The Associated Press reports that they UN says nearly 1 billion people live in dire poverty: Close to one billion people, or one-sixth of humanity, live in urban areas that are dangerous and “out of control,” a senior UN official said Monday. “About one person out of six in the world lives in very dire […]
Monthly Archives: April 2007
Poverty Shatters Young Dreams
Garret Mathews recently wrote a column about the bitter reality of poverty: You’re taking a bunch of fifth-graders home from the pet store and the mall. They live on the poor side of town and don’t have many opportunities to go places. In some cases, their caregivers don’t even have cars. You get a good […]
Italian Schools Support Fair Trade
Today, David Cronin reported that Roman school-children can help alleviate poverty by eating chocolate among other foods: When schoolchildren in Rome tuck into a banana or a chocolate bar, they are making a real difference to families in poor countries. Italy is leading the way in a European drive to convince public authorities that they […]
Serving & Learning about Poverty
Gladys Terichow recently reported about a program in Ontario, Canada. The program combines helping unfortunate people with educating the fortunate.. I include an excerpt: TOOLS coordinator, Allan Reesor-McDowell, said the program is designed to offer challenging and faith-enriching experiences that change participants’ lives. It combines opportunities for service with learning, group discussions and personal reflections […]
Poverty, Violence, and Health
In a recent article from Watching The Watchers, Lee Russ concludes the following: Poverty and violence are not, it seems, merely some abstract philosophical states that matter only in the context of some partisan discussion of economic and social policy (nor are poverty and violence unrelated to each other). There is considerable evidence indicating that […]
Quality Schools Defeat Achievement Gap
A recent editorial on jconline.com describes how some schools have overcome the achievement gap. I include an excerpt: Chenoweth cites schools from coast to coast that have extricated themselves from what she calls the demography myth — the one that implies low-income means low-achieving. High schools in Worcester, Mass., Elmont, N.Y., and elsewhere where poverty […]