Save the Children #FirstWorldProblems

After leaving our discussion spurred on by the readings on visual documentation I become interested if there has been any shifts in the documentation of Ethiopia and poverty, as well as whether it has coincided with any actual economic or policy changes within the country. Growing up in southern California, many people were less than knowledgable about Ethiopia in any capacity, with the exception of the Feed the Children commercials that launched at the onset of the drought and famine of 1983-1985. I believe a majority of our class is not old enough to remember this actual timeframe in history, however many of the commercials launched in response to this natural disaster were heavily in rotation for a number of years after an extent of the disaster had been contained and in still play to this day to some extent.

Just for background development, in the case some people did not run into such commercials growing up I decided to try to search one of the archaic commercials. Personally, I still remember the extremely underweight children almost too frail to move being paraded on late night television all too well, as well as their distended bellies that are still the bud of many jokes once people do find out I am from there.

 I stumbled across across a few videos reminiscent of the many videos I had seen. All of the following videos in my opinion manipulate images to a great degree. In fact, one of the images that was included in one of the videos was the Kevin Carter's iconic images from his trip to Northern Sudan depicting the vulture preying over a famine stricken Sudanese toddler from the village of Ayod, Sudan.

In efforts to capture the perfect image whether it is for the purpose to represent the raw moment or to serve as call to action for the viewing public there is to an extent a degree of staging that occurs, which ultimately also equates manipulating the subject. In this instance the subject is the marginalized, the have-nots, the hungry, the sickly, and youth this leads to the question whether this equates to exploitation. When this images are captured we need to also weight out what we are able to live with in terms of at what cost does the image warrant the exploitation. Is the after affect or the desired call to attention worth it?

Another interesting aspect of the videos posted below is the lack of a call to action. We mentioned this in class earlier. The stirring up of all these emotions and sense of accomplishment felt by some for just engaging with the images and feeling like a better person for seeing the depths of poverty that exist. Yes, many of us need to be more grateful for what we have and it does become quiet simpler when you see the less fortunate shoved in your face on your big screen television. However, displaying such images whether they are staged, manipulated, and utter examples of exploitation are even WORSE to me when there is no option or suggestion to viewers to help fix the problem they are feeling sorry for and emotional over.  When we joke about things like #FirstWorldProblems I think we become cognizant of a problem, which is the goal, but are missing the latter half of the goal: the change we are hoping for.

Not too surprisingly, the images today asking for donations for Ethiopia are quite similar. The only representation of poverty that I felt was a stray away from these all too paralleling videos was a film shaped to feel like a documentary. The title, Zewdi The Street Kid, in my opinion does much more justice to the target group(marginalized street children in Ethiopia). http://vimeo.com/27882235

Coaching Corps

For my practice experience I will be working with Coaching Corps, an organization that uses the power of sports and service to improve educational, health and social outcomes for underserved youth. They are partnered up with many organizations across the Bay Area, looking for assistant coaches to help run youth sports teams as well as serve as mentors for these kids. The partner organization Coaching Corps assigned me to was Berkeley Youth Alternatives, a non-profit, community-initiated organization located in Berkeley, CA, that provides a multitude of counseling resources and after school programs for troubled youth, including sports fitness. I am currently an assistant coach for a 5^th grade girls basketball team, where my responsibilities extend not only into the realm of basketball instruction and sports discipline, but also into the role of a mentor and guiding figure. 

One of the aspects of my organization I love the most is Coaching Corps strives to utilize their students volunteers beyond the couple weekly practices they attend and carry out larger events to directly address other areas of these children's lives like the importance of education. One of those events will be occurring this Sunday, April 13. Coaching Corps will be hosting Take Your Team to College Day. This event will bring the kids we serve to the Berkeley college campus and will give them an opportunity to explore the possibilities of higher education. At this year's event, we have kids coming from Bears Youth Basketball, Willard Middle School, and MLK Jr. Middle School. This is the agenda they provided us:

10:30AM-11:45AM Volunteers Meet Up & Introductions

Help with any set ups/preparations and receive a tour guide map with talking points to review; participate in an ice breaker and form a buddy system when the kids arrive; interact with the kids!

11:45AM-12:45PM Campus Tour

Give a tour of the UC Berkeley campus! You will not give a tour alone; you will work with a buddy of your choice as well as a student-athlete. All tour maps, stops, and talking points will be given to you so no prior knowledge is necessary at all.

