Be careful about International House in New York. I innocently applied for a housing in this place for 6 months, but I did not know it was actually a SCAM.
I went through a very bureaucratic process. First I had to pay a NOT REFUNDABLE 65 USD fee for the application. Then, there are admission criteria that I really think I was fulfilling, but I then received a letter telling me I was denied the housing.
I then asked why I was denied the place, and after 3 phone call attempts, the person told me that I did not fulfill the criteria in the same extent than other candidate, but could not explain why exactly or specifically.
She told me that it was like a university application!!!
I am really upset against International House, which basically steals international students or young people's money!!!!
I you feel you were in the same case and this is actually a SCAM, please write me a email at: sigar14@gmail.com.
The more we are the more powerful we will be.
I am on my way to New York, going there for a three months internship at the UN. I will use this blog to share my thoughts during my internship at the Global Compact Office.
I am now on the Greyhound bus still in Toronto.
After I worked in a corporate responsibility research firm in Toronto, I will now try to expand my knowledge in this area and learn more about all the stakeholders that are part of Corporate Social Responsibility. I think the UN is the best place to analyze such issues.
So far, my research mainly focused on the private sector perspective and how CSR can contribute to the value of a company. I am very interested about human rights issues, while this is a personal interest.
The bus is leaving see you soon.
... Well I realized the Greyhound bus had wifi! Great!
So yes I am writing this blog to organize my thoughts a bit and share my experience with those who dare read my poor English... whatever..
Before coming back to the goals of my internship I will briefly write about why I am going there and maybe why I was selected for the internship.
I have been passionate about global issues since my studies in history. In France, I studied history and political science. My program was B.A Multidisciplinary Social Science, History and Arts. I especially enjoyed a course on international relations and the history of socialism from Serge Wolikow. My passion led me to study International Relations at Laval University in Quebec, where I could further my knowledge by studying international economy, IR theory, environmental global governance.
I had the huge opportunity to work at TakingITGlobal on a project from IDRC, Microsoft and a Swiss development Agency whose aim was to develop IT infrastructure in developing countries. This was opportunity to see how a CSR project work, who the stakeholders are, and what make a project successful ... or not!
Then after completing some courses in business I had the huge opportunity to work in a Corporate Social Responsibility / Social Responsible Research Firm called Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. There I did a qualitative assessment of more than 600 publicly listed companies (listed on worldwide Stock Exchanges), to analyze the policies of multinationals (MNFs)and their relations to their actual (or what is publicly known) performance in term of environmental social (labor and human rights) and governance/anti-corruption norms. This led me to learn a range of issues I did not know before, and I gained expertize because I had to compile in my research all the reputational issues of MNFs in one database containing more than 2000 companies. I learned what the main issues are, but I only had the broad picture in relation to those issues.
I realized that the way company report their environmental performance is far from being the same for all companies. In accounting a company can hide a range of issues to increase the way their valuation is perceived by financial institutions or people who want to invest in those company.
But when social/environmental/governance (ESG) issues are in question, this is much worse!
There are some initiative that took place recently such as the Global Reporting Initiatives and other business initiative such as Responsible Care that compel companies to benchmark their reporting. This is great but not enough. I think government hold a responsibility to render those companies much more accountable. This is a first step to a cleaner, responsible and more transparent economic growth.
There is a great need to make accountability uniform and sufficiently transparent so that the financial markets take into account new metrics to valuate companies.
I also learned that corruption is still pandemic and companies policies in this area can be really weak (there are of course best practices). Also I was amazed to see companies that have a competitive advantage BECAUSE they are non-transparent (the worst are private equity firms). Most of those non transparent company are registered in fiscal heavens, do not pay taxes locally.
Some Banks also do not have thorough anti-money laundering mechanisms and specific policies.
When I talk about non transparent companies I am mainly referring to emerging market companies located in Brazil, Venezuela, China, India, Russia. Those are the worst in term or accountability. Not that all are doing bad, but their reporting is quasi non existent. So that at the end we never do what they do (good or bad).
I will post this blog as it is... that is to say very disorganized and come back later to talk about other issues I have in mind.
