Latest Event Updates
The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking
My friend Tiffany sent me a wonderful link from The Girl Effect called The Clock is Ticking.
Watch it for yourself- it is its own explanation.
Tomorrow I will put focus on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015 . Let’s see what the assessment is from the United Nations on MDG 3. So far the scorecard looking at MDG 1 and 2 is not good for a complete successful achievement of the MDG.
This is why a focus on child mortality and women is so important. So many other factors are woven into the same solution. Hans Rosling explains this indirectly in this TED video in an earlier blog I recorded here.
The most productive 50 million ways to influence extreme poverty are primed ready to be enlisted in the fight. It is a resource and an opportunity that won’t stand still- it sits on a knife edge of time to be saved or exploited by the environment. Is there anything we can do to influence this situation?
How hard can it be to get someone to sponsor you a pair of running shoes?!
When in doubt, post a blog!
Dear World, anyone have any suggestions?
Looking for a sports retailer to sponsor me a pair of Asics GEL Nimbus Size 11.5 US (4E).
Enough ‘No’s’ already from requests I have made, so putting it out there to see if anyone has any ideas?
I can guarantee international exposure (and local naturally) for the retailer as well as postcards from all cities visited.
Plus will feature the business in all training and running entry posts and give credit on the website.
While I am on a roll, also stuck for a Garmin Forerunner 110. I can live without the Garmin…the shoes would be a great help.
Just a note- I am relying fully on sponsorship to make this initiative work. Part of the creative process of inquiry- feeling what it is like to be without.
Complex
I was speaking with my friend last night, Armen, who lives in a part of Sydney known for its relative poverty. The area around Macquarie Park has changed radically over the last 11 years. Now there is a train line nearby, and with the university and shopping centre a short walk away you would hardly think it was once among the worst areas for crime and social neglect.
We spoke about poverty for some time, and about how complex this issue is to understand. Armen made a distinction between a physical poverty and spiritual poverty, and how this is sometimes overlooked. People can see the obvious signs of physical poverty so clearly.
Does this distinction matter when the physical needs of extreme poverty are so profound?
7 Days to Go: 8 MDG. MDG 2- Children everywhere able to complete primary schooling
Spotlight onto Millennium Development Goal 2 today:
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
The United Nations provides sobering advice about the likely success of this goal:
- Hope dims for universal education by 2015, even as many poor countries make tremendous strides
- Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia are home to the vast majority of children out of school
- Inequality thwarts progress towards universal education
Some of the broader metrics are presented here:
- Enrolment in primary education in developing regions reached 89 per cent in 2008, up from 83 per cent in 2000
- The current pace of progress is insufficient to meet the target by 2015
- About 69 million school-age children are not in school. Almost half of them (31 million) are in sub-Saharan Africa, and more than a quarter (18 million) are in Southern Asia.
Education is something so many of us just take for granted. It seems so simple. And the reality is that it can be a tough decision if the money available does not extend far enough to educate your children. Abolishing school fees in some of the poorest countries has made a big difference. Significant and important gender issues are being addressed through tackling this goal.
Impossible
Hans Rosling, the intellectual heavyweight and Professor of Global Health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, wrote a really encouraging comment a few weeks ago on this blog. I thought I would share it here:
I wish you good luck Matt.
The seemingly impossible is indeed often possible, but be aware that the impossible is impossible. It takes a lot of wisdom to see the difference between the impossible and the seemingly impossible. We follow you with interest!
Hans Rosling
All too often, statements have been made then expectations failed about what was thought as possible. Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1987 famously stated that
“…by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty”
This has not been achieved, especially on many remote Indigenous communities. This comment should not be used for cheap political point scoring or neither used to judge the performance of Mr Hawke. In 2007 he claimed it was among his biggest regrets in his political life.
We should take Hans’ caution seriously. Do we have the wisdom to discern what is in fact impossible? And how do we then navigate the path forward past failed expectations?
Already, many of the Millennium Development Goals appear to be closer to impossible than possible. “Hope dims for universal education by 2015”. Can we arrest child mortality as one target to achieve?
Should we prepare ourselves now for a more realistic outcome in 2015? Is there more we can all do to change the situation in some small way? The disappointment at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen in 2009 was significant. A different issue to extreme poverty. How will we respond when the Millennium Development Goals are accounted for in 2015?
