Asia Now: Issues related to poverty and poverty itself can be eliminated

Welcome to my Blog

WELCOME TO MY BLOG................

The United Nations Website for reporting on the Millennium Development Goals (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/) reports that more than one billion people live in hunger and extreme poverty. Over 32 million children are out of school. In addition to an increased likelihood of being out of school as compared to boys, girls face gender discrimination that leads to lower earning, increased illness and violent crimes. The likelihood of a child dying before its first birthday is 8 times higher for those in developing countries than for those in developed countries, and 13 times higher for the bottom billion of the population. Maternal health, labor and sex trafficking, access to clean water, HIV/AIDS, and environmental sustainability each bear grim statistics that call for action, and perhaps the hardest of all to acknowledge, is that 24,000 children in developing countries die preventable deaths every day.

The purpose of this blog is to provide information related to understanding these issues and to provide multiple resources to enable readers of this blog to take individual action. The blog will also provide updates on current activities and partnerships addressing these issues as well as some “catch up” backstories as many have asked about the path that brought me to my current passion to address social injustices and the belief that real progress is not only possible it's essential and although many of the issues are complex there are many tangible and specific things that can be done now to reduce the suffering and improve the lives of literally billions of people.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Issues related to poverty and poverty itself can be eliminated

Since joining World Vision I’ve had many incredible experiences and opportunities to learn more about the state of developing countries and least developed populations. Of these experiences the one that stands out the most is a visit to the Van Yen Area Development (ADP) in Vietnam about 5 ½ hours north of Hanoi. The Van Yen district has a population of approximately 116,000 people. I took the picture at the top of this blog site not far from this ADP.

Area Development Project Overview

ADP’s are the name given by WV to community transformation efforts in which WV works with local communities for up to 15 years to address needs related to poverty, health, education, and child well- being. There are 36 ADPs in Vietnam and over 1800 ADPs in 60 countries served by World Vision. Ideally the projects are staffed with people local to the area or country, although the difficulty of accomplishing this increases as the remoteness and poverty level increases. The teams of 5-15 that do staff the projects assume significant responsibilities and personal burdens as they are usually separated from their families, at least during the week, and may have long travel to work through remote and sometimes dangerous access conditions.

What made this visit so inspiring and confirming were the results that this community has realized in the five years since the baseline was established. A subset of the results the Van Yen ADP team of seven, working closely with the community, reported from 2006-2010:

· The poverty rate has been reduced from 33% to 11% (26% adjusted for inflation)

· The livelihood development efforts have provided new techniques to farmers resulting in increased productivity and yield of husbandry (285kg/person/yr to >415 kg/person/year)

· 29 bridges that will withstand flooding have been built as well as access roads and irrigation canals.

· Pre-school and primary school enrollment increased from 63% to 84%.

· In mountainous areas, where schools and access roads did not previously exist, day-boarding school enrollment increased from 0% to 65%.

· Malnutrition decreased from 29% to 22%.

· Improvements in maternal well-being, child well-being, accident preventions, and health education have also been significant.

· The community is mobilized and actively participating in making these things happen. In fact the ADP serves a facilitation and education role but it is the community involvement that makes change sustainable.

In 5 years this community has made measurable differences that not only improve the quality of life but also save lives. Through this work and these results I can see that issues related to poverty actually can be addressed and eliminated. It’s not an overnight process, but it possible within our lifetime and that, for me, was a brand new and amazing realization.