The Best Christmas Gift: Fight Climate Change

Over at the BBC’s Green Room, there is a recent article by Menghestab Haile in which he argues that the best thing people can do for one another is essentially change the way we live. Climate change is destroying the way many poor people survive and the best gift we can give them is to try to stop more damage from happening, if not undoing the damage done.

So you can make a difference by fighting climate change and thereby giving a gift to the entire world.

“Ask Mohamed Abey, a pastoralist leader in the dusty roadside community of Skanska in north-eastern Kenya. The 47-year-old says he owned 400 livestock before the 2005 drought; now he has just 20.

He admits pastoralism is no longer sustainable. While he is grateful for the monthly package of food aid, he urges the world to do more so the 2,000 people in Skanska can get back on their own feet.”

Chavez Helps Poor Eat

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has launched programs that subsidize things that poor people need using oil sales from the oil generated in Venezuela. Chavez wants to use the oil wealth for positive social change that will help the country develop. People living in poor parts of Venezuela seem to agree with Chavez. The above link points out some of the weaknesses of Chavez’s plan and at the same time shows how his plans are helping those in need.

“Drawing on billions of dollars in oil revenues, Chavez has started a long list of social programs, called “missions,” which offer everything from job training to cash assistance for single mothers.”

Blair Calls for Better Poverty Reduction

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is calling for a better approach to fight poverty in Britain. Current government programs are not reaching “deeply excluded” families and that needs to change in order for the government to make a much bigger impact.

“He said a small percentage of every generation were “stuck in a lifetime of disadvantage”. “We have to recognise that for some families, their problems are more multiple, more deep and more pervasive than simply low income,” he continued.”

Slumming it

In India a fantastic social experiment is literally paying off. Sick of being ignored by their government, some slum residents in India have taken matters in their own hands. They used cunning and unrelenting determination to improve their slum with some good self-directed improvements. Change Makers has the story.

“Three citizen organizations in India have joined forces to turn this scenario upside down. They are helping slum residents organize themselves to gain the skills they need to be powerful advocates for their own interests.

As empowered citizens, these slum residents are learning to recruit local government agencies and banks to help them win control of real estate. They are becoming the architects of their slum’s destruction, replacing it with a new community that they help locate, design, build, and eventually own themselves.”

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