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Spring 2013

Volume 18

Number 2

▪ About this Issue By Jane and Larry Levine
▪ A Fair Day’s Work for a Fair Day’s Pay: How to Reduce Poverty and Fix the Economy By Bill Ayres
▪ Building Global Partnerships…One Gesture At A Time By Mary Brownell
▪ Supporting the Next Generation of Changemakers By Josie Larimer
▪ Changing the Way Children See the World and Help Others By Jeanne Wilson
▪ RESULTS Makes Dreams Come True By Ken Patterson
▪ Youth Can Make a Difference in Changing Our Food System By Danielle Nierenberg
▪ How we work: Oxfam 101 By Jane Huber

This issue is dedicated to the newly formed Finding Solutions to Poverty & Inequality Alliance (FSPSI). FSPI consists of some of the foremost organizations involved in doing something about the scourge of hunger, poverty and inequality in our world. The members go beyond just reacting to natural disasters and are seeking ways to end hunger, poverty & inequality. All of them “think outside the box” and have formulated projects that will help students take constructive steps in becoming part of the solution.

In addition to KIDS (a program of iEARN), the founding members of FSPI are Food Tank, Heifer International, Oxfam International, Results Educational Fund, Why Hunger and World Savvy. These various groups are dedicated to taking action rather than simply reacting. KIDS will help students understand that as individuals can make a difference in their community and world.

Bill Ayres

I recently met a very rich man who saw me reading The Price of Inequality by economist Joseph Stieglitz. The rich man asked me what the book is about and I said that it’s about the problem of extreme economic inequality in our country. He asked me what the author thought was the solution. I said higher wages. He was aghast. “Who would pay?” he said. I replied that the employers would have to pay their employees more. He laughed derisively. The conversation went straight downhill from there.

The truth is that American workers are the most productive in the world. Read more

Mary Brownell

The Philadelphia wind is harsh; it is seven fifteen on a Monday morning in early April. The unzipped jackets of middle school girls flap open against their uniform shirts. They can’t even feel the wind against their arms. They’re carrying buckets of water, a small brown basket lined with a blue kitchen towel, a plastic pail of layer’s grain, a handful of spinach, one shovel, one rake, and armfuls of straw. One fifth grader has my key ring in her pocket; next to a house key, a car key and a classroom key is, now, one that fits the small wooden door to a hen house. On one side of its thin metal surface is a sticker of a blue butterfly, so we’ll know which key is the right one, another girl had assured me the day the hens arrived. Read more

Josie Larimer

In December of 2011, Devan Thompson and 29 other students participating in World Savvy’s American Youth Leadership Program (AYLP) boarded a flight to Bangladesh. Few of these students had ever left the U.S., and none had seen a world so dramatically different from their own.

Prior to his trip to Bangladesh, Devan’s interest in the environment and global affairs was limited. Like most of his classmates, he did not think about his carbon footprint and knew even less about the connection between his actions in the U.S. and someone across the globe. Read more

Jeanne Wilson

To all-girls school St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis, TN, service to others is an ethic that influences daily school life in grades pre-kindergarten through the twelfth grade. While the students in the middle and upper school divisions are active in a student- run Community Foundation program, in the early childhood and lower school divisions, service is visible in projects that directly help communities as they strive for a more sustainable existence. A partnership between St. Mary’s and Heifer International provided the younger students in the school with a perfect opportunity to make a difference for children from very different cultures than their own. Read more

Ken Patterson

RESULTS volunteers sometimes have to pinch themselves and ask, “Did I really help make that happen?” Like on April 17 when Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, received the Congressional Gold Medal for his outstanding poverty alleviation work using microfinance. The bill awarding Dr. Yunus the Gold Medal required agreement of two-thirds of both the House and the Senate—something we don’t see much, but something RESULTS volunteers made happen. During the ceremony Dr. Yunus thanked “RESULTS volunteers in the room and everywhere” for their persistent work to ensure that millions of the world’s poorest have access to microfinance, and a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. Read more

Danielle Nierenberg

Young people across the globe are leading the charge to reform the food system. With new and creative youth-focused efforts to address problems in agriculture, many organizations across the globe are providing opportunities for young people to improve agriculture, starting in their own communities.

In January 2013, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released data showing that 74 million young people are unemployed across the world, and this number is projected to increase by approximately 500,000 by 2014.
Read more

At Oxfam, we believe poverty is wrong—and not inevitable. Our approach to “righting” this wrong involves four broad categories of work. The first three—saving lives, developing programs to help people overcome poverty, and campaigning for social justice—are our primary tools. We draw on these different approaches as individual situations demand to address the root causes of poverty and injustice. The fourth part of our work involves changing how people think about poverty. As anyone who has ever grown a garden knows, if you want a plant to flourish, it’s not enough to sow a seed; you have to enrich the soil.

It works the same way with ideas. To overcome poverty, we need to educate people to think differently about poverty and its causes.

Spring 2013

Volume 18

Number 2

About this Issue...By Jane and Larry Levine

A Fair Day’s Work for a Fair Day’s Pay: How to Reduce Poverty and Fix the Economy...By Bill Ayres

Building Global Partnerships...One Gesture at a Time...By Mary Brownell

Supporting the Next Generation of Changemakers...By Josie Larimer

Changing the Way Children See the World and Help Others...By Jeanne Wilson

RESULTS Makes Dreams Come True...By Ken Patterson

Youth Can Make a Difference in Changing Our Food System...By Danielle Nierenberg

How we work: Oxfam 101...By Jane Huber

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