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Monday, February 6, 2012

ONE member meets a Canadian MP with a heart for Africa

As we continue our campaign to protect critical Canadian international development funding, ONE member Sarah Stone, from Waterloo, Ontario, reports back from meeting her local member of parliament.

As a constituent and on behalf of ONE I had the opportunity recently to meet with Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

ONE member Sarah Stone and Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament

Mr. Braid had recently returned from a trip to South Sudan as part of his role as the vice chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, the main purpose of which is to discuss trade, aid and strengthen ties with African parliamentarians. During this trip, and on previous trips to Africa, Mr. Braid has seen firsthand the benefits of Canadian foreign aid. We discussed my involvement in the Griot Project, and my recent trip to Washington this past December to participate in #ONErocksDC, a lobby day on Capitol Hill and the White House with ONE.

SEE ALSO: #ONErocksDC on Capitol Hill and in the White House

I provided Mr. Braid with a Living Proof brochure and ONE armband and shared some of the issues that ONE is very passionate about including encouraging the governments of both Canada and the US to NOT make any cuts to their foreign aid budgets, the benefits of childhood vaccinations and ensuring that no child is born with HIV/AIDS by 2015. I directed him to the recent petition on the ONE website in which Canadians are encouraged to ask Prime Minister Harper to protect the Canadian foreign aid budget –- you can sign the petition here.

I expressed my pride as a Canadian that my own government has been supportive of these issues as evidenced by the $1.1 billion in funding for the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, in addition to pledging to maintain current funding levels of $1.75 billion over five years for similar initiatives. I expressed my concern for any threat to the foreign aid budget and my desire that Prime Minister Harper would honor his commitment to the world’s poor and most vulnerable and not make any cuts to these important programs. Mr. Braid was appreciative of the work of the ONE Campaign and expressed his support of our endeavors.

-Sarah Stone, ONE member

Monday, February 6, 2012

Philippines leads Southeast Asia in preventing rotavirus

This blog post is reprinted from the Manila Times with permission from the author. For more information about the enormous burden of rotavirus disease in Asia and the introduction of rotavirus vaccines in the Philippines, check out PATH’s RotaFlash.

DIARRHEA is a leading killer and cause of illness in children in Southeast Asia, and many do not realize that a major cause of childhood diarrhea is a virus called rotavirus. The Philippines will soon become the first country in the region to provide rotavirus vaccines to its most vulnerable children. Rotavirus mainly causes illness in young children living in areas where there is a significant risk of dying from severe diarrhea and vomiting. The good news is that most of these deaths can be prevented with vaccines and managed with simple treatments, if available and accessible.

Department of Health Secretary Enrique T. Ona recently announced that the Philippines will introduce safe and effective vaccines against rotavirus—the most common cause of severe, deadly diarrhea—into the country’s national immunization program. Rotavirus is the second leading killer of Filipino children under 5, taking the lives of 3,500 children each year.

This move will make the Philippines the first country in Southeast Asia to adopt the World Health Organization’s recommendation that all countries include rotavirus vaccines in their national immunization programs. The Philippines joins 30 other countries in taking a stand against rotavirus and the deadly diarrhea that it causes. Countries that have introduced rotavirus vaccines have seen swift and significant reductions in hospi-talizations and deaths caused by severe diarrhea. The decision will prevent the unnecessary deaths and hospitalizations of thousands of Filipino children.

While you may not be familiar with the term rotavirus, you almost certainly suffered from it as an infant or young child. Nearly everyone in the world—regardless of wealth, ethnicity or geography—is at risk of rotavirus infection.

Rotavirus is found everywhere and is an incredibly resilient virus. It is easily from spread person-to-person through contaminated hands and objects. While every child is vulnerable, children under two are the most susceptible to severe rotavirus infection. The transmission of other causes of diarrhea can be adequately stopped by improving water quality, sanitation and hygiene. But not so rotavirus transmission, which makes prevention through vaccination the best way to protect children.

In addition to severe diarrhea, rotavirus can also lead to vomiting, abdominal pain, fever and dehydration. The virus becomes deadly when it leads to severe dehydration, which often requires urgent medical care and intravenous fluids. This care can be out of reach for many in the poorest areas, making prevention essential to protecting child health.

In the Philippines, more than three-quarters of children contract severe rotavirus before reaching age two and nearly one-third of all diarrhea-related hospitalizations in young children are due to rotavirus.

The Philippines’ poorest communities, where the greatest number of diarrhea-related deaths occur, will be the initial focus of the rotavirus vaccine campaign. The government aims to reach 700,000 newborns in impoverished communities across the nation beginning this spring.

