| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| October 17, 2007 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 11 Number 12 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| The Puzzle of Malaria in Altitude-Cooled Nairobi |
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Malaria is the most common disease in Africa’s largest slum, Kibera, in Nairobi, say health workers, but at a cool altitude of more than a mile, the capital city has long been considered a non-malarial zone. The incidence of malaria in Nairobi and the resurgence of "highland malaria" in several African countries have become controversial issues in debates about health and climate change.
The third assessment report, published in 2001, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, paid special attention to highland malaria. The report states that due to the life-cycle of the mosquito and its role as host of the malaria parasite, "at low temperatures, a small increase in temperature can greatly increase the risk of malaria transmission," and "future climate change may increase transmission in some highland regions, such as in East Africa". However, the IPCC report continues, "there are insufficient historical data on malaria distribution and activity to determine the role of warming, if any, in the recent resurgence of malaria in the highlands of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia". As scientists in various camps publish opinions, medical personnel in the slum fight malaria. "Malaria is the leading disease we face," says George Gecheo, clinical officer in Kibera’s Ushirika clinic. Nurse Dorah Nyanja, who works in Senye Medical Clinic in the slum’s Soweto Market, adds, "I am treating more people per day for malaria than any other condition." Malaria researcher Dr John Githure, head of the human health division of the African Insect Science for Food and Health research center (ICIPE), says, "Malaria is traditionally considered a non-urban disease as its parasite is carried by mosquitoes that prefer hot, clean and sunny areas to cool and polluted cities." Githure says Nairobi was malaria-prone in the 1900s, when it had many swampy areas. "Over time, with colonial draining, stagnant water treatments, and the growth of the city, anopheles mosquitoes, those which carry the disease, left the area," he says. "In the 1970s, when public health authorities started to crumble and treatments stopped being properly done, mosquitoes came back. However, it was mainly the Culex mosquito, as it is adapted to polluted water. It is not a malaria vector." He says anopheles mosquitoes have returned, but only in small numbers. "Furthermore, anopheles need high temperatures to live and develop from the eggs to adult age. If temperatures are low, like in Nairobi, their development will take longer -- two to three weeks instead of seven to 10 days. Coolness in Nairobi also delays the development of the parasite in the anopheles mosquito, which only lives for about a month. "Moreover, the parasite is not transmitted through the eggs but through human blood. So anopheles need to grow up, bite a human who has contracted the disease and then bite another one for local transmission to take place in Nairobi." Githure also says the adaptive nature of the mosquito is a factor. "There still is a danger as temperatures continue to rise and anopheles can adapt to new environments. A minority have already adapted to polluted water, for example." Gecheo estimates that 80% of the people he treats for malaria in Kibera have travelled out of Nairobi, been infected and returned, with symptoms only appearing once they are back in the slum. "Mosquitoes also move more," Githure says. "They can easily be stuck in a bus or a train and progress from one place to another. Malaria, more than ever, is a travelling disease." Kibera has grown up next to the railway line, with trains from malaria-prone areas passing through daily. The socioeconomic make-up of the slum is also a factor. Malaria tends to affect the more vulnerable -- infants, pregnant women, the malnourished or those living with HIV. Githure says that infection rates in children are an important indicator. "Widespread local transmission in Nairobi would be a catastrophe," says ICIPE Director Christian Borgemeister, "as its inhabitants are not immunized [by natural exposure] at all." Ayub Manya, an officer in the Ministry of Health’s Malaria Control Division, says that programs in use elsewhere could be expanded to Nairobi if malaria transmission increased, but "with [Artemisinin-based combination therapies] free of charge, and as it is still a low-risk area, advocating systematic mosquito net use would be excessive". Source: IRIN |
| Low Pay Leads to Risky Retirement |
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The gap between those who have lots of money for retirement and those of us with less will likely grow. In part, that's because the rich are getting richer. But there's another element: Workers are depending on a system that may provide low- and moderate-income people with less money for their retirement. A quarter of all retirees depend on
Social Security for 100% of their income.