What is impossible?
Unacceptable
Yesterday I made a post about The Big Divide- Rich and Poor. My friend Suji responded with a great comment on facebook:
I was confronted today by the reality of what the big divide means at street level…sydney siders going hungry because they can’t earn enough to pay their bills or feed themselves. Unacceptable!
I gave it some thought and responded with this comment:
Hey Suji, where was that? The sad thing is if you start looking around you can see that it is more prevalent than expected. The tragic thing in that circumstance is when people slip from a position of not enough money or food into a behavioural pattern where they accept that as the norm.
In my blog I was addressing more the distinction between what you have described (an ethical question: who is responsible- community, government, ‘the super-rich’, the individual) and those who have no choice or not even a chance of good policy to make a difference- those whose only certainty is to have filthy water, disease and dysfunctional governance.
I think that is unacceptable!
So much need. Where should we start? What do you think Suji?
I am not sure of exactly what Suji saw, but I believe it is an important point that she made. I was a little reluctant to share the next piece of information, but in the interests of an open discussion about poverty I think it is important: In the past, I have been in both situations that Suji described. Confronted by the reality of what the big divide means at street level. And at another time going hungry because I didn’t earn enough to pay my bills or feed myself. Not great admissions. Both unacceptable.
But what is it that is unacceptable? That it happens or the situation itself? Who is responsible? Is anyone responsible? Can we draw a comparison to those in extreme poverty?
Again, I would return to reframing the situation. As much as the situation is unacceptable here in Sydney, what is considerably worse are those 4,000 children dying of diarrhoea every day. Unacceptable because of filthy water, disease and dysfunctional governance.
To share more about myself, I have also been confronted with the bitter tragedy of infant mortality with the death of my brother’s young son, Zander, who lived a life measured in hours not years. I felt the grief that he and his wife experienced, and the implications this had for our family and friends.
I cannot fully comprehend what this would be like to occur on a larger scale with a horrible frequency. Sierra Leone in 2007 was recorded as having the highest rate of child mortality of 262 deaths per 1000 children under the age of five. That is completely unacceptable.
I promise you I will be thinking of how wrong these figures of child mortality are for every step of the 24,000 metres I will run for each of the 10 runs over the coming 30 days. 24,000 is the number of children over the age of five who die daily using data from 2008. How I wish it was a lot less, and not because I would prefer to run a shorter distance.
I am asking you to participate in the 10 City Bridge Run. This is not a spectator sport. If you are able, please sponsor me for $24.
8 Days to Go: 8 MDG. MDG 1- Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Eight days to go until the first run on 14 October commencing the 10 City Bridge Run!
I thought it might be timely to revisit the Millennium Development Goals and try to shed some light on where progress is occurring. More importantly, also examine where the shortfall might occur on 2015.
Millennium Develop Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
There are three targets under this goal:
- Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day
- Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
- Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Conflict and the global financial crisis is cited as the reason for a disappointing backsliding in some of the progress last decade. Some comments from the United Nations of progress are:
- The global economic crisis has slowed progress, but the world is still on track to meet the poverty reduction target
- Prior to the crisis, the depth of poverty had diminished in almost every region
- Deterioration of the labour market, triggered by the economic crisis, has resulted in a decline in employment
- As jobs were lost, more workers have been forced into vulnerable employment
- Since the economic crisis, more workers find themselves and their families living in extreme poverty
- Hunger may have spiked in 2009, one of the many dire consequences of the global food and financial crises
- Progress to end hunger has been stymied in most regions
- Despite some progress, one in four children in the developing world are still underweight
- Children in rural areas are nearly twice as likely to be underweight as those in urban areas
- In some regions, the prevalence of underweight children is dramatically higher among the poor
- Over 42 million people have been uprooted by conflict or persecution
The Big Divide- Rich and Poor
The Sydney Morning Herald reported a story titled The big divide: the super rich versus struggle street. I thought it was worth looking at this further from a perspective of extreme poverty. Is there any correlation? Is this part of the conversation?
A short answer would be ‘No’.
The conditions of those in extreme poverty is so atrocious, it beggars belief. Try and comprehend 4,000 children dying daily from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation.
Just as this is not the ‘fault’ of someone else having a lot of money (or little money), it is not ultimately solved by more money or more aid being directed at the problem. Neither is ‘more awareness’ on its own going to solve the problem. Same for ‘more education’.
