You don't know where Inspiration is going to come from...

I attended the annual Colorado State University School of Social Work Alumni Association open house tonight, with our guest speaker Andrew Romanoff. He did a wonderful presentation about the work that his non-profit employer-IDE-does. In short, they are all about helping poor, rural farmers gain access to water and sanitation, thus creating more income, better health, and access to other opportunities, such as education. Check out their webpage: http://www.ideorg.org/OurStory/Mission.aspx

His bio from IDE's webpage (http://www.ideorg.org/OurStory/Mission.aspx):

"Andrew Romanoff joined IDE as a Senior Advisor in 2010. He won election to four terms in the Colorado House of Representatives, including two terms as Speaker of the House. Romanoff earned national acclaim as one of the most effective legislative leaders in America. His work was honored by more than 50 state and national organizations, including Governing Magazine, which named him in 2008 as a Public Official of the Year. Romanoff has taught in Colorado and in Central America, worked in Nigeria for the National Democratic Institute, and served as a Scholar in Residence at the University of Colorado's School of Public Affairs. Romanoff earned a Bachelor's degree with honors from Yale, a Master's in public policy from Harvard, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver."

It is very inspiring to learn about new organizations that are trying to make this world a better place for others, and even more inspiring that individuals like Mr. Romanoff find working for those organizations a source of awe and joy.

http://www.ideorg.org/OurStory/Mission.aspx

Makes me want to go out and do something! Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Romanoff!

The World Rests with Women

I've read quite a bit of materials on how to solve the woes of the world, and amazingly, much of it has to do with the role a woman plays in life. In developing countries, most often it is the girls and women gathering water, fire sources, taking care of the garden, home, children and animals. I wish I could find the article from some years back about how countries that have either a female leader or a number of leaders do so much better with quality of life. Here are some tidbits from a recent Time article (To Fight Poverty, Invest in Girls by Nancy Gibbs, 2/14/11) that tells a little about that (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2046045,00.html):

"Across much of the developing world, by the time she is 12, a girl is tending house, cooking, cleaning. She eats what's left after the men and boys have eaten; she is less likely to be vaccinated, to see a doctor, to attend school. "If only I can get educated, I will surely be the President," a teenager in rural Malawi tells a researcher, but the odds are against her: Why educate a daughter who will end up working for her in-laws rather than a son who will support you? In sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than 1 in 5 girls make it to secondary school. Nearly half are married by the time they are 18; 1 in 7 across the developing world marries before she is 15."

"Girls under 15 are up to five times as likely to die while having children than are women in their 20s, and their babies are more likely to die as well."

"And the World Food Programme has found that when girls and women earn income, they reinvest 90% of it in their families. They buy books, medicine, bed nets."

Isn't that amazing? 90% goes back into the family, plus this stimulates the economy that supplies the family with what it needs.

"'Investment in girls' education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world," Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist at the World Bank.'"

If that is so, why is the world so bent up on girls not getting an education? I'm going out on a limb, here, but I have to say that it boils down to having systems based on patriarchy.

"Success depends on infrastructure, on making fuel and water more available so girls don't have to spend as many as 15 hours a day fetching them."

Here's a link to Girl Up, which the article mentions: http://girlup.org/. It's an organization through the United Nations to promote healthy change from girls for girls. I HAVE NOT LOOKED AT THE ENTIRE SITE, so I'm not giving an endorsement yet. But if you have time to check it out, please, give me some feedback.

Thanks always,

Jessy

New York education...

Here's an article from The New York Times about the latest test scores: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/education/01schools.html?_r=1&hpw

Here's a few tid bits that struck me and I had to post them (but I do recommend you read the article!):

"There were large drops in passing rates across New York, reflecting new requirements intended to correct for years of inflated results. The exams, state education officials said, had become too easy to pass, their definition of proficiency no longer meaningful."

• Inflated results and become too easy to pass?? Could this be said for other states as well?
  

"The charter school run by the local teachers’ union, the UFT Charter School, showed one of the most severe declines, to 13 percent of eighth graders proficient in math, from 79 percent. "

• 13%...13%?! This is what is happening; these are the young people who are growing up and going to run this country. Now, I just finished a bachelor's degree and had an awful time trying to learn all that would be forgotten, but I passed the tests...
  

"Much of the city’s progress in reducing the achievement gap between minority and white students was eroded by the new numbers, revealing that more black and Hispanic students had been barely passing under the old standards. The percentage of black elementary and middle school students proficient in math fell to 40 percent, from 75 percent, while among white students, passing rates declined to 75 percent, from 92 percent."

• I would suggest reading Jonathan Kozol on the disparities in urban/suburban education.
  

"More than five times as many third through eighth graders — 63,400 compared to 11,800 last year — failed to reach the city’s minimum standard for promotion to the next grade on the English test. Most will still be promoted, but will have to attend summer school in 2011 if they do not improve, education officials said."

