A large part of advocating for human rights comes involves bearing witness. While we will never be able to prevent all the atrocities in the world, the hope is that by bringing these realities to light we can gather the political will to make them stop. In this regard, the media plays a huge role […]
Half of Yemenis “go to bed hungry,” says U.N. agency Rising costs for food and fuel have spurred a rise in malnutrition in Yemen, where five million people, or 22% of the population, simply do not have enough food — and another five million “go to bed hungry,” according to Barry Came of the World […]
When I used to report on the United Nations I would saunter down to the department of public information every few days and accumulate unnecessarily thick stacks of documents — there was, in fact, already the internet. Among my reams of paper would be tucked a monthly calendar of “observances,” days the U.N. dedicates to […]
Last week hundreds of world leaders converged in New York City for the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly; on the agenda were hot topics such as Syria, Israel and Iran. However, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the rights of women and children have also been on the agenda. Governments and aid organizations alike made […]
According to the United Nations for the first time the number of annual child deaths have fallen below seven million. “The new child mortality estimates show that concerted efforts to get proven lifesaving care to children work and that, in the 21stcentury, children no longer need to die from preventable causes,” said Carolyn Miles, President and […]
Ending illiteracy could also mean ending poverty, hopelessness An estimated 775 million adults and 122 million children are unable to read or write, missing out on the positives of globalization while disproportionately bearing its negatives, write Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, and Laura Bush, an honorary ambassador with the U.N. agency, in recognition of […]
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, half of all African children do not have a birth certificate, which negatively affects the children both mentally and physically in their sense of safety and well-being. “Could you imagine a child not having an identity, not having an existence written down and so you’re born, you live your life, you die and […]
With August coming to a close here’s something short and inspiring to remind us that unconventional approaches make a difference. Skateboards and Afghanistan sound like an unlikely combination but reality is proving otherwise. Skateistan is an international non-profit charity providing skateboarding and educational programming in Afghanistan (as well as Cambodia and Pakistan). It was set […]
Summer 2012 will be most likely be remembered for the London Olympics, the Republicans’ awkward, gaffe-prone run-up to the US presidential election and the situation in Syria. What also made Summer 2012 was the number of female-led stories the media picked up on and which got people talking. It feels like the floodgates opened…but for […]
Last week one of my volunteers at Bridge to Freedom Foundation (BTFF), Elyse Elder, and I took a different route to our morning as after telling me about a horror film short her boyfriend stumbled upon in is quest for finding yet another thriller to send himself into shock and awe over. Shock and awe was an understatement […]
A mother breastfeeds one of her twin babies at Jose Fabella Medical hospital in Manila, Philippines © Jason Gutierrez/IRIN Filipino breast milk bank gives babies a chance A state-run breast milk bank in the Philippines is helping to fend off infant mortality in Manila, the capital, and elsewhere as breastfeeding rates differ among the […]
In East Asia and the Pacific, the number of children who face maltreatment is shockingly high. Roughly 10% to 30% of the 580 million children –one quarter of the world’s children — in the East Asia and Pacific regions are victims of forced sex and other physical abuse according to a report by UNICEF. The […]
There was a brief moment in time, back in the early 1990s, where the idea of Russia becoming a real democracy did not seem ridiculous. By now, that illusion has passed. Corruption passes for governance, civil society functions albeit under strict scrutiny, and elections are less than free and fair. Needless to say dissent is […]
Recent concerns have sparked as child marriages spike among Syrian refugees in Jordan. Difficult conditions in Jordan have many parents pushing to have their daughters married at an earlier age. The issue has created a concern among many international aid organizations that the rise in child marriage has been brought on as a sort of coping […]
Following the questions of one Haitian-born, Canadian-raised woman, Adopted ID raises questions of identity, and the politics of international adoption. To a lively soundtrack, which carries the film when the visuals blur, the documentary follows the emotional journey of Judith Craig Morency on her first trip back to Haiti after 27 years raised in a […]