I took some notes from the last report for the UN, Building resilience: A human rights framework for world food and nutrition security, from Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Human Rights Council. Olivier De Schutter is absolutely wonderful and I am amazed at everything he is doing to advocate positive change for the right to food. The main idea of the document is that the current increase in food prices can be seized as an opportunity in order to advance the realization of the right to food by the adoption of structural measures, leading to a profound reform of the global food system.
Here is a random list of facts and figures I compiled:
- It has been estimated that with a 20 per cent increase in food prices in 2025 relative to the 1996 baseline, the number of undernourished people in the world would increase by 440 million
- It has been estimated that the production of food will have to increase by 50 per cent by 2030, and double by 2050, if an increase growth in demand is to be met
- Most of the food insecure live in rural areas. Agricultural workers are among the most vulnerable, owing due to the often informal character of their employment, depriving them of legal protection from their employers. They amount to 450 million, and represent 40 per cent of the world's agricultural work force.
- There are approximately 500 million small-holder households, totalling 1.5 billion people, living on two hectares of land or less. Many are facing an unprecedented increase in the price of inputs, as a result of the increase of the price of oil and, for livestock farmers, of crops, at the very same moment that, as net food buyers, they are spending larger amounts of their budgets on food.
- The surge in prices in 2006-2008 is the result of policies that have systematically undermined the agricultural sector in a number of developing countries over a period of 30 years
- Food crops currently used to produce ethanol are also the crops that form the largest part of the diets of poor people, maize, sugar cane, soy, cassava, palm oil and sorghum provide around 30 per cent of mean calorie consumption of people living in chronic hunger. There is a need for international guidelines on the production of agrofuels
- At both ends of the chain (producers and retailers) and in the middle (the food processing sector), the degree of concentration is particularly high: for instance, the 10 leading food retailers have a 24 per cent share of the $3.5 billion global market, and their activities in developing countries have expanded dramatically in recent years.
- “Cargill, the world’s biggest grain trader, achieved an 86 per cent increase in profits from commodity trading in the first quarter of this year. Bunge, another huge food trader, had a 77 per cent increase in profits during the last quarter of last year. ADM, the second largest grain trader in the world, registered a 67 per cent increase in profits in 2007. Nor are retail giants taking the strain: profits at Tesco, the UK supermarket giant, rose by a record 11.8 per cent last year. Other major retailers, such as France’s Carrefour and Wal-Mart of the US, say that food sales are the main sector sustaining their profit increases” (GRAIN report, Making a killing from hunger, April 2008, available from: www.grain.org/articles/?id=39)
- In 2007, approximately 23 per cent of coarse grain production in the U.S. was used to produce ethanol, for a share of ethanol in the gasoline transport fuel market of 4.5 per cent in 2008; in the EU, although 47 per cent of vegetable oil production was used in the production of biodiesel, causing higher imports of vegetable oil to meet domestic consumption needs, the biodiesel share of the diesel transport fuel market was 3.0 per cent.
Friday September 8th, 2008. I attended a conference organized by Rights & Democracy and the Canadian FoodGrains Bank on the theme: “Solutions for Hunger - A Policy Seminar on the Human Right to Food”. Basically we discussed how the Right to food (adequate food) should be incorporated in the national laws of every country, and in the mandate of international UN agencies. I have understood the “right to food” primarily as a participatory approach by which people can actually participate in the process of establishing or advocating for good food policies such as claiming the right to food. Indeed many countries ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which article 11 says “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.” According to international law, every people if they could not have any response from their national judicial system to claim their rights were violated, can have access to an international court. Other international commitments are enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Additionally, article 56 of the Charter of the United Nations that states must cooperate in the identification and elimination of the obstacles to the full realization of the right to food. In 2004, the FAO adopted “Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of Food Security at the National Level” (the Guidelines) as a follow up to the World Food Summit series of conferences. The Guidelines provide a roadmap for states and civil society who want to apply the human rights framework for strategies to end hunger. Since their adoption, the Guidelines have inspired a number of initiatives designed to implement the human right to food. These initiatives have included country-level assessments, grassroots awareness campaigns, legislative and judicial procedures and violation monitoring.