12:45PM-1:15PM Scavenger Hunt

Help out with a Scavenger Hunt that includes Sather Gate, Campanile, and more! 

1:15PM-2:10PM College Student Panels

Be a part of a panel with student athletes and discuss college life, give advice and info about staying active. 

2:10PM-2:45PM Activity & Pick Up Game

Participate in a quick activity and a soccer pick up game with the kids!

2:45PM–3PM Closing

Closing remarks, hand out goodie bags, answer any questions, and take photos.

As you can see it's a packed schedule filled with many positive experiences and provide these children with opportunities to learn about higher education as well as do the things they love, like sports. Juxtaposing the two in an event like this is a great way of teaching these underserved children to associate the fun they have with sports with school.

The reason why I bring this up is not only because this event is quickly approaching, but because of our discussion of visual documentation both in class and discussion. Many of the photos on Coaching Corps's website display exactly these sort of events of youth empowerment and support. That is how they market their cause and receive funding. In our discussion when we were looking and analyzing each other's photos (from our respective organizations), we discussed what our organizations were trying to get across. It's nice to see those pictures come to life and witness what they were trying to get across first hand through this event.    

Poverty in Paradise

This past spring break, I took my first ever real vacation to Hawaii with some of my best friends. This was an experience I was sure to never forget. Hawaii is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places, with clear blue beaches, perfect weather, and gorgeous local people everywhere. I had a lot of expectations before going on my trip to paradise, but it wasn't everything it's all cracked up to be. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time and there are definitely beautiful places to visit, but besides the occasional tension that happens when you go on trips with friends, I had a lot of misconceptions and ideas of what Hawaii was all about.

I imagined Hawaii to be a place largely untouched by modern day consumerism, tropical trees and wild life everywhere, local people, and maybe a lot of hula shows (of course with the tourism). However, I was quite surprised for some reason when I took my first visit to the city of Honolulu. The city seemed extremely outdated and unmaintained. Infrastructure for the most part was not the best, and most surprisingly for me, poverty was everywhere to be seen. Yet, it is clearly goes largely unnoticed or maybe more accurately ignored. On my first trip to Waikiki (in an old bus with quite uncomfortable seats), one of the most tourist populated area, I saw homeless people everywhere, many bear foot, many with clear mental disabilities yelling or talking to themselves. I talked to my friend Evan (who attends the University of Hawaii) about how this was something I never would have expected. In response she said, "Yea, the poverty here is really bad." On our way up to Waikiki beach she told me and my other friend Basia, that the beach was man made and used to be a swamp. This brings up many questions and points of discussion for me. What is this place trying to represent? In the midst of what surrounds the very touristy Waikiki area exists reality, poverty. There is a front however, to maintain this facade of what Hawaii is, when literally what makes up these ideals are fake. From the beach to the things they sell, none of it is real or authentic.  

In discussion, my GSI Laura has often brought up that at some point she realized she doesn't need to go abroad since there are so many issues here that need to be addressed, even more specifically in her home town. This trip really highlights for me her point. Even in paradise, poverty is a huge issue.  I don't know how to begin fixing this problem, but I think acknowledging it as a problem and addressing it is a place to start.

Are We Really Helping the Poor?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/12/anti-poverty-programmes?zid=301&ah=e8eb01e57f7c9b43a3c864613973b57f

There has constantly been debates on whether or not anti-poverty programmes are actually helping the poor. The article, “Are We Helping the Poor?” published in 2013 goes into detail on the main debates people have over assistance programmes which prove how poverty statistics have been wrong for several years. It is shared that “[S]tatistics using the official poverty measure do not provide an accurate picture of poverty or the role of government policies in combating poverty,” by Columbia University researchers Christopher Wimer and Liana Fox. There is proof that these government assistance programmes reduce poverty by about 40% since 2010 based on the US Census Bureau. However, this is solely based on studies conducted but where is this information coming from? And how come there hasn’t been visible improvement on the poverty struggles of millions of the poor living in the United States?

Based on the Columbia University Research there has been a decline in child poverty and amongst those in deep poverty but where is the proof of this and how was this study/research conducted? The reason I chose this article was because it made me question the reliability of the research published. Mr. Drum (an impressive figure) stands within my same thoughts. He states that ‘While poverty among the elderly has fallen impressively since 1967 (around the time Medicare was introduced), the percentage of poor Americans aged 18-64 hasn't budged much. The figure dipped from 1967 to 1979, but today is right back where it was 35 years ago, at 15%.” The poverty problem hasn’t improved. Government assisted programs, in my opinion, do help families support but these families are stereotyped for it and these programmes do not get these families out of poverty, its only a way of helping maintain the home under certain circumstances.