Today, during what Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, calls "the golden age of retirement", more workers retire with traditional pensions than will in the future. Some are even retiring with both traditional plans and 401(k)s or some other type of retirement savings on top of their Social Security. That combination can add up to a comfortable old age, especially if you also have retiree health insurance. But traditional pension plans are disappearing. In their place come defined contribution plans like the 401(k). But workers don't have to participate in these plans. And guess which workers most often choose not to put aside money for retirement? The ones who struggle just to meet the mortgage or pay the rent. Even if they do have money to save, the incentives are not as enticing for them as for higher-income workers, said Christian Weller, senior economist at the Center for American Progress. Because 401(k) plans reduce taxable income, a worker in the top tax bracket gets 35 cents for every dollar saved. A lower-paid worker with a marginal tax rate of 10% gets 10 cents. In 2001, only 13.7% of workers who earned $20,000 or less participated in 401(k) plans, compared with 67.1% of workers who earned more than $100,000, according to an analysis by Munnell and Annika Sunden. The income gap in the US has been growing since the 1970s. While those disparities are likely to translate into a wider gap in retirement, it should be offset to some extent by Social Security's equalizing effect on retirement income. Although changes do need to be made to Social Security, it's important to recognize how it has succeeded in reducing poverty among the elderly. One in three people age 65 and older was in poverty in 1960, according to the Congressional Research Service. Today, it's less than one in 10. Social Security replaces a higher percentage of lower-earning workers' incomes than it does for higher-paid workers. This is one of its strengths. Some of the recent initiatives to make sure that more people have more money in retirement involve improving the 401(k) and other savings plans. Changes in the law have made it easier for employers to provide automatic enrollment in the plans -- requiring workers to opt out rather than opt in, and to provide better investment advice and default investment choices. Source: Washington Post |
| Malawian Businesswomen Trapped in Informal Trade |
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In Malawi up to a quarter of all households are headed by women. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and some 80% of Malawians directly depend on this sector. With an average of six children per household, most women embark on small business ventures to supplement their income from
agricultural activities.
As trade becomes increasingly sophisticated and global, small businesswomen in Malawi face a major challenge in catching up with the changes: Female adult literacy sits at a measly 44%. In Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, only 5% of women are aware of available market opportunities in the region, according to a 2007 study conducted on behalf of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). The Federation of National Associations of Business Women in COMESA (FEMCOM) has been working towards integrating women into trade and development since July 1993. Recently it started a program to raise awareness of export markets among women in the COMESA free trade area (FTA). The sectors that FEMCOM is concentrating on are agriculture, fishing, mining, energy, transport, and communication. The organization is also looking at natural resources with the aim of improving the economic conditions of women. Gender inequality remains a major problem affecting regional integration efforts. FEMCOM has found that despite the opening of the FTA in 2000, women traders in the various member states are still subjected to harassment. This includes unwarranted searches and confiscation of goods by customs officials who lack gender sensitivity. These experiences discourage many women from doing business across borders. Other major problems facing women in COMESA include unfamiliar and complicated procedures in export management, lack of quality control skills, packaging, import management and techniques. "Inadequate access to trade information and market research is also a key barrier to women’s participation in trade," says FEMCOM chair Mary Malunga. "Women tend to be more seriously affected than men by these problems due to the low levels of education among the majority of women in COMESA." She is also concerned that women may be inadvertently excluded from the benefits of the FTA due to complicated procedures, such as adherence to rules of origin in order for goods to be excluded from customs duties. Inadequate access to credit and finance has also been cited by Malunga as a major barrier to effective participation in regional and international trade. She says the requirement of collateral disqualifies many women from accessing credit, as they have limited access to and control over property. The low quality of goods produced by women is another barrier blocking them from competing effectively in liberalized economies. Other factors leading to the challenges are the inability to form partnerships and joint ventures; inadequate sources of capital for women entrepreneurs; and the low capacity of women’s business associations. The training that has been formulated by FEMCOM therefore includes sensitization on the COMESA trade regime, quality management, packaging, market information, standards, and business management. FEMCOM's goal is to enable women in business to actively participate in intra-regional trade at the formal level. Source: Inter Press Service |
| Help Kids Learn: Invite, Reveal, Stimulate |
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Adapted from a "Rabble Rouser" piece by LNR's own Robert E Kay MD:
