25 posts categorized "Film"

Tornike Shubitidze of Georgia wants to be a cameraman.

Being a kid can be tough, especially in the country of Georgia, where the absence of a juvenile justice system means a crime like theft can land a teenager in jail for four to seven years. That's the sentence 15-year-old Tornike Shubitidze faced recently for stealing a washing machine.

But under a juvenile reform program supported by UNICEF, Shubitidze received probation and now attends filmmaking classes. This is good for many reasons, one of them being that research from the United States shows clear links between incarceration and poverty. Shubitidze now wants to be a cameraman.

"First of all, I will certainly buy a camera. I will spend more time to learn," he says in the ViewChange video below. "I'll work more and try to become a cameraman."

Learn more about Shubititdze and Georgia's juvenile reform program in the video below.

This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series.

Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policies, the 2012 edition of Bread for the World Institute's annual Hunger Report, was released today, November 21. This is the Institute's 22^nd annual report. Few of them have been as timely, considering the looming budget cuts Congress is negotiating.

The report argues that U.S. farm policies need to shift toward production of healthy foods. We say bluntly that current farm policies are doing a poor job of contributing to a healthy food system. There is too much support for ingredients used to produce cheap junk foods, and not enough support for foods that promote good health.

The greater share of government support to the farm sector goes to the biggest producers. Smaller producers and producers of healthy foods — i.e., fruits and vegetables — get little or no support. It's been this way for decades, but Americans are expressing more concern than ever about what we're eating and what we're getting for our tax dollars to the farm sector. The local food movement, with its emphasis on "smaller is better," is helping to reshape the farm policy debate. Farm policies are not solely to blame for Americans' low consumption of fruits and vegetables — but U.S. farms don't even produce enough healthy foods for our population to get its recommended daily allowances of vitamins and minerals. We need to ask, what are farm policies really trying to accomplish?

The report is not a diatribe against large-scale farming. We recognize the value of production agriculture in lowering food costs. The biggest beneficiaries of low food prices are low-income people – the people most vulnerable to hunger, who are therefore Bread for the World's main concern. Food production could also be a key component of the country's economic recovery strategy, a potential source of jobs. In tough times with so many people out of work, the hobbling U.S. economy simply can't afford to ignore these possibilities. 

The greatest economic challenge facing the United States, bar none, is the rising cost of health care. Obesity as a contributor to these costs is getting more attention as the problem affects more and more Americans. Hunger, on the other hand, is often overlooked as a health issue—but hungry people are by definition in poor health. Together, the costs of obesity and hunger run into the hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This calls for a much stronger tie between the foods government encourages farmers to produce and the foods government should be encouraging people to eat.

We need bolder, more determined thinking about how policies can better meet the needs that the world is now facing. The 2012 Hunger Report has plenty of ideas to move us in the right direction.

 +View or order the 2012 Hunger Report at www.bread.org/hungerreport.

Todd Post is senior editor with Bread for the World Institute.

Kiribati is an island nation in the Pacific facing the effects of climate change.

When I think about the impact of climate change on Washington, DC, where I live, I imagine a far-off time in the future when the Potomac River overflows its banks and eventually floods my home. The key phrase there is "a far-off time." But for the people of Kiribati -- an island nation in the Pacific -- the effects of climate change are  imminent. Drought, rising sea levels, and an increase in storm surge are just some of the factors threatening Kiribati's existence. The country's government has even set up a climate change website where people can keep up with the latest news on how this phenomenon is affecting their nation.

"Previously I thought 2060 would be safe, maybe getting too close to the edge," says Anote Tong, the president of Kirbati, in the video below. "But now it seems that it might be a lot earlier; I think 2030 might be more realistic. But I think the response has to be much earlier than that."

Climate change is already impacting agricultural production around the world and threatening people's livelihood, particularly women. Learn more about climate change and Kiribati's situation by watching the ViewChange video below.

This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series.

Laura Elizabeth Pohl is multimedia manager at Bread for the World.

Rangina Hamidi, an Afghan-American, is the founder of an embroidery business that employs more than 450 Afghan women in Kandahar.

Afghanistan is not unfamiliar to Rangina Hamidi. She was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, but her family fled when the Soviets invaded. Her family ended up in northern Virginia, where Hamidi grew up. But after Sept. 11, she felt pulled back to her birth country. So she returned there with a mission: to help economically empower Afghan women.

"I saw my country, in the past 30 years of war, we are constantly waiting to be spoon-fed by the world," Hamidi said. "So my answer to this dissatisfaction was, start a business that I can own, but with a sustainable model."

Kandahar Treasure, Hamidi's embroidery business, now employs over 450 women. The money the women earn is all their own, which has improved the women's self-esteem and also given them a bargaining chip with their husbands, some of whom may want to marry off their young daughters.

"The mother basically is buying time for her daughters to not get married early because she's not bringing income, and the father agrees," said Hamidi.

Watch the video below to learn more about Hamidi, the women, and Kandahar Treasure.

This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series.

Laura Elizabeth Pohl is multimedia manager at Bread for the World.

