Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Monday, October 17, 2016

Education : Let's Support Goal 1 #EndPoverty !




#EndPoverty



"Poverty is not simply measured by inadequate income. It is manifested in restricted access to health, education and other essential services and, too often, by the denial or abuse of other fundamental human rights [...] Let us listen to and heed the voices of people living in poverty. Let us commit to respect and defend the human rights of all people and end the humiliation and social exclusion that people living in poverty face every day by promoting their involvement in global efforts to end extreme poverty once and for all." 
UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon

Sustainable Development Goals


As part of UN Millenium Development goals, on the 17th of October we celebrate the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been observed every year since 1993, when the United Nations General Assembly, by resolution 47/196, designated this day to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries. Fighting poverty remains at the core of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the development of the post-2015 development agenda.


  • Theme 2016: "Moving from humiliation and exclusion to participation: Ending poverty in all its forms."
The theme this year – selected in consultation with activists, civil society and non-governmental organizations – highlights how important it is to recognize and address the humiliation and exclusion endured by many people living in poverty.

 




Goal 1 No Poverty
https://en.unesco.org/
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” explicitly recognizes that poverty results not from the lack of just one thing but from many different interrelated factors that affect the lives of people living in poverty.

This means we must go beyond seeing poverty merely as the lack of income or what is necessary for material well-being — such as food, housing, land, and other assets – in order to fully understand poverty in its multiple dimensions.




Sustainable Development Goals
credits: Elyx Yak/ UN

Present at the heart of this World Day for Overcoming Poverty are all the people who are facing the violence of extreme poverty. Marked by deprivation and contempt, many flee from place to place driven by armed conflict, drought, floods, and hunger. What support do they find?
"Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030 is an ambitious but achievable goal - the key to success rests on political determination, driven by solid knowledge about the causes, mechanisms and consequences of poverty. The possibility of achieving fast and sustained poverty eradication depends on our ability to work collaboratively.



World Social Science Report 2016


As measured by the 2016 Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index, 1.6 billion persons are identified today as poor. 
That staggering figure reveals levels of human deprivation far beyond what arbitrary income lines can capture. Poverty is about money, but never just about money, as underlined by UNESCO’s 2016 World Social Science Report. Better understanding of the relationships between income and other dimensions of poverty can help to empower people living in poverty as agents of change." (...)




International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

"Breaking the vicious circle of poverty by 2030 is part of a larger cultural transformation based on solidarity, collaboration and peace to which UNESCO is deeply committed. Through powerful tools for social transformation -- education, culture, science, communication and information -- UNESCO contributes to embedding social justice within societies. Justice is a right, and justice and good governance are foundations for more lasting and sustainable peace.
Ending poverty is not just helping the poor – it is giving every woman and man the chance to live with dignity. By eradicating poverty, all humanity will be transformed."

UNESCO’s message for Intl Day for Erradication of Poverty 2016









Education:

Millions of children around the world miss out on their childhood as a result of poverty. Poverty deprives them of the capabilities needed to survive, develop and thrive. It prevents them from enjoying equal opportunities. It makes children more vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, violence, discrimination and stigmatization says Unicef.

Around the world, millions of children are denied fundamental rights and are deprived of what they need to grow up healthy and strong – because of their place of birth; because of their race, ethnicity or gender; or because they have a disability or live in poverty.






credits: UNICEF


The statistical evidence on children living in poverty confronts us with a stark reality: millions of children are poor; they lack access to safe drinking water, essential vaccines, education and nutrition; they are at risk of being exploited and abused. 

Every year, we write and display photos about poverty in underdeveloped countries. But some years ago, a new reality appeared. There is poverty among children in 'developed' countries'.


Reading this report on this day, as an educator, I must write about the new poverty among our students in our schools, in our countries.

What’s it like to live in poverty in a wealthy or 'developed' country? 

Students want to raise awareness of child poverty in their countries and among their colleagues and friends. Many children in the Europe, United Sates, Latin America live in poverty, but what does it actually mean day to day? 






To help to #EndPoverty, we all have a role to play. Let’s show support. 

  • Ask your students to change their profile pic to the end poverty logo to commemorate the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17.
  • Write one or more messages on Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter. They must feel free to personalize their messages to reflect their passion or viewpoint.
  • Sign or use the #EndPoverty hashtags in their messages.

"Poverty is the worst form of violence."

Mahatma Gandhi


G-Souto

17.10.2016

Copyright © 2016G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Creative Commons License
Education : Let's support Goal 1 #EndPoverty bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

Friday, March 22, 2013

World Water Day 2013 & Education





“International Year of Water Cooperation”

UN

World Water Day is observed annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

The international water day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.


Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. 2013, will reflects of the International Year of Water Cooperation.

World Water Day is also dedicated to the theme of cooperation around water and is coordinated by UNESCO in collaboration with UNECE and UNDESA on behalf of UN-Water.



Education:

As you see, educators must be prepared for all kinds of events to share and teach. March is an inspirational month! Perhaps it is about Spring?

Yesterday, it was World Poetry Day, Arbor Day and Forest International Day! Wow so much to talk about and inspire our students! 

The success of the "International Year of Water Cooperation" and the World Water Day depends on the involvement of everyone! We start this involvment in school education.

We could start with this infographic where students can vizualize the importance of Freshwater.

Freshwater is one of today’s most pressing developmental challenges, impacting food & agriculture, gender equality, health & sanitation, population & urbanization.



Some Activities WWD:

  • Promote the International Year of Water Cooperation and the World Water Day at school: use the logo, web banners on students blogs and other campaign materials;
  • Raise awareness of the benefits of water cooperation: use the brochure, the messages, case studies and success stories;
  • Share your knowledge with students, fparents, and colleagues;
  • Develop the students capacities by asking students to organize a workshop to other students and why not to some teachers;
  • Foster dialogue and cooperation among schools in countries where water could be a problem;
  • Take action by asking students to write news and articles about water for school journals or ask a radio station to cooperate with your students and get an interview to be broadcasting;
  • Send UN Water your students' pictures, artworks, videos and other creations. They wiill be shared with the world;

Levels: Every teacher must adapte the activities to school level.

Curricula: Cross-curricula.


Other Resources:

SG Ban Ki-moon video message for World Water Day

The Key Water Indicate Portal is online here

Fresh Water For All | Infographic

World Water Day: 10 facts you ought to know | Greenpeace

World Water Day: Celebrating Women's Rights | Amnesty International


Be innovative! Inspire your students!

G-Souto

22.03.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Licença Creative Commons
World Water Day & Education bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Hard Times Generation: Children's rights





"Rampant poverty, which has festered for far too long, is linked to social unrest and threats to peace and security. On this International Day, let us make an investment in our common future by helping to lift people out of poverty so that they, in turn, can help to transform our world."
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Message for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty


"Of the 925 million people suffering from chronic hunger, 98 percent live in the developing worldUnlike famines that receive emergency-aid, chronic hunger is a silent, invisible, day-after-day condition."
17 October has been International Day for the Eradication of Poverty since 1993, initiated by the United Nations.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first ever International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, to give it its full, official name.

The 2012 commemoration will focus on the theme "Ending the Violence of Extreme Poverty: Promoting Empowerment and Building Peace".
"Too many people live in fear of losing their jobs and not being able to feed their families"
Ban Ki-moon,  the United Nations Secretary-General
"Of the 925 million people suffering from chronic hunger, 98 percent live in the developing worldUnlike famines that receive emergency-aid, chronic hunger is a silent, invisible, day-after-day condition."
On this day, the Intergroup Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Fourth World Committee, organise an event in the European Parliament in Brussels. 

"When you get up in the morning and don’t know where to go, with nothing to feed your children, that is violence. When you have to fight others to defend the little you own, that is violence.”
A mother from Haiti
Unfortunally, this is no longer a mother's voice of an underdeveloped country. We know that poverty and hunger are disseminated too in developed countries. I wrote about it on my post Child Poverty in Develped Countries.
"Extreme poverty destroys the lives and spirit of people; it kills more children, young persons, and adults than any war. Every day, people living in extreme poverty are challenged and threatened by lack of food, shelter and access to essential services. They endure hazardous working conditions and live in precarious, degraded, and insecure living environments."
Austerity measures widen gap between rich and poor. That is a fact. Every day, in our city we cross homeless people, we know someone that lost his or her job, even the home family.
"As debates rage on austerity measures and social spending cuts, a new report reveals the extent of child poverty and child deprivation in the world’s advanced economies.

Some 13 million children in the European Union (plus Norway and Iceland) lack basic items necessary for their development.

Meanwhile, 30 million children - across 35 countries with developed economies - live in poverty."

UNICEF (Brussels, 29 May 2012)

And chidren across the United Sates, or Canada, and other developed countries on the world.



Credits : James Foley, cartoonist

Education:

Introducing these facts into our curriculum:

  • 925 million people do not have enough to eat — more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union combined.
  • 98% of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries.
  • Two-thirds of the world's hungry live in just 7 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.
This time I would share with you the heartbreaking video 60 Minutes on CBS News - Scott Pelley reports from Florida, where school buses now stop at motels for children who've lost their homes (2011). 