Mr. Alhert also believes that this study is flawed and argues that “Welfare benefits will dampen some recipients' drive to seek employment, whether they are technically impoverished or not,” because welfare programs can give more financial help than actually having a job. The anti-poverty problem is a continuous cycle. There are those that believe that these programs do help, and I believe this too. However, certain programs can only help a family so much and do not allow them to get out of poverty without having more resources of getting a proper job in order to maintain a household. Some of those impoverished cannot get a job because they do receive more financial help by not having one which allows them to take care of their children and do much more during the day. However, this is going to be the same routine for them. They have no other opportunities for a brighter and more secure future. So this leads me back to the question of whether or not we are helping the poor with government anti- poverty programs which include social welfare and others. The research conducted by Columbia University states that it has but in all honesty, I feel that it has only left the poor in a deeper poverty trap than they were before. The research does not take into consideration other factors that affect poverty rates in the United States. There should be a system that deliberately tries to increase the amount of those impoverished seeking employment in order to live above the poverty line in the United States.

We have a Lime CRISIS!!

Two limes for $1, or $11.99 for a bag of 25 limes at most!! I was shocked as I did my grocery shopping this past weekend. I’m a big fan of limes, but for this time, I had to limit the amount I was to consume until my next trip to the grocery store. But why are lemons and limes so expensive, when there was a time we were able to purchase up to ten lemons for just $1? The price of limes not just locally but nationally is closely tied to one of Mexico's infamous drug cartels, Los Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templars).

These delicious fruits are largely grown in one specific region: the state of Michoacán. This is where the cartel has marked its territory. This cartel has been elbowing in for a few years now, and they have had Michoacán residents in fear by controlling the lime production. What they have done over the last couple of years is that “if they're nice, they put humongous taxes on the farmers. If they're not nice, they just kill farmers and take the land and take over lime production themselves." The fist option has causes farmers to reduce the amount of exportations they have done, in order not to pay taxes evertimes they want to export limes.

This has affected the United States because the decrease in exportation has caused the prices of lime to increase dramatically. For example in Southern California, a consumer says that a case of limes used to sell for about $40, but not the price is closer to $100. This has caused restaurants to charge for small wedges of lime, when before they would, without extra charge, bring out bowls of limes for customers.

Although prices have skyrocketed in the United States, it is not affecting us as much as Mexico. Mexico is the biggest lime producer, yet they have the world’s most expensive limes. Statistics have shown that “prices have risen more than 200 percent since December to 80 pesos ($6.10) a kilogram, higher than Mexico's daily minimum wage.” This crisis is a serious matter in a country where lime is such a popular condiment that ranks “as the equivalent of mayonnaise in the Unites States.”

In some parts of Mexico where Limes are a crucial ingredient for Margaritas, Bartenders are asking home growers to bring them a bag of limes, and in exchange they will sell them a margarita for only 25 cents. This is clearly a rip off because limes are more valuable than Margaritas.

Not only is this affecting people in Mexico, making it more difficult to afford limes, but this crisis is also putting their lives in danger by having to live in an environment which is not safe for either them or their families. But they have to deal with this because they cannot afford to live elsewhere.

Nonetheless, limes have become an expensive commodity.

To Read more on the crisis of limes, check out the links below:

Anonymous Approach to Homelessness, Justified?

We are Anonymous.

We are legion.

We will not forgive governments forcing people to become homelessness.

We will not forget that we can be next.

To the corrupt government holding our future from us.

You will expect us soon enough!

     -“Anonymous – The Homelessness Update 2014” by “OfficialAnonymousTV1”

            Anonymous is “a loosely international network of activist and hacktivist entities,” started in 2003. And, “the group became known for a series of well-publicized publicity stunts and distributed denial-of service (DDoS) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.”

Thanks Wiki.

Anonymous is good in what they do: hacking, educating the public of the injustice, and giving a big headache to the FBI. In their YouTube channel, the Anonymous has released the Homelessness 2014 update. Here, they also succeeded in implementing fear to their enemies, or the “corrupted government.”

But, here is the thing. As writing this article, I am, to be honest, a little afraid to mention anything that might provoke the Anonymous, or FBI in a space that is so “public.” How is this fear I am feeling different from the one I feel due to the government censorship? My lack of knowledge in the interests of Anonymous might be the cause. Still, this fear of mine has its reasons.