A community health worker shows mothers how to make a vitamin-rich porridge.

Many of us know that the first 1,000 days between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday are crucial to the child's development and future well-being. But not everyone knows that. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a group of doctors and local volunteers are educating women about the importance of proper nutrition for mothers and their children.

"What makes me happy is knowing that if I help my people, they’re going to benefit," said Mukobe Kabaila, one of the volunteers. "I would like them to live well, with good health and education."

Watch the video below to learn more.

This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series.

Ma Grace Masuku, a community health worker in South Africa, is interviewed for a radio program in New York City.

Ma Grace Masuku's approach to sustainable development is decidedly low-tech, even old-fashioned: She passes on knowledge she and other women learned from their mothers and grandmothers.

"We tap into the experience of the women there -- what they do best," said Masuku. "And what is important is that it's not something that she copied, it's something within her culture."

I did a little Internet digging on Ms. Masuku and found she recently received The Order of the Baobab in Bronze award from South African President Jacob Zuma for her work in environmental conservation. The award website has words of praise for Masuku:

Her undoubted vocation is organising women and the youth around her and showing them how to use the environment in a sustainable way. Her efforts to alleviate poverty, using her own brand of wisdom, have not gone unnoticed.

Ms. Masuku's initiatives include a leather-producing project, and a traditional herb medicine operation. Watch the video below to learn more about her philosophy and work.

This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series.

I hate math. To force me to learn my multiplication tables, my father used to set the timer on the microwave over and over again, until I could finish a page of equations before the “ding!” To this day I stop a microwave before it finishes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful.

My father understood the value of investing time, effort, and money in one girl’s education—mine. Around the world, however, there are millions of girls who aren’t as lucky. It’s no secret that girls are disproportionately affected by poverty, inaccessibility to education, and sexually-transmitted diseases. In fact, 25 percent of girls in developing countries are not in school, according to the Girl Effect project, which empowers adolescent girls to improve the future of their world through helping them improve their own.

Women’s education and empowerment in developing countries has implications that go far beyond test scores. Without an education, many of them will be married, have children, and contract HIV in the same amount of time it took me to learn how to drive. Alternatively, each extra year of school a mother receives reduces the probability of her infant’s mortality by 5 to 10 percent. Also, a child born to a literate mother is twice as likely to survive to age 5 as a child born to an illiterate mother.

How’s that for some multiplication?

Those numbers become more poignant when you consider that the first 1,000 days of a child's life, from pregnancy to age 2, are critical for establishing a healthy foundation. Malnourishment or under-nutrition in this small window has irreversible and lifelong physical and cognitive consequences. That’s why organizations like the 1,000 Days initiative work to provide pregnant women and their young children with the nutritional building blocks they need to break the cycle of poverty.

To find out more about what organizations like Girl Effect are doing to get people to care about educating girls, check out their video below. (Also, read reflections from Bread for the World's delegation to Africa!)

Emily Warne is a communications intern at Bread for the World.

The world lost a dynamic force today as Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai lost her battle with ovarian cancer. In 1975, Maathai began the Green Belt Movement, an organization that planted trees in Kenya. Eventually, the small effort grew into an African movement to protect the environment against the ravages of deforestation, pollution, and other harmful human-made practices.

Maathai's message is still very needed today, particularly as drought and famine cause many around the world to suffer from hunger and poverty. Her message of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society by protecting the environment will continue to live on in her work, writing, and legacy. Watch the CNN video above to learn more about Maathai.

How many of these facts about foreign aid do you know?

• Just 1 percent of our national budget goes to development assistance that's focused on alleviating poverty.
• 95 percent of the world’s customers live outside of the United States.
• U.S. exports counted for a big part of our economic growth last year, and half of our exports went to developing countries.
• Every 10 percent increase in exports equals a 7 percent increase in jobs in the United States.

Psalm 8:2 reads, “out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength,” and that is indeed the case with this fantastic video (above) created by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. It’s refreshing to see kids say some plain simple facts about the effects of foreign aid. It takes a lot to capture people's attention, especially in our new media world with Twitter and Facebook constantly shouting facts at you, and a 24-hour news cycle of endless stories, opinions, and punditry. So it was the simplicity of this video that really made me take a second look.

True, the children are probably scripted, but I appreciate this easy introduction to the important issues of foreign aid. Watch the video above, and read more about foreign aid and what poverty-focused development assistance can do for our country and the global community. 

Girls often have fewer opportunities for education and jobs than boys -- a fact that the Millennium Development Goals are trying to address. Furthermore, research shows that girls without an education are more likely than boys to be hungry and poor as adults. In fact, women disproportionately suffer from hunger. But attitudes about gender are hard to change. 

In Bangladesh, Shilpi's Mom thought a son would be better than a daughter. That was until Shilpi started weaving and selling mats, which led her to buy a cow, which eventually led her to build a house for her family. Now, says Shilpi:

My mother used to think if I had been a son instead of a daughter our life would have been much easier. But now she thinks, "my daughter has done more for our family than a son would ever do."

Learn more about Shilpi's story by watching the video above.

This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series.