I have not the courage to introduce it on this post because there are too many kids involved. But you can watch it here





How can we build a just and peaceful society to the "hard time generation"? 

For some children, socializing and learning are being cruelly complicated by homelessness. And we have this reality in our classroom among some our students!

Today I have no pedagogical ideas. I only want to share with you all these humanitarian messages: 

Child Poverty at a Time of Crisis (UNICEF) 

Pupils speak out about UK child poverty 

Hard Times Generation: homeless kids (Florida children - USA).

Only by listening to children living in extreme poverty, can we learn from their courage, experience and knowledge on how to achieve a peaceful world for all. 

Ultimately, the social transformation that is needed to achieve a peaceful society can only be achieved through the active contribution of everyone, regardless of where we live, or our social and cultural background.







The 2012 Commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP) is focused on the theme "Ending the violence of Extreme Poverty: Promoting empowerment and building peace". 
It is my hope that this theme will launch a continuing dialogue among people everywhere about this issue.
G-Souto
17.10.2012
copyright © 2012G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com
Licença Creative Commons
The Hard Time Generation: Children's rights bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
References:
Credits: Scott Pelley | 60 Minutes CBS News
International Day for Eradication of Poverty
http://www.un.org/en/events/povertyday/

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

And what about World Water Day at school?




r Day. 
"World Water Day" is observed on March 22 every year. A day to recognize the importance of earth's most precious natural resource was proposed 20 years ago (1992) at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). 


Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images (2011)

While we often take water for granted, many people cannot have it. Water plays a role in almost everything we do. We drink it, wash in it, play in it, generate power with it, irrigate crops with it, travel and transport goods on it, fight fires with it, and worship with it. 

World Water Day official ceremony Live from 9:30 GMT. 

"UNICEF's World Water Week, to be held from March 19 to March 25, is expected to create awareness and find donors and volunteers to identify and support the cause of providing water to the 780 million people who don't have safe drinking water."



Education:

Each year the UN focuses on an aspect of water and the forthcoming event clearly links in with agriculture and nutrition. 

"When a billion people in the world already live in chronic hunger and water resources are under pressure we cannot pretend the problem is ‘elsewhere’."

Coping with population growth and ensuring access to nutritious food to everyone call for a series of actions we can all help with:
  • follow a healthier, sustainable diet;
  • consume less water-intensive products;
  • reduce the scandalous food wastage: 30% of the food produced worldwide is never eaten and the water used to produce it is definitively lost!
  • produce more food, of better quality, with less water
So, we can discuss all these items at school. And bring some new habits to our students.

Levels: Primary to Secondary education;

Curriculum: Civics; Sciences; Languages; Arts.


Some resources:

  • Today, 9:30 GMT tune in to the Live Webcast of the Official UN-Water World Water Day 2012 ceremony from FAO Headquarters in Rome. Watch the webcast with your students (secondary education).

  • UNESCO has a DVD for Natural Sciences (a package of four CD-Rom produced for the International Decade for Action 'Water for Life', published in 2003).

  • UNICEF has also a video "Safe water safe lives" : in Pakistan access ro safe drinking water and sanitation is protecting children for deadly diarrhoea and malnutrion.

  • Watch "Water, The Drop of Life" here or "Safe Water Safe Lives" here.
Let your students use their smartphones and meanwhile ask them to take some notes or to search for countries where the water is a great gift.

It can be a good start to an open discussion in the classroom, after watching the ceremony or the videos by UNESCO or UNICEF. 

It will depend from the resource you chose for the level that you teach.

Or you can simply start your lesson with the video below:




After that, ask your students if they know how much water they consume every day and how can we change our diet and reduce our water footprint.

Some UN Water campaign materials can be download from here
  • brochures, 
  • logos, 
  • videos and animations
  • games

Download and print out these materials for your "World Water Day" event or lesson learning more about this year's topics of 'Water and Food Security'!

For example this game teaches the students how much water is needed to create one meal, while ensuring that we get the nutrition we need. 

The game can be played on students' computer or mobile device and is available in English, French and Spanish. 

Some extra activities: 

You come up with different suggestions that students can develop for a week:
  • Discussing (at home and in the classroom);
  • Writing (news, storytelling, drama, poetry);
  • Drawing;
  • Dramatizing;
  • Creating videos;
  • Sharing experiences with different schools in the world using Twitter or Facebook (school account) or just by emailing if some schools in  disadvantage countries have no access to social networks.

I am sure that World Water Day 2012 event in your school will be an interesting project.

The success of "World Water Day" depends on you!

G-Souto

22.03.2012
Copyright © 2012G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®
Licença Creative Commons
And what about World Water Day at school? bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

References for Teachers:

UN Water