Brain scans of Romanian orphans adopted in UK show early neglect left its mark
Children who experience severe deprivation early in life have smaller brains in adulthood, researchers have found.
The findings are based on scans of young adults who were adopted as children into UK families from Romania’s orphanages that rose under the regime of the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Continue reading...A farmer in eastern Uganda says he clings to the hope that the UN sustainable development goals could change things
Where I live, people are organised in clans. I belong to a clan where even 100 people, gathered together, can’t raise $100 (£75) to organise a funeral.
I come from a family that couldn’t afford to pay tuition of $10 a term when I was a student two decades ago. Many of my young relatives are out of school now, because their parents can’t afford a full academic term of $15.
Continue reading...Plan to drop dedicated fund while defence spending rises dismissed as false economy
The European commission has been accused of seeking to cut EU funding for the continent’s poorest people by 50% to secure post-Brexit cost savings and extra funds for defence projects.
Jacques Vandenschrik, the president of the European Food Banks Federation, said the EU executive’s proposed spending plans for the next seven years posed a risk not only to the most vulnerable but to the stability of wider society.
Continue reading...After years in exile, my hopes for a joyous family reunion were dashed by the country’s miserable economic situation
My brothers and I leapt out of bed at the first glimmer of dawn on Christmas morning – and there they were. Every Christmas of my childhood that I can remember, the shiny black school shoes were neatly lined up by the door. A new pair for all of us. Then came the new clothes proudly presented by my parents – the fruit of long hours of labour. And then, in our new finery, off we went to church. The long sunny hours of Christmas Day, usually with a brief but refreshing afternoon thunderstorm, were spent at huge family gatherings, feasting on chicken and rice, washed down with an array of brightly-coloured soft drinks – cherry plum, cream soda and Fanta orange.
As the years went by and independence came to Zimbabwe, many things changed. But Christmas traditions remained much the same, with big gatherings to which people travelled many miles, new clothes, lots to eat and drink.
Continue reading...The mood may be one of despair, but this election is critical to the country’s future. The best hope lies with Labour, despite its flaws
Britain has not faced a more critical election in decades than the one it faces on Thursday. The country’s future direction, its place in the world and even its territorial integrity are all at stake, primarily because this is a decisive election for Brexit. The choice is stark. The next prime minister is going to be either Boris Johnson, who is focused on “getting Brexit done” whatever the consequences, or Jeremy Corbyn, who with a Labour-led government will try to remodel society with a programme of nationalisation and public spending.
Continue reading...Action by city authority for ‘public safety’ reasons provokes social media outcry
The idea was simple: ask Dubliners to hang warm coats on the Ha’penny footbridge for the city’s burgeoning homeless population.
Shortly after #warmforwinter notices appeared on lampposts near the popular landmark last week, an array of anoraks, parkas and fleeces started to line the railings.
Continue reading...The crisis that toppled Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, last month has – for now, at least – settled into a political conflict rather than a struggle on the streets. But Bolivia’s prospects depend upon the rightwing interim government’s swift delivery of free and fair elections and its willingness to reach out to all communities.
Though the government has now pulled back to some degree, its initial actions instead made its leading figures and supporters look vindictive, ruthless and bigoted. Interim president Jeanine Áñez vowed to unify the country when she took power – but packed the cabinet with members of the conservative elites and boasted that “God has allowed the Bible back into the palace” of a secular country. She exempted the military from criminal prosecution when maintaining public order; at least 17 indigenous protesters died after security forces opened fire. Police cut the indigenous Wiphala flag from their uniforms and anti-Morales demonstrators set fire to it. The interior minister has vowed to jail Mr Morales, in exile in Mexico, for 30 years for terrorism and sedition.
Continue reading...Experts say TBI could be consequence or cause of homelessness
Half of all homeless people may have suffered a traumatic brain injury at some point in their life, according to new research – which experts say could be either a consequence or even the cause of their homelessness.
Traumatic brain injury is sudden damage caused by a blow or jolt to the head, which can be caused by a motor accident, a fall or an assault. Sometimes it can cause long-term damage to the brain, leading to neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Continue reading...Automating Poverty, our year-long project about the takeover of welfare systems by algorithms and AI, was funded with reader donations raised last year
In countries across the world, algorithms and artificial intelligence are taking over welfare payments systems. Governments often make these changes quietly, with little public debate or accountability. But they affect millions, with serious – and possibly even fatal – results.
In our special project Automating Poverty, we cast a light on the way digital innovation is threatening the poor.
Continue reading...Haircuts for rough sleepers. Beauty treatments for cancer patients. Boilers for disabled people. A wave of specialists are providing skills – and hope – for those in need
Goodwill, it appears, is in high demand. One thing all the altruists I met while researching this article have in common is that they’re on the phone the whole time. Perhaps if mobiles had been around in Robin Hood’s day he would have had one pressed constantly to his lughole. “Marion … yes, love. I’m just having a fight on a bridge with Little John … sorry, you’re breaking up, terrible reception in here, all the oaks... What, the Sheriff’s abducted you? OK, I’m coming!”
Continue reading...Benefactor pays bills to ‘earn God’s blessing’ after suicides blamed on rising cost of living
Poor neighbourhoods of Istanbul have been visited by an anonymous benefactor paying off debts at grocery stores and leaving envelopes of cash on doorsteps, at a time when desperation at the spiralling cost of living has been blamed for recent suicides.
Residents of Tuzla, a largely working-class shipbuilding district on the Asian side of the city, were overjoyed last week to find their shopping bills in several grocery stores had been cleared by an unknown male benefactor.
Continue reading...Surfers Not Street Children is transforming the lives of homeless children and vulnerable youths. Ilvy Njiokiktjien’s 12-year project Born Free: Mandela’s Generation of Hope documents the lives of the first generation born after apartheid
Tell us: how have South African cities changed in the 25 years after apartheid?
“I wanted to get that fresh air,” says 21-year-old Nonjabulo Ndzanibe, explaining why she ran away from her unhappy childhood home to the coastal city of Durban. “I just needed space for myself.”
Having grown up with a distant father – who spent part of her youth in prison – and a mother whom she didn’t feel loved by, it seemed like a welcome escape when a friend invited her to come and stay in Durban. In reality it would be a long time before she would eventually find refuge through surfing.
Continue reading...World Bank targets ‘learning poverty’ as research shows major shortfall in basic reading skills among least privileged children
Nine out of 10 children in the world’s poorest countries are unable to read a basic book by the age of 10 – a situation mirrored in reverse in rich countries, where only 9% cannot do so by the same age.
Data compiled by the World Bank and the UN also shows that when low- and middle-income countries are taken together – a total of 135 states – more than half of all children cannot read a simple text at 10 years old.
Continue reading...Unicef report finds poorest children at greatest risk, while price of healthy food in rich nations drives food poverty
At least one in three children under five are either undernourished or overweight, and one in two lack essential vitamins and nutrients, the UN children’s agency has warned.
The Unicef report laid bare the alarming rate at which poor diets and a “failing” food system are damaging children, saying that “millions are eating too little of what they need and millions are eating too much of what they don’t need: poor diets are now the main risk factor for the global burden of disease”.
Continue reading...The G7 thought it had solved Africa’s problems, but rising child poverty is a ticking time bomb
Time was when Africa dominated gatherings of the G7. In the period between two summits held in the UK – Birmingham in 1998 and Gleneagles in 2005 – the talk was of little else. There was public activism and it led to political action.
In part, that was because the big developed countries were enjoying a spell of low-inflationary growth and could look beyond their own problems to see a bigger picture. There was the occasional financial panic, but the G7 thought the problems of economic management had largely been solved and all that was needed was a bit of tinkering by technocratic central bankers.
Continue reading...Children’s commissioner for England condemns ‘scandal’ of family homelessness
Thousands of homeless children are growing up in cheaply converted shipping containers and cramped rooms in former office blocks, putting their health and wellbeing at serious risk, according to the children’s commissioner for England.
Anne Longfield said it was scandal that at least 210,000 young people in homeless families in England were put up by councils in temporary housing and bed and breakfasts or forced to “sofa surf” with friends, often for long periods.
Continue reading...Couch surfing 50-year-old says welfare agency told her she wasn’t in financial hardship
A Melbourne woman battling homelessness says her entire $3,500 tax return was swiped by Centrelink last month, despite the fact she disputes the alleged robodebt.
But when Sue Prgic, 50, complained to the agency that the money had been taken without her knowledge, she said staff had asked to know what she would do with the cash if it were returned.
Continue reading...Kenya is on the rise. Those living in slums such as Kibera will only share in the progress if urban solutions come from our community
The future is shining in Kenya. By many measures, life is better than it has ever been. A decade of steady economic growth has made Kenya a rising middle-income country. Reports on the health and education of the population show indicators are marching upwards. On the streets, a sense of hope and hustle prevails. This is progress.
Continue reading...Ripping off the bandage of food aid and investing in self-sufficiency is the only way to fight malnutrition
Billions are spent on humanitarian aid, yet nearly 60 million children across Africa go to bed hungry.
Efforts to alleviate the constant cycle of droughts, poverty and war have caused new problems. The biggest of these is a crippling dependency on food aid that is undermining much of the continent’s efforts to feed itself.
Continue reading...India and Bangladesh drive progress but UN study identifies vast inequalities between countries and among poor
The UN’s key global poverty index has identified that conditions for the world’s poorest 40% are improving more quickly than for those just above them.
The positive trend has been identified in the latest assessment of world poverty collected by the UN Development Programme, which quantifies relative impoverishment across the globe by multiple factors.
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