Water!

For this one, I don't even have to write down anything...

http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/

Unfortunately, this is happening now.

Adding to the video:

• For instance, it not only affects poor people. It affects whole nations, poor and wealthy.
• Contamined water contaminates food... Contaminates people...
• It is not only having to walk for hours. On big cities, it means employees will not be able to go to work, because they get sick a number of days per year.
• It means unecessary resouces wasted with medical treatment and over crowded hospitals.
• (...)

Food for a Nation

Yet on the same subject posted before...

Inflation in Egypt is growing to the second digit, and most of this, is due to rising food prices. It means that now, after the revolution, food is still getting more and more expensive and the ones that suffer the most are the poorest people.
Poor people spend most or all their income with basic items such as food and water, this way, if the prices go up, hunger will increase.

Climatic changes are amongst the causes of increase on food price, but another considerable cause for this is lack of expertise of farmers on how to deal with the changes or how to manage their land to increase productivity.
Productivity- this is a key word in a country which territory is predominantly a desert.
Another issue that affects food availability and price is related to what is called bio security: Large scale contamination of crops and diseases spread amongst animals lead to critical drop on availability of dairy products and other food, whilst demand still growing. The result is well known, prices step up and people are once more affected.

CARE Egypt has got a history of good actions to improve the quality of life on the fields in Egypt and to spread technical knowledge on agriculture and breeding amongst farmers and breeders.
To read more on the efforts of CARE on helping Egyptians to have a better life, access the following link:http://www.care.org.eg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=156%3Aanr-intro&catid=41%3Aold&lang=en

At the moment, CARE Egypt has not got a regular volunteer program. People (usually interns) are chosen for specific programs and timeframes. For more info on how to apply for an opportunity to work with CARE Egypt team follow this link:
http://www.care.org.eg/index.php?option=com_jobgroklist&view=postings&Itemid=65&lang=en
or contact them directly:
http://www.care.org.eg/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=62&lang=en

Donations to CARE Egypt would be sent to CARE USA with a note that it is earmarked for CARE Egypt
https://my.care.org/site/Donation2?df_id=9140&9140.donation=form1&7080.donation=form1
or
Select the tab "Donate Now" on this link to find more options on how to donate: http://www.care.org/

Hungry World

Future food security and sustainability is a topic that has generated much in the world over the last year. Recent estimates predict the world population to reach 7 billion by the end of this year. Consider two other facts at this point- Homo Sapiens have been on Earth for approximately 200,000 years and at end of the Second World War in 1945, the population was approximately 2.4 billion. In little over 65 years, we have added over 4 billion to our number! Feeding this number in a world with changing standard of living and diets is going to be a challenge. Over the last 3 decades, the world has responded with generosity of scale drives such as Live Aid, with millions provided. All too often this has ended up siphoned off by corrupt regimes and not to the local people who need it. A speech I watched recenly on TED was particularly inspiring( Link Below) and perhaps showed the importance of more targeted investment. While the speech was on water management, I believe there are some applicable lessons for farming.

http://www.ted.com/anupam_mishra_the_ancient_ingenuity_of_water_harvesting.html

I would like to highlight the local knowledge of one group of the many rural people of the world, whose ingenuity could give us ideas on how to survive in the changing world.

The 'char' or island dwellers of the floodplains of Bangladesh are people who are exceptional. They have no permanent home but continuously move between the islands which appear and submerge constantly with tide, lunar activity and rainfall. Despite this they manage to grow crops like okra by using floating gardens made out of hyacinth (See photo- From National Geographic).

With inland water getting too salty, they have converted fields into shrimp and crab farms. Among the organisations who help such people include the Bangladeshi Rural Advancement Committee(BRAC), who conduct research in many areas of agriculture involving local farmers. So if you are thinking you can help, they and other organisations have a lot of information on their web pages:

http://www.brac.net/

http://practicalaction.org/food-and-agriculture-4

http://www.careinternational.org.uk/what-we-do/climate-change

Solving the problem of keeping a potential population of 9 billion by 2050 is not one that one individual can solve alone. However, there are simple things we can all contribute to like changing our diet and wasting less food. Eating less meat will mean more land for farming and to quote Prince Charles during his recent speech in Georgetown University 'For every pound of beef produced in the industrial system, it takes two thousand gallon of water.' And as a recent report on the future of Food and Farming says, the global food system is living outside its means and 'decisions made now will disproportionately influence the future.' So lets try and influence it in the right way!