While the important progress in the Philippines cannot be overstated, there is more work to be done to reach all of the children who stand to benefit from rotavirus vaccination, particularly those living in other Asian countries, where rotavirus takes the lives of 188,000 young children each year—accounting for nearly half of all global rotavirus deaths. It is our hope that this monumental move by the Philippines government catalyzes action throughout the region.

Dr. Lulu Bravo chaired the 13th Asian Conference on Diarrheal Disease and Nutrition (ASCODD) held January in Tagaytay City where the Department of Health announced the new rotavirus vaccine campaign. She is a professor of Pediatric Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the University of the Philippines Manila and executive director of the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination. Dr. Tony Nelson is a professor in The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Department of Pediatrics, a member of the ROTA Council and was a speaker at ASCODD.

Monday, February 6, 2012

What We’re Reading: Is malaria twice as deadly than we think it is?

Improving Governance Through Budget Transparency – The current fiscal crises in the US and Europe has led to “greater scrutiny of the efficacy of public expenditures,” which will likely have the greatest impact on “foreign aid and development assistance, as countries demand greater accountability for each dollar or euro spent.” This scrutiny has led to a recent surge in government-led initiatives that aim to increase fiscal transparency and make “aid to conflict ridden countries dependent on improved governance.” (Huffington Post, Michael Lipsky)

Is Malaria Twice as Deadly Than We Think It Is? – The news last week that malaria kills nearly twice as many people per year as we had previously thought “plunges the current multibillion-dollars anti-malaria campaign, and the push to reach a 2015 deadline for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals, into grave doubt.” Previous statistics have underestimated the scope of the malaria problem, believing that it was a disease that primarily afflicted children. (TIME, Alex Perry)

ICYMI: Aid Groups Ask US to Consider Cross-Border Aid Effort in Sudan – A coalition of human rights groups appealed to the Obama administration last week to spearhead a cross-border aid operation in South Sudan to provide critical food and medicine to people living in the region. The organizations urged the US government to continue engaging with the Sudanese government in an effort to convince them to allow international humanitarian aid workers and aid assistance into the South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. (VOA, James Butty)

South Africa Pauses on Mines – The South African ruling party, the African National Congress, seems to be “pivoting away from the charged politics of mine nationalization in a bid to reassure investors and rev up a weak economy.” South Africa’s economy is in need of foreign investment and capital to increase GDP, and some argue that “investors won’t be ready to ‘embrace’ South Africa until the passage of some time and examples of new mines successfully coming on stream.” (WSJ, Devon Maylie)

The dangers of carving up Somalia – The current build-up of military presence in Somalia of African Union, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces is an unprecedented occurrence, and “could prove counter-productive, given the lack of resources for stabilizing local politics and strengthening the economy.” Several diplomats have warned that “those intervening should not ignore the successes of the regional administrations.” (The Africa Report, Parselelo Kantai and Patrick Smith)

Monday, February 6, 2012

Proofs: A model for helping the hungry

This piece is cross-posted from Morgana Wingard’s Wanderlust blog.

In Ghana, 8 out of 10 children under the age of five and 3 out of 10 adult women suffer from some form of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, and/or deficiencies in iron, iodine, and vitamin A. I recently visited Nyankpala Community Management of Acute Malnutrition in Tamale, Ghana, a Health Service (GHS) project that integrates and promotes community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) services and supplies.

With funds from USAID and UNICEF, GHS has established support units for acute malnutrition at the national, regional and district levels. Between 2008 and 2011, Ghana has increased CMAM from two learning sites in two districts to 403 sites in 31 districts. In total, 2,040 health care providers have been trained on CMAM services and 5,973 children with severe acute malnutrition have been admitted to the program. Of these children 71 percent were cured, 2 percent died, and 1 percent did not recover; 26 percent failed to follow up.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Outrageous food waste infuriates ONE Blog readers

Everyone, say hi to our new intern Paulena Papagiannis. She just graduated from Oberlin and will be on our new media team for the spring. This is her first post, so be nice!

In a recent Facebook post, we shared a staggering statistic: Consumers in rich countries dispose of 220 million metric tons of food waste every year, equal to the entire food output of sub-Saharan Africa.

Like the farm ministers and policy makers who gathered last week to discuss this atrocity, our readers were infuriated, calling the waste “shameful” and “despicable” (and those were the nicest words).

