Just watched an interesting doco on the ABC with Peter Singer on extreme poverty. The doco is very interesting, but what caught my attention the most (so far) is his critique of the world’s major religions (or more specifically, the leaders of the world’s major religions).

The interviewer points out that Singers attitudes and beliefs surrounding extreme poverty, and the need for humanity to address this problem, is often in line with major religions, and they point out Christianity and Judaism in particular. The interviewer then went on to ask whether he is trying to fill a void left by a decline in interest in religion.

Interestingly, Singer denies this. He instead points out the difference between the teachings of the world’s major religions, and the actions and attitudes that the leaders of these religions, and many of their adherents, have in response to extreme poverty and issues of justice. He points out the void between teaching and the reality of what these religions practice.

It’s a huge wake-up call for Christians, especially as this critique comes from a leading atheist philosopher and ethicist.

Food for thought!

Just watched an interesting doco on the ABC with Peter Singer on extreme poverty. The doco is very interesting, but what caught my attention the most (so far) is his critique of the world’s major religions (or more specifically, the leaders of the world’s major religions).

The interviewer points out that Singers attitudes and beliefs surrounding extreme poverty, and the need for humanity to address this problem, is often in line with major religions, and they point out Christianity and Judaism in particular. The interviewer then went on to ask whether he is trying to fill a void left by a decline in interest in religion.

Interestingly, Singer denies this. He instead points out the difference between the teachings of the world’s major religions, and the actions and attitudes that the leaders of these religions, and many of their adherents, have in response to extreme poverty and issues of justice. He points out the void between teaching and the reality of what these religions practice.

It’s a huge wake-up call for Christians, especially as this critique comes from a leading atheist philosopher and ethicist.

Food for thought!

Numbers are impersonal things. Back in 2005, there was the now famous, and overly clichéd “Click” ad. It was the one where a celebrity would click their fingers every 3 seconds, signifying the fact that a child under 5 dies every three seconds due to treatable and utterly preventable causes.

In 2000, 30,000 children died every day. In 2007, that number had reduced to 27,000. In 2009, that number has now hit 24,000.

UNICEF today released figures backing up this claim, and to be fair, this is amazing news. According to UNICEF, data shows that the under-five mortality rate globally has dropped 28 per cent, from 90 deaths per 1000 births in 1990, to 65 deaths per 1000 births in 2008. In absolute numbers, child deaths have declined to 8.8 million in 2008 from 12.5 million in 1990.

In Malawi, under-five mortality has fallen from 225 deaths per 1000 births in 1990 to 100 per 1000 births in 2008. There have been massive gains and massive wins made worldwide, and countries like Malawi show these gains.

Yet it’s still unacceptable that 8.8 million children die every year before their 5th birthday. At current rates, this reduction will still not see the MDGs achieved in relation to child mortality.

But the worst thing about these numbers is how impersonal they can make the fight against poverty. Numbers as large as 24,000 children dying every day diminishes the effect this has. That is thousands upon thousands of families suffering every day. That is 24,000 individual stories of poverty. It is unacceptable. It is something that everyone should keep in mind. 24,000 is a big number, but it takes on a lot more meaning when you remember there are 24,000 stories behind these deaths, everyday.

This morning Cadbury Australia and New Zealand announced that their flagship Dairy Milk product line would be carrying the Fairtrade logo in time for Easter 2010 in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Combined with Britaina and Ireland, these five markets will quadruple the benefits of fair trade for cocoa farmers, particularly within Ghana.

According to Cadbury and Fairtrade, by 2010 one quarter of Cadbury Daily Milk global sales (350 million Dairy Milk bars) will be fair trade certified. 20,000 tonnes of chocolate from Ghana will be fairtrade certified through Cadbury’s decision by 2010.

Britain and Ireland’s Dairy Milk stock became fairtrade certified in July 2008, and already £500,000 has been transferred to Ghana to directly help local, sustainable farming communities. This added announcement will increase this amount significantly. By 2018, Cadbury hopes to have directly contributed to lifting 500,000 out of conditions of poverty through it’s fairtrade scheme.

This is massive news for the fairtrade movement and the movement aghainst poverty, and represent the continuing mainstreaming of fairtrade and trade justice issues into public consciousness.

Massive win!

I stumbled upon an awesome project being run by ActionAid Australia the other day called Project TOTO. The aim of the project is, in the world’s of ActionAid, to;

“give poverty a voice by:

- travelling to a remote area of an ActionAid program country

- training locals to use tools such as Twitter and blogs to shine a light on social injustice and human rights abuses

- reporting on your experiences on your own blog”

ActionAid launched this project with Stilgherrian (www.stilgherrian.com) as their first Outreach Blogger for Project TOTO and now they are looking to continue the project, so have launched a nation-wide search for their next Outreach Blogger.