Refugees from Libya

Situation in Libya is still not getting any better.

Under attack from loyal forces to Gaddafi, the opposition forces and NATO, thousands of people have fled Libya leaving behind everything they have.

Ordinary people are dying on the streets every day. Without much other choice, leaving the country behind is all that can be done.

Borders with neighboring countries experienced a mass migration movement without precedents. Now, all the people that had to run for their lives are hugely in need of assistance and humanitarian help near the borders with Tunisia and Egypt.

Tunisia and Egypt, both countries that have been recently through deep revolutions, are supporting the people that fled from Libya. International organizations are also present to help the refugees.

So, how can you help from wherever you are?

The link below will send you to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. On this website you will find straight forward indication of how to donate and how you will be helping the refugees from Libya.

http://www.unhcr.org/emergency/libya/global_landing.html

The day after - Japan

How can you help if you are already in Japan?

The following website gives lot of information on how can you help and what you should or should not do if you are in Japan.

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/2532/japan-earthquake-how-you-can-help

Summarizing some options:

1 - What not to do: Don’t travel away from your home area, if you want to physically help. Remain where your home is, in order prevent overcrowding the public transports/roads.

2 - One of the options for helping is to donate blood, give blood is one of the best and easiest things you can do. The necessity for blood donation/usage tends to increase drastically as victims are being rescued.

3 - If you feel like donating money, the following web-site (in Japanese) will help you to find where to transfer your donation to: http://cause-action.jp/

4 - One thing you must do: Save electrical power! Problems with some of the power plants are keeping them of operating normally!

Over usage of the currently available electrical power may lead to power outages (blackouts) in certain areas, which will lead to further difficulties in the rescuing operations and medical treatment of victims.

Use electronics and house appliances as minimum as possible, turn off lights, don’t use elevators, avoid using heated water… small things like this will help.

Earthquake - Tsunami in Japan

We all know how well Japan is prepared to handle earthquakes, that the majority of the buildings standing today were designed and built to resist the earthquakes and keep their inhabitants alive amidst and the shock.

There is also a tsunami warning system effectively working on the country.

The earthquake that have hit Japan today was the strongest one ever recorded in the country and the 6^th largest ever measured in the world. This earthquake has released thousands times more energy than the one that hit Chirstchurch in New Zealand a few weeks ago.

It is terrifying to see the pictures being broadcasted around the globe; to see the level of water rising 2, 3, 4 even 10 meters in about seconds due to the Tsunami. Cars being swept away, boats carried inland far from the coast, people stuck at their homes with water surrounding them, debris on fire, farmlands being inundated…

Many nuclear power plants have been shutdown and despite the fact that no radioactivity material leakage has happened from the facilities, the fear of an accident is still on the air.

Oil refineries, in particular one nearby Tokyo has been severely affected by the quake and is under “hard to control” fire. Industries on the surrounding area may be affected and may have their production strongly disrupted on the near future.

Now that this impressive earthquake is a part of the history of Japan and the world, many people are still struggling to go back home or wondering if their homes are still standing and, if they are standing, are they habitable?

Death toll and the number of people reported missing is still increasing. And the history may still unfold in several bad ways to many people in Japan.

This enormous tremor has already changed many people’s life forever.

So if you are wondering how you can help Japan to recover, the Red Cross in Japan may be a good starting point.

http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/about/glance.html

Digital inclusion

Can you imagine a world without internet? Would you be able to do your daily activities without a computer?
Amongst a number of other purposes, computers help millions to perform more, to deliver more and make our world advance quicker.
So, nowadays, how can someone live a complete life without having access to the e-world? Do you think that the young people that have never touched a computer (digital excluded) will have the same opportunities as others who have?
On the end of the day, this missing knowledge will end up affecting you somehow. If not you, maybe your children or grandchildren.
Access to computer and internet means access to information.
For example, access for farmers to learn how to plant better and make their crops grow larger, which later will mean that more people will be able to eat better and cheaper; access for people who live near forests potentially will be translated into better environmental protection; access. For populations under repression might mean a way to speak out louder and reach for help, or to change their ways of living (see e example in Tunisia and Egypt);
Access to computers and internet means power to the people to evolve and make a better world.
So, if you would like to make the world in which you live a little bit better, you could start thinking about helping organisations that are focused on digital inclusion. Maybe volunteering to work in those organisations, donating equipment, money or just making more people know that such a world of digital excluded people exists.