I want to use this blog to write stuff I learned. For those interested in having access to some resources, they can read the following documents:
Building resilience: A human rights framework for world food and nutrition security, Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Human Rights Council http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/
Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of Food Security at the National Level
www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/009/y9825e/y9825e00.htm
3 case studies:
The Human Right to Food in Malawi: Results of an international fact-finding mission, Rights & Democracy and FIAN International, 2006 www.dd-rd.ca/site/_PDF/publications/globalization/food/food_malawi.pdf
The Human Right to Food in Nepal: Results of an international fact-finding mission, Rights & Democracy, 2007 www.dd-rd.ca/site/_PDF/publications/globalization/food/report_nepal_sep07.pdf
The Human Right to Food in Haiti: Results of an international fact-finding mission, Rights & Democracy and GRAMIR, 2008 http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/publications/index.php?id=2316&subsection=catalogue
Poverty, it’s a darn shame, at least that was the general sentiment years ago and whch still rings true today. But such comments leave me rather puzzled, whose shame is poverty anyways? Is it my shame, your shame, or the very definition of shame itself? Well, to tell you the truth (as best as I can…), I too believe that poverty is a darn shame but that shame should not be placed on the backs of the impoverished, no that shame should be reserved to its own V.I.P. (very important person) area for the perpetrators of poverty, who believe it or not, are not always the rich.
Those who participate in the global engine of hoarding money for the few (legally-illegally—the lines are often blurred between the two) while deliberately withholding money from the majority of the world’s citizens. Undoubtedly some of those perpetrators are the very wealthy business owners and high society members, but they are also the greedy landlords of low-rent apartments, the unjust farmers who overprice their food wares (or products) for poor families while giving overcompensated discounts to the wealthy and powerful families, and even the mediocre drug dealer who cajoles poor urban children and women to become their drug mules just to turn a pretty profit—not for themselves—no, for their “masters” the rich and "all-powerful" drug lords whose own lives are hardly ever put at risk whenever a street corner drug deal gone bad.
I myself understand poverty first hand, yet I am not dismayed (not completely at least), I see the poor as having a real hope to drive to a HALT the undiscriminating wheel of poverty by not buying into all this injustice. When you don’t give up on getting an education even if that means working two jobs and taking out thousands of dollars in loans because of all this injustice. To accept hunger for one, two, or three weeks at a time if it means you didn’t give into the calls of the local drug dealer or pimp to make some money on the side because of all this injustice. And even more so, don’t give up having faith in all that is good whether you believe that good to be God or the manifestation of the love you feel within your heart inspite of the fact that the rich just seem to be getting richer and the poor a lot poorer because of all this injustice.
You may be poor but you are not poverty. The word poverty suggests that you are lacking something but you are not---if you believe that you have justice, real justice, securely on your side then that is your hope and our very real hope!
We all know I'm a big fan of technologies and gadgets... so when I read last week in the New York Times that one of the more innovative genetic mapping companies (23andme) had reduced the price of its Genetic Mapping service (which many companies sell for up to $2-3,000) from $999 to only a few hundred dollars, I decided it was an amazing amount of information and education to be able to get access to for that amount, so I took the plunge and signed up.
A day later, FedEx delivered a Spit Kit to my house, which requires about 10 minutes of spitting into and mixing together with a solution, and your DNA sample is ready to send back! And off it went to Los Angeles, California to a laboratory today. Funny enough, the FedEx Pak they provide specifically says "do not send liquids" on it :)
So in 6-8 weeks, I'll know where my ancestors are from, whether I'm genetically lactose intolerant, whether or not I love broccoli because I can't taste the bitterness in it, and whether or not I'm a bit more likely than average to get certain diseases or be susceptible to certain conditions in my lifetime, along with dozens of other interesting facts. For less than the price of a university course in genetics, I can view and learn much of the world's most up-to-date knowledge on the relationships between genes and personal/medical conditions personalized to my specific genetic data. How cool is that?
You can make a case against "messing with your life" this way (I had an interesting discussion about this with someone just the other night), but I think that given the great power we have as humans to be intelligent and understand life in a way that no other species can, we then have a responsibility to use it to maximize the potential of our lives. Right? I guess it's also just a bit of an extra motivation knowing that you're slightly more at risk than average to do something about it! (from 1-2 times more or less likely than the generally population, in most cases)
I'll check back in with the results in a few months!
