6 posts categorized "Field Focus"

Domestic

To Get Medicaid and Education Aid to States, An Unprecedented Cut to Food Stamps. Congress poised to cut billions from food stamps, resulting in an unprecedented cut in monthly benefits for the poorest Americans. [The Washington Independent]

The Plight of America's New Poor. The economic recovery in the US has stalled and for the 15 million unemployed Americans, the land of opportunity seems anything but. Almost 50% of the unemployed have not had a job for at least six months, double the level of previous downturns. [BBC]

Fighting Generational Poverty in Richmond's Iron Triangle. A new federal program called Promise Neighborhoods has economically disadvantaged communities all over the Bay Area scrambling to be included. This year, the program is giving out $500,000 awards to organizations in neighborhoods around the country that struggle with low educational achievement, violence and other effects of poverty. [KALWNews.org]

International

Samasource, a Cyber Solution to Global Poverty. Leila Chirayath Janah was well on her way to becoming another cog in the wheels of multinational big business. Then she decided it was wrong to let the world's poor people's massive talent go to waste. [The Daily Maverick]

Niger's Markets are Full Yet Famine Shadows the Dusty Roads. Nearly 12 million people in Niger – about 80% of the population – are now affected by food insecurity, a status that indicates they have as few as 10 days' food supplies remaining with all other income-generating activities exhausted. [The Guardian]

The Brits Have Us Beat on Child Poverty. In the past 10 years, the United States and the United Kingdom have been through a lot of the same economic troubles. But somehow in this past decade, Britain has made major inroads in reducing child poverty while the U.S. has stagnated. [The New America Foundation]

Climate Change/Environment

Is Climate Change Creating More Environmental Refugees than War in Africa? Climate change is rapidly emerging as one of the most serious threats that humanity may ever face. The impact of climate change on livelihoods is creating a new kind of casualty: environmental refugees. Rising sea levels, desertification, weather-induced flooding, and frequent natural disasters have become a major cause of population displacement. [ReliefWeb]

International

Women's Program Launched in Volatile Northern Mali. The Manu River Women Peace Network, a West Africa-wide association that works to improve living conditions for women, is launching a program in Mali's extreme north, where conflict, hunger and drought are affecting hundreds of thousands. [VOA News]

Fighting Poverty and Enhancing Rural Development. Ghana’s fight against poverty to make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals has seen various successive policies introduced to accelerate national development, with a special focus on rural development. [The Chronicle]

Throwaway Fashion Culture Means Poverty for Millions. Today the Bangladesh Ministry of Labour is expected to announce that following months of strikes and demonstrations by garment workers, the minimum wage in an industry that employs 2,500,000 is to be virtually doubled. [Herald Scotland]

Give the Poor Money. Conditional-cash transfers are good. They could be even better. [The Economist]

Domestic

Visualizing Hunger and Its Impact: Why We Need a Hunger Data Consortium. We need smarter, more collaborative data collection that bypasses organizational silos. [The Huffington Post]

Farmers' Markets, CSAs Struggle To Get Food Stamp Customers. Innovative city programs have increased the number of low-income shoppers getting access to locally grown produce. But technology and upfront costs remain a barrier for many. [City Limits]

As Economy Sinks, Demand for Social Services Soars. For at least a year, economists have said Nevada’s economy was “bouncing along the bottom” instead of still searching for it. [Las Vegas Sun]

Domestic

African-American Women Struggle to Overcome Wealth Gap. Call it a tale of three women. In the most hard-scrabble parts of South Carolina, Kenya Williams, Natisha Boston, and Germaine Jenkins are all struggling to overcome personal hardship and overwhelming odds. [BBC]

Child Poverty Persistence: Facts and Consequences. Using the PSID, this study finds that 49 percent of children who are poor at birth go on to spend at least half their childhoods living in poverty. In addition, children who are born into poverty and spend multiple years living in poor families have worse adult outcomes than their counterparts in higher-income families. [Urban Institute]

[Blog] As Food Prices Rise, How Will Retailers Respond? The reality is that many food prices, due to late plantings, weather conditions and natural disasters, are on the way up. [Supermarket News]

