CHANGE THE WORLD?
Looking to become more involved in the community? Want to lend a helping hand?
Have experience volunteering and want to share your wisdom?!
Go M.A.D. is looking for YOU! Go Make A Difference was founded by an ALT, Angie Peltzer, 4 years ago and is run with the help of genki JET volunteers who work within the Japanese community. Our aim main is to support our Asian neighbors, such as Thailand and Nepal, with ongoing fundraising projects such as the Xmas Card Campaign, the sale of Thai woven goods, and various fundraising activities in Japan. Connecting with schools, orphanages, and organizations abroad also creates travel&teach opportunities for JETs and their Japanese friends. We are always looking for new folks to donate a little of their time and energy to support those in need. The website is updated and full of remarkable stories, pics, and info about how Go M.A.D. has made a difference so far. It would be good if all of you could take a quick look:
http://www.go-mad.org/
Please spread the good word to your friends, students, teachers, neighbors. Everyone is welcome to help out – We Need People Like YOU!
Through the efforts of ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) across Japan, the Charity Xmas Card Campaign was a success, once again! Together we raised 2,065,842 yen (that’s about $24,793 Canadian!) and made some orphan kids in Southern Thailand very very happy. Here’s what Go M.A.D. had to say about the funds raised:
“We purchased land to build a school - A real neo Humanist school, as there is no good education in the area. Also one third goes to Ananda Shyama in the south for their living expenses and 30 000Bt ($700US) to Baan Unrak boys home for their living expenses."
Thanx to all who bought the cutie cards this past Xmas! More to fall into your welcoming hands this year as well! If you would like to order packs online (1000 yen/10 cards plus envelopes = $12 Canadian), please contact Lindsay at
waystosavetheworld@yahoo.ca
Not only does the proven-successful annual Xmas Card fundraising venture work well for these Thai children, but it can hopefully be a jumping off platform for similar ventures, such as selling Thai woven goods made by the children themselves, raising money for their orphanages through car washes and bake sales in our local communities, and holding JET-run Talent Shows to promote our charity campaign here in Saga-ken! My hope is to continue helping these two Thai orphanages, as well as to raise enough to donate to schools in Nepal. Nepal is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. Schools are vastly underfunded and most girls do not have the chance to get even the slightest hint of a competent education. Lend a helping hand to Go M.A.D., and Go M.A.D. will help those who need it. It’s a great chance to take advantage of contacts others ALTs have already made AND to travel&teach in these countries in our plentiful vacation time!
There are two key ways in which you and other people from industrialized nations can help reduce hunger and poverty: *Understanding--this implies learning-- and *Action.
*Learn about hunger and poverty. What are the situations confronting poor people at home and in the world, and what are the underlying factors causing their hunger and poverty. A key step to helping poor people is to increase your understanding through learning. For more information, please visit http://www.worldhunger.org/learn.htm
*Take action:
- Influence public policy to support poor people. Governments play a key role in allocating resources and adopting policies that influence the lives of poor and hungry people. Voice your opinions and influence the nation's voice including changing government policies. Join one (or more) anti-hunger advocacy/public policy organizations or other organizations that deal with key issues affecting poor people.
- Contribute financially to reducing hunger and poverty. While it is in general not possible to support individual poor families, it is possible to contribute to organizations that do support poor people.
- Work directly with poor people. Take advantage of your JET income and travel opportunities to visit local communities in Laos, Nepal ,or anywhere your heart takes you.
If, as most researchers claim, people are hungry because they lack the money to buy food, then eliminating hunger requires eliminating poverty, or, at the very least, ensuring that people, particularly women and children, receive food entitlements. But that requires understanding the reasons for global poverty.
Nobel Prize winning economist, Amartya Sen is one of the foremost spokespersons on global hunger and poverty. His book, written with Jean Dreze, Hunger and Public Action, is one of the most comprehensive studies of hunger yet written. There are, he says, two types of hunger: famine and endemic depravation-- the daily lack of sufficient food. Famine, while receiving the most attention, is less prevalent that the largely hidden endemic hunger from which some one billion people suffer. While the problem of hunger is widespread, Sen warns about being pessimistic. People are hungry, says Sen, because they lose their entitlement to food--they lack either the land to grow food, the money to buy it, or access to state programs of food or wage distribution. With the will, he says, no one needs to go hungry. Among the most important features necessary to prevent hunger, he says, is a democratic (and thereby accountable) government and a free press that publicizes the threat of hunger.
Vandana Shiva, founder of Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi, argues that, contrary to popular opinion, it is the small farmer that feeds the world. But, she says, the small farmer is being destroyed, driven into poverty by the spread of corporate agriculture and the introduction of genetically engineered crops. What is also being destroyed, she says, is an agricultural method that is sustainable and more efficient. She also points out that it is women who are at the center of this sustainable agriculture and who are being systematically driven into poverty.
From an article entitled “Le Monde Diplomatique”, Ignacio Ramonet argues that world hunger is a political problem that arises from the uneven distribution of wealth. Citing a UN report, Ramonet points out that "the whole of the world population's basic needs for food, drinking water, education and medical care could be covered by a levy of less than 4 % on the accumulated wealth of the 225 largest fortunes. To satisfy all the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion, hardly as much as the people of the United States and the European Union spend each year on perfume."