I headed off in the morning to the Australian Science and Math School, hosted at Flinders University. The school is only a few years old, and is built with an open concept -- no classrooms, but instead a number of large spaces with desks and chairs that reconfigured in many different ways to foster teamwork and collaboration. We had a large group - about 50 teachers and school leaders, and had a really interesting day -- when I showed the "Are you listening?" video, a whole bunch of students gathered upstairs in the area overlooking where I was speaking to watch - I think they were really curious that so many teachers were learning about their way of using technology!
After a fantastic dinner by the water with a group of curriculum developers, I headed to sleep -- because I had to catch a 6:40am flight to Canberra!
I made it to the nation's capital early in the morning, and it was freezing! 0 degrees but it warmed up as the sun rose... I had a few hours to fit the gym and have lunch before heading to Canberra University -- the group in Canberra decided to have an evening workshop (4-9pm) with dinner. Although everyone had a full day of work before showing up, we still had a lot of active participation, and after wrapping up at 9 and getting back to the hotel around 10, it was time for sleep for another 6:45am flight back to Sydney for the last workshop of the trip!
Arriving in Sydney in the morning, with my 32kg on-the-dot bag faithfully appearing on the carousel, I headed off to Parramatta right on time, and arrived 3 minutes before the workshop was to begin! We had the biggest crowd of any session -- around 60 people, and so a lot of the interactive sections took a lot longer than usual, but they had great ideas and a large group of schools approached me after and wants to deeply engage their entire district with TIGed, which is exciting! After wrapping up and chatting with a bunch of the attendees, I was off to one of my favourite hotels in the world -- the Westin Sydney, to relax, enjoy their great gym, and have dinner with Jenny, who had the whole series of workshops organized, to debrief on the experience (yum, Tasmanian lamb!). After that, I met up with Jarra and Nick, and headed to Micky's for dessert (Banana Pancakes and Ice Cream!) to catch up and for me to celebrate the completion of 10 sessions in 11 days in 5 cities!
I'm writing this now on the flight to Vancouver -- I managed to get right to sleep after lunch on the 10am flight, which will hopefully mean I can work through the North American day and head to sleep at a proper time tonight. Saturday, we head to Quebec City for the World Youth Congress to meet TIG members from all over the world. I've also agreed to head to Brisbane on the 19th to speak at the Queenland Government's e-learning summit, and after that, I'll be ready to just settle down at home and enjoy the rest of the summer in Toronto :)
Now that I've been away a full week, I forced myself to carve out some time to reflect on the intensity of the time so far before kicking off the second stretch.
As always, our summers at TakingITGlobal are quite busy -- generally for the education "industry", most conferences are held during the summer when teachers have school holidays. This summer, as a follow-up to my keynote at last October's ACEL (Australian Counsel of Educational Leaders) conference (which was apparently quite good even though I was quite sick at the time), I was invited to be a "Traveling Scholar" for ACEL, presenting 5 full-day workshops on TakingITGlobal to school leaders and teachers across Australia. In addition, I started off the trip by keynoting a leadership conference at Melbourne Grammar School, and today keynoted the International Middle Years conference in Adelaide... so I've made quite good use of two weeks!
Sunday - Wednesday: Melbourne
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Monday, I woke up nice and early and arrived at the charming greened campus of Melbourne Grammar, one of Melbourne's oldest and most respected private schools. To their enormous credit, they had invited students from a broad cross-section of Melbourne to attend the conference, in addition to a grade of their students. I was brilliantly introduced by one of their capable students, and my keynote was well-received - with more questions from students than we had time for. Following the keynote, a panel including a futurist, scientist, and Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, who cited my presentation several times as they discussed issues of leadership in the 21st century and challenged students to act on the issues they felt challenged by. In the afternoon, I ran several hours of hands-on workshops guiding a small group of students through the TIG site and beginning the Guide to Action as a tool for action planning.
Tuesday morning, I visited Kilsyth, a suburb of Melbourne, and ran a 3 hour workshop with a group of teachers across that region looking at TIG and especially with an interest in Health education... it was a good challenge because we didn't have Internet except for a very slow 2G connection, so I was able to get well prepared and experiment with some activities for the following days' sessions!