As a college student who is interning at an anti-homelessness organization in Oakland called WEAP, Women’s Economic Agenda Project, I cannot help but to compare the approaches taken by my organization to the one of Anonymous. The “Anonymous approach” to homelessness in the U.S. is much more sensational and informative that the work the WEAP has done. However, it seems that WEAP has provided a more intimate cure to the homelessness, by launching anti-eviction campaigns, and discussing homelessness in a non-virtual space or by face-to-face. Fascinatingly, WEAP and Anonymous have been around for about the same years. But, they have vastly different history when in working with homelessness. Is there a better approach? Does the better approach necessarily cancel out the unique benefits that another provides?

Anyways, Anonymous is fabulous in their hacking skills. I wish I had them.

            Lucky you. And, thanks to them for their videos. They do help in spreading the facts of poverty and inequality to the larger audience. And, they do help in raising questions that should be answered by all activists who are involved in reducing inequality, poverty, and injustice. What does justice mean to you? What is equality, in a world that we live in now?  I am assuming I did have my ideas unrefined as I began my work. However, it would’ve have been more helpful to have these terms defined explicitly as my first step. I then could’ve tracked my progress in my work and possible modifications to my ideas of poverty, inequality, and justice.

           My most agreeable form of understanding justice comes from John Rawls, an American philosopher of politics. By Rawlsian terms, Justice as fairness is achieved by minimizing inequality, and having the better-off contribute for the worst-off. When studying inequality and poverty, I find justice, as a concept that must go noticed.

Does justice matter? I think so.

Is There Responsibility in Photography ?

Recently, I have become made aware of a trend of poverty related photography collections. There are layers to the discomfort I feel when it comes to this sort of photography. First, I believe that the individuals being depicted are being exploited for the opportunistic motives of fame, money, or etc. on behalf of the photographer. In addition to the exploitation of the subjects in the photos, many times the excruciating photos stir up emotions and yet do nothing to help this individuals whatsoever.  The only way collection serves any efforts to uplift these individuals from their place in poverty is by making others aware of that their extent of poverty exists.

Furthermore, capturing images of poverty is not a new element of photography. However, in previous years many time the photographer capturing the images was a by product of the surrounding community when it was in the United States. Today, there has been a new trend for what has been coined by some as "white-guy photography." No, this does not just mean that a white man is the photographer. Instead, "white guy photography," refers to the tendency for white individual leaving their life of privilege to move to/ or visit those impoverished areas only to capture these images. While I understand capturing images from a trip or practice experience from another country, I don't know if I support the for-profit use of these exploitive photos. Many times, I have come across the biographies of photographers or summaries about how the poverty image collections come to fruition and all of these "white guy photography" collections have almost identical descriptions. Many of these collections start off as an after affect from a "white guy," leaving his happily content life of well-paying employment for some reason or another to find "his calling" and ends up in photography telling someone else's story, for their own personal benefit.

My concern in this is the lack of assistance these collections gives back to the subjects of the pictures, the poor. This is where the exploitation comes into play. While the photographers are doing their part in making the greater public aware that such depths of poverty exist, the lack of any action plan affiliated with helping the subject is disheartening. I do admit that spreading awareness of this poverty is beneficial, since there are some individuals that would never see it otherwise. However, I am not convinced that their work is sufficient. I understand the social documentary aspect, but I just think that in this day and age that incorporating some sort of assistance is more than possible. Maybe I am expecting a bit much?


I found an interesting article that elaborates on the power of photography to change our views on poverty:

PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGES OUR AWARENESS OF POVERTY


Below are three examples:

Humans of New York Project
A Citigroup Trader Took These Pictures Of New York Prostitutes
East NY and Brownsville

Missing Opportunities

My first attendance to Women's Economic Agenda Project (WEAP) Training left me feeling nauseous, for one reason. Andy Lopez. He is a 13 year old boy, who got shot in Santa Rosa by a Sonoma County police officer for carrying a toy gun.

When this story came up, a woman at the training site raised her hand to speak. And, this story made me feel uneasy for the rest of the training session.

According to her story, a police officer approached a Latino person to take off his shirt and intimidated him because he was wearing a campaign shirt for Andy Lopez at a shopping mall. Someone in the surrounding crowd called a lawyer for help, so the lawyer appeared in the same shirt. Even before the lawyer approached the police officer to argue for the constitutional rights that questions the behaviors of the officer, the officer did not attempt to approach the lawyer. It was not because he was a lawyer; the officer did not know of the status. But, it was for another reason. The lawyer was a white male.

