Sep 29
This week I received an email about a program that was funded by USAID, the US federal government’s international development agency. I’ve read several in the past highlighting youth initiatives and other similar projects. What caught my attention about this one was the fact that it addressed controversial topics like child marriage. The Youth Theater …
Sep 29
Imagine living in poverty. You are your household’s main breadwinner. You are married and have four children who are all under the age of 18 and are depending on you to meet their most basic needs: shelter, food and clothing. You have the opportunity to go to another country to work. They will pay you …
Sep 27
On November 28th 2011 the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is set to hold their next Presidential elections, and despite having ten candidates vying for the position, current President Joseph Kabila is set firmly as the front-runner. Kabila has been in office since 2001 after his father Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated. The platform that Kabila …
Sep 23
Uganda Skimming over the New York Times this morning, I noted that the first article in their global edition was regarding the outrage that Oxfam is uncovering about Ugandan settlers being displaced on behalf of the Ugandan government and an international organization. Despite being a catchy headline on a leading newspaper, unfortunately these practices are …
Sep 22
What if your home was no longer yours? What if you were a guest in a place you once called your own? As I prepared for a fact-finding trip to Colombia in May 2010, I tried to do my homework. I looked up demographic and country data, information on the people I was meeting with …
Sep 22
It’s officially fall now, which means the Arab Spring has now entered its third season, and, unfortunately, the economic situation that partially contributed to the uprisings in many of the countries has not improved at all. In many cases it is even getting worse. Institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the European Investment Bank, …
Sep 21
On a daily basis, the news will report on cases of labor exploitation in restaurants, sweatshops or agricultural fields in urban and rural America. In more severe cases, we hear of people being enslaved and forced to work against their will as victims of human trafficking. People migrate to escape hardship back home. Poverty and …
Sep 19
A few weeks ago, I went on a journey to Kenya and Tanzania. As you may know from reading this blog, I spent a decent amount of time this summer investigating what was happening in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, near the border with Somalia. My colleague Rebecca and I took a look at …
Sep 16
The state of Penang, Malaysia, has stumbled upon an interesting economic growth device: hospitals. The region boasts numerous private hospitals and those hospitals draw an impressive number of medical tourists each year, which boosts Penang’s economy, as well as Malaysia’s as a whole. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, medical tourists are pretty …
Sep 15
There are parts of the world, where children don’t worry about how to tell their parents they received a bad grade or convince them to let them go out on a Friday night. That carefree life is a far reality from the grim existence that many live in throughout the world. There is a generation …