International

[Blog] Poverty is Destiny. The World Bank estimates that there are more than 1.4 billion people in the world who live below the poverty line of $1.25 per day. It will be interesting to see what happens to children born in poverty: to follow them from womb to tomb, the entire life cycle. [The World Bank Institute]

Rust in the Bread Basket. A crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa toward the world’s great wheat-growing areas. [The Economist]

Two Faces of Asia, Ultrarich and Desperately Poor, Hound Economists. Philippine policymakers and other developing-country planners must rewrite their economic plans into what the Asian Development Bank calls “inclusive growth,” or the scaling down of the gap between the rich and the poor. [Business Mirror]

After World Cup Euphoria Fades, South Africa’s Poverty Will Remain. For many citizens, the $5 billion sports extravaganza will generate little more than pride. [The Globe and Mail]

Climate Change/Environment

Conservation Can Be a Weapon Against Poverty. The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico shows how local people can be paid for protecting their environment... [The Guardian]

At first glance, you might not think Erin Rath and Chris Ko have a lot in common. Rath is a longtime South Dakota resident who is completing her training as a sign-language interpreter, while Ko lives in Los Angeles and works as a consultant to nonprofit organizations.

But Rath and Ko are members of Bread for the World’s first class of Hunger Justice Leaders (HJL) -- a group of activists in their 20s and early 30s who are committed to making a long-term difference for hungry and poor people.

The two were active on hunger issues before receiving HJL training in 2008. Rath served as the coordinator of her local Bread group in Sioux Falls, SD, and Ko worked for the Los Angeles mayor’s office on asset-building programs for low-income families. They credit HJL training with building their skills and revitalizing their advocacy.

Rath sees her work on hunger as a religious and spiritual obligation. She says that HJL training gave her strategies for building connections with a wide range of people. “If they don’t agree with Bread’s position or they’re not well-informed about the issues,” she says, “I can listen carefully and engage them in conversation and offer my opinion in a non-threatening way.” 

In addition to her work on Bread’s national and international hunger issues, Rath also puts her energy into state issues, such as the repeal of South Dakota’s food tax, which disproportionately affects people struggling to put food on the table. South Dakotans have been working to eliminate the tax for several years.

“This year, for the first time, the bill made it out of committee. It hasn’t passed yet, but just clearing the committee is a very important step,” she says. “From a religious perspective, I know that I have to do my part, and then God is ultimately in control.”

Ko says that he came to the HJL training in search of spiritual revitalization. “I got that, and I also had a great time. I think I’d been getting a bit cynical, and I was pleasantly surprised by how receptive members of Congress were,” he adds.

Since he became a Hunger Justice Leader, Ko has written his first op-eds on hunger and submitted them to newspapers. He is also starting an international community development project to connect Los Angeles with cities in developing countries.

“Our city is really a collection of dozens of neighborhoods, and a lot of them have deep poverty and many of the other problems of cities in developing countries, like lack of transportation,” he says. “So if we can do community development and get it right in L.A., ultimately maybe we can help other cities -- Mumbai, Rio -- address some of these problems.”

Many immigrants who live in L.A. travel back and forth every summer; Ko envisions working with them to help transfer ideas and resources from L.A. to their home communities and vice versa. “I know that when I studied in Ghana, I was struck by how far a dollar will go in some communities. The $20 a month I contribute as an individual is actually helping people,” he says.

Ko and Rath reflect the energy and thoughtfulness of many of Bread’s younger activists. Rath says she is motivated by hearing the stories of experienced advocates. “A lot of them have been active for many years, and they still have compassion and dedication,” she says. She also hopes that her class of Hunger Justice Leaders can collaborate with the 2010 class, which meets for training in Washington, DC, this summer. “We can connect on Facebook and help each other be more effective.”

Ko notes that he visited the Robert Kennedy Memorial while in Washington for HJL training. “I realized that we live in a country that actually builds memorials to our values of justice and compassion. So when I went home, I tried to figure out how to apply this to my life.”