So I’ve decided to throw my name into the pile, and see what comes of it.

But with nominating myself, comes the much needed support. Check out the website at http://www.actionaid.org.au/index.php/Campaigns/project-toto.html and if you feel like it, please support my nomination by commenting at http://blogs.actionaid.org.au/toto/2009/07/01/hello-world/#more-1 – or of course you can nominate yourself!

Madonna, Bono, Matt Damon, the guys from Fall Out Boy, Will Smith, Will.I.Am, and of course Brangelina. No, they haven’t all adopted a child (or two of three) from a developing nation. But they are the faces that crop up, among many others, when people start talking about doing something good with their lives. They are the faces of causes the world over, often referred to as “goodwill ambassadors,” travelling the world in aid of certain causes, issues and campaigns. Then there are the campaigns and issues themselves – which to choose from? From Malaria No More to Product (RED) to the ONE Campaign to Amnesty International to anti-landmine campaigns to PETA, it seems that the chic thing to do is be involved, to be a global citizen.

Yet celebrity engagement with issues and campaigns is not without its critics. There are many that claim that most celebrities only become involved because it furthers their status or careers. Others say that they may be forced by their management to improve their image after an incident (or a series of incident) that are less than great for the celebrity. Still others maintain that while these celebrities may have the best of intentions, the way they go about helping is less than satisfactory. Just think about the ongoing criticisms on Madonna and her adoptions. And there is of course the argument that the celebrity themselves takes away from the larger campaign or issue that they are trying to help, purely because of their celebrity status.

But let’s think about it for a minute. Celebrities are some of the most fortunate people in the world. They command the attention of millions, and when it comes to those celebrities that have attained the “people only need to refer to me with one name status,” such as the likes of Madonna, Bono, Kylie, Pink or the hybrid, two-in-one celebrity that is Brangelina, they are able to hold significant political clout as well. And I would like to have enough hope in humanity to believe that some celebrities, even when surrounded by boundless wealth and fame, still have a concern for those far less fortunate than themselves.

Think back to 2005 and to the Live8 events around the world. Along with the massive celebrity involvement with the Live8 initiative, itself organised by Bob Geldof, there was a mass of support for the UK-based Make Poverty History campaign which quickly spread worldwide. Then there was that famous, and now very much clichéd “Click” ad. You know the one. A person clicks their hand. “Every three seconds a child dies…” and then there is another click of persons hand. A simple ad, yet hauntingly effective when it was first launched. And what about the participants? They were celebrities. In the end, it’s what makes or breaks a great ad.

Some people may not agree with the fact that certain causes and issues need to be “marketed” to gain public opinion. And indeed, not all do. Yet when there is a movement,, whether it be that against poverty or against climate change or anything else, that needs to be sustained for extended periods, marketing is extremely important. And who else is better to use than the faces and profiles of celebrities to promote a cuase that, in the end, is to the benefit of humanity?

Sure, there are the Paris Hilton’s of the world who seemingly don’t care about the world around them (although I’m open to stand corrected on that one!). But if celebrities help promote and further a cause, and to date they have proven themselves to do so, why not use them as a way to promote causes? Surely it is better than promoting the usual. And hey, it makes things interesting!

I wouldn’t normally delve into this type of topic, but earlier today Kyle Sandilands got himself into yet another controversy. Many of you have probably heard about this now, so I’ll cut the story short. A teenage girl on their show this morning was asked, on a lie detector test in front of her mother, whether she had ever had sex before. The girl started to cry and revealed that she was raped when she was 12 years old. Kyle Sandilands then replied “Right… is that the only experience you’ve had?”

Obviously, this has created quite a storm in the media today, and it won’t die down any time soon. Apart from the apparently complete lack of compassion or sympathy displayed by Kyle, it also begs another question: is it time for Kyle Sandilands to go and move on?

While this incident is particularly sensitive, there have been numerous incidents in which Kyle has stirred up at least a bit of public backlash. Even recently, Kyle said to his co-host Jackie O to loose weight (within a week) because she was putting on weight … at least in the eyes of Sandilands. I don’t think anyone else would say that Jackie O is overweight – in fact it is quite the opposite!

A bit of fun is great, and I’m a huge fan of Hamish & Andy as well as Merrick and Rosso (as much as I hate to admit it ). But there are certain lines you don’t cross, and Kyle crossed one of those lines today, and not for the first time either.

More info on the incident can be found at The Punch website (http://bit.ky/6MoIY) where there is also a link to the recording of the show so you can make up your own mind about Sandilands response. There is also quite a lively discussion happening in The Punch’s comments section for the story (with lots of differing opinions).

