Category Archives: Poverty

‘We live and die by it’: climate crisis threatens Bangladesh’s Sundarbans

Posted on by

Villagers rely more on the forest’s resources, threatening its ecosystem – and leaving them more vulnerable to cyclones

As he steps out of the mosque on the banks of the Kholpetua River, Mohammed Sabud Ali looks out at a view he has seen several times a day for most of his life. But never before has the sprawling Sundarbans mangrove forest felt so important to him.

The vast Sundarbans has always protected Bangladeshi coastal communities from the violent cyclones that regularly crash in from the Bay of Bengal, and they have always harvested its resources. But now, as the climate crisis encroaches, people are becoming even more dependent on the forest.

Continue reading...

Term starts in Uganda – but world’s longest shutdown has left schools in crisis

Posted on by

Pre-Covid the country battled poor learning outcomes, now experts fear fee rises and school closures will see many more children miss out

The gate that once proudly displayed the name of Godwins primary school in Kampala has been removed. The compound, where pupils played at break time, is now a parking area for trucks ferrying goods to the nearby market, while the classrooms have been turned into a travellers’ lodge.

Uganda’s schools were ordered to reopen on Monday 10 January, after nearly two years of closure – the longest school shutdown in the world – but not all were able to welcome pupils back. Godwins, in Kalerwe in Kawempe division, is one of the many schools that will never reopen. It had been in existence for 20 years catering to children whose parents work in nearby Kalerwe market.

Continue reading...

Covid created 20 new ‘pandemic billionaires’ in Asia, says Oxfam

Posted on by

While wealthiest got richer, 140m people fell into poverty as jobs were lost, wiping out years of gains for poorest, report finds

Twenty new “pandemic billionaires” have been created in Asia thanks to the international response to Covid-19, while 140 million people across the continent were plunged into poverty as jobs were lost during the pandemic, according to Oxfam.

A report by the aid organisation says that by March 2021, profits from the pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and services needed for the Covid response had made 20 people new billionaires as lockdowns and economic stagnation destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of others.

Continue reading...

World’s poorest bear brunt of climate crisis: 10 underreported emergencies

Posted on by

Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress

From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.

Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.

Continue reading...

Bill Bernstein’s best photograph: joy and humanity in a homeless centre

Posted on by

‘It was clear that these two had each other in their lives, and that was pretty much it’

In the 1970s I lived in SoHo in New York, which is not far from the Bowery, but the two districts were like separate universes. SoHo was full of artists and creative types but the Bowery was known as the place where you ended up when you were at the bottom of the barrel. There were a lot of flophouses and a lot of alcoholism and drug use. It was the darkest place in New York City for a long time.

The Bowery Mission is a Christian rescue centre for homeless people. Only men are allowed to stay overnight but it feeds anybody. I used to go there around Thanksgiving and Christmas time to help serve dinner. The face-to-face contact and interactions I had with people meant that I always felt a real connection with them, and it also made me grateful for what I had in my own life.

Continue reading...

Preaching truth to power: the São Paulo priest standing up to Bolsonaro

Posted on by

Júlio Lancellotti is an outspoken champion of homeless people – a cause that makes him unpopular with Brazil’s authorities

In 2017, most Brazilians were still unfamiliar with the name Jair Bolsonaro. But for Júlio Lancellotti, there was already cause for concern in the reactionary rhetoric of the man who would be elected president two years later under the slogan: “Brazil above everything, God above everyone.”

“I am astonished that a homophobic person like Bolsonaro appears on the presidential ballot,” said the priest during mass on 7 March of that year at St Michael the Archangel parish in São Paulo’s East Zone. The sermon, in which he also preached against rape culture and sexism, was typical of the man who has devoted his life to fighting injustice, often finding himself targeted by conservative politicians as a result.

Continue reading...

More than half of UK’s black children live in poverty, analysis shows

Posted on by

Exclusive: Labour party research also finds black children at least twice as likely to grow up poor as white children

More than half of black children in the UK are now growing up in poverty, a new analysis of official data has revealed.

Black children are also now more than twice as likely to be growing up poor as white children, according to the Labour party research, which was based on government figures for households that have a “relative low income” – defined as being below 60% of the median, the standard definition for poverty.

Continue reading...

‘On the brink’: drought and politics leave Afghans fighting famine

Posted on by

Aid collapse after Taliban took control means just 2% of people have enough to eat, UN says

In his seven decades, Mehrajuddin has been a police commander, a fighter for the mujahideen, a district governor and a prosecutor, and even briefly worked in Europe. Until this year, he has never struggled to feed his family.

Now they have just one meal a day, hard discs of stale bread soaked in water until they soften to mush. “All the family are starving,” he says bluntly as he waits at a food distribution centre in Kabul for a handout of lentils, rice, flour and oil. “I even worry about dying, because if it happens tomorrow, how will my family pay for my funeral?”

Continue reading...

Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster

Posted on by

Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis

The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.

Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.

Continue reading...

From criminal to ‘teacher’: the ex-gangster tackling crime in Nairobi

Posted on by

One of the city’s most wanted, Peter Wainaina was given a second chance and used it to turn his life around and help others find different path out of poverty

At the entrance of Kibagare, a slum in Nairobi’s outskirts, boots of dead gangsters dangle from electricity wires that hover over ramshackle homes of wood and iron sheets.

With little state protection from crime, angry local people will often take the law into their own hands and beat an offender who is caught in the act, sometimes to death.

Continue reading...

‘No roof, no seats, no desks’: photographing Yemen’s conflict-hit schools

Posted on by

Years of fighting mean children as old as 10 have never been to school. Khaled Ziad’s images document a generation whose entire future is at risk

Their classroom has no roof, no seats, no desks; most of the 50 small children sitting on the rubble-strewn floor have no pens or paper. But the students in this makeshift school in Hays, a village in Yemen’s Hodeidah province, are still among the luckiest in the country simply for having a teacher and a place to learn.

Seven years into a catastrophic war that sparked the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Yemen’s conflict shows no signs of ending soon, and the future of an entire generation is at risk of being destroyed. About 3 million children are unable to attend school, according to the Red Cross, with 8.1 million needing urgent educational assistance.

Continue reading...

Guardian and Observer climate justice charity appeal raises £500,000

Posted on by

Nearly 6,000 readers have donated towards causes that will help communities affected by the climate crisis

An incredible £500,000 has been raised for climate justice good causes by generous Guardian and Observer readers, in the space of just over a fortnight since the launch of the 2021 charity appeal.

Nearly 6,000 people have so far donated to the appeal, which will be shared between four charities: Practical Action, Global Greengrants Fund UK, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and Environmental Justice Foundation.

Continue reading...

The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America

Posted on by

From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases

The Great Indian Kitchen

Continue reading...

‘Nothing will help’: Tunisians trapped in poverty lose hope

Posted on by

Eleven years after the start of the Arab spring, those trying to survive rising prices, unemployment and a pandemic feel little has changed

For a decade, Tunisia’s revolution has been remembered on 14 January, the day autocratic ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and the political elite declared the revolution complete.

From today, by President Kais Saied’s decree, the event will be marked on 17 December, the day street trader Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest at state corruption and the faltering economy. The self-immolation became a catalyst for Tunisia’s uprising and the wider Arab spring.

Continue reading...

‘Colossal waste’: Nobel laureates call for 2% cut to military spending worldwide

Posted on by

Governments urged to use ‘peace dividend’ to help UN tackle pandemics, climate crisis and extreme poverty

More than 50 Nobel laureates have signed an open letter calling for all countries to cut their military spending by 2% a year for the next five years, and put half the saved money in a UN fund to combat pandemics, the climate crisis, and extreme poverty.

Coordinated by the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, the letter is supported by a large group of scientists and mathematicians including Sir Roger Penrose, and is published at a time when rising global tensions have led to a steady increase in arms budgets.

Continue reading...

How Nairobi’s ‘road for the rich’ resulted in thousands of homes reduced to rubble

Posted on by

40,000 people in one of the largest slums in the Kenyan capital have had their homes demolished to make way for works for a Chinese-backed toll road, with some asking: ‘this is development for who?’

About 40,000 people have been made homeless by demolition works for a major Chinese-backed toll road in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Amnesty International Kenya says it believes the roadworks have created a humanitarian crisis, as schools, businesses and 13,000 homes spread across nearly 40 hectares (100 acres) of the Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum have been demolished since October, clearing land for a link to the Nairobi expressway.

A girl stands among the rubble of Mukuru Kwa Njenga slum, Nairobi, where 13,000 homes were razed to the ground

Continue reading...

Michael Sheen declares himself a ‘not-for-profit actor’

Posted on by

Actor and activist announces he will use future earnings to fund social projects after ‘turning point’ of organising 2019 Homeless World Cup

Hollywood star Michael Sheen has said he is now a “not-for-profit actor” after selling his houses and giving the proceeds to charity.

The actor and activist, 52, said organising the 2019 Homeless World Cup in Cardiff was a turning point for him. When funding for the £2m project fell through at the last moment, Sheen sold his own houses to bankroll it.

Continue reading...

Omicron is a ‘wake-up call’ to vaccinate poorer nations, experts say

Posted on by

Covid vaccine rollout must reach developing world to prevent further variants, experts say

Failure to vaccinate the world against coronavirus created the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of the Omicron variant and should serve as a wake-up call to wealthy nations, campaigners have said.

Scientists and global health experts have called for action since the summer to tackle the crisis of vaccine inequality between rich and poor countries. The longer large parts of the world remained unvaccinated, they said, the more likely the virus was to mutate significantly.

Continue reading...

Blowing the house down: life on the frontline of extreme weather in the Gambia

Posted on by

A storm took the roof off Binta Bah’s house before torrential rain destroyed her family’s belongings, as poverty combines with the climate crisis to wreak havoc on Africa’s smallest mainland country

The windstorm arrived in Jalambang late in the evening, when Binta Bah and her family were enjoying the evening cool outside. “But when we first heard the wind, the kids started to run and go in the house,” she says.

First they went in one room but the roof – a sheet of corrugated iron fixed only by a timbere pole – flew off. They ran into another but the roof soon went there too.

Continue reading...

Camels bearing healthcare deliver hope in Kenya – photo essay

Posted on by

When the roads are not up to it, a mobile clinic on hooves brings family planning and other medical supplies to remote communities. Photographer Ami Vitale visits Lekiji to see how the villagers have reaped the benefits

Thirteen camels amble their way across the dusty, drought-stricken landscape, accompanied by seven men in bright yellow T-shirts and three nurses. The camels are loaded with trunks full of medicines, bandages and family planning products. It’s a mobile health clinic on hooves. When the camels arrive at their destination, men, women and children form a line as they wait for the handlers to unload the boxes and set up tables and tents.

Among those waiting is Jacinta Peresia, who first encountered the health visitors six years ago after she nearly died giving birth to her 11th child, a daughter called Emali.

No roads, no problem. Communities Health Africa Trust (Chat) delivers health care to hard-to-reach areas of Kenya

Continue reading...