All toddlers, rich and poor, have taught themselves how to speak the native tongue, the most difficult thing we'll ever learn. When they enter kindergarten, 80% of them already have high self-esteem. A few public and private schools have shown us how to help kids learn with the joy and effectiveness of the average toddler. Home-schooling is one obvious answer, since the practice has shown great merit socially, psychologically, and intellectually. But inside the school buildings, there's still hope for expanding the mind, promoting curiosity, stimulating creativity, and enhancing the ego -- as long as we're willing to stop pressing kids into the factory-like mold of passivity, obedience, and deference. Solid learning will happen when, after abolishing quizzes and formal assessments, we use some variety of invitational education. For example, show me what you can do, and then I, or another child, will help you do better. Sound familiar? It's how we learn in the real world. The bottom line is we've got to stop putting kids on the spot to produce the answers that are already in our head. We wouldn't dare do that to another adult. Home and school should reveal and stimulate. Read aloud using the highly effective choral-reading technique where a competent reader and a beginner read in unison. We should demonstrate printing, using numbers, and help students memorize the times table. Math games are recommended along with art, music, sports, books, magazines, and, especially, the daily newspaper. We can begin computers in high school. But it's OK to teach nuclear physics in kindergarten if they're interested and if we avoid asking them what they've learned. In the meantime, poor, black fourth-graders have been shown to read above grade level on national norms when the model was one of cooperative learning where peers helped each other read the sports pages and human interest stories. Then they worked the scores and wrote letters to their heroes. Textbooks, homework, and report cards were eliminated. The hardest-working kids were at an experimental college program in England where the reward for learning -- as demonstrated by comments, questions, and a few papers -- was to be excused from all examinations for the entire four years. We can also turn the responsibility for learning and success over to the child: Never ask about homework, but help them if they ask for help. Never read the report card unless they ask you to do so. Never, except in an emergency, talk to the teacher. The results of this practice were that 95% raised their grades while the parent-child relationships got exponentially better. Older kids can turn half the brain into a "floppy disk" on which they put everything the teacher wants to hear about. The other half becomes a "hard drive" on which they put everything that's interesting such as the basic thinking, learning, communicating, and socializing skills we were born with, plus reading, writing, arithmetic, and button-pushing. Speaking of buttons, let's take the electronic gadgets out of kids' bedrooms. Staring at screens does not build brighter brains. Source: Courier-Post |
| World Bank Neglects Sub-Saharan Agriculture |
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The World Bank, financed by rich nations to reduce poverty in poor ones, has long neglected agriculture in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa, where most people depend on the farm economy for their livelihoods, according to a new internal evaluation. In the 1980s and 1990s, when African governments faced severe fiscal crises, the bank pushed for the public sector -- often badly managed and inefficient -- to pull back from agriculture, incorrectly
assuming that market forces would jump-start agricultural growth.
One result, it said, is that farmers face practical obstacles: exorbitant fertilizer prices and shortages of credit and improved seeds. In recent years, according to the evaluation, yields for cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa were less than half of South Asia’s and one-third of Latin America’s. At a time of growing debate about how to combat hunger in Africa, the evaluation team recommended that the bank, the single largest donor for African agriculture, concentrate on helping farmers get the basics they need to grow and market more food: fertilizer, seeds, water, credit, roads. The bank’s management, in its written reply to the evaluation, differed with some of the analysis and had a more optimistic reading of the agricultural growth data. But it said it was already carrying out the evaluation’s main recommendation -- that the bank should invest more in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Bank policies in the 1980s and 1990s that pushed African governments to cut or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, decontrol prices, and privatize may have improved fiscal discipline, said the evaluation, but they did not accomplish much for food production. It had been expected that higher prices for crops would give farmers an incentive to grow more, while competition among private traders would reduce the costs of seeds and fertilizer. But those market forces often failed to work as hoped. "The whole thing was based on the idea that if you take away the government for the poorest of the poor that somehow these markets will solve the problems," said poverty analyst Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University. "But markets can’t step in and won’t step in when people have nothing. And if you take away help, you leave them to die.” Another analyst, who often disagrees with Sachs, William Easterly of New York University said the bank’s managers had made elementary mistakes: "It was a simplistic, Economics 101 lesson, that if you raise prices, farmers produce more, which makes sense if farmers have roads, access to credit, good access to fertilizer markets." Source: New York Times |
| Christmas Wheels for Camden Kids |
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New Covenant Ministries founder Tommy Williams, 62, gives hugs to prostitutes, the destitute, children, friends, and strangers. Every Christmas Eve he gives presents and bicycles to Camden's kids and homeless.