One interesting thing to note is that there has been a flurry of activity on Twitter (of course …) in refeence to this incident, and there has emerged a hashtag (#sackKyleandJackieO) that is appearing more and more across the social network. Not quite on the scale of #iranelection, but as an aside, Twitter is again proving itself as a guage for public (at least, a certain section of the public’s) opinion. This is where I think the strength in Twitter lies, but more on this later!

I don’t need to remind everyone to be there, but I will … be there! It is an awesome and inspiring presentation, and you wont leave the same person!

Much has been made recently about how our lifestyles and our habits of consumption impact the world at large. With the rise of climate change, awareness around issues of recycling and lowering CO2 emissions has risen. However, how we approach our daily lives, at least in the developed world, also has a huge impact on the world’s poor.

Most of the time, we barely take a second glance at where our clothes are made, where our coffee or chocolate comes from, or the conditions in which our much-relied-upon technological gadgets and accessories are made. Most of us are aware that, to some degree or another, injustices exist around the world in relation to these industries. Child labour and child slaves are often used in the cocoa and coffee industries. Exploitative labour conditions often exist in the factories where much of today’s technology is made. These same conditions are also prevalent within the textiles industry worldwide – and not just within the developing world. These conditions not only exploit and deny basic human rights to those who are already poor, but they also embed, deepen and widen the scope and severity of extreme poverty. It is the vulnerable – those suffering from the global food crisis and those living in conditions of extreme poverty – that are the first to be exploited and denied basic human rights. Our continued consumption, often undertaken without a second thought about those who made or supplied whatever it is we hold in our hands, continues some of the conditions that allow for the traps of extreme poverty to deepen and embed themselves within families, communities, and nations at large.

But in saying this, I do not want to express only despair. Campaigns and actions such as the Fair Trade movement globally have raised the profile of ethical consumerism, while bringing about real benefits o the families and communities that need it most. In Australia, Fair Trade is slowly but surely becoming mainstream, with a variety of fair trade alternative chocolates and coffee’s available, and increasingly clothing brands are implementing environmental and social practices to ensure fair labour conditions within their supply chains. Even seemingly high-end brands, such as Nudie Jeans, Nobody, G-Star Raw and American Apparel have implemented social policies that ensure fair wages and labour conditions, and are increasingly monitoring their supply chains, from raw material to production, for breaches of environmental and social standards. These advances in ethical production have only been possible due to public opinion and debate followed up by tangible action. In countries in the UK,  the Fair Trade movement, led by Oxfam among others, has seen Fair Trade products go mainstream, with over half of products stocked in a supermarket having a fair trade alternative. In Australia, Fair Trade is often associated with coffee and chocolate, but there is scope for this to be expanded to include clothing and other consumer items.

It is not just the Fair Trade movement that has raised the profile of ethical consumerism. Product (RED), based in the US, is a collaboration that see’s high-end brands (such as Armani, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, GAP and Converse, among others) donate a certain amount of profits from products sold to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. These products, also made under fair conditions, have had a massive impact on the scope and work that the Global Fund can undertake. In Australia, only Product (RED) Converse shoes are available, yet in the US, many different brands are participating in the scheme. Product (RED) themselves do not describe themselves as an NGO or as a charity. Rather, they describe themselves as a business model. And it is their business model, and similar ideas  (also referred to as cause marketing) around the world that is helping push ethical consumerism into the mainstream.

The actions of those living in the developed world have an impact globally. Consumerism and how we go about it impacts upon climate change, which in turn impacts upon the world’s poorest (especially those living in small island nations and nations like Bangladesh) to hardest and first. Our consumer choices also have an impact on poverty itself, having the ability to either help towards lifting individuals and communities out of poverty, or to deepen and embed the processes and injustices that lead to poverty and poverty traps.

It would be easy for someone to blame the current economic system for deepening global poverty – and to some degree, many aspects of the global economic and trading system do have negative effects on developing nations. However, initiatives such as Product (RED) and the general Fair Trade movement globally are working at working within the constraints of the current economic system to bring about positive change in developing communities.

In the end, it’s about the choices that individuals make, and how these choices impact the world. One person buying a fair trade coffee may not make a noticeable difference on a developing community. 100 people buying the coffee may provide some benefits, but these benefits will not serve in the long term. However, once the issue goes mainstream, the impact of thousands of people can be felt – and tangible benefits can be seen in developing communities.

If the world continues as we are today with the status quo, in essence we are consuming the world’s poor, depriving them of opportunities to escape the poverty trap. But simple yet effective changes to one’s lifestyle have the ability to transform developing communities. Buying products that are produced fairly, guarantee benefits to developing communities, and guarantee fair labour conditions, all helps. Once demand for products produced in conditions deemed unsatisfactory falls, the process of change begins.