Global Health

Meet India’s "Lepers," Who Don't Even Have the Disease

Last week, I wrote a post about a curable disease that goes untreated due to social stigma. Those kinds of diseases are everywhere -- as in India, where the Global Post reports that an entire generation of young people is growing up sequestered in leper...

Published Mon, Feb 22 2010 12:46 PM by Change.org's Global Health Blog

How to Stop Stillbirths? Teach People How

How do you reduce the number of stillbirths in the developing world? This isn't a trick question. As it turns out, the answer happens to be fairly intuitive: you train health workers to stop them. That's the conclusion of a study published in...

Published Fri, Feb 19 2010 2:30 PM by Change.org's Global Health Blog

How to Start Rebuilding Haiti's Health System

A couple of weeks ago, I met a young woman named Marie outside the makeshift laboratory for the Hopital de l’Universite d’Etat d’Haiti (HUEH) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She was holding onto a napkin, on which were written some required lab tests. She said...

Published Mon, Jul 19 2010 4:11 PM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

In China, Ideas of Mental Illness Move Beyond Class Struggle

During the 1960s and 1970s, to be schizophrenic or afflicted with any other mental illness in China meant you were someone who didn't fully comprehend Mao Zedong's little red book. That was the diagnosis people were given, anyway — and the remedy...

Published Fri, Jul 09 2010 8:18 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

Condoms That Fight Rape, With Teeth

When Sonnet Ehlers was a 20-year-old medical researcher, she was called to help a rape victim. "She looked at me and said, ‘If only I had teeth down there,'" Ehlers tells Kenya's Nation newspaper. And Ehlers thought, Good idea . Forty...

Published Fri, Jul 02 2010 7:52 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

The Developing World's Top 10 Ethical Destinations

As a world traveler and adventure-seeker, I'm always looking for the next hot spot. But as a student of global development and poverty, I've grown wary of many travel opportunities — especially in the Third World. It seems like the chances I'll...

Published Tue, Jul 06 2010 5:57 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

Zimbabwe's Inclusive Government Forgot to Include Women

A coalition of local human rights NGOs in Zimbabwe, together with the International Center for Transitional Justice, recently put out a fascinating report that surveyed women on a range of issues. The entire report is a must-read, but notable to me were...

Published Wed, Jun 23 2010 2:56 PM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

Jill Biden Reminds U.S. Voters What Poverty Really Looks Like

Just a day after I wrote about what putting a face on poverty can do for us, the White House — specifically the Second Lady, Dr. Jill Biden — reminded us what humanizing the lives of the poor really means. During her trip to Kenya this week, Dr. Biden...

Published Thu, Jun 10 2010 11:26 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

It’s Not How Much You Give, It's How You Give It

What's the best way to give aid in the developing world? To break it down very simply, there are three ways donors agencies can give aid — differences that basically come down to trade-offs between user-friendliness and riskiness. Let's start...

Published Wed, Jun 16 2010 7:14 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

For Female Migrant Workers, Destination Heartache

One look at the mostly female queue at the building where Ethiopia's passports are issued confirms something that I've often heard: the number of women going abroad as domestic workers has increased exponentially. Families everywhere are scraping...

Published Wed, May 05 2010 6:13 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

FIFA Takes on World Cup, Poverty All at Once

On Monday, I published a piece on the contradictions that arise out of the fact that South Africa is hosting of the 2010 World Cup — namely, the contrast between the glitz of the competition and the extreme poverty of much of the host continent. One thoughtful...

Published Thu, May 13 2010 9:54 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

The Earthquake Shouldn't Stop Haiti's Elections

“Should there be an election?” In the wake of Haiti's Jan. 12 quake that killed 270,000 people, millions of Haitians are wondering. But a better question might be: “Can Haiti afford not to have one?" Elections were scheduled for Feb. 28 this...

Published Fri, May 14 2010 3:16 PM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

Corruption Gets an Unfair Rap, Says Uganda's President

Back in the late 1990s, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni was lauded as Africa's "other statesman," second only to the much-adulated Nelson Mandela. At the time, the New York Times described the former Marxist as believing the continent's...

Published Thu, Jun 03 2010 1:18 PM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

A Nigerian Sultan Helps Gates Rethink His Polio Strategy

In 2000, the picture of polio around the world looked pretty good: just 1,000 cases were reported that year. Bill Gates saw this as an opportunity: a chance to invest a little bit of his money and not just control a disease, but eradicate it. Last year...

Published Fri, Jun 04 2010 7:00 AM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

Lessons From the Portfolios of the Poor

They save and borrow, they pay for funeral expenses and hospital costs. They travel and even enjoy a drink from time to time just like anyone else, but with one big difference — they’re poor. The aid community expends a great deal of time and effort on...

Published Mon, Jun 07 2010 1:57 PM by Change.org's Global Poverty Blog

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