That evening, I traveled to Mooney Valley Racecourse (home of Australia's best race - the Cox plate, worth $3 million!) and presented our work at TIG to about 150 principals, who also had some great questions, and I enjoyed meeting a teacher who grew up in Mississauga and had spent his recent years enjoying and exploring Australia's wilderness.
On Wednesday, I spent from 9 AM to 3:30 PM with an enthusiastic group of teachers and principals learning about TIG, exploring global issues, and understanding how to fit our programs and ideas at TIG into the curriculum and everyday use in their classrooms. I also shared our Best Practices on Global Education resource with them... and then I was off to the airport, heading to my next destination: Tasmania!
Thursday - Saturday: Hobart, Tasmania
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
After a short 2 hour break to refresh and do some e-mail, I headed off to the Hobart Yacht club, where I addressed about 50 high school principals, who weren't able to attend the day's workshop because they were having a leadership retreat. I had to pack 90 minutes into a 30 minute before dinner speech, so I think it was overwhelming, but many of them were quite excited by what we do... and I had delicious local Salmon which was a bonus!
The next day was my main day off. I decided not to head off to my next destination right away, but to stick around in Hobart and see some of the beautiful wildlife Tasmania has to offer. So I signed up for a Tasman Island Eco Cruise - having no idea how much of an adventure it would be! After a scenic bus ride to Port Arthur, one of the main convict colonies from the 1800s, we boarded a powerful boat (675 HP) that they describe as a 4x4 of the sea. Initially the ride was quite smooth - and we discovered some caves and amazing rock formations on the coast. The "swells" were only about 1 meter, and so it was just like jumping waves on a boat at home.
However, once we got out to the Tasman Sea, things got a lot more interesting. The waves and the winds were coming strongly from an unusual direction, and 2-3 meter waves and swells gave us quite a ride! I had chosen to sit in the 4th row (moved from the 2nd) and for close to an hour, we jumped waves and it felt like we were on a roller coaster as we plunged down after riding a wave.... but I stuck with my seat - a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
We arrived at two areas with Australian and New Zealand seals, and at a cove where dolphins chased our boat around until we had to leave - amazing to lean over and watch them at the water and bow of the boat jumping up playfully! A number of albatross with their huge wingspans also provided us with an amazing show - watching them fish and gracefully glide across the sky with nothing around us but huge rock and menacing water... or what looked menacing in my book. In 1998, however, the water was so rough that in the annual Sydney-Hobart race, five boats sank and six sailors were killed.
On Saturday morning, before heading to the airport, I spent a few hours enjoying the Salamanca Market, with hundreds of stalls offering delicious local treats and art and coffee and everything needed to pass a few hours and take in the culture of a place!
Sunday - Monday: Adelaide, South Australia
Now I'm here in Adelaide, where this morning I keynoted the International Middle Years of Schooling conference, and was again introduced by a fantastic student duo! I gave out dozens of bookmarks afterwards, with many many people promising to check out the site and connect their students into TIG. I was also followed by an excellent presentation by Professor Erica, who gave a talk on creativity that linked really perfectly and built on top of many of the themes I covered.
Tomorrow I'm off to the Australian Science and Mathematics School to do another day-long workshop, and then heading to Canberra the next morning... I'll be sure to check in soon with more! And I'll be editing this entry in about 2 hours with photos once they upload.
THIS IS MY MEMORY OF REGINA GELB
By: Sheridy Leslie
I remember…I remember Chopin’s Nocturne playing in the background while my two older sisters and I danced in the center of our cottage in Central Poland.
I remember…I remember my beautifully kind mother and her musings about the future success of the Zionist movement (that she was actively apart of) while my dad a quiet and timid engineer by nature, sat in silent amusement of the joy that was his close and loving family.
I remember… no, no, no, I forget…or at least I want to forget the moment my family was ripped away from any future memories of them.
First I was dragged and driven to a forced-labor camp just outside of my hometown
And then to Auschwitz-Birkenau
And then to the concentration camp Ravensbrueck in Germany
. and then almost like a full-stop—I and my two sisters were confined to the isolation of the small labour camp Retzov until…
Yes now I remember…until we were free again, freed by the Russian soldiers April 1945,
just us sisters 21, 19, and 16---with our parents no where to be found.
Who am I without the sweet melody of Chopin to wash away my fears or
The reassuring and loving voices of my parents to wipe away my tears. WHO AM I?