These are all pieces of how the problem should be addressed. Aid given through foreign policy could be targeted as much as the ‘super-rich’. It also becomes a big ethical question of what is super-rich and how should ‘they’ respond? Should being able to have a manicure (the opening example in the article) necessarily entail obligation and responsibility and more for someone who is less able.
My friend Virginia challenged me on how is the 10 City Bridge Run going to make a difference. I believe it will do this through leverage. And it is at its core an intellectual challenge. This does not mean that we all sit around and think our way out of extreme poverty. That would be nonsense and action is required.
How might this change things, really? That is a good question. Imagine many people (many in the thousands) who each change how they think about this issue a little bit, not just one but on a regular or occasional basis over the course of a year, and with their thinking their actions also change.
This is what I believe needs to occur. Maybe meeting the Millennium Development Goals is impossible. Noises from New York would already indicate that the global financial crisis is the convenient reason to explain why these targets have not been met.
If the conversation about extreme poverty is only measured in money and aid, rather than actions and outcomes my fear is that the end of poverty will be a long, long way from us yet. To create a change, we first need to change our thinking, and very quickly after that have our actions reflect this change in mindset.
If anything, the conversation about the ‘super-rich’ and ‘struggle street’ is an unwelcome distraction from what constitutes extreme poverty. Good for selling newspapers.
A demographer at KPMG, Bernard Salt, said rising inequality was beside the point as most Australians were better off than they were 20 years ago.
”If there is a divergence emerging it is because the super wealthy are doing so much better. I don’t think it’s because the battlers are going backwards. Everyone did well, it’s just that the upper end did well better,” he said. (quoted from the SMH article)
Target
Some people have asked ‘how much is enough?’ Here are my targets for sponsorship.
240 Span Sponsors @ $240.
2,400 Support Sponsors @ $24.
These will enable the Six Outcomes to be achieved. More importantly, doing so will raise awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to influence extreme poverty.
No one event on its own can solve the problems of the world. Together, we each play a small part toward making a bigger difference. Please join me on this journey as a sponsor for $24.
Lisa Asked: How Does It Work?
I was speaking with my good friend Lisa last night at GreenUps here in Sydney, and the conversation shifted onto the 10 City Bridge Run.
Lisa asked how did it all work. Good question. Here is my answer.
The start point would be to frame the 10 City Bridge Run: a global endurance challenge where I will run 10 sub-marathons each of 24 km in 10 cities across 10 countries within one month. The purpose is to raise awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to influence extreme poverty.
I will start running in Sydney on 14 October, and finish in Seoul on the last day of the G20 Summit 12 November.
These dates are part of a design to form a ‘bridge’ between two key institutional events: a United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals held last month in New York commencing 20 September, and the G20 Summit in Seoul starting on 10 November.
I contend that what happens in between, the engagement of people like you and I, is of the same importance.
This is about much more than just running. Each run represents the 24,000 children under the age of five who on average die every single day. While 0.1% of this figure is from the West, a staggering 50% comes from sub-Saharan Africa alone.
This is an initiative about participation. Not through running, but bridge building. I am asking people to take photographs of themselves or other people making bridges between themselves and for these to be collated and then presented to the G20 Summit leadership (President of Korea). Together can we collate 24,000 of these photographs which will be printed, curated and then delivered to the President of Korea?
Another outcome is a book that will be published in electronic and print format containing 1,000 selected photographs from those in the petition. The book has a working title of “Above the Line”, a reference to the challenge of moving people often corporately identified as ‘The Bottom Billion‘ above the line of extreme poverty.
The 10 City Bridge Run is community funded, that is to say ‘crowdfunded’, by many sponsors who each pre-purchase the book “Above the Line” enabling the running to take place, and importantly the achievement of all Six Outcomes.
Sounds difficult? The tagline for the event is “Is the seemingly impossible possible?” I don’t believe we can fully address this question without first seeing what is possible ourselves through an experiential challenge.
What I propose is possible, but it requires the participation of others. Will you join me vicariously on the run as a sponsor? Sponsorship is $240 for a printed copy of the book or $24 for a electronic copy of the book.
Please be part of the difference that makes a difference and sponsor the 10 City Bridge Run.
Building Bridges 