Racial inequality and poverty were issues that had ubiquitously appeared in the media and academic articles. Among the articles, the "Equity" section of "Deeping Democracy: Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance," by Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright, states that to make
public action more effective, there must be an inclusion of disadvantaged individuals. However, the society seems to prefer keeping the disadvantaged individuals muted. With such silence, any public actions would not succeed in its deliberative process.

So many campaigns are being carried out for the tragedy of Andy Lopez. However, I am not entirely sure of the direction of these campaigns. These protestants are deprived of opportunities to make their voices heard, like how Andy Lopez was not given a chance to speak for himself. 

50/50 Microfinance: How a 0% Interest Rate is Possible

I came across 50/50 Microfinance in my search for extreme cases of for-profit and non-profit microfinance interventions. 50/50 was an example of the latter: this non-profit MFI differentiates itself primarily by supporting its micro entrepreneurial customers with finance of which:

• Half is given as a grant, which does not have to be repaid
• Half is given as a loan, on which there is no interest

This concept seemed all too idealistic, and as a student of business and economics, many issues came to mind, the most blatantly obvious one being funding and sustainability.

Now I might be going on a tangent here, but I first wanted to talk a little about the controversy surrounding the issue of high interest rates in microfinance. We are often reminded that everything is more expensive for the poor—everything from food, transportation, housing, healthcare, and of course, money. In the context of microfinance, this has earned the industry much notoriety, and while I believe some of this is deserved (we have seen unethical MFI practices lead to further indebtedness of the poor and in some cases, even suicide epidemics because of it,) I also feel like under certain circumstances MFI interest rates are justified and are often naively criticized.

In many parts of the world—my home country, Indonesia, included—the bulk of poor people live in rural areas, which are not easily accessible, and therefore, deemed not financially feasible for most businesses seeking to enter those markets. Microfinance is generally positioned as an industry seeking to undertake financial inclusion, seeking to bring in bottom-of-the-pyramid populations into the financial sector and formal economy. That being said, there is a clear distinction between the operations of a conventional bank and that of an MFI: while conventional banks expect their customers to come to them (for the most part), it is the task of MFIs to go to their customers. This means reaching regions that have not been reached, are often inaccessible, and are lacking in terms of infrastructure, which is more costly in terms of time, money and effort! Naturally, completely from a business standpoint, these higher operating and administrative costs put pressure on interest rates. Only in addition to this is the less tangible “cost of risk” associated with lending to low-income customers.

MFIs impose higher interest rates than your average bank for a reason that is often overlooked. These numbers aren’t pulled from thin air simply because target customers are deemed subprime; these numbers cover costs of operation.

This led me to question how 50/50 can possibly function sustainably without imposing any interest rates?

This is what I figured:

The first thing I noticed with 50/50 was the scale of its operations. Currently, they are operating in four countries (Bhutan, Tanzania, Senegal, and Niger) with just over 40 customers. In comparison to most known MFIs, this is absolutely tiny!

Another thing I noticed is that their staff does not receive compensation, which is something very few known MFIs—for-profit or non-profit—actually do. Instead, 50/50 relies almost completely on volunteer work and donations.

With this combination alone, 50/50 is very different to the MFIs we often hear about—whether in the positive or negative light.

Given its small scale, it is possible for the firm to engage in more personal relationships with their customers, giving them the mentorship and attention that each of them need for their businesses to truly succeed. When you get into the big leagues of microfinance, this is extremely challenging if not impossible. Even with an MFI such as Kiva, which, since its inception has served over a million customers, it is difficult to fathom the same type of handholding that 50/50 provides to be present in their operations.

This leads naturally into the funding side of things: because they are operating at such a small scale, I feel like it is actually possible to be completely reliant on volunteer work and donations. The amount of money needed to finance each customer is absolutely tiny in comparison to most medium- to large-scale MFIs.

Like I said, this is an extreme case of non-profit microfinance. Nonetheless, from my perhaps superficial level of analysis, it does seem somewhat feasible for 50/50 to charge a 0% interest rate on its customers.

But is it effective? Is it an exemplary MFI practice as a poverty-alleviating intervention? Could it be that microfinance customers are actually more motivated and productive when an interest rate is imposed, or is there no difference? These are just some questions that I need to continue to explore, and am struggling to answer.

To find out more about 50/50, check out their website here!