Oh no, its alright Regina, these are simply the memories of my survival.
I am alive, and now I may live.
Born 1929 Regina Laks in Starachowice, Poland, holocaust survivor
March of Remembrance and Hope: An experience where past, present, and hope collides
By: Sheridy Leslie
If you had not experienced injustice in your life, well some might say you’re pretty lucky; but if you had not experienced genocide in your life, many would agree that you are definitely blessed. This past May I embarked on trip that I was told would be a life-changing experience, which turned out to be much more than that. The trip or program I am referring to is formally known as the “March of Remembrance and Hope (MRH; 2008)”, which began with an intense orientation in Toronto, Canada that was translocated to Germany for a two-day introduction into the events that led up to one of the greatest human tragedies in our history, the Holocaust; and with our final stop to Poland, where many of the now silent witnesses of this atrocity remain in spirit and among the buried dust and ashes.
The purpose of this program, which is hosted by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and the National (Canadian) Jewish Campus Life, was to do a lot more than simply educate a handful (60 males and females) of Canadian students and young adults about the realities of the holocaust, this program sought to take young leaders like you and me and engage us in a possibility of living in a world (our world) without hate, evil, or injustice. Thus, as the title of the program would suggest, students who journeyed on this 10-day long program would be encouraged to both remember the sins of the past and reflect on new hope for the future.
Although the program was heavily subsided, therefore allowing youth from all socio-economic backgrounds to take part in the MRH experience first-hand, this was no free trip. What I mean is that, everyday each participant journeyed deeper and deeper emotionally, physically, and spiritually, which for some came out in tears and for others just long stances of silent reflection and prayer.
I have experienced injustice first-hand but I had not experienced genocide, yet after hearing the narratives of Holocaust survivors, seeing the gas chambers, and coming face-to-face with the thousands of possessions (including human hair) of all those who had seen the face of evil and for many lost their very lives as a consequence, I was more committed to be apart of the change that would end injustice for all. Throughout the trip I held back my tears, not out of shame, but out of hope, my living hope in Jesus Christ and in God who is my justice. You see, preventing injustice takes more than just trying to understand the logic and rational behind its occurrence (an impossible task if I do say so myself), it takes hope, hope that where there is justice there will also be NO injustice, and where there is love there will also be NO hate.
Since, and even before, the Holocaust there have been many genocides and other forms of immense human suffering, but that does mean genocide and other forms of discrimination are an inevitable part of human existence because this is simply not true. Gandhi once said that we should be the change we want to see in the world, but I implore all of you, my brothers and sisters alike, to be the justice you want to see in the world, and to be the love you want to see in the world. We only have one life to live, and I pray that you and I both chose to live our lives for good.
“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Anne Frank, November 9, 1942
I'm speaking tomorrow at PUSH, an interesting conference here in Minneapolis, MN
The first session that just wrapped up was quite interesting - Chandran Nair took us through a look at the world's problems and how many misconceptions there are about what can solve them. What I found striking was the comparison of world problems to spending on trivial/much less meaningful things:
Health & Nutrition ($13B) : Petfood Spending in the USA ($17B)
Water and Sanitation ($9B) : Ice Cream in Europe ($11B)
Education ($6B) : Cosmetics in the USA ($8B)
Jonathan Greenblatt, one of the co-founders of Ethos Water, also gave us a compelling look into the world of Water and how simple and cheap ($25/person) it is to solve. The one thing I don't get - on a $1.79 bottle of water, Starbucks (which acquired Ethos) donates 5 cents (10 cents in Canada oddly). They were founded on the basis of donating 50% of profits... I can't believe profit on that bottle of water is only 10 cents! (considering how much cheaper other bottled water is). Anyway, he now works with a new magazine - GOOD - which has a unique subscription model of giving away the $20 subscription fee to a charity of your choice.
