny microwave," is big enough for two or three people. The storage area -- this is an outfit that goes through at least 6,000 plastic forks a month -- is the former convent next door to the old school.       The organization, which once relied on prepared foods from church groups and others, serves dinners cooked daily at the site, with much of the food coming from the Food Bank of South Jersey and other bulk suppliers. "It all makes for a lot of last-minute planning," Talarico said. "For instance, we get a weekly delivery from Philabundance, but we never know what we're going to get and how much."       "There's a lot of positive energy in this room each night," she said. "It's like working with one big family, with everyone willing to go the extra mile. Each night I go home energized." And no one returns home hungry.       Source:  Philadelphia Inquirer

Booming Australian Economy Not Helping Homeless

A new study has revealed that as many as 100,000 Australians are homeless on any one night. A paper released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) indicates the level of homelessness has remained static, despite an improving economy.       The Salvation Army says the statistics disprove theories that the homeless and long-term unemployed benefit from a robust economy. Spokesman John Dalziel says state and federal governments need to take a more strategic policy and program approach to tackling homelessness. "Whatever way you count the figures, it's unacceptable to have this level of homeless in Australia. ...       "We've got to provide more affordable and sustainable housing right across Australia."       Source:  ABC (Australia)

Job Search Hazard: Identity Theft

The information that job seekers give to potential employers and job boards to help them find work can make them a target for unsolicited marketing, or, worse, identity theft. "Identity theft is alive and well in the job-search industry because the data is so rich," said Pam Dixon, principal investigator and author of the "2003 Job Search Privacy Study" released last Tuesday by World Privacy Forum, a foundation in California.       "Resumes are the new chattle," said Dixon, an author who has been studying and writing about online job searches since the 1990s. If "information is money, then job seekers are worth a lot, because they [tell] a lot about themselves" in every resume.       Dixon said one positive change was that more companies, including major job boards, such as Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and Hotjobs.com, now have privacy policies. The policies outline how they will use information from job seekers. But "in an information-rich, digital environment, the temptation to slice, dice, sort, store and profile individuals is great," she wrote in her report.       More and more, these applications are going digital. Even paper applications often are scanned, joining their digital brethren in cyberspace. And as the holiday hiring season approaches, more job seekers will encounter a growing digital trend: the use of the online, in-store computer kiosk for job applications.       One of the largest of these companies, Unicru Inc., based in Oregon, manages online-application Web sites for many major retailers, including the Sports Authority, Blockbuster Video, and Albertson's Inc., the parent of Acme Markets.       In the case of Acme, the job portion of the Web site has no privacy policy. When a seeker clicks on the online-application section, it switches to a site run by Unicru. The site maintained by Unicru has no privacy policy, although its corporate site does. Within a few clicks, job seekers are asked for their Social Security numbers and told that their applications will not be considered without them. "Most applications automatically ask you for your Social Security number," said Walt Rubel, an Acme spokesman, who referred to Albertsons questions about whether the policy was an invasion of privacy.       But Amy Lusk, an unemployed human resources director who has been out of work for two years, said she rarely gave her Social Security number when applying for a job: "They don't need it unless there's a serious employment offer on the plate. ... If they ask for it, I don't go any further."       "While there are no current rules or regulations requiring a privacy statement on a job application -- whether paper or electronic -- Unicru does recommend to its customers, as a best practice, that they have such a policy, and would certainly support a formal mandate in this area," Kim Beasley, a spokesman from Unicru, responded in an e-mail.       Dixon said she thought companies and job boards should post privacy policies and also clearly state which companies are running their Web sites. "If they have nothing," then there is no room to protest if something goes wrong, Dixon said.       Source:  Philadelphia Inquirer

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