| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2005 August 24 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 9 Number 9 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| Ambitious Indian Law to Give Work to Millions |
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The lower house of India's parliament has passed a bill aimed at guaranteeing 100 days of employment each year to every rural household. The Rural Employment Guarantee Bill was passed unanimously after a marathon 13-hour debate. The bill seeks to provide a job to one member from each of 60 million households. Analysts say it is the first step towards a welfare state in India where 70% of the population live in villages.
The bill will now go to the upper house for approval where it is expected to pass easily. It will become a law if passed by the house and after it gets the president's assent. Correspondents say the bill is the most ambitious pro-poor scheme launched by an Indian government. It was an important plank of the Congress Party's election campaign last year; its communist allies support it. People employed by the scheme will work on projects such as building roads, improving rural infrastructure, constructing canals, or working on water conservation schemes. The government says special priority will be given to women under the scheme, which will be launched in 200 districts this year and will extend to the entire country over the next four. The scheme is estimated to cost between £3 billion and £17 billion. Critics say it is not clear how the government intends to meet the costs. Source: BBC |
| State Takes 'No Child Left Behind' to Court |
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Connecticut on Monday became the first state to challenge the No Child Left Behind law in court. The state argued that the centerpiece of President Bush's education law amounted to an unfunded mandate from the federal government.
"Our message today is give up the unfunded mandates," said State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, "or give us the money." The lawsuit raises the stakes in a heated fight between states and the Bush administration over the law. Experts say legislatures around the country will be watching the case carefully. They say other states could vote to join the suit or file their own. The lawsuit argues that No Child Left Behind is illegal because it requires expensive standardized tests and other school programs that the government does not pay for. It asks a federal judge to declare that state and local money cannot be used to meet the law's goals. US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has denied requests from Connecticut for more flexibility. "Unfortunately, this lawsuit sends the wrong message to students, educators and parents," said Susan Aspey, a department spokeswoman. "The funds have been provided for testing, but Connecticut apparently wants to keep those funds without using them as intended." The cornerstone of the law is standardized testing -- which Connecticut conducts in grades four, six and eight. Under No Child Left Behind, the state is required to start testing children in grades three, five and seven this school year. State education officials say they already know that minority and poor children perform less well than their wealthy, white peers, and that additional tests will not tell them more. State Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg said the state intended to comply with the law while the court decided the merits of the case. The state Department of Education estimates federal funds will fall $41.6 million short of paying for staffing, program development, and standardized tests through 2008. Source: Associated Press |
| US Food Aid Itself Needs Help |
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The United States' food-aid system has two main problems, say Sophia Murphy, of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Kathleen McAfee, a geographer at
UC-Berkeley, in a study this year. Other major donor countries have already taken steps to solve them.
First, almost all the aid is in the form of food produced in the US. The government buys food from American commodity traders. The food is fortified, bagged and shipped by American firms. This approach usually results in costs well over market rate for food, handling and transport. The emphasis on using American commodities and firms is grossly inefficient and means that food is slow to arrive where it is needed. It also prevents the establishment of local food systems. Most other major donors, particularly those in the European Union, give money instead of food. This frees agencies like the UN World Food Program [WFP] to buy food from farmers near the affected country -- farmers who are often very poor -- and to send the food quickly where it is most needed. To its credit, the Bush administration proposed designating an additional $300 million for food to be bought from local or regional sources this year. Congress rejected the proposal. The second major problem is that the US sells some of its food aid. It is the only country other than South Korea to sell food aid (albeit for less than commercial prices) or give it to intermediaries that then sell it. Private American aid organizations receive American food aid and sometimes sell the food at local markets to raise money for their other aid programs in the country. Governments of recipient countries also sell food aid at local markets to raise money. The result is a subsidized sale that creates unfair competition for local farmers and commercial traders. The current system ensures that US food aid falls far short of its potential. While our food aid saves lives, it could save many more. And most important, the system fails to strengthen food production and distribution systems in vulnerable countries. If we want our contributions to tackle the root causes of hunger, then the US government needs to make immediate changes to the food-aid system:
Source: New York Times |
| A 'WWJD' on Illegal Immigration |
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The Rev. Julian Herrera of Norcross (GA) says Jesus would not harshly judge immigrants who cross the US-Mexican border looking for work: "The way people can glorify God is to lend these people a hand instead of persecuting them."