Accessible education for all is undeniably one of the most intrinsic human rights within the UDHR, and beyond it, extending to human society in general. Since the earliest days of human civilization, methods of learning and passing on knowledge have been key in leading to the longevity and sustainability of cultures and peoples the world over. From agricultural practices, to the realm of academia and philosophical thought, to health practices and beyond, learning and education exist in many different forms. While education on the whole has improved to be relatively widespread and standardized in many Western and non-Western nations today, there are still many parts of the world that lack any type of established and institutionalized educational systems. The peoples of these nations, recognized by the United Nations as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are at the highest risk of proliferating and being exposed to the negative effects associated with little to no access to education. For example, lack of standardized HIV/AIDS education in Africa has led to the area experiencing the highest infection and morality rates from the disease, compared to any other region in the world. In just 2007, the AIDS epidemic caused the deaths of over 1.6 million people, and more than 11 million children have been orphaned by AIDS to date. There are many more statistics that prove just how critical the situation is in Africa, and it becomes all the more sobering when one considers how many lives could have been saved had proper health education been given in schools and provided to both adult and youth groups over the last two decades. The good news is, with awareness of the disease gaining precedence and significance on the international stage, there are educational programs slowly gaining ground and having a positive impact on the AIDS crisis.
Education is essential for preventing and controlling health crises, as much as it is so for ensuring healthy development in children and youth. Standardized education is integral to providing a basis for success in future endeavours, as it not only lays the groundwork for intellectual aptitude and curiousity, it also provides children and youth with key life skills and habits to be able to achieve meaningful livelihoods as adults. Moreover, educational reform is not only necessary in developing countries, but very much so in developed, first world nations that accept refugees, immigrants, and by extension, children and youth from foreign countries and cultures.
In 1990, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established the Education For All (EFA) initiative, with the purpose of monitoring and promoting the goal of providing education and learning opportunities for all children, youth and adults worldwide, by the year 2015. Six EFA goals specifically lay out the plan to achieve the wider goal of universal education for all. Some of these goals include expanding early childhood education programs, providing free primary education for all and increasing adult literacy by 50%. To view the rest of the goals, and to learn more about EFA, visit http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/.
How does one determine who should have access to health, and for how long, and at what cost? These are some of the questions that arise when facing the growing international crisis, access to health.
What do we mean by access to health?
Health has been considered by many cultures and communities to be a basic necessity or right that every human being is entitled to regardless of nationality, religion, gender, or any other trait of diversity. However, like many other freedoms (i.e. freedom of speech, freedom of movement, etc.) access to health services have come to be controlled by a few at the expense of many.
The issues that have most commonly become associated with restricted access to health includes: Poverty, gender, underdevelopment, and stigma. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has most clearly addressed these areas by which access to health is often restricted in Articles 6 & 25 by highlighting every person’s universal right to life, health, and personhood free from any and all forms of discrimination .
In addition, this new century has brought with it many of the past problems associated to providing equal access to health for all global citizens, yet the world’s youth have been making significant strides towards reversing many of these problems. In particular, the United Nations’ Millennium Development goals have merged the spirit and intent of the UDHR and the inspirational drive of many of the world’s youth to launch thousands of projects, with hundreds of them solely devoted to goals 4 (“reduce child mortality”), 5 (“improve maternal health”), and 6 (“combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases”).
Together youth can and have made a difference in how the world responds to the call to ensure access to health for this generation and into the future.
How can this not inspire you with hope that the messages that captivate our friends in the U.S. voting this fall can be positive and not just negative? Messages that excite with the possibility of a positive future, not try to cast fear and uncertainty as the reason to select a person.
I'm very proud of them for ending the video with the simple message of "vote" - resisting the urge to squeeze it beyond need towards the candidate.
My apologies for this very geek-specific post. If you don't have a Dell m1330 laptop, you can ignore it!
My Dell XPS m1330 is my favorite laptop yet (I think it's my 10th in 10 years!), but Dell and Microsoft have made it far too hard to re-format it cleanly without Windows Vista Blue-screening on every second boot (caused by the AHCI setting in BIOS, but not providing AHCI drivers during install). It took me awhile to figure out how to do this properly, so I thought I'd share to help the rest of the Internet figure it out.
2) Run the file with a "-a" from the Windows commandline, which will put those files into the "C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage Manager" directory
3) Copy the files from the "Drivers" or "Drivers64" (64-bit Vista) directory onto a USB Key
4) When you install Vista from the DVD, pick the "Custom" option, then click "Load Drivers"
5) Click "Browse", and point to your USB stick. Load the drivers from it.
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
