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poverty
Somalia - It Happened Again
Posted by: Bea at 10:04AM EST on October 10, 2008
It happened yet again. This time it was on a Friday evening, just before the weekend. Usually, it happens around the holidays. Either right before or smack in the middle of it. Sometimes you wonder whether it is a coincidence or it is a strategy. Maybe it is both.
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Sunday September 28, 2008
Haiti report 2: No Comment
Facts
A woman gives birth in a temporary shelter, the bare ground covered in trash.
Without medicine.
Millions of barefooted people in mud laden with sharp objects.
Without shoes.
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Friday September 26, 2008
Haiti report 1: The Punishing Rain
A clammy heat that clings to your skin, a blazing sun that withers you to the core, I’m at the Télecom sans Frontières tent to send the latest news to CARE’s network. At the entrance, an alert announces that a storm system has formed from the ensuing rains and unfavorable winds in the Caribbean area. We have been following the weather development since yesterday, which we hope will not announce its lot of torrential showers on the country.
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Tuesday September 16, 2008
Time Machines
Posted by: Rick Perera at 12:29PM EST on September 16, 2008
My first lesson in the realities of poverty and global inequality came on a trip to Guatemala when I was four years old. My father, a doctor, had volunteered for a rural medical project, and brought his young family along.
The country was a riot of unfamiliar colors, smells, and sounds for a child’s senses. The joyfully clattering melodies of the marimba. The bustling marketplaces, where meat came not wrapped in cellophane, but on two or four legs. The destinations called out in sing-song voices by boys hanging precariously from brightly painted buses. “Gua-te, Gua-te, Gua-te-ma-la!” they’d shout, as they departed for the capital. I had no idea that these children, only a few years older than I, worked to help their families survive, at the price of a missed education.
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When Giving Life Means Risking Life
As a young woman not yet initiated into motherhood, I am both excited and frightened by the thought of giving birth. I can imagine nothing more amazing, and yet I recoil at the thought of labor. But standing here in Rancho Grande, Nicaragua, I must admit that my fears seem kind of absurd. After all, if I give birth, I will have the benefits of modern medicine at my fingertips – drugs, experienced doctors and sterile and well-equipped delivery rooms.
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Returning from the Delta
Below, Chris Northey continues her reflections from the field while working as CARE's Emergency Team Leader in Myanmar, following the devastation of Cyclone Nargis. Chris was one of the first international aid workers permitted into the Irrawaddy
Delta, after the government's announcement that it would allow
foreign emergency teams access to all cyclone-affected areas.
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Why Do I Care?
Sean Camoni offers insight and reflection following his advocacy efforts on the Hill for CARE's 2008 National Conference.
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A Bang-Up Start
The day started with a bang – or a beat, in any case – for some 20 participants in this year’s CARE National Conference. These hardy souls gathered at 7 a.m., under the leadership of CARE Ambassador Eric Harr, and ran the few blocks to Washington’s National Mall. There, Master Drummer Antoinette Kudoto of Ghana provided the motivation, while they moved their bodies as part of the global movement against poverty.
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Advocating on Capitol Hill for Better Maternal Health
This past Monday on Capitol Hill I got to attend a press conference with a group of Congress members and supporters. The purpose of the conference was to highlight the need for U.S. leadership to promote safe motherhood for women around the world and the bi-partisan House Resolution 1022, sponsored by Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA) and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA). ... (more)
Survivors Recount Horror of Myanmar Cyclone
As CARE’s emergency teams complete initial assessments in the Irrawaddy delta, gruesome scenes of bodies decomposing in the very ponds the Myanmarese use for drinking water are being reported. Corpses still cannot be buried and entire villages remain underwater, many with few survivors.
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A Powerful Noise
I attended the world premiere of A Powerful Noise at the Tribeca Film Festival last night (Apr 30). The turn out was great! There was a standing ovation at the end followed by a Q and A with executive producer Sheila Johnson, director Tom Capello and Madame Urbain, who was one of the three women featured in the film. She flew in from Mali to see the premiere.
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A Nutty Idea that Just Might Work
“Extreme poverty can be ended in our lifetime.”
If you believe this, you are:
a) Optimistic bordering on delusional.
b) A rock star with a cause.
c) A liberal policy wonk.
d) A level-headed realist who believes humans have the capacity and creativity to solve tough problems.
Maybe ending poverty isn’t such a nutty idea.
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