Gregory Howard, chairman of the Gwinnett County Republican Party, listened to Herrera recently at a forum on immigration held at the Christ Fellowship of Atlanta church in Norcross. "What he's saying is we're not children of God and we're not Christians if we don't allow this," Howard said. "I'm deeply offended by this." "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's," Howard said. "You follow the rules." Two groups with conservative values -- evangelical Christians and Republicans -- find themselves on opposite sides of the immigration issue. Toward the end of the forum, which consisted mostly of each side taking turns telling the other side it was wrong, people started alluding to the Bible to back up their views. Kathy Hildebrand of Snellville compared immigration to passage into heaven. In both cases there's a proper way, she told the crowd of at least 500, most of whom were immigrants from Mexico and Central America. In turn, Manuel Mendoza, a Baptist pastor from El Salvador, said the laws of God are greater than the laws of man. Mercy, he said, is one of the most important acts of a Christian. "Jesus broke all sorts of social boundaries," said Tina Pippin, professor of religious studies at Agnes Scott College. "He talked to prostitutes and tax collectors ... and he went into the homes of the wealthy." She believes it would be hard to argue that Jesus would call for isolationism, because of the overwhelming inclusiveness of his message. David Jenkins, who teaches at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, has worked with refugees and says helping the stranger is central to Jesus' message. "Jesus was often in close company with strangers -- people who rabbis and Jewish men were not allowed to associate with because they were not keeping the law." Dennis McCann, professor of Bible and Religion at Agnes Scott College, said he'd be surprised if Jesus had much sense of borders and jurisdictions other than the Roman colonial system. In all things concerning the Romans, he was indifferent rather than hostile, McCann wrote in an e-mail. "He seems to have emphatically rejected zealotry or the idea of armed struggle against imperial occupation. Thus, I would be surprised to find Jesus endorsing any kind of punitive policy against illegal immigrants. Probably, if asked, he would favor amnesty for those already here, and generally would favor a borderless world, where people could come and go freely without interference from the state. That's my guess." Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
| Botswana Cracks Down on Bushmen |
The Botswana government has launched a massive crackdown on the Bushmen of the central Kalahari aimed at destroying their way of life:
Source: Survival International |
| Habitat for Humanity Dedicates Its 200,000th House |
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Construction of Habitat for Humanity International’s 200,000th home brought together politicians, Miss USA, corporations, international youth, churches, and excited
Knoxvillians (TN). "We celebrate the family’s efforts to earn their home, the volunteers’ and donor’s support, and we celebrate the 200,000th home Habitat has built worldwide,"
said Paul Leonard, chief executive officer for Habitat for Humanity International. "But we look to the future, too, as we build and complete the 200,001st house, in Kanyakumari,
India, at the same time we build and dedicate this home. There are many families out there like the Kouassi-Harper family who need our help, so this begins the next leg of our
journey to ensure that everyone everywhere has a safe and decent place to live."
In Kanyakumari, near the southern tip of India, 23 volunteers from seven countries were building five houses, including Habitat’s 200,001st house. They were set to finish the houses in time to hand over keys to all the home partners when the 200,001st house would be dedicated on Monday the 15th. The homeowners are tsunami-affected families whose houses were damaged by the waves. The Kouassi-Harper family is a blended family. Kouassi was born in the Ivory Coast in Western Africa. His hometown still has no electricity, so he is looking forward to the day when his three daughters in Africa will come to live with him and Tonya in Knoxville, completing their large family of nine children. The five-bedroom home on South Chestnut Street will go a long way toward giving this family the space it needs to be together and grow together. "I’m just excited to have a house," Tonya says. "It’s going to give us safety, stability, more freedom -- and our children will know it’s their house. One day it will be theirs. We’re happy to be able to leave them something." More: Habitat for Humanity International |
| Polio 'May Spread from Indonesia' |
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The polio outbreak in Indonesia is still spreading and could pose a global health threat, the UN children's agency UNICEF has warned. UNICEF spokesman David Hipgrave said
Indonesia's size and its large number of migrant workers meant the virus could spread further afield.