• When I had an issue with the way my son was completing homework (or wasn't), I told the teacher I would just give him a failing grade as he had multiple chances to complete his work. I was told that in fifth grade, the important aspect is that he learn the concept and not just flunk him. So this is what is going on...pass the students on, although they have not learned what they need to. Then when they try to learn concepts based on the previous ones they didn't get, they are going to struggle then, too. How many kids are going to summer school? How much does it cost to go to summer school? Wouldn't the system save money by concentrating and getting extra help during the months schools are open and running instead of opening them year round? With severe budget cuts, wouldn't summer school be the last option in the minds of those dealing with the budget?
  

"Yet the new scores also strengthened some Bloomberg administration arguments, underscoring, for example, the weak performance of some schools it has sought to close. At the Choir Academy of Harlem, the percentage of eighth graders passing the English test dropped to 6 percent, from 44 percent. At the Academy of Collaborative Education, also in Harlem, eighth-grade math passing rates fell to 2 percent, from 49 percent. "

• SIX PERCENT OF EIGHTH GRADERS PASSED ENGLISH?! ARE YOU JOKING?! Obviously education should be on the forefront of everyone's minds, whether you are a parent or not. Education should be given ultimate attention, yet look where we are. Who is going to run the country in 30 years? Who will be our doctors, teachers, those in the military, take care of our aging population--if kids aren't learning now?!

Touchy subject for me, so I apologize. This obviously riles me up!

Oh mosquitos and malaria, how I hate thee

It breaks my heart that such a small little pest can cause so much pain, suffering, and death. Please read this article Battling a Scourge by Alex Perry in Time magazine at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1995199_1995197_1995176,00.html

Here are some things that really struck me:

• Dr. Matthew thought I should see some statistics. Apac is home to 515,500 people. Between July 2008 and June 2009, 124,538 of them were treated for malaria. That meant 2,000 to 3,000 patients a week for Dr. Matthew and his three fellow doctors, and the number rose to 5,000 in the rainy season. Of Apac's malaria patients, nearly half were under 5.
• Doctors here don't see that many patients-how can they ever keep up and also be able to provide adequate medicine? So many little babies...
• Signboards erected by the side of the road announced the presence of two foreign-assistance programs. One was a European-funded child-protection group, which had no malaria component to its program. The other was the National Wetlands Program (NWP), funded by Belgium. Partly because of NWP's influence, the draining of malarial swamps is banned — which amounts to preserving wetlands at the price of human life. Spraying houses with insecticide — which in 2008 cut malaria infections in half — is also forbidden. Why? Because of objections from Uganda's organic-cotton farmers, who supply Nike, H&M and Walmart's Baby George line. Chemical-free farming sounds like a great idea in the West, but the reality is that Baby Omara is dying so Baby George can wear organic
• So you read it here: Nike, H&M and a clothing line from Walmart place a demand to not spray for mosquitos. Who is placing a demand that others die? WE ARE if you participate in buying from these companies. I will have to look further into this to see what other companies are putting their profits before people (I know it's going to be a long list).
• This, too often, is how aid goes: good intentions sidetracked by ignorance; a promising idea poorly executed; projects that are wasteful, self-regarding and sometimes corrupt.
• Ah, yes, a line that explains much in death stricken areas around the world, due to poverty, lack of food, shelter, medicine, education, work, and so on.
• The logistics of such a plan are less complex than they seem, because while malaria affects half the world's countries, just seven — the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, southern Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda — account for two-thirds of all cases
• [M]alaria has been at least halved in nine African countries since 2000.
• In 2005, Chambers was looking at a photograph of sleeping Mozambican children taken by his friend the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs. "Cute kids," he remarked. "You don't understand," replied Sachs. "They're in malarial comas. They all died." Chambers was mortified. "So I said to Jeff, 'I'd like to kind of come up with business concepts to see if we can't save 1.3 million children a year.'" The next year, he established Malaria No More — a group that raises money, implements programs and stands as a case study of how aid can change.
• http://www.malarianomore.org/
  

If you would like to help, check out Malaria No More at the link above. You can also think of smaller organizations, such as Think Humanity, who distributes nets (and does other things) for those in a refugee camp in Uganda: http://www.thinkhumanity.org/about.html . I've met Beth, who travels back and forth with what she can for those in the camp.

I know I'm in the tee-shirt business, but Overlooked has an awesome shirt that you'll be educating others and supporting the cause against malaria: http://overlooked.storenvy.com/products/14776-malaria-kills-clearance

I also have tees available that support World Vision, who does so much work in Africa and also distributes nets:

All tees are 100% cotton; they tend to run a little bit bigger than the size you would normally wear, as they are uni-sex shirts.

All tees are $18 and up to half of the net profits go to the organization where the statistic came from.

Email me at whocares_llc@yahoo.com and we can arrange payment and either delivery if you live nearby, or sending your order through the mail.