It's a big project, collecting bikes and presents, food and toys, in preparation for the annual celebration. That's why dozens of volunteers from Calvary Chapel of Delaware County PA joined Williams and volunteers from the New Covenant Ministry in Cherry Hill NJ on October 6 to scrub, repair, and test 600 bikes in preparation for the annual Christmas Eve bash. Williams scrubbed dirt and rust from the frame of a bicycle. Ed Evans, 21, of Media PA used tire shine to make bike rims sparkle. Will Tolbert, 26, of Brookhaven PA worked on the bikes while Steve Evans, 19, of Media washed the handlebars. "We've been doing this for 40 years, collecting gifts and food," said Williams, who grew up in Audubon Park NJ and now heads New Covenant Ministry. "We never need a collection because everyone involved helps out." Williams, who described himself as "a firm believer in a lot of hugs," said the idea to distribute bikes started 40 years ago when he had about five bikes in his cellar. Since then, the event has grown, he said. Different South Jersey police departments donate bikes confiscated but unclaimed during the year to the project, while residents donate children's bikes their kids outgrow. Sometimes the ministry purchases new bikes from yard sales and auctions. "Some years, God sends in anywhere from 150 to 200 people," he said. "Most parents can afford a $20 gift, but they can't afford the big one, and the kids love the bikes." Williams goes into Camden each weekend, setting up tables of food and donated clothing at different neighborhoods in the city. It's never the same corner, he said. "We go into any corner, and that's where we'll set up tables, give out the clothes," he said. "Everyone knows. We pick a corner based on where the Lord tells us to go." New Covenant Ministries plans for the Christmas Eve event for months. Williams said he never discloses the neighborhood intended for the surprise until the day of the event. "We never know what section of the city we will do it in. But whatever lot we hit, we knock on every door." Each child gets a hat, gloves, a new toy, a bike, and a wrapped present to take home to their parents, along with a stuffed animal. There's food and coffee, juice and a treat. "I love to set up every child with an adult" on the day of the event, Williams said. "That adult makes them feel like they are the most special kid in the world. You just keep making them feel special; it's their day." Source: Courier-Post |
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| Depression Reported by 7% of Workforce |
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People who tend to the elderly, care for children, and serve food and drinks have the highest rates of depression among US workers. Overall, 7% of full-time workers battled depression in the past year, according to a government report available on Saturday. Almost 11% of personal-care workers, which includes child care, reported bouts of depression lasting two weeks or longer, according to the report.
Women were more likely than men to have had a major bout of depression, and younger workers had higher rates of depression than their older colleagues. Almost 11% of personal-care workers -- whose jobs include child care and helping the elderly and severely disabled with their daily needs -- reported depression lasting two weeks or longer. During such episodes there is loss of interest and pleasure, and at least four other symptoms surface, including problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration, and self-image. Workers who prepare and serve food -- cooks, bartenders, waiters and waitresses -- had the second-highest rate of depression among full-time employees, 10.3%. In a tie for third were health-care workers and social workers at 9.6%. The lowest rate of depression, 4.3%, occurred in the job category that covers engineers, architects, and surveyors. Government officials tracked depression within 21 major occupational categories. They combined data from 2004 through 2006 to estimate episodes of depression within the past year. That information came from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which registers lifetime and past-year depression bouts. Depression leads to $30 billion to $44 billion in lost productivity annually, said the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The job categories tracked could be quite broad, with employees grouped in the same category seemingly having little in common. For example, one category included workers in the arts, media, entertainment and sports. In the personal-care category, a worker caring for toddlers at a day-care center would have quite a different job from a nursing aide who helps an older person live at home rather than in a nursing home. Just working full-time would appear to help prevent depression. The overall rate of depression for full-time workers, 7%, compares with the 12.7% rate among the unemployed. Source: Associated Press |
| Prisoners in Pink |
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Punishing prisoners for sexual misconduct by making them wear pink places them in peril, a South Carolina inmate says in a lawsuit against the state's penal system. The suit is the latest development in a nationwide effort by prison and jail officials to tap the power of pink to subdue criminals.
South Carolina's pink policy applies to male and female inmates. Court documents say pink was chosen as the identifying mark for inmates involved in sexual activity partly because other colors were taken. Elsewhere, pink is used in creative correctional ways: Sheriff Clint Low, in Mason County, Texas, was looking to cut down on repeat offenders in his small-town jail. Not only did he put all inmates in pink jumpsuits, he put them in pink shoes, pink underwear, and pink socks. He painted cell walls pink and put in pink sheets and towels. The effect, said Low, was a 68% reduction in return customers. "It's not about trying to humiliate people," said Low. "It's simply that with them not liking it, they're embarrassed by it, and they don't want to come back." Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix is a pioneer in the properties of pink. He started dying prisoners' underwear pink because they were smuggling them out to sell on the black market for the jail logo. "Why would I give them a color they like?" he said. "They're in jail." There may be more to the pink effect than outlaws not liking the color, according to Alexander Schauss, who first documented the effects of pink jail cells in the 1970s. Before painting "drunk tanks" pink at the US Naval Correctional Center in Seattle, the facility had an average of one assault on staff per day, said Schauss, senior director of natural and medicinal products research at AIBMR Life Sciences, in Puyallup WA. After it went pink, he said, there was only one assault over the next six months. East St Louis IL has seen dramatic drops in vandalism and assaults by painting buses pink, and at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, violent inmates placed in all-pink rooms became less aggressive, Schauss said; even thinking of pink has been shown to have a calming effect. Source: USA Today |
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