Some of you wanted to know what’s being done to right this wrong and what you can do to help. Consider supporting and giving a shout-out to these five waste- and hunger-hating campaigns:

- The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Messe Düsseldorf joined forces last May to combat food loss worldwide. Through their brainchild, SAVE FOOD, the two organizations encourage dialog between industry, politics and research professionals on solutions to the waste problem.

- Stateside, Feeding America organizes a network of more than 200 local food banks, with at least one located in every state. You can donate your leftover food, volunteer your time, or make a donation. Find your nearest food bank here.

- Founded more than 20 years ago, the New York-based Rock and Wrap It Up! Program helps to stock food banks nationwide by collecting leftover prepared goodies from big events and delivering them to nearby charitable distributors. Instead of feeding a landfill, untouched meals from sports games, rock concerts, school cafeterias and political rallies help to feed America’s hungry. And if you make a mess while you snack, have no fear: Rock and Wrap It Up! also picks up unused cleaning supplies from hotels and re-purposes them, too.

- Try to limit your own household’s food waste by taking the Environmental Protection Agency’s WasteWise Food Recovery Challenge. Do your part by monitoring your throw away habits, reeling in your heavy hand at the grocery store, and donating your unwanted (but preserved) food stuffs to a local food bank.

- For our collegiate readers, consider pressuring your school to adopt best practices in preventing food waste. This could include loosening the grip on your dining hall trays. After nixing their plastic platters, colleges like Skidmore and Williams saw a reduction of waste in their cafeterias.

Let’s work together to finish the food on our plates — and help others fill theirs. And now it’s your turn: What do you do to curb wastefulness? Tell us in the comments below.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

A-List: Dartmouth singers raise their voices for Horn of Africa

Dartmouth College’s award-winning a cappella group, the Aires, partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote awareness of the continuing famine in the Horn of Africa. The group, which placed second in last year’s NBC show “The Sing-Off,” recorded “Calling My Children Home,” a folk-inspired tune by Emmylou Harris in honor of the victims of the famine. The song alludes to separation and longing, and they sang this special song at a performance at the UN headquarters earlier this month.

Listen to the song here:

These themes are all too real for the nearly 13 million people affected by the famine in the region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that upwards of 1000 people flee Somalia every day, choosing to walk to neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, or Djibouti for refuge. Those countries, too, suffer from food shortages.

“We wanted to give something back,” the Aires’ manager Ethan Weinberg told the UN News Service. “We have a larger following now and we wanted to use our reach for a good cause.”

Friday, February 3, 2012

Rep. Dicks is not the Norm… he’s a champion

ONE member Heather James reports on a faith event in Washington state.

Saturday morning was incredible. Braving construction chaos and downtown parking, a group of 25 interested (and interesting) everyday citizens of Washington State converged in Tacoma to attend a ONE Faith workshop with Jonathan Young, our regional field director and Adam Phillips, manager of faith advocacy at ONE.

We learned about initiatives for global health and poverty relief, and how these things relate to our faith communities. Our goal for the morning? To come away with at least one practical thing a faith community could do to make a difference in the life of one of the 1.5 billion people living in extreme poverty.

People of faith across the nation gather weekly, in our various communities of faith, to worship and to learn more about loving God and loving our neighbors. Working for the end of poverty, and its catastrophic effects, is a powerful way of showing love and reaching out to our neighbors all over the world… thankfully ONE provides a great channel for this expression.

With ideas ranging from participation in ONE Sabbath, congressional letter writing campaigns, partnering with other like-minded organizations, and engaging with local political leaders, we came away with practical tools to strengthen our advocacy skills and great new friendships.

As part of our advocacy training, we discussed the 2012 budget process. Many of us were amazed to learn that our local representative, Congressman Norm Dicks, (WA-6), is a leader on the powerful House Committee on Appropriations. This committee essentially cashes the president’s check for the entire US budget. We were thrilled to learn that he is a longtime champion of fighting poverty, especially saving the lives of mothers and young children.

Gratitude is a very important part of faith, so we were delighted to write letters expressing our appreciation to Congressman Dicks, celebrating his heroic work ensuring that life-saving development assistance programs were not gutted in the final FY12 appropriations bill.

We are especially thankful for his work to help save the Global Fund’s allocation, to enable it continue to provide lifesaving treatment for millions of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis patients, provide bed nets to prevent malaria, and develop health systems in poor nations that serve those in need. We are proud of the work our Congressman is doing and glad to give our support!

It was an incredible morning. It is an incredible mission. Join us as we love our neighbors by working to make poverty history. Join ONE and make a difference.

-ONE member Heather James, Washington