Poverty 'To Blame for Spread of Hiv'

from All Africa

The Nation (Nairobi)

By John Njagi And John Shilitsa
Nairobi

Poverty is hampering efforts to provide healthcare, as well as fuelling the spread of HIV, two officials have said separately.

The Central Provincial National Aids Control Council Coordinator Mr Leonard Kibe Ranji urged the Government to do more in assisting orphans and those living with HIV/Aids, noting that high levels of poverty in some areas were hampering efforts to provide care to those infected.

He also said that only five per cent of Central Province's four million people had been tested for HIV.

"I urge each and every one to go for testing because it is the first step to containing the scourge," said Mr Kibe during World Aids Day celebrations at the Whispers Park in Nyeri Town.

Cultural practices

Nyeri South District Commissioner Michael Mwangi said progress in the fight against Aids was being achieved gradually.

In Butere-Mumias district, poverty, cultural practices and drug abuse have been blamed for rising infections.

District Commissioner John Chelimo said youths and women were worst hit by because of their social obligations and lack of information.

Speaking during the World Aids day at Mulwanda market in Khwisero at the weekend, Mr Cheboi warned the youth against behaviour that exposed them to infection.

He said many of the young people had fallen prey to chang'aa (cheap liquor) and drugs and engaged in risky practices.

The DC asked the community to shun cultural norms that place women and young people at risk of infection.

Rampant rape cases had contributed to the spread of the virus, he said, and asked police to crack down on dealers in illicit alcoholic drinks.

His houses rebuild lives in Guatemala

from the Star Ledger

Joe Collins celebrated with a soft drink. His 67th birthday. The construction of his 103rd house for the poorest of the poor in the Guatemalan highlands.

And the continuing re-construction of his own life.

"I don't know what led me to this," says Collins. "I guess God did. I don't know, it's just ..."

His voice trails off because this twice-divorced 6-foot-2 former Marine and saloon owner and recovering alcoholic and cancer survivor is not the sort comfortable with invoking divine intervention in his own life. Collins would think it presumptuous.

But, after a round of Christmas fundraising, Collins is headed back down to the hot rain forests of the Central American country where, he estimates, some 1.6 million Mayan indigenous people live in shacks made of cornstalks or worse.

"We've built only 103 houses in three years. We've got a long way to go."

He runs an organization called From Houses to Homes in Guatemala, an offshoot of another group he joined six years ago just as a volunteer to help build small homes for people who, he says, make a dollar or two a day working in fields.

"They have nothing," he says. "The poverty down there is not like the poverty around here."

The building of houses for poor people in Guatemala might not appear to fit into this guy's life. Before he began the work, Collins was -- as he still is -- a private detective. A specialized one. He is an adoption detective who finds children given up for adoption and parents who gave them up.

He's good at it and has become a champion of the right of adoptees to learn more about their past, testifying before the Legislature, and representing a variety of groups pressing for open adoption laws. He's lost count of the number of adoptions he's investigated, but it's in the thousands.

"It's how I pay the bills," says Collins. "I can do that kind of work anywhere I can bring a laptop."

His interest in Guatemala began when he visited his son Darron there in 1999. Darron Collins, Joe's only child, was doing anthropological research for a Ph.D. from Tulane.

"Just a visit. He was down there for two years, and I wanted to see him."

What he saw appalled him. People sleeping in the streets. Or in shacks with no water. When he returned to the states, to his apartment in Morristown, the town where he grew up, the images wouldn't let go.

"Then one night I was just sitting in front of the computer and typed 'volunteering in Guatemala.'" He found an organization that built houses there and joined it, spending parts of three summers helping to build houses. When the group shifted its emphasis to Africa, Collins figured he could continue.

At $1,500 a house, he built 24 in 2005 and another 24 in 2006 and, now, this year, 55. He raises money, recruits volunteers, even opened an office in Antigua. His construction of 12-by-19-foot concrete and stucco houses -- along with his donation of school and health care fees to the poor -- attracted the attention of the nation's first lady, Wendy Widmann de Berger, a social reformer who visited Collins' operation.

He returns home to tend to his adoption work and raise money -- speaking at churches and other places, urging people to do the math. A few bucks from everybody here wouldn't be missed but could provide a house to everyone who needs a roof.

Collins is not a political guy -- and he's proud of the four years he spent as a Marine -- but he'll mention in passing that we probably owe something to the people in Guatemala, a country where the CIA engineered a coup that led to decades of civil strife.

"Why shouldn't we be helping these people? They are Americans, after all. Central Americans."

After his stint in the Marines, he opened a bar in Morristown with his brother. He says the business was successful but turned him into a drunk and that ruined his marriage. He's been sober since 1988. He still looks big and strong, although in the last year he's suffered a heart attack and just got through colon cancer.

"I'm doing all right," Collins says.

While home, he's writing out nearly a thousand Christmas cards, all with a pitch for money for his organization. Then he'll go back to Guatemala Dec. 30. New Year's Eve doesn't hold much of an attraction for him up here any more.

"I'm usually asleep by 10 p.m."

Bob Braun's columns appear Monday and Thursday. He may be reached at rbraun@starledger.com or (973) 392-4281. For more information about Collins' organization, click on www.fromhousestohomes.org.

The battle against child poverty

from the BBC

By Lucy Rodgers

No-one could have knocked the government's ambitious aims.

Back in 1999 when the then prime minister, Tony Blair, pledged to halve the number of children living in poverty within 10 years and eradicate child poverty altogether within 20, there were few who could argue it wasn't a noble goal.

But less than three years before the first major deadline in 2010, it appears ministers are falling well behind in meeting their own bold targets.

According to the latest report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, although the number of children living in poverty has fallen by 600,000 since the government made its pledge, it remains 500,000 short of the target it should have reached in 2004/5.

While the tax credits are working quite well, they are, in a way, treating the symptoms - meanwhile, the root problems are getting worse
Peter Kenway Poverty report author

The report's authors say the most serious setback was an increase of 200,000 children living in poverty in 2005/06 - taking the total to 3.8 million, or one in three children, if housing costs are taken into account.

Government strategy has "lost momentum", it concludes, and is "in urgent need of a major rethink".

So, what went wrong?

"I think this is to do with two things," says Peter Kenway, co-author of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report.

"They relied very heavily on tax credits - supporting the idea that work is the right way out of poverty - which are working. If you took tax credits away, one million more people would be in poverty.

"But the problem seems to be that the number of children getting tax credits is also going up. So, while the tax credits are working quite well, they are, in a way, treating the symptoms - meanwhile, the root problems are getting worse."

No 'silver bullet'

Although half of all children in poverty are in working families, according to the report, the redistribution of income through tax credits has not kept pace with the growing inequality in incomes across Britain.

"That is a sign that tax credits alone are not quite sufficient," says Mr Kenway. "They are asked to carry more burden than any single policy."

However, while he admits there is no "silver bullet", he would like to see the government tackle low pay, especially in the public sector, the tax burden of low-income working-age households - such as council tax - and the education of young adults aged between 19 and 20 who don't have a minimum level of education.


WHO IS POOR?
Household income less than 60% of median for similar households
Single adult with no children - net income less than £108pw after income tax and housing costs
Couple with no children - net income less than £186pw after income tax and housing costs
Couple with two children - net income less than £301pw after income tax and housing costs
Lone parent with two children - net income less than £223pw after income tax and housing costs
Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

"We are hoping for a major rethink," he adds. "What is really important is that we start going forward again."

For Jason Strelitz, policy advisor for charity Save the Children, the reason why the targets are not being hit is clear.

"It is simply because the government hasn't invested sufficient resources in meeting them," he says.

The charity, along with the other organisations which form the End Child Poverty Campaign, is calling for an extra £4bn to be spent on benefits and child tax credits to ensure the 2010 goal is reached.

As part of the package, Save the Children also wants to see the introduction of seasonal grants during summer and winter, when extra financial burdens - such as the new school year and Christmas - are placed on the poorest families.

"We don't doubt the government is committed to the goal, but it's about having the political will to see it through," says Mr Strelitz.

Long-term policies

Most of the End Child Poverty Campaign partners agree that the government's pledge has been a brave one. But they say targets must be reached, and still can be if money is directed to the right families.

"They are very hard targets to meet," admits Kate Green, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, which is also part of the campaign.

