Blog Moderator's blog

Children hold the potential of a brighter future.  In their heart and in their spirit rests the promise of a better world. Planet Aid is dedicated to honoring the promise and potential of all children by eradicating poverty and creating conditions for lasting development.

They say wealthier is healthier, and there’s evidence to back that up.

While money alone can’t buy good health, the poor are significantly more likely to experience poor health. But like many of poverty’s symptoms, poor health can also cause poverty.

Today marks yet another International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.  Wouldn’t be wonderful instead if we were celebrating the anniversary of the day poverty was eradicated? 

Despite our best efforts, that day may still be a long ways off. The Millenium Development Goals (MDG), created in 2000, made eradication of poverty their number one goal. And as the 2015 deadline for the MDGs nears, we are still asking, how do we get there? There is no magic bullet. But there is one place where we could be doing better – investing in women and girls.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Much as Aristotle reasoned that both the chicken and the egg must have always existed, we come to a similar conclusion when debating which came first, poverty or tuberculosis (TB)?  Both must have always existed. Poor people around the world are much more susceptible to TB and TB is also a leading cause of poverty around the world.

When I met Magdalena Tambriz Cuc de Xolcaja, she was sitting on the dirt floor of her home with a backstrap loom strapped around her waist and rows of yarn anchored to a wall of her house. On her loom, a tableau of brilliant blue embroidery thread was beginning to emerge. The intricate weaving was to become a lion, composed of dozens of small squares. Even in a country renowned for the skills of its weavers, Magdalena's craftsmanship is a stand out.

So why does she really want to cook fried potatoes for a living?

There’s something quite magical about Cairo. Every morning as we crossed the Nile River from the West Bank to the East on our way to the Garbage District, I couldn’t help but feel captivated by the timeless beauty of Egypt’s capital city. With the desert sun relentlessly beaming down on the city, illuminating the sand-colored buildings and creating a dense haze that partially shadows the Giza Pyramids off in the distance, Cairo is simply objectively beautiful. However, what makes the city absolutely remarkable are the people who live in it.

This week the UN will mark two important days:  World Food Day (October 16) and  International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17).

When I travel to see HelpAge International’s work in over 70 countries, I see that farmers are older people. When I look at who is raising children, I see again that it is older people.

The vast majority of the world’s population is extremely dependent on other people and institutions to provide them with the wherewithal to expand, grow, develop and prosper.  We rely on doctors to cure us, on teachers to help us learn, on clerics to guide our spiritual thinking, on governments to provide us with services and opportunities, on employers to guarantee our financial security and on councilors to assist us through difficult times.  All of these have an important place in our lives, but the level of dependency which we allow dominate our lives needs to be examined.  If this leve