About 225 cases of polio have been confirmed in five Indonesian provinces since the outbreak began in April. Another round of mass vaccinations is due to begin at the end of this month. "Because it's such an enormous country, because the outbreak has been quite substantial ... there's an enormous concern that if the virus is established here [it] will become an exporter of the virus to other countries, in the region or globally," Hipgrave told the French news agency AFP. He warned that laborers and fishermen travelling to neighboring countries, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, could take the virus with them. "People are very concerned that if the virus is re-established here it will become a regional risk and potentially a global risk." He also warned that the waterborne disease could spread more easily during the wet season, which usually starts in October. "The wet season is approaching in Indonesia in a month or two, when waste is less efficiently dealt with. There's a higher risk that water supply for a broad of range of communities will be contaminated with the virus." Indonesia first detected polio in West Java province, 120km (75 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta, in April. Before that, the disease had been eliminated from Indonesia for nearly 10 years. Officials believe the outbreak can be traced to Nigeria, where vaccinations were suspended in 2003 after radical clerics said they were a US plot. Indonesian officials say the virus could have been picked up by a pilgrim on the hajj to Mecca, or by a migrant worker. The UN was planning to eliminate the disease by the end of 2005. The Indonesian outbreak is a major setback. Source: BBC |
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| Life-Net News Extras |
| New Program to Help Welfare Moms Raise Kids and Start Careers |
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When Jessica Snyder ended an abusive relationship more than a year ago, she felt she had hit bottom. Snyder, 32, of Audubon NJ was in her first trimester of pregnancy and had given all her earnings as a waitress to her boyfriend. For the first time in six years, she was forced to go on welfare, she said. She remembered crying a lot, feeling overwhelmed as she tried to raise two teenage children from a previous marriage while preparing for a new baby.
"I was very weak-minded," she said. "I was upset that I was a single mom and I didn't know how to go about it."
But about a year ago she found relief in a Camden parenting program that will be available statewide this fall. The TIP program -- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Initiative for Parents -- is offered through the nonprofit Center for Family Services in cooperation with the state and Camden County. The program is for women on welfare with infants or late in their pregnancies. It offers parenting skills and training that should help them find work and get off welfare. The 50 women in the Camden program range in age from 18 to their mid-30s, though most are in their early to mid-20s, said program coordinator Anita Corriveau. "We try to get women at their most vulnerable point, when they're trying to get a job," Corriveau said. Based in a Mount Ephraim Avenue office that looks more like a day-care center than a job-training facility, there are toys for children to play with, cribs for them to sleep in, and staff to care for them while their mothers learn. The program's family support workers visit privately with each participant once a week. Seminars are presented almost daily on subjects like saving money and coping with the stress of parenting. For Snyder, who had held jobs before she had to depend on public assistance, the help provided was more supportive and helpful to her psychological well-being than career-oriented. For Maria Navarro of Camden, the program offered a second chance. Navarro, 25, describes an arrest for drug possession when she was 21 as a wake-up call that she needed to change her life. Now, as a mother of Ckyah, 9 months, and Camron, 5, she's clean and aiming to work as a caretaker for the elderly. She's completed a certified nursing assistant course and a home health aide course, but her criminal record is an a obstacle to her getting a state-issued license. Program staff will vouch for her in writing, she said. "It's really easy," Navarro said. "The help is here. All you have to do is reach out and grab it." Source: Courier-Post More: Center for Family Services |
| Where Cell Phones Beat Aid Bucks |
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The best way to help developing nations is to recognize that development is "of the people, by the people and for the people", says a Bangladeshi entrepreneur. Iqbal Quadir, Grameen Phone founder in Bangladesh, told experts gathered for TED Global in Oxford that aid strategies for the last 60 years had failed. Technologies such as mobiles empowered people because they connected them. This, he said, fuelled productivity much more than the top-down aid approach.
Quadir had the idea for Grameen Phone, a way to get mobile telephony into Bangladeshi villages and rural areas, 12 years ago. Since then, the company has grown to more than 3.5 million subscribers, with more than 115,000 phones in villages across the country. Talking at the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Global conference, a top US event being held in Europe for the first time, he criticized aid for developing countries that benefited authorities over the people themselves. "The only way we can depend on each other is if we connect with each other. Connectivity leads to dependability which leads to specialization and then productivity." What was key about a technology as simple as the mobile in a rural village was that people's voices, not just those in authority, were heard. The next step, he hoped, would be to get wireless internet via mobile devices into villages. But he warned of jumping on the technology bandwagon: "If everyone can talk, it is more egalitarian. But we should not jump ahead too much and say just because the First World has internet, then the Third World should, too. There is a fundamental beauty in just a phone." The Grameen Phone scheme has had a big impact on the lives of women. Known as Grameen phone ladies, these women provide villagers with a vital link to services such as hospitals and to relatives both at home and abroad, in a country with the lowest number of phones in South Asia. "A woman with a mobile becomes important in a village," he said. "This changes the power distribution." He said the success of Grameen Phone had had a huge impact on people's lives in areas where there is poor infrastructure, but that there were bigger problems to address, such as the lack of other credit checks, bank branches, customer contact points, but also energy production. Source: BBC |
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