"As the country as a whole is getting better off, the poorest are getting worse off."

She believes hitting the 2010 target is about investment, and if the money doesn't come, the target "cannot be made".

But with regard to the major goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020, she believes other long-term policies, such as employment and education measures, should play a larger role.

Crucial to this, anti-poverty campaigners say, is increasing the minimum wage, providing families with better access to childcare and ensuring schools in poorer areas get adequate support and funding.

We continue to hear very strong statements from ministers, who say they are absolutely committed to this - but they need to put their money where their mouth is
Kate Green Child Poverty Action Group

Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform Caroline Flint says a "tremendous amount of progress" has been made in improving the lives of children in poverty, but acknowledges "more needs to be done".

She says the government is taking action "to rip up sick-note Britain, establish a new cross-government Child Poverty Unit" and ensure more people are able to "access the two-thirds of a million job vacancies that exist on any given day".

But, although Kate Green says the government's targets are still "achievable" and "must be done", she wants more than just promises.

"We continue to hear very strong statements from ministers, who say they are absolutely committed to this. But they need to put their money where their mouth is.

Britain 'to miss child poverty targets'

from The Independent

By Ben Russell and Sean O'Grady

Gordon Brown is in danger of missing targets to cut poverty, according to reports by researchers and a Labour-dominated committee of MPs.

Members of the Commons Treasury Committee warned that the Government risked failing to achieve its goal of halving child poverty by the end of a decade, while a study into poverty funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said the Government's attempts to cut the numbers of families and children in poverty had stalled.

The study by the New Policy Institute think tank showed that child poverty in 2005-06 was half a million over the target set for 2004-05.

Researchers warned that poverty levels had risen during 2005-06, the latest year for which figures are available, and was no better than that recorded in 1988.

They also cast doubt on Mr Brown's policy of tax credits, a central plank of Labour's efforts to cut poverty, warning that more than half of the children facing poverty were in families where at least one parent was in work – the same rate as a decade ago.

One of the report's authors, Peter Kenway, said: "The Government's anti-poverty policy is exhausted. The evidence is quite clear that they did get some of the way towards what they wanted to do and they did reduce child poverty but there is a sense that they have run out of steam.

"There was nothing in the pre-Budget report or the Queen's Speech that showed they were going to approach this with renewed vigour."

Mr Kenway warned that families faced large tax bills, highlighting the impact of council tax, which is paid by households with nearly half the children in poverty.

A report by the Treasury Select Committee warned that the Comprehensive Spending Review "fails to provide clear route map" for meeting the child poverty target.

Low standards of child wellbeing linked to greater income inequality

from News Medical

Narrower income differences are more likely than economic growth to improve the wellbeing of children in rich countries, according to a study published on bmj.com.

Poorer children fare less well than richer ones in each society. But a recent UNICEF report detailing 40 indicators of child wellbeing, said children in the UK and the USA fared worse than in any of the other rich countries.

The new research examines whether the damage is done by being poor, or by being poorer than others.

To answer this question, academics at The University of Nottingham and the University of York examined whether measures of child wellbeing were most closely related to average income - material living standards - or to the scale of income differences in each society, ie. inequality.

The authors studied these relationships in two different settings: among 23 rich countries, and then, independently, among the 50 states of the USA and District of Columbia.

Among the 23 rich countries, the UNICEF index of child wellbeing - covering material wellbeing, health and safety, educational wellbeing, family and peer relationships, unhealthy and risky behaviours, and subjective wellbeing - was unrelated to average income, but was strongly related to the size of the income differences between rich and poor within each country.

Findings were similar among the 50 states of the USA. Data were analysed for teenage births, juvenile homicides, infant mortality, low birth weight, educational performance, high school drop-out rate, the proportion of children overweight, and mental health problems. All were more strongly related to the scale of income inequality in each state than to its average income.

Richard Wilkinson, Professor of Social Epidemiology at The University of Nottingham Medical School, co-authored the paper with Dr Kate Pickett of the University of York.

Professor Wilkinson said: "Using data from rich countries as well as from the 50 states of the USA, the research found that standards of child wellbeing are consistently lower in societies - like Britain - with bigger income differences, and consistently higher in more equal societies. There was no tendency for the richest countries and states to do better than the poorer ones."

The authors used data from various sources, including the United Nations, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), UNICEF, World Bank, US Census Bureau, and US National Centre for Health Statistics.

Among the 50 states of the USA and among affluent countries, the results suggest that children's wellbeing is not higher, either among the richest of the 50 US states, or among the richest of the affluent countries. It is instead, significantly better in those countries and states in which income differences are smaller.

In an accompanying BMJ editorial, other researchers stated: "We know enough to say that inequalities affect child wellbeing and that relative poverty kills as effectively as any disease." They believe that we need to get better at identifying the programmes that work and much better at getting governments to invest in the wellbeing of children.

Cancer risks for urban African-American women grow, healthy diets more difficult to maintain

from News Medical

Women living in the inner city have difficulty meeting dietary goals that could help prevent cancer, according to a report from Johns Hopkins University researchers.

In a study of African-American women living in public housing within Washington, D.C., the researchers found that the majority met one - or none - of five dietary goals suggested to reduce the risk of developing cancer. In particular, these women were unlikely to eat a healthy diet that included the recommended amount of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Their analysis also linked high risk dietary behaviors with younger age, depression, smoking and being born within the District of Columbia. The researchers present their findings today in Atlanta at the American Association for Cancer Research conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved, being held November 27-30.

"African-American women, in general, face a worse cancer incidence and mortality rate than most other ethnic groups, and poor African-American women are at an even greater disadvantage," said Ann C. Klassen, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Improving diet is one effective way to help these women lower their risk for developing cancer."

Since diet and behavior are intertwined, Klassen says, the researchers needed to get a better understanding of the lifestyle of African-American women in the District of Columbia's low resource neighborhoods in order to assess the needs of the community.

Klassen and her colleagues analyzed data from 156 African-American female residents of 11 public housing communities across Washington. The women participants gave information regarding what they ate and drank - as well as other behaviors - over several 24 hour periods, providing 468 such diet-related recalls to researchers.

In particular, the researchers examined the diet recalls to see if the researchers met the ideal goals of five characteristics of a cancer-preventing diet: adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables; low percentage of fat intake; moderate caloric intake, no alcohol consumption; and adherence to the USDA's "Healthy Eating Index," a measure of the overall quality of diet. They also looked at when and where these women ate, as well as with whom they were eating. "We were looking to take a holistic approach to the women's diet, one that not only looks at food consumed, but also their general behavior and circumstances, which can impact how they make dietary choices," Klassen said.

The majority of women, about 61 percent, failed to meet the goals for more than one of these characteristics, with many meeting none. Less than one percent met all the ideal standards in each of the five categories. Only 15 percent of women reported eating at least five servings of fruits or vegetables, Klassen says, however 64 percent reported no alcohol consumption during the recall days.

"Many women drank soda, and ate convenience and prepared foods, even when they sat down with their families for a meal," Klassen said. "Younger adults, especially, seem to lack the skills to build a well-balanced diet - skills that our survey shows that older generations of women still possess."

Where they lived among the public housing communities also made a difference in whether the women reported eating a cancer-preventing diet. "We see that women who can take advantage of community vegetable gardens - which are often missing in inner-city neighborhoods - are more likely to eat a healthier diet than women who do not have those amenities in their neighborhoods," Klassen said.

Klassen and her colleagues also demonstrated a positive relationship between the average education level in neighborhoods, namely the proportion of residents holding high school diplomas, and dietary behaviors in African-American women.

However, their analysis also uncovered traits that negatively affected cancer risk, including smoking, depressive symptoms and youth. They also found that women who were born in Washington, D.C., reported far worse dietary behaviors than women who had moved to the city from elsewhere. "Overall, we are getting a clear depiction of the role of diet as a connection between social status and health," Klassen said. "Women in poverty, in particular, suffer from the lack of good dietary information as well as a variety of healthy foods, which can compound other problems in their lives."

With this information, Klassen says it will be easier to craft new educational interventions to help African-American women and their families lower the cancer risk and improve their overall health.

