'Unseen' News and Views
It’s something that many of us might take for granted. In New York State for example, ingredients for a simple meal – perhaps a soup or a simple stew – costs just 0.6 percent of someone’s income.
Contrast this with South Sudan, where a shopper would have to spend an astonishing 186 percent of their income to do the same.
Such a difference brings into sharp focus the huge inequalities at play between those people in developing countries and others in more prosperous parts of the world.
Conflict and climate change have long affected people’s ability to afford food across multiple countries, as they are driven from their land and livelihoods and left unable to produce or buy the produce they need to feed their families.
(UN News)* — “Hunger is an outrage in a world of plenty”, the UN chief told the governing body of the Organization’s food agency on Monday [16 November 2020], highlighting the important role of food security in cementing peace.
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“An empty stomach is a gaping hole in the heart of a society. A stunted child’s growth in the mind is progress for her and for everyone”, Secretary-General António Guterres attested to the Executive Board of the World Food Programme (WFP).
(WHO)* — Today [17 November 2020] as WHO launches the Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer, the first estimates of the contribution of HIV to the global cervical cancer burden are also being released.
Women living with HIV have a six-fold increased risk of cervical cancer when compared to women without HIV.
The Teal Sisters, Zambia, survivors and advocates for cervical cancer elimination
(WHO)* — WHO‘s Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer, launched today [17 November 2020], outlines three key steps: vaccination, screening and treatment.
Successful implementation of all three could reduce more than 40% of new cases of the disease and 5 million related deaths by 2050.
13 November 2020 (openDemocracy)* — “When she was murdered, the Black women’s movement dealt with this collective trauma by turning it into institutional political action,” says Ana Carolina Lourenço, co-founder of Mulheres Negras Decidem (Black Women Decide).
– As a 10 year-old newly arrived in Lagos from England, I recall listening intently to how the Yoruba language – my father’s language – was spoken. I would constantly repeat in my head or verbally repeat what I thought I had heard. I was not always successful. Many times, what would come out of my mouth would throw my friends into fits of laughter.
Victor Oladokun
Yoruba is a tonal language. Some three-letter words pronounced wrongly or with the accent on the wrong syllable, can get you into a whole lot of trouble.
I am indebted to the Canadian Catholic boarding School I attended in Ondo – St. Joseph’s College. At the time, the high school was well known for academic rigor and discipline.
But one thing I’ve come to really appreciate over the years, was the mandatory learning of the Yoruba language in the first two years of a five-year study. In addition, while Mass was in Latin and English, the music also had a generous sprinkling of uplifting Yoruba hymns backed by traditional drums.
As I look back, I owe my love of the Yoruba language to this cultural exposure.
(United Nations)* — Over half of the global population or 4.2 billion people lack safe sanitation and around 297,000 children under five – more than 800 every day – die annually from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor hygiene, poor sanitation or unsafe drinking water.
Without safely managed, sustainable sanitation, people often have no choice but to use unreliable, inadequate toilets or practise open defecation.
16 November 2020 (United Nations)* — World Toilet Day celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 