AIDemocracy.org

Promoting Health through a Gender Development Camp in Thailand

April 11, 2013 by AIDemocracy Leave a Comment

Peace Corps volunteer Ji Kim of Potomac, Md., is working with her community in Thailand to initiate a sexual health and gender empowerment training camp for local high school students. A portion of the funds for the project will be raised through the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP), a program that helps support Peace Corps volunteer community projects worldwide. “Comprehensive sexual education is commonplace in the United States, but it is lacking in Thailand,” said Kim, a graduate of the University of Maryland who has been living and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less Tagged With: Gender, health, hunger, Thailand

Links between climate change and food security cannot be ignored

January 2, 2012 by Rozina Kanchwala Leave a Comment

Agricultural yields are closely dependent on weather patterns. With increasing climate variability and change, agriculture and subsequently human well-being will be negatively impacted. While some places might see a rise in crop yield, the net effect of agricultural yields worldwide will be negative, with South Asia thought to be hit the hardest. High temperatures often lead to weed and pest proliferation, while reducing crop yields. Impacts of climate change on agriculture are three fold: 1. Biological effects, namely the rising temperatures and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Climate Change, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: food security, hunger

We’re hiring! Hunger & Climate Change Fellow

November 27, 2011 by AIDemocracy Leave a Comment

Are you a student interested in fighting poverty and addressing climate change? Do you believe that students have both the power and the obligation to speak out about global challenges? Americans for Informed Democracy is accepting applications from inspired, globally conscious students who are interested in getting hands-on experience educating and mobilizing youth around global development and the environment. The Hunger & Climate Change Fellow will support our national student network around these issues. Specific tasks will include supporting … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Climate Change, Hunger, Opportunities Closed Tagged With: climate change, hunger

AIDemocracy Hunger Team makes case for foreign aid to supercommittee

October 20, 2011 by Vannessa Chapman Leave a Comment

The AIDemocracy Food Security Campaign Team sent this letter to Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) on October 14th to influence the supercommittee discussions about foreign aid. The supercommittee is currently debating proposals for over $1 trillion in US budget cuts over the coming years. Team members requested that cuts to foreign aid in the 2012 budget are spared, and asked that international programs that fight global issues such as hunger be placed in high priority: Dear Senator Murray: On behalf of Americans for Informed Democracy (AIDemocracy), a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: 2012 budget, foreign aid, hunger

Beyond food security, towards food sovereignty

October 4, 2011 by Rozina Kanchwala 1 Comment

‘Food sovereignty’ is a phrase coined only in 1996 that signifies the right of people to farm and eat foods that are healthy and culturally appropriate to them, using farming methods chosen by them. As simple and obvious as this seems, unfortunately it is not the situation for many small-scale farmers who are at the mercy of the large-scale agribusiness that dictates what they should grow and how. Mainstream neo-liberal policies of the past 60 years have systematically allowed land-grabbing and the slow elimination of small-scale farmers and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Climate Change, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: agriculture, food security, hunger

Tell Congress that students care about the fight against global hunger!

September 26, 2011 by Karen Showalter Leave a Comment

Today activists from across the country will join forces to send a loud and clear message to members of Congress: Protect funding for global hunger and global poverty-focused programs! We need you to add your voice to this call, making it clear that we, as young people, care about these issues. Once again global hunger programs are in extreme danger as Congress makes decisions about next year’s budget. The House of Representatives has proposed cutting critical investments in smallholder agriculture by more than 35%. These investments in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Climate Change, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: hunger

The challenges of large-scale agriculture

September 15, 2011 by AIDemocracy Leave a Comment

By Rozina Kanchwala. Two factors at play require us to pay serious attention to the issue of food security: • A growing population and its growing food demand • Increasing uncertainty of environmental changes Both of these factors can be addressed by organic agriculture. This is the way forward, not large-scale modern agriculture that currently dominates farming practices globally. Modern, large-scale farming has come into existence within the past half century and is characterized by monocropping which is the practice of growing … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: hunger

You can (and should) Feed the Future of East Africa

July 22, 2011 by Rachel Merker Leave a Comment

Right now, there are a billion chronically hungry people in the world. That means that every day, close to one in seven individuals goes without enough food. Often, those are the same people who live in extreme poverty, making less than $1 a day and lacking access to basic resources like clean water, electricity and health and sanitation services. My guess is that these statistics aren't news to you. We're bombarded with images and stories about hunger and its devastating consequences. We see pictures of the 3.5 million children who die from … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Climate Change, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: Africa, aid, food security, humanitarian aid, hunger, Hunger, sustainable development, USAID, war

The 10 million faces of climate change: drought and hunger in East Africa

July 15, 2011 by Rachel Merker 2 Comments

With the Horn of Africa suffering the worst current food crisis in the world after one of the most severe droughts it’s seen in decades, the grave threat that climate change and all its unpredictability poses should be clearer than ever. So why aren’t we doing anything about it? Climate Change is a real and urgent global challenge, and its harmful effects are already visible across the world, from increased global temperatures, more frequent and extreme weather events, melting glaciers and rising sea level. These shifts, whose extent and timeline … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Climate Change, Featured Less, Hunger Tagged With: Africa, agriculture, climate change, conflict, food security, humanitarian aid, hunger, poverty

Global Malnutrition and the Politics of Food

January 18, 2011 by Alex B. Hill

Whether they are starving or eating too much, children around the world are malnourished. A full belly doesn't necessarily mean that a child is getting proper nutrition from the food that they eat. Obese children are just as nutritionally deficient as children who have bloated bellies from hunger. The result is a global generation of unhealthy children who will experience a shorter life expectancy than normal from complications with their health and related diseases. The double burden of malnutrition is seen in both a complete lack of access to food and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Less, Hunger, Sex and Justice Tagged With: hunger, Obama, policy