Save the Children
butterjam
Posts: 215
One thing that should unite us Pearl Jam fans, is helping those in need.
http://www.imgonnabeyourfriend.org/
http://www.imgonnabeyourfriend.org/
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Wash me in the blood of Rock & Roll
I don't think the issue is just population. there is a long list of issues ranging from corruption in government to lack of education.
and ummm lack of rain..
that goes without saying.
ANY amount of money you can give goes so much further than you would ever think it could - even just $5 or $10. I know it sounds cliche, but it's so true!
Here's some perspective that I gained: I had to go to some out-of-town meetings, which meant I had to stay in a hotel for a night, which meant I got to go to the hotel bar. I ordered a glass of wine and the waitress first brought me a bottle about the size of a beer. I was just going to accept without thinking about the price, but the locals I was with asked how much it was. It was 800 shillings. That's just less than $9 - about the cost of a glass of wine, right? (And it was at least 2 glasses worth.) So I thought, yeah, that sounds good. But before I had a chance to say yes, the guys I was with got incredibly outraged, like she had said the bottle was $100 or something, and they told her there's no way I was going to pay that much. (She ended up bringing me some "strawberry fruit wine" for about $2.) Anyway, I found out later that one of the highest-paid people in the community, the local nurse, only makes 600 shillings a day. So that bottle of wine was more than the cost of one really good day's wages, and probably about what others would make in a month. And I pay that much for just one glass of wine all the time - and sometimes buy 2 or 3. For real - one less glass of wine per month and you could literally save children's lives. $10 will feed 3 people for a month!
Also, those of you who know me know how pro-family planning and pro-population control I am. And I still totally think the lack of good family planning is a huge problem. But I no longer think that's the #1 reason people are starving.
The problem is: There's no fucking food. Because there's no fucking water. For real. It's crazy. There's hardly any access to good water to begin with, but now they're having the worst drought they've had in 60 years. There was more than one occasion where we drove past a bunch of dirt and I was told it was a lake or a stream - but it was completely dry.
There was one body of water anywhere near where I was. It was a river at the bottom of a mountain. And it had crocodiles and hippos in it. And did I mention that it was at the bottom of a freakin' mountain? And that water is heavy? Obviously there's no plumbing, so people have to go get water and haul it back to their homes. But no one has a vehicle and, even if they did, it couldn't make it down the mountain because there aren't roads. Some people have donkeys or oxen, but most don't. So what you have to do to get any water at all is get some jerrycans, walk your ass down to the bottom of the mountain, brave the crocodiles & hippos, fill your cans with dirty water, and carry them back up the mountain. A jerrycan is 20 liters, right? So that's nearly 45 pounds per can, right? Up a mountain. Probably with no shoes. And then after spending a whole day doing that, all you have is a few cans full of dirty water.
There are a few other places that have wells or boreholes where you can buy water if you have the money. But if a pump breaks and no one has the parts or the skills to fix it, there's no more water. And you still have to haul it to your home. And it's still dirty.
You shouldn't drink it because it can make you really sick, like with diarrhea. That doesn't sound too tragic except when you remember that diarrhea is the 2nd-leading cause of death in children under 5 worldwide, and 90% of the cases are due to contaminated water. You're supposed to boil it or put this stuff called waterguard in it to make it safe to drink, but people can't afford the wood to burn or the money for the waterguard. (And of course, not everyone is well-educated about this either.)
Regardless, even if you have safe drinking water for your family, you still have to be able to water your crops and provide water for your livestock (if you have any) if you want to eat. The livestock can usually be taken to the river, but the crops can't. And there's no way you can haul enough water to grow enough food to feed your whole family. And water doesn't flow up hill. So, basically, people are fucked without good rain.
Okay, I got carried away with that story. :oops:
But my point is: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DONATE SOME MONEY TO THE RELIEF EFFORTS!! :!: Thank you! :thumbup:
They found out about a women's basket-weaving co-op that had been saving money for 10 years to build a clinic in their community. They had been able to buy a plot of land & enough bricks (which they carried & laid themselves) to build about 3 feet of an exterior wall, and they were still working hard toward their goal. GHP funded the construction of the rest of the building. The Kenyan Ministry of Health will fund a nurse (dispensaries don't get doctors) & some meds if the community builds the building & pays the ongoing salary of someone to clean the place & a night guard. So they do that & GHP funds more meds (or they would run out), the lab tech (whose salary is actually paid by 10-15 of the lowest-paid staff at the American clinic where the GHP President is a doctor, who each pitch in about $25/month), and a vehicle that can be used as an ambulance. (Before they bought the ambulance, women who were having complications of labor had to walk - in distressed labor - for miles to get to the clinic for help, and many didn't make it. Now they usually only have to walk part of the way, to meet the ambulance at the end of the "road". And for women whose complications can be dealt with at home, it helps the nurse get there a lot faster than when he had to ride a bicycle.) My point is... GHP really is a partnership that provides communities with what they really can't provide for themselves, but the communities still do most of the work.
As for the water situation... Instead of just handing out food, GHP is working on an agriculture & livestock program where they will give small loans to community groups who are trying to provide sustainable, nutrient-rich foods to children under 5. The loans will be used to address otherwise hopeless problems, like building a pump so the river water can be used for irrigation. The groups will have to pay back the loans, interest free, so the money can then be loaned to another group to pursue a similar project. We met with the Ministries of Agriculture & Livestock, and they have agreed to provide training to the communities in farming of drought-resistant, nutrient-rich, native crops, as well as training about which kinds of goats produce the most milk, etc. The loans might also be used to purchase a couple of male goats to mate with the goats they might already have so as to change their herds to a better breed. So you see, even with the drought, the situation can be hopeful with a little bit of funding.