Poverty Stricken

from The Times Online

Second-rate analysis of the poor inevitably produces third-rate proposals

Deep down, Gordon Brown may be more discouraged by the disparaging observations made today about child poverty than the astonishing, but arguably more ephemeral, revelations about donations to Labour Party. The eradication of child poverty is one of the Prime Minister’s enduring concerns: measures designed to reduce it featured prominently in his decade-long tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Both the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Treasury Select Committee suggest too little is being done to fight child poverty, and too little is being achieved. There was, says the select committee, scant reference in October’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Rowntree is more cutting. It says the Government has missed its own targets, to the detriment of half a million impoverished young people; that unemployment is rising among the under25s; and that earnings are becoming more unequal. Most cutting of all, Rowntree suggests that the Government is to blame for leaving many people on unacceptably low incomes. It says that families of about one third of the 3.8 million British children classified as poor pay council tax at the full rate. Moreover, public sector jobs occupy a quarter of those who are said to be on poverty-level wages.

Poverty, of course, is a bad thing. Of itself it is unpleasant. It is also impedes educational and health development. Children from poor families are most likely to fail at school and be denied the opportunity to secure places at universities or in worthwhile employment. Poor people are most likely to smoke, drink excessively and eat fatty and sugary foods. Ultimately, some poor people habitually make poor choices and have more money with which to indulge those choices, at their long-term expense.

Yet the problem of poverty, and the problems it causes, will not be helped by selective use of data and sloppy analysis. Poverty is “measured”, by the Rowntree foundations and others, by counting the number of people who earn less than 60 per cent of median earnings. (That is, £108 per week for a single person, after taxes and housing costs, and £301 for a couple with two dependent children.) This is an interesting number, but it is a far cry from an absolute or even meaningful definition of poverty. Poverty, surely, is properly defined in terms of a lack of food, clothing, shelter and access to common amenities.

More attention might be paid, too, if politicians, and foundations like Rowntree could be trusted not to present information to suit themselves or their increasingly political wishes. Meanwhile, relative measures of child poverty such as the 60 per cent rule can, quite perversely, suggest things are getting worse even if lower order income and living standards improve. They will if median earnings increase a lot. Preoccupation with equality, meanwhile, is more likely to encourage the search for lowest common denominators.

Government should dedicate itself to creating and preserving the economic prosperity that will serve to improve most lives, most rapidly. By determinedly following low-tax policies, it should leave wealth in the hands of its creators and particularly in the hands of the working poor determined to improve themselves. Absurdly, the Government’s most recent tax changes have punished those most keen to lift themselves higher. Their reward has been a higher tax bracket.

Govt reluctant to release poverty figures before polls

from The News International

By Mehtab Haider

ISLAMABAD: Sidestepping its commitment with the donors, the government is dillydallying the process for analysing the poverty figures in accordance with the latest survey for avoiding any new controversy before the January 8 elections. Although, the government had incorporated some findings of the Pakistan Social and Living-Standard Measurement (PSLM) survey, related to social indicators in the Economic Survey 2006-07, but after several months, the Federal Bureau of Statistics has not yet forwarded the data related to household income and expenditure survey (HIES) to the Center for Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CPRID).

"We will take a couple of months more for forwarding the data related to HIES portion to the CPRID of the Planning Commission, which is mainly responsible to find out the poverty figures on the basis of the PSLM survey," a high-level official told The News on Saturday.

The CPRID is seeking the data of the PSLM survey for 2005-06 about the income and expenditures (HIES portion), on the basis of which poverty is analyzed, another official said. The official said that the government wanted to release the data after the next general elections in order to avoid new controversy over it.

Poverty figures have always remained controversial in the recent past as the government and donors possessed divergent views on methodology and the authenticity of data collection to analyze poverty figures.

After hectic efforts, the government had reconciled its poverty figures with the donors last year. The government and the donors had agreed on certain methodology for analyzing the poverty figures and no change would be made in this regard as it could distort the whole previous exercise.

The donors have pointed out in the working group of the CPRID for analyzing poverty figures last time that the poverty figures of 2001 were found at a time when there was a severe drought and the last survey was done when Pakistan achieved the highest growth trajectory. So comparison of these two periods cannot tell the whole truth.

Then the international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the WB, ADB, DFID and others asked the government to analyze the situation regularly without changing the adopted methodology in order to come up with the exact situation, a high-level official says.

Now the government is again dragging its feet to fulfill its commitment made by Islamabad with the donors to release the poverty figures on the basis of PSLM survey so that things could be analyzed on the basis of a frequent series. But official circles also say that India released its poverty figures after a five-to-six-year period and there was no need to come up with the latest figures after every year or on couple of year basis.

When the acting DG of FBS, Abdul Hakeem Mukhdoom, was contacted for comments, he said the data was under preparation, which would be forwarded to the CPRID in the next couple of months. He also advised this journalist not to write on this topic.

The government, the official said, had already collected the data from almost 78,000 households, but it was not forwarding it to the Planning Commission's CPRID, which is basically responsible for conducting the poverty analysis in consultation with representatives of multilateral and bilateral creditors.

The government had partially released the findings of the PSLM survey 2005-06 related to social indicators, but its portion of HIES data had not yet been made public.

The Planning Commission, the sources said, had not yet released the provincial poverty figures on the basis of 2004-05 survey in which Islamabad claimed to have reduced poverty from 34% in 2001 to 23.9% in 2004-05 at the national level.

But the federal government never allowed the release of poverty figures related to the four federating units. The government is reluctant to release the poverty figures of the federating units to avoid backlash from the smaller provinces, claimed the official sources.

The CPRID had prepared its analysis on the basis of the PSLM survey related to poverty figures for the provinces, and these figures were forwarded to the Planning Commission, when Akram Malik was assuming the charge as Secretary Planning Commission, which were never made public.

On the other side, the World Bank conducted its own analysis and its estimates, which were also tabled before the government of Pakistan, showed that the poverty level was almost stagnant in the Punjab during 2000-01 and 2004-05 as it stood at 30.6 percent in 2000-01 and 29.5 percent in 2004-05.

The former chief minister, Punjab, Ch Pervaiz Elahi, had claimed that the poverty in the province decreased by 11%, but the analysis done by the World Bank did not favour it.

According to the WB, in 2000-01, Punjab's urban poverty was 22.8 percent and 33.8 percent in rural areas, which stood at 21.2 percent in urban areas and 33.4 percent in rural areas in 2004-05.

The WB analysis shows the poverty in Sindh declined significantly from 37.4 percent in 2000-01 to 22.4 percent in 2004-05. The poverty in urban Sindh was 20.6 per cent in 2000-01, which declined to 13.8 percent in 2004-05.

The rural poverty in the province was 48.1 per cent in 2000-01, which was reduced to 28.9 percent in 2004-05. The WB estimates show the overall poverty in the NWFP was 42.3 percent in 2000-01, with urban poverty of 29.9 percent and rural poverty at 44.4 percent, which reduced up to 39.3 percent in 2004-05. The rural poverty in the NWFP was 41.9 percent while urban poverty 26.1 percent in 2004-05.

The bank estimates reveal that the overall poverty in Balochistan was 37.1 percent in 2000-01 with urban poverty of 27.4 percent and rural poverty at 37.1 percent. The overall poverty reduced to 32.9 percent in 2004-05 with urban poverty of 21.5 percent and rural poverty of 35.8 percent in Balochistan.

Educators: Schools need funding to break cycle of poverty

from The Jackson Sun

As a recent report shows a majority of public school children in the South are poor, local educators say more funding is needed to improve students' chances for success.

The study by the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that examines economic and social issues in the region, found that for the first time since the 1960s, a majority of public school children in the South were poor. According to its findings, in 1990, 37 percent of public school students in the South were low-income compared to 54 percent by 2006.

Low-income students are children whose family income makes them eligible for free or reduced meals at school. In 2006, 53 percent of Tennessee's public school students were poor, while nationally the figure is 46 percent. When the South is excluded, the percentage of poor students for the rest of the nation drops to 41 percent.

The report attributes part of the rise in numbers to a recession beginning in the late '80s that increased unemployment in the region. Also, changes in demographics for those who historically have been disproportionately poor in the South have played a role, with an influx of Hispanic immigration and a higher birth rate among African Americans.

"As a nation we need to start supporting public education at a whole new level, and I think if we don't, we'll suffer tremendously," said Nancy Zambito, superintendent of Jackson-Madison County Schools.

In 2005, 67 percent of public school children in Jackson-Madison County were economically disadvantaged, and 28 percent of the system's students were at a Title I school. Title I funds go toward resources and services for schools with a high number of needy students. Because school districts are required to keep the amount of funding relatively constant each year, the schools struggle to get the extra money they need for poor students, Zambito said.

"What you ensure is that you're always going to be behind," she said.

An increase in school funding is needed to have the best chance to break the cycle of poverty, said Lane College President Wesley McClure.

"The poor are supposed to escape to the middle class through the assistance that they receive in the public schools," McClure said.

If the trend continues, the majority of public school students throughout the nation could be low-income within 10 years, the report says. If the problem isn't addressed, the nation's status as a global power could be affected, McClure said.

‘Volunteerism can help reduce poverty’

from The Herald

Zimbabwe has great potential to reduce poverty among communities through promoting and supporting volunteer activities as many of its people are willing to donate their valuable time and resources to assist others, an expert has said.

Addressing participants to a workshop organised by the United Nations Volunteer Programme and the Volunteer Services Overseas in Harare last week, United Nations deputy resident representative Mr Lare Sisay said it was important for Zimbabwe to develop a national framework to guide and regulate volunteer activities in the country.

"The potential for volunteering in Zimbabwe is very high and many people are willing to donate their valuable time and resources to volunteer to assist others," he said.

Mr Sisay said Zimbabwe also had the potential to cope with the HIV and Aids pandemic thorough mobilising volunteers to provide care, treatment and support to people infected and affected by the pandemic.

He noted that thousands of voluntary home-based care givers in Zimbabwe were currently donating their time and effort daily in mitigating the effects of HIV and Aids on patients and families as well as society at large.

It was through the contribution of such selfless people that the country had made

remarkable progress in reducing the prevalence rate of the pandemic from more than 34 percent to 15,6 percent over the past five years, he said.

Mr Sisay said recent studies in other countries had revealed that the non-profit sector including volunteers was accounting for around 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

"This shows the enormous potential volunteer contributions can make on the development of a country," he said.

He said in some countries volunteers were found at all levels of society from

community to national with some professionals such as lawyers and medical doctors contributing their services to people who could not afford.

Although expatriates who came to Zimbabwe to work mostly in the areas of education and health soon after independence popularised volunteerism in the country, the concept was not a new phenomenon in the country as communities had a longstanding tradition of assisting the vulnerable in society.

The concept is more widespread in rural areas where children are taught at an early age to view all elderly persons as their parents who should be assisted with household chores.

Even amid poverty, some schools succeed

from The Huntsville Times

By CHALLEN STEPHENS
Times Staff Writer challen.stephens@htimes.com

Crunching the numbers with poverty factored in shows variety of winners

Most once-a-week tutors find their way into Lincoln Elementary School through a network of churches. But Joan Prewitt simply walked in the front door and asked if she could help.

Prewitt, a grandmother, had tried the same thing at another elementary school, but she never heard back. But Lincoln has a volunteer coordinator paid with private donations, and Prewitt became one of more than 50 volunteer reading tutors who help propel Lincoln's test scores into the ranges more typical of middle class schools across town.

Neighborhood poverty or affluence predict test scores for most schools across Madison County. But Lincoln Elementary students did better than expected in reading and math this year, expectations based on the fact that nearly all of Lincoln's families qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

"I just wanted something to do with my time that I felt was somewhat more worthwhile," said Prewitt. "I knew Lincoln was in a neighborhood that could use some help."

"Economic background is what matters, not race," said Dr. John Humphrey, a principal in north Huntsville for more than 10 years. "I've always believed that. And then, along came Lincoln Elementary.

"They're proving you can overcome the economic barrier."

But Lincoln isn't alone. Like a 5-foot basketball player or a pianist with thick fingers, a handful of schools here defy expectations. Meanwhile, a few schools in more affluent suburbs should be doing better.

Finding school quality

Humphrey lists the obstacles for an elementary school where most students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

At Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, where Humphrey is principal, he said his kindergartners more often know fewer words on the first day of school than their counterparts across town. They are more likely to have fewer books at home, to be raised by a single parent or grandparent and to come to school hungry in the morning.

Affluent children of south Huntsville are "always the ones performing when we take our kids to see 'The Nutcracker,'" said Humphrey.

The strength of the link between family income and student achievement is surprisingly strong in Madison County.

A Times' analysis of last spring's Stanford Achievement Test scores found that schoolwide poverty levels alone explain from 60 to 90 percent of the difference in scores among schools, depending on the subject.

But a handful of schools do much better on standardized tests than expected.

Jim Williams is director of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, a nonprofit think-tank in Birmingham that has on occasion studied links between poverty and achievement.

"It doesn't matter how much poverty you've got, there are outstanding schools," said Williams after viewing the Times' data. "That's the valuable information for parents."

Agile schools

Dr. Ruth Ash believes it starts at the top.

Ash, deputy superintendent for Alabama public schools, has looked into high-flying schools from Mobile to Birmingham. She cites a few common features: high expectations, teachers who work together and teachers who break down test data showing student weaknesses.

In each case, she said, the principal understands the test results and continuously guides teachers in adjusting their lessons to cover whatever the students aren't getting. Schools need an instructional leader, she said, not a building administrator.

"Yes, someone needs to count the money from the Coke machine, but it doesn't need to be the principal," said Ash.

Superintendent Ann Roy Moore in Huntsville and Superintendent Dee Fowler in Madison also cite strong leadership and high expectations for strong performance.

"The other thing you will see in all of these schools," said Ash, "is they embrace change and innovation. I like to call them agile schools."

Army of volunteers

More than nine out of 10 children at Lincoln Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, yet math and science scores here soar past the national average.

A network of churches and an army of outside volunteers support such success.

Charlene Pinker, a former volunteer, works at the school three days a week, paid by a private charity to organize volunteers who work one-on-one with the children. Last year there were 70 volunteers; this year the school has 50, said Pinker.

"They're not our parents," said Principal Christy Jensen. "They're kind of from all over the place."

Funneled through a network of a dozen churches, most volunteers come once a week, find a spot in the hall or the auditorium or an empty class and read with the students.

"A good majority connect with the children's families," said Jensen.

JoAnne Hake became involved after Jensen spoke at her church. Her sons grown, Hake began to tutor fourth-grader DeAsia King three years ago.

"We talk about reading and math, and we talk about the weather," said DeAsia. "Sometimes she comes to my house and we go places. We go out for ice cream and go swimming."

Hake's husband, Bob, tutors DeAsia's brother, D'Kendrick. They've had both children over for dinner and sometimes see them over the summer.

Lincoln Village Ministries, representing the church network, also pays a part-time teacher to run a science lab and provides $25 gift cards for a drawing for children with perfect attendance.

The ministry isn't the only outside agency supporting the school. A nurse practitioner, a therapist and a dentist all work on campus, operating through social welfare programs. Some businesses also help: Northrop Grumman paid for students to visit the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga last year.

After school, Lincoln uses federal grants not only to provide extra tutoring, but to broaden students' lives with tae kwan do, golf and art.

The small faculty, of course, plays a large role. Lesson plans are flexible and targeted at any apparent weaknesses. Plans are reviewed each week by the curriculum specialist, the reading coach and the principal.

Plus, teachers divvy up the hardest cases, with each teacher singling out one student for consistent attention each semester.

After the tests in the spring, the results were remarkable. For example, based on schoolwide economic levels, Lincoln students could be expected to score at the 35th percentile in math on the SAT, or 15 percentile points below the national average of 50. But Lincoln fifth-graders scored at the 66th percentile this year, ranking above 29 other elementary schools in Madison County.

The third-graders had the same success, scoring well ahead of wealthier elementary schools like Whitesburg and Madison and even above a magnet school for science students.

Jensen also attributes success to her faith, faith in a religious sense, but also faith in each child's ability. "In a poverty level school that's extremely important," she said. "You can never stop believing."

Against long odds

Money affects a person's chances in life. Across the country, poor children often weigh less at birth, are more likely to die in the first year and are more likely to be raised by a single parent.

Unequal schools can increase such disadvantages. A 2006 study on achievement gaps by the Northwest Evaluation Association, an Oregon-based nonprofit focused on school improvement, found students in high-poverty schools tend to grow less academically over a school year than students in middle class schools. They measured students who began at the same level but ended far apart.

Academic studies also find public schools with more poverty tend to have less experienced teachers.

One researcher even set the odds on equal outcomes. Douglas Harris, a professor at Florida State University studying federal accountability last year, found that schools where most students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches are 22 to 89 times less likely than affluent schools to be consistent high-scorers in reading and math.

"There is no dispute that these particular differences are due to student background and not to schools," concluded Harris, "though schools do have an influence over changes that occur after students enter schools."

Average test scores don't reflect the success or failure of any one child. And neither poverty nor a bad school alone can sap the gifts of a smart child.

"I don't have bad schools. That's a misnomer," said Superintendent Ann Roy Moore. "We have schools that need help."

But if a school fails to find the help it needs, a flood of volunteers or the right principal, she said, then average students can lag behind. That's because, when facing large groups, teachers tend to teach toward the middle, said Moore.

And average test scores show exactly where the middle is in each school.

So a good school, just as a stable home life, provides academic advantages.

Finding 'their own way'

"This is an extraordinarily complicated problem," said Dr. John Dimmock in reviewing The Times' data. "It's almost as if each school has to find its own way."

Dimmock, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who once analyzed city test scores for the NAACP, suspects an underlying prejudice, "a class bias," allows some neighborhoods to overlook the needs of schools with more poor students and lower scores.

When a dollar a day means 25 cents

from the BBC

By Mukul Devichand
Reporter, BBC Radio 4's More or Less

The struggle to reduce the number of people living on "a dollar a day" tops the list of Millennium Development Goals and trips off the tongues of political leaders.

But how much is "a dollar a day" really worth? How badly off are the world's poor really?

I've just returned from an Indian slum and was shocked at how cheap things were.

At Mumbai Airport, I got around 40 rupees for each US dollar I changed. And when I walked the lanes of the bustees - the slums where the urban poor congregate - I felt like a millionaire.

Round of teas and coffees for all your friends? Cross-town hop in a three-wheel auto rickshaw? Plate of street food? Shave at a roadside barbers?

They all cost around a US dollar.

Normal exchange rates

So it seems a dollar goes pretty far in the poorer parts of Mumbai, and no doubt even further in rural India.

When politicians promise to lift the world's poor above the dollar a day thresholds, it sounds like a reasonable aim.

But after investigating the subject for the BBC, I found the cruel truth is that in India, and other poor countries, a "dollar a day" is actually worth much less than first appears.

In fact, because of the way the measure is calculated, people living on less than a dollar a day couldn't afford any of the things listed above.

The reason is that a "dollar a day" is not in fact a dollar as we would understand it using normal international exchange rates.

Big Mac Index

Instead it is a specially adjusted dollar using something called Purchasing Power Parity, or PPP.

One of the easiest ways to understand this is the so-called "Big Mac Index," says former World Bank economist Michael Ward, who explained the way it works over a cheeseburger.

The concept is that the Big Mac is an almost identical product no matter where in the world you buy it - bread, cheese, meat, lettuce and labour costs.

But in fact, Big Macs end up costing much less in places like Beijing or Mumbai than London or New York.

So economists use the different prices of Big Macs across the world to judge the relative buying power of people in different countries.

For example, if a Big Mac costs a dollar in America, but only 25 cents in Mumbai, then a PPP "dollar" in Mumbai is actually worth only 25 cents.

The World Bank's "dollar a day" system uses a similar calculation.

So in this system, an Indian living on less than "a dollar a day" is actually living on less than 25 cents a day, or just 9 Indian rupees - because that's how much it would take an Indian to buy the same thing as an American would buy for a real dollar.

So in fact the 320 million Indians who live on less than a dollar a day couldn't afford any of the things I could in the Mumbai slum with the real US dollars I had changed at the airport.

"The intention was really to have a measure that would give you the equivalent amount of goods and services for that same currency," explained Mr Ward.

Comparisons

The aim is that using this system, the World Bank can judge how poor people really are in terms of what they can afford in different countries.

But because the system is based on the spending power of just a single dollar in America, it doesn't actually give the poor very much to live on.

According to the World Bank's idea, a "dollar a day" actually translated into 60p in the UK - more than the real exchange rate, because the UK is a more expensive country.

Even so, a quick round of the aisles at my local supermarket showed that I couldn't get much for that 60p. Tinned Soup was 75p, and the cheapest loaf of bread was 85p.

In the end, I found bagels were 39p each - so I could get one and a half for my 60p.

Absurdly low?

I asked Martin Ravallion, the economist who behind the original "dollar a day" concept at the World Bank, whether he thought this poverty level target was too low.

He explained that the original "dollar a day" benchmark was based on the poverty lines set by governments of several very poor countries.

According to his data, even at the frugal 25 cents a dollar is worth in India, the very poor could just about afford to eat 2100 calories for this amount, with a couple of rupees to spare for non-food items.

But he accepted the line was very frugal. "You've just got to realise that a lot of people are very poor in the world," he said.

Reversal of fortunes

The final twist in the tale is a shocking "discovery" last month in China of 200 million people living on less than a dollar a day.

This takes the total in China up to 300 million, and is a huge blow in the fight against poverty which the world had previously thought it was winning.

Martin Ravallion explained that this is another effect of using the PPP system, rather than exchange rates, to calculate the value of a dollar.

But the Chinese have not traditionally been part of the World Bank's system and the data on their PPP has been unreliable.

The bank recently calculated China's PPP thoroughly for the first time and realised that the Chinese currency, the renminbi, had less buying power than originally thought.

The result is an extra 200 million people below the dollar a day line.

China is such a populous country that its poverty statistics are a huge part of the global total.

Nevertheless, Martin Ravallion welcomed the change

The horror of a stricken nation waiting to die

from the Times Onlne

We knew Sarudzai Gumbo was still sick, but nothing prepared us for what we found. The seven-year-old was lying alone and neglected in a dirty sideroom in a Harare hospital.

Her head was a mass of septic wounds. Two large cancers were devouring the right side of her face. She had lost the sight of one eye and the other was gummed up. A filthy, blood-stained hat concealed untold horrors on her scalp – she screamed with pain when we tried to remove it. Flies hovered around her lesions. The stench of her putrefying flesh was overpowering. She weighed only 36lb (16.3kg).

The Times highlighted Sarudzai’s plight in March after discovering her in Mbare, a Harare slum. Her family was living on wasteland because its home had been destroyed by President Mugabe’s Operation Murambatsvina (“Clean Up Trash”). Her parents’ livelihoods had been ruined by the regime’s ban on street vendors. They both had Aids, as did Sarudzai, whose face was disfigured by open sores.

Readers sent in £7,500 to try to help her – funds forwarded to the Jesuit mission in Mbare – and Sarudzai was sent to an Aids clinic. But her mother died in April and her father took her away to the ancestral village and – fatally – interrupted her treatment. Sarudzai was transferred to Parirenyatwa Hospital just as Zimbabwe’s healthcare system was imploding.

As with every other hospital, the doctors and nurses who were there have left in droves for better-paid jobs abroad, their salaries at home rendered almost worthless by hyperinflation. There are no anaesthetics, drips, painkillers, antiretroviral drugs, blood for transfusions or even bandages. This is a shell of a hospital – a place where patients are left to die.

Sarudzai, whose father is also close to death, is a lovely, brave, affectionate girl. She never cries. She claps her hands when given something, waves when you leave. We brought two teddy bears that she instantly named Rudzai and Rudo – Shona for “Praise” and “Love”. Her condition was heartbreaking. We had her examined by a private doctor, who said it was the most shocking case he had seen. Within hours she was admitted to a private hospital. She has now been adopted by Kidzcan, a charity that helps Zimbabwean children with cancer, but her chances of survival are slim.

Sarudzai’s is just one of the legion of horror stories that Mr Mugabe seeks to conceal from the world by banning foreign journalists from Zimbabwe. She is one of millions of victims of his pernicious regime who will be largely overlooked when the octogenarian autocrat enjoys the propaganda triumph of being greeted as a legitimate national leader at the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon next week.

Over nine days spent travelling clandestinely around this beautiful, once-bountiful country, The Times found a nation where millions now struggle to survive on barely a bowl of sadza (a mealie-meal porridge) a day, the most basic services have all but collapsed and thousands die every week in a perfect storm of poverty, hunger and disease. Aids, like corruption, is rampant.

We found paupers’ burials, starving children with stunted bodies, orphans left to fend for themselves in the most brutal environments. It is a country regressing from commercial farms to vegetable patches, from the light bulb to the oil lamp, from the tap to the well. Feet – often bare – are replacing the wheel as the most common form of transport. Once Africa’s breadbasket, Zimbabwe can no longer provide its citizens with bread and water.

“This is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, worse even than Darfur,” said David Coltart, an opposition MP. “We lose more people a week to preventable illnesses than are lost in Iraq, but because there’s no blood on the streets, little attention is paid to what’s going on here.”

Zimbabwe, like Sarudzai, has deteriorated dramatically since March. It is closer than ever to complete collapse, according to the International Crisis Group. Inflation has soared from 1,700 to 15,000 per cent. Draconian price controls have emptied the shops because producers cannot cover their costs. Though millions are starving, farmers are slaughtering dairy herds because they cannot sell milk at a viable price. But those who still have money can buy almost anything on the flourishing black market.

Petrol is virtually unattainable without foreign currency. Power cuts are frequent because Zimbabwe no longer has the foreign exchange to repair its decrepit generating stations or buy electricity from its neighbours. Taps run dry for days on end, and when the water does flow – even in the capital – it is contaminated by sewage.

In Mabvuku, a township east of Harare that has had no proper water supply all year, we found hundreds of women gathered on a patch of wasteland, waiting with their buckets for tiny, muddy pools to form in the bottom of half a dozen 15ft holes. “Some of us get up at 4am because there is more water then and it is cleaner. Some of us wait the whole day,” Joyce Dando, 46, said.

Four of the five reservoirs serving Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, have dried up. Some districts have gone weeks without water. Sewers explode for lack of running water to wash away blockages. Mr Coltart, the local MP, accuses the regime of deliberately blocking new water projects for a city that is an opposition stronghold. Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, the Mayor, agrees. He envisages Bulawayo being abandoned “on the lines of New Orleans”, and accuses the Government of urbicide.

Agriculture, the backbone of economy, was destroyed by land seizures (which continue, with 160 of the 500 remaining white farmers having recently received eviction notices). What remains of industry is being destroyed by inane economic policies. GDP has fallen to the level of 1953, coal production to the level of 1946, and gold production to that of 1907.

Like its health system, Zimbabwe’s once-proud education system has been crippled by a mass exodus of teachers unable to survive on a monthly salary of barely US$11. An estimated 30,000 have gone abroad since January, many quitting in mid-term. The University of Zimbabwe has lost at least half its 1,200 lecturers.

The mobile phone networks are collapsing; only a skeletal train service survives; bus fares exceed most people’s wages. Even cash is running out because the Government cannot print money fast enough, pay to repair its German presses or buy enough chemicals and ink from abroad. John Robertson, an economist, estimates that it printed Z$372 billion in March, Z$5,648 billion in August.

The human consequences are desperate. A senior NGO official said that nearly half the population now needed food aid. In both rural and urban areas The Times found children with the distended bellies and swollen joints of kwashiorkor – a disease caused by severe malnutrition .

In one rural clinic, a 20-month-old boy lay dying of marasmus, another disease caused by malnutrition. He weighed 11lb. There was no hope, said the doctor in charge. The clinic treats hundreds of villagers who come from far and wide each day on buses, donkey carts or foot. More than 80 per cent are HIV-positive. Half are medically malnourished. That lethal combination has destroyed their immune systems and caused an explosion of other diseases such as TB, malaria, meningitis and pneumonia.

In a Harare cemetery The Times found five funerals taking place simultaneously. An official said the city buried 5,690 adults last year and expected to bury 8,000 this. Those figures exclude paupers’ burials: that morning alone 38 people had been dumped in an unmarked mass grave with no religious service.

A Bulawayo cleric took us to Kilarney, a desperate collection of shacks in the parched bush outside the city that house 500 families displaced by Operation Murambatsvina. There is no school, no clinic. The inhabitants have no jobs, no money, just a few cooking pots. They draw water from the shaft of an abandoned goldmine with a sign reading: “Danger – Cyanide Mining”. They survive on mealie meal provided by the church. Every few months the cleric gets soap which he divides into tiny pieces, one per family.

Nokhuthula, 24, a stick-thin mother of two tiny children, stood outside a shelter of corrugated iron and plastic sheeting held down by stones. A few rags were drying on a thorn bush. Her husband was a carpenter, but his tools were destroyed by Mr Mugabe’s thugs. She used to supplement his income by sewing, but could no longer afford needles and thread. The last time she ate anything but sadza was last Christmas when she had a bowl of rice.

“There’s no hope here. This is a place where people are lucky to reach the age of 40,” the cleric said. He then drove us farther into the bush and showed us rows of mounds in the red earth, each covered with thorny branches to keep animals away. This was where he buried his parishioners, their bodies wrapped in blankets, because their families could not afford proper funerals.

In Mbare, a southern Harare slum, church workers rounded up half a dozen destitute women for The Times to talk to – women like Chipo Holaza, 32, who lost her husband to Aids two years ago. She lives with her four children under plastic sheeting, and sells herself for as little as 20p a time. She is now disfigured by Aids herself. “I’m desperate. The children will have no one to look after them if I pass away. They’ll be street kids,” she said. One headmaster near Bulawayo said that almost all of his 300 female students, aged 14 to 16, were selling their bodies for food. A dental student at the University of Zimbabwe said several classmates were doing the same.

No country on Earth has such a rapidly contracting economy or plummeting life expectancy, but diplomats still believe Mr Mugabe will retain the presidency in elections due next March.

Boosted by Lisbon, he is certain to secure the Zanu (PF) nomination at a special congress on December 14. With the opposition Movement for Democratic Change demoralised, depleted by emigration and split into rival factions, with four million of Zimbabwe’s ablest citizens having fled the country and those that remain debilitated by suffering, Zanu (PF)’s superior political machine should ensure a Mugabe victory.

He is taking no chances though. In remote areas, far from the public eye, his thugs are at work. An activist from Binga in the far northwest said that 200 former members of Zanu (PF)’s youth militia arrived last June. Since then, pumped high on drugs and alcohol, they had systematically terrorised the poorest areas, burning homes, stealing goats and gang-raping as many as 300 women aged between 16 and 51. The activist described Zanu (PF)’s strategy: “If you’re not for us you are against us, and if you’re against us, you’re going to be broken.”

Poverty advocates slam Corzine plan

from North Jersey Media

By GEOFF MULVIHILL
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOUNT LAUREL -- Advocates for poor children are bashing the Corzine administration's plan to overhaul New Jersey's formula for giving aid to schools even before many of the details have been released.

The administration sought to quell early criticism, briefing more than 60 education experts, followed by members of the media on Friday. But it left the biggest question hanging by failing to provide a district-by-district breakdown of new aid amounts.

"We can't tell that yet because we don't have it finished," said Education Commissioner Lucille Davy. Those numbers will be available "probably within a week to 10 days," she said.

The administration says its proposal simplifies the state aid system and provides more stability to communities struggling with rising budgets. It will require Supreme Court approval because it seeks to change the way aid is distributed to the poorest districts.

Although the administration says those districts will not see their state aid reduced, critics say it's unfair that the state won't be recognizing concentrations of poverty as in the past.

Irene Sterling, a member of the Paterson Education Fund, called Corzine's plan "a shell game."

"Despite what looks like an overall increase in school spending, the school funding proposal could have an especially harsh impact on the children who are most at risk and vulnerable," she said.

While the very words "funding formula" might sound mundane, they go to the heart of two of the New Jersey's biggest issues: struggling urban schools and highest-in-the-nation property taxes.

The state sends about $11 billion per year -- one-third of its budget -- to help run local schools. About half the money goes to schools in 31 poor communities known as the "Abbott districts," so called because of a state Supreme Court decision requiring the state to provide them extra aid.

Most of the rest of the cost of running public schools is paid for by local property taxes.

Over the past five years, the state has not given much additional money to most school districts but has increased contributions to the Abbott districts. That has forced many of the state's 600 school districts -- most of them in the suburbs -- to raise property taxes sharply to keep up with costs.

Meanwhile, some of the poor urban districts say they are still not given enough.

Corzine has said that the state would increase its contributions to schools statewide by about $500 million per year.

But under Corzine's plan, school districts would get aid based partly on the number of disadvantaged children, regardless of whether those children live in high-poverty areas. That means the Abbotts would have their aid determined the same way other schools do, a change that likely will require the approval of the state Supreme Court.

It would also mean additional requirements for many schools. For instance, the state has paid for all-day preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds in the poorest districts.

Great expectations

from Greater Milwaukee Today

By RICK ROMANO

A self-described "chick from the suburbs," Kay Edwards of Mequon knows deep in her heart that building the path toward healing the urban landscape depends on the ability to sew together common faith-based missions connecting grass-roots efforts to address poverty, hunger and violence.

"I grew up in rural Wisconsin and live in the suburbs," Edwards says. "I think it comes from my own personal faith, which says that we have been given so much — to those who much has been given much will be expected."

Edwards says knowledge is the strength of her beliefs.

"I think for a lot of us (living in the suburbs), we don’t know what’s really going on," Edwards says. "We don’t hear the positive, hopeful stories. The fact is that there are many street saints who work in smaller, less-known organizations throughout the city. They are saying, ‘This (blight, hunger and violence) is not going to happen in my neighborhood.

"There are really good organizations out there that may not be the big-name nonprofits that we hear about every day," Edwards says. "These are people who care passionately. I think that’s where the change is going to come."

Edwards has immersed herself in change for more than 20 years working as a consultant providing research, planning and project management to nonprofit organizations and working as a nationally recognized leader with faith-based and denominational institutions. She founded KDM Consultants Inc. in 2006.

Edwards says her board membership service to the local Servant Hearted Anointed Leaders of Outreach Ministry, a social ministry to Milwaukee’s central city, has energized her passion.

"I personally knew the founder of the organization and he was so driven and mission-oriented; it rubbed off on everyone he met," Edwards says. "It was so engaging and addictive to be involved with people who care so much about the city."

Caring is at the core of one of Edwards’ most recent involvements. "Called to the City" is an initiative designed to bring together and build relationships among Milwaukee’s grass-roots ministries. She assisted the sponsoring organization, Cardinal Stritch University’s Office of Vocation Development, in planning the first event last October.

"It was an opportunity to see some ministries in action during a bus tour we took through the city," Edwards says. "And we heard from world-renowned authorities on urban ministries who spoke about the importance of starting those conversations among people who care."

Those authorities are Ray Bakke, founder of International Urban Associates based in Seattle, and Gardner Taylor, a Baptist minister who has spent a major portion of his career as pastor of Brooklyn’s 14,000-member Concord Baptist Church of Christ.

Edwards, reminded of Bakke’s proclamation that "Everything we need is right here," says the city’s resources are increasing. She recently established a Web site where professionals may learn about how their skills can help fledgling organizations that are addressing urban issues at street level.

"People of passion are finding an opportunity to know each other," she says. "This is all a sign of hope."

Help faith-based organizations:

www.vesperservice.net links professional skills such as accounting, legal aid and planning with faith-based grass-roots nonprofits.

The Stritch connection

Kay Edwards worked with the Rev. Trinette McCray, who has directed the university’s Office of Vocation Development since it was established in 2002. The Lily Foundation funds the office’s initiatives.

2007 Called to the City:

"Building Community in a Segregated City: Are We asking the right questions?" will be held Nov. 12 and 13 at Cardinal Stritch University. The theme will be working with youth; some 200 high school students are expected to participate.

Her day job:

Kay Edwards leads KDM Consultants Inc., which works with — in addition to Cardinal Stritch University — large, nonprofit organizations such as Brady Corporate Foundation, Episcopal Relief and Development, Legacy Group, Share Wisconsin and YMCA of the USA.

Poverty: Raising Awareness, Fighting Effects

from The Times Union

Tim Robertson
Staff Writer

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a three-part series on the effects of financial need in Kosciusko County. The series looks at three local events aimed at bringing awareness and responses to poverty in our area. Part three will be published Tuesday.

It is not uncommon to be asked for some spare change or to see homeless people sleeping on park benches in a big city like Chicago or Detroit. But those things aren't as common in rural communities like Kosciusko County.

Community Ministries Director of the Kosciusko County Salvation Army Ken Locke said that doesn't mean there aren't people in need here. According to Locke, the number of Kosciusko County residents living in poverty is climbing and awareness is the first step to alleviating the problem.

"It's hard to put a face on poverty, especially in a rural area," Locke told a crowd of about 40 Thursday. "We don't have people living in cardboard boxes, yet we do have homeless people here."

Locke was speaking at See the Need, a community art exhibit aimed at raising awareness and response to local poverty. About 20 local artists contributed to the exhibit held Thursday, Friday and tonight at New Horizon Community Church, Winona Lake.

New Horizon Pastor Scott Barger said his church chose to host an art exhibit because of the personal way in which art can communicate.

"People connect with it," Barger said.

Though his church is not a social service agency, Barger said they want to be involved in helping fight the effects of poverty. He said See the Need is a first step for both his congregation and the community to gain more awareness of the problem and then begin to identify actions they can take.

"You can't care about something that you don't acknowledge," Barger said. "The first step is getting people to acknowledge this is a problem. If we can get that first step, maybe we can begin to do something about it."

At the exhibit Thursday, area residents browsed the paintings, photographs and other work on display. One artist, Rebecca Gypson, Warsaw, described the idea behind her piece, a photographic portrait of a tired-looking man with a beard.

"I met this man a few months ago," Gypson said. "He has spent many years of his life homeless. He told me that for five months he lived in Warsaw in an abandoned storage unit. I grew up in this area and always thought that there were no homeless."

Gypson, who works for New Hope Clubhouse, Warsaw, said in recent years her perspective has changed. "Now, I encounter poverty daily because of my job," she said. "I am constantly surprised by the poverty that exists in our community because there is a lot of wealth in our community."

Gypson said she hopes See the Need can begin to get a message out to the local community. "The poor in our community are hidden," she said. "The desperately needy people deserve our notice. We need to take up their cause."

Grace College students Matthew Rupple and Jaime Ove said, to them, the exhibit's message was loud and clear.

"[Poverty] is something we just look over," Rupple said.

"It's something that's here, not just in other countries," said Ove. "This is we need to be helping."

Josh Phillips, of Warsaw, said he felt the pieces in the exhibit represented an accurate picture of need in this county.

"From what I've seen personally in this county, they've done a good job portraying it," Phillips said.

Locke and Combined Community Services Director Lewis Jones held a question and answer session, Thursday, at See the Need. Locke said he was glad to see an event organized to bring awareness. He said more awareness of the problem of poverty will lead to more community involvement in solving the problem.

"The good thing is that people are talking," he said. "The one way we're going to be able to attack poverty is if we're talking with one another."

Locke told the crowd it is important not only to be aware that poverty exists in the community, but also to have an accurate perception of the issue of poverty.

"Poverty is not a sin," Locke said. "I think, especially in America, if you're poor, it's almost as if it's a sin. Poverty is a condition. It doesn't matter how much the guy next to you has in his pocket, in God's eyes, we're all equal."

Jones said it is often easy for outsiders to think that people in need could solve all of their problems with a little planning ahead. "But, one of the problems with poverty is that people are living day to day," Jones said. "There is no way, in all that chaos, to look into the future."

Jones said, to make a difference, it will take the combined efforts of government representatives, social service agencies, area employers, local churches and individual residents who care. "Let's all work together for a common good," he said.

Locke said he knows from personal experience the difference one community or even an individual can make. "I grew up poor," he said. "The thing that changed for me was there were people who gave me opportunities through education and encouragement."

See the Need is open to the public tonight 6-11 p.m. John Shirk, a poet from Chicago, is scheduled to read some of his poetry at 7 p.m. "A lot of my stuff is really about loving your neighbor even when your neighbor is not very lovely or is not like you," Shirk said.
Next in the series:
The Kosciusko County Community Foundation is initiating efforts to help community members take action against the effects of poverty.

On Jan. 24, the foundation will host the Helping Overcome Poverty's Effects workshop. Nationally acclaimed educator, author and speaker, Ruby Payne, PhD., will present material from her book, "A Framework for Understanding Poverty," at the workshop.

Professionals who have daily contact with those in poverty, including school faculty, social workers, case workers and service providers are being invited to attend the workshop.

KCCF Executive Director Suzie Light said efforts are already underway to utilize the workshop as a catalyst for action against the effects of poverty in the county. "The community foundation strategically formed a steering committee so that after the catalyst of Dr. Payne being here, we wouldn't lose any momentum," Light said. "Instead, we'll be ready to pursue ways to bring people out of poverty."

Helping Young Moms

from CBS News



Katie Couric talks to Nurse-Family Partnership founder David Olds about his program, which gives children of first-time mothers in low-income households a better chance.

Ex-councilman expands his fight against poverty

from the Fort Worth Star Telegram

By JOHN KIRSCH
Star-Telegram staff writer
Ralph McCloud traces his social awareness to his childhood in southeast Fort Worth.

He saw people struggle for the basics of life, and the experience gave him a lifelong desire to relieve poverty.

"I'm struck by the very, very serious abject poverty that exists in our nation, and I'm often driven to see both what I can do personally and what I can do to encourage others to be aware of it, and secondly look at ways of trying to relieve it," said McCloud, a former Fort Worth city councilman and mayor pro tem.

Since 1995, McCloud has served as head of community and pastoral services for the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese. In that job, he has been involved in a wide range of community and anti-poverty efforts, such as leading a task force on homelessness appointed by Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief.

Politics and advocacy

Now McCloud is embarking on his biggest opportunity to fight poverty.

In January, he will become director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Catholic Campaign for Human Development in Washington, D.C. The program funds community organizations and economic development projects designed to root out poverty around the country.

John Carr, the interim director of the campaign, said McCloud's commitment to carrying out the church's teachings on social responsibility made him the best person for the job.

"You hear Ralph talk about justice, and you don't think about politics. You think about morality. He practices what he preaches," Carr said.

McCloud is the first African-American layperson to serve as director of the campaign, Carr said.

McCloud sees the job as an opportunity to combine the political and advocacy skills he developed at the diocese and on the City Council. He said he wants to use the job to increase awareness of poverty and the need to reduce it.

An estimated 37 million Americans live in poverty, according to the campaign for human development.

"I see it as being an opportunity to kind of both broaden my horizons as well as work with organizations and people who are dealing with poverty on a very, very, very up-close and personal way, trying to assist the alleviation," he said.

Early involvement

McCloud's awareness of community emerged early in his life.

His parents -- Ralph Sr., a career Army sergeant, and Bessie, a teacher's aide -- sent him and his six siblings to Catholic school.

The younger McCloud was so impressed by the commitment that priests and nuns showed to the poor that he converted to Catholicism at 13. He had been raised Methodist, but McCloud said his parents supported the move.

McCloud was student body president at Nolan Catholic High School in 1973, the year he graduated. After high school, McCloud worked in a carpet-cushion factory and for the YMCA as an outreach coordinator for programs in low-income areas.

In 1995, McCloud retired from a 17-year career as a property manager for Southwestern Bell to become director of pastoral and community services for the diocese. McCloud says he felt a call to serve the community, especially poor people.

As a councilman from 1997 to 2005, McCloud worked to revitalize inner-city areas and helped set up the Hazel Harvey Peace professorship, named for a prominent Fort Worth educator, at the University of North Texas.

"It's been one change after the other from the phone company to the diocese to the Conference of Catholic Bishops," he said. "It's something I'm ready for."

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

Ralph McCloud

Age: 53

Hometown: Fort Worth

Career: Head of community and pastoral services, Fort Worth Catholic Diocese; property and real estate manager for Southwestern Bell, 1978-95; Fort Worth City Council, 1997-2005 (mayor pro tem, 1999-2005)

Education: Nolan Catholic High School, 1973; attended Paul Quinn College, Dallas.

Family: Single

Ralph McCloud

Age: 53

Hometown: Fort Worth

Career: Head of community and pastoral services, Fort Worth Catholic Diocese; property and real estate manager for Southwestern Bell, 1978-95; Fort Worth City Council, 1997-2005 (mayor pro tem, 1999-2005)

Education: Nolan Catholic High School, 1973; attended Paul Quinn College, Dallas.

Family: Single

Poverty dinner attracts students

from the Scarlet and Black

By Jeff Raderstrong
Published: Vol 124, Issue 10

Millions around the world would relish the opportunity to experience Grinnell cuisine, bad though many say it is. Last Tuesday night, students contributed their $11 dining hall meal for a rice casserole to combat worldwide hunger.

The Grinnell College Christian Fellowship (GCCF) hosted a “Poverty Dinner” in the old Quad dining hall, serving a fortified rice-soy casserole and asking for donations from students for Kids Against Hunger, a non-profit that packages and ships meals to starving children around the world. About 80-100 students showed up and contributed a total of about $265. The amount raised is enough to fund 1,186 meals, at about 25 cents a piece.

The meals that Kids Against Hunger sends to over 40 developing nations are the same that were prepared by GCCF members for students to eat. The meals are “served at hunger camps around the world, basically for people who are on the verge of starving to death,” said Brad Bishop ’08, a member of GCCF and co-organizer of the event. “It’s the last case resort.”

Students at the event ate and talked with friends while reading the literature GCCF had provided about issues of starvation and global inequalities, including a “Poverty Quiz.” “We eat all this food and we don’t realize how good we have it,” said Greg Suryn ’11, an attendee.

The Poverty Dinner served two purposes for the GCCF organizers. Not only did it raise money to pay for the meals that will be packaged this Sunday at an in-town temporary Kids Against Hunger satellite station, but it also helped to raise awareness about global issues. “When you go to the dining hall all the time you forget that people will be really happy to have this [food].” said Lindsay Young ’08, another member of GCCF.

This is the second Poverty Dinner hosted by GCCF. Last spring, they organized a similar event to raise money for Kids Against Hunger, although there was no satellite packaging coinciding. GCCF has begun to focus more on social justice, and started distributing a new social justice newsletter this semester, called “SJ News,” among other things. “I’m really glad the fellowship [GCCF] is moving in this direction,” said Brian Smith ’09, another member of GCCF.

Others in GCCF agree that the group needs to do more with respect to social justice issues. “It comes out of feeling within GCCF that we hadn’t been as involved in doing social justice stuff,” said Kiri Aho ’08, a member of GCCF and another co-organizer of the event. “Social justice … is all wrapped up in my faith. It’s necessary to work for everyone to have a good life. This [dinner] is a small way to start.”

Mapping Poverty for Better Development Planning

from the Earth Institute

This remarkable map of Latin America portrays infant mortality rates, a widely used proxy measure of poverty. It demonstrates clearly that although Latin America has generally low infant mortality rates, overall poverty is very unevenly distributed throughout the region. Moreover, the relationship between this pattern of human well-being and broader geographic constraints is also clear. The mountainous, land-locked areas of Bolivia and southern Peru have high rates of infant mortality and poverty as do the arid region of Brazil’s northeast has much higher poverty than more humid parts of the continent including Chile and Argentina.

This map is an example of how advances in data collection and technology can be used to put poverty-related indicators into meaningful visual context. To increase awareness and promote usage of GIS-based applications in development strategies, the Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the World Bank produced a series of maps detailing spatially referenced data on hunger, infant mortality, income poverty and other related indicators at the global, regional, national and local scales.

This joint initiative makes accessible a stunning array of geo-referenced poverty estimates, which in many cases represent poverty rates at very high levels of spatial resolution. For many countries, poverty estimates are available at local levels, representing many hundreds or thousands of geographic units. These collections make possible radically new approaches in poverty reduction strategies, in aid evaluation, and in the general understanding of the geographic drivers of development.

This particular map on Infant Mortality in Latin America is one of more than 150 subnational poverty maps available for download on CIESIN’s Web site. The Web site also provides access to a large collection of spatial and tabular data sets which consolidates subnational poverty estimates from a large number of global sources. This unique collection was made possible by CIESIN's collaboration with the World Bank Development Economics Data Group and Development Economics Research Group, with funding from the Japan Policy and Human Resource Development Fund.