You can learn more about the HJL program from Vanessa Martinez, a Hunger Justice Leader from Santa Ana, CA, on this short video, or apply directly to the program. And if you know someone who would be a perfect Hunger Justice Leader, send them to www.bread.org/bealeader. The deadline is March 12.

Michele Lerner is a writer for Bread for the World.

Last Friday I trekked down to Salem for a hearing on Oregon Senate bill 1044, which would expand Oregon's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Like 23 other states, Oregon has a state EITC that complements the federal credit. 

Here's how Oregon's EITC works: Oregon matches 6 percent of the federal EITC. So, for example, if your family is eligible for a $1,000 federal credit, Oregon kicks in an extra $60. It's particularly important because in Oregon, the lowest-income fifth of families pays a higher share of income to state and local taxes than the richest fifth. The bill would help more than 200,000 people in Oregon close the gap between impossible choices among food, medicine, utilities, and rent.

Confession: I thought spending a Friday afternoon at a hearing about the tax policy might be boring. I was happily proven wrong.

More than 50 people crowded the hearing room, and more than a dozen people testified -- all in favor of the bill. Most represented organizations such as the Oregon Food Bank, the Oregon Center for Public Policy, and other groups that are part of the Oregonians for Working Families Coalition. Bread is a member of the coalition, along with nearly 100 other organizations.

It's always great to hear testimony from organizations that serve low-income people, but what struck me is how many people had a personal story to tell about how the EITC impacted their lives. 

Andrea Paluso from Family Forward Oregon told the story of her mother, who worked a full-time job, a part-time job, and went to college full-time (and had stomach ulcers to show for it). Andrea testified about how EITC gave her mom the opportunity to "exhale for one second." Father C. Paul Schroeder of Portland's Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral testified about how when he was at seminary, the EITC gave him a "real shot in the arm" at a financially challenging point in his life. He also noted how he may have been reticent to apply for other forms of public assistance, but because it was part of a tax form he was going to fill out anyway, it provided a level of dignity that other programs might not.

Perhaps the most powerful testimony of the day belonged to Ian Finch -- a former recipient of EITC. Ian was raised in poverty by his single mother. He became a single father of five children and was determined to break the cycle of poverty. Here's an excerpt from his testimony:    

Because of the EITC I was able to purchase a minivan and car insurance for a year. I was now able to accomplish much more because I had my own vehicle. It was great not to have to wait out in the cold and rain for buses anymore. It also helped my children to be able to do more outside activities. By purchasing the minivan, I was able to free up about three hours of my day because I didn't have to wait for buses and MAX trains.

The EITC has benefited my family in so many ways. I was able to take my family on vacation for the first time in our lives. While we were at Disneyland, my oldest daughter summed it up really well. She said, "Dad, we are finally here! You have worked so hard to make this a dream come true!" That is all I needed to hear to know that all the hard work was worth it.

When he spoke of his daughter's epiphany, you could tell how moved the Senate panel was, and I confess I teared up a little myself. 

Ian happily noted that he now earns too much money to be eligible for EITC, and he is not alone. In fact, more than half of people who claim the EITC do so for only one or two years, and families that received EITC benefits from 1989-2006 generated more than $500 billion in net tax revenue during that period. 

Still, most states do not have an EITC to supplement the federal credit, which underscores the importance of this year's Offering of Letters campaign to help working families bridge the gap between food and other basic necessities by protecting and strengthening the federal EITC and Child Tax credits. Improvements to these credits passed during the Bush (43) and Obama administrations expire at the end of the year. If the improvements expire, it's estimated that 1.5 million people will fall back into poverty. 

Let's git 'er done...

Matt Newell-Ching is Western Regional Organizer for Bread for the World.

Do you ever wonder if your advocacy makes a different in the lives of poor and hungry people?  Do you think to yourself, "Did that hand written letter really have an impact on my elected official?" Are there stories that I can tell to illustrate the value of advocacy?

Bread for the World recently launched a new series on our web site called "Field Focus."  Each month, we bring you stories from the United States and abroad that illustrate the impact of your advocacy.  These are great stories to share with your church, campus group and friends.

Our most recent Field Focus is featured below: