Why are we doing this?
Health
Education
Women's Empowerment
Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
The right to life is the most fundamental of the human rights, because it's necessary1 for all others. Health is the means to this most basic right, yet billions of people throughout the world suffer - and die - because they lack access to its requisites. Some of the worlds leading experts, Thomas Pogge and Jeffery Sachs, estimate that 8-18 million people die because of poverty related causes every year2. According to Nobel Prize winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, the median age of death in Sub-Saharan Africa was below 5 years in the early 1990s - before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic hit3.
Because of the great suffering lack of health causes, we've chosen three organizations that address directly, although from different angles, violations of the most fundamental human right. HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis, as well as more mundane but no less debilitating and deadly problems such as undernourishment are targets.
The D.R.E.A.M. Ride supports organizations that are part of a global effort to fight some of the most deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, which infects nearly 40 million people now, with another 4 million infected in 2006, and kills about 3 million every year4. Malaria, to put the grim facts in another time frame, kills 2,800 African every day5. These infectious diseases, for example, contribute to the average Kenyan living only 48 years6.
For short term emergency disaster relief, to provide health care to often some of the most vulnerable and forgotten, we've chosen Doctors Without Borders. We will direct the funds allocated to DWB to be purchasing Emergency Disaster Kits each of which contain Vaccine Kits, Malaria medicine, Water Packets, Chlorination tablets, etc., For those persistently lacking the most basic rights to life Partners In Health works in several developing countries, including Rwanda, and brings some of the highest levels of health care possible to those most in need. Their model is one focused on long term development with local communities. Finally, vaccines are needed for some of the most deadly diseases, including HIV/AIDS and Malaria, and we contribute to Emory Vaccine Center's efforts in these areas.
In short, we've identified three pressing areas - quotidian health needs, disaster relief, and vaccine research - where the lack of heath care causes wholly unnecessary violations to life and are contributing to three NGOs that are fighting these debilitating and deadly problems.
1. See, e.g., The United Nations Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Article 3
2. The lower number is from Jeffery Sachs, The End of Poverty, Penguin Press, NY, 2005, p.1 and the higher is from Thomas Pogge, World Poverty And Human Rights, Polity Press, Cambridge, U.K, 2002, p.2
3. Sen, Amartya, "Introduction" to Farmer, Paul, Pathologies Of Power, University Of California Press, Berkeley, 2005, p.xi
4. UNAIDS, December 2006 Update, p.1 - p.7 of the PDF
5. World Bank, Sub-Saharan Overview
6. World Bank, Kenya: Quick Facts
"All agree that the single most important key to development and to poverty alleviation is education."
-James D. Wolfensohn
Former World Bank President
Education, as we all know, is paramount to personal as well as economic development. Basic literacy and mathematics is essential to living a healthy and productive life. Yet one in five adults in the developing world - over 780 million people - is unable to read or write1. Of those, 64% are women. Moreover, over 90 million children worldwide never attend primary school, while 150 million will drop out before they finish. Again it is the females that are harder hit, as only one in five girls will finish a primary education2. In 19 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (which alone counts for 1/3 of the worlds out of school population), a child is more likely to die before the age of 5 than complete even one year of secondary school.
The most common reasons for absenteeism include lack of school fees, child labor, HIV/AIDS, and discrimination against girls. Yet even when a child is able to attend school, she is often faced with overcrowding. The average primary school class in low income countries has a 60-to-1 student-teacher ratio, as opposed to the 40-to-1 suggested ratio upheld by the World Bank and other international organizations3. Despite these problems, overall primary school attendance in Sub-Saharan has increased from 55% in 1999 to 65% in 2004 (85% being the world average in 2004)4. However, in several regions, the percentages have decreased even though the majority of the countries have abolished primary school fees (like for example in Kenya). The slow percentage growth is due to increased enrollment as well as continued low grade completion levels5.
If the child is able to complete primary school, it is often very difficult to continue on to secondary school (again due to lack of spaces, inadequate funds, pregnancy or all three)6. Yet secondary education also plays a very important role in development. It has been demonstrated to considerably benefit the health of women and their children7 (see section on womens empowerment below). It also creates the important incentive for children to complete their primary education. And in the end, we all know how important a high school education is to our own countrys competitiveness in the global economy. It is clear how important universal education is one that includes both primary and secondary levels - to long-term development.
To help combat the prohibitive cost of secondary school, the Dream Ride has decided to support scholarship programs in Kenya. While Kenyas overall transition rate from the primary to secondary school levels is around 60%, it is always the rural regions that a greatly lagging behind. We have selected the International Peace Initiatives AIDS Orphans Scholarship Program and the Secondary School Scholarship Program of The Canaan Foundation.
1. UNESCO. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007 "Strong Foundations". pg 2.
2. UNICEF. State of the Worlds Children 2007 "A Call for Equality". Pg 4.
3. Herz, Barbara and Gene B. Sperling. 2004. What Works in Girls' Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World (p.69). New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
4. UNESCO. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007 "Strong Foundations". pg 24.
5. Ibid
6. World Development Report. pg. 6
7. World Bank, "Education and Development". Education Advisory Service. 2006.
Education is essential for the empowerment of women. Today, only 1 in 5 girls in developing countries do not complete a primary education (UNICEF, WSC, pg 7). Yet it has been shown that the impact of an education is particularly profound in girls and women. Studies have shown that with even a few years of schooling reduces infant, child and maternal mortality rates since women are 1) more likely to delay marriage and/or childbirth, 2) better informed about their familys nutritional needs, 3) use safer childbirth practices and 4) are more likely to send their children to school. Their children tend to be healthier and better nourished1.
Therefore, the D.R.E.A.M. Ride has chosen to support a women's empowerment project through CARE which seeks to offer girls a better education.
Please visit http://www.care.org for more information on the fight for women's empowerment. There you will find a tremendous amount of information about their education projects as well as their I Am Powerful Campaign created to raise awareness among women in the United States about the plight of women and girls in poor countries.
For further reading, we particularly suggest CARE's White Paper: Women's Empowerment.
1. World Bank, "Education and Development". Education Advisory Service. 2006.
Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
With the Katrina disaster in our recent memory, we do not need to be reminded about the devastating and long-lasting effects that natural disasters can have. We do however all need to be aware of the scope of the problem around the globe today. There are over 33 million people that have been displaced from their homes and forced to live in temporary shelters. Two-thirds of which are displaced in their own country (these have been labeled Internally Displaced Persons or IPDs).
To help alleviate some of the suffering that the refugees and Internally Displaced Persons face, The D.R.E.A.M. Ride will direct its funds towards to purchasing of Emergency Vaccine Kits. Each contains enough supplies to care for 10,000 displaced people for three months. And they only cost $5,500. That works out to only $1.80 per person for three months! With your help, we will be able to purchase several Kits.
Here is some information on exactly what these emergency kits contain:
MSF has developed and produced prepackaged disaster kits ready for transport within hours, including a complete surgical theater the size of a small conference table and an obstetrics kit the size of a two-drawer file. These kits are used as models by emergency relief organizations worldwide. MSF teams rely upon arriving on the scene of an emergency within 24-48 hours in order to save as many people as possible and have found that our standardized emergency kits are much more efficient than having to manage the sorting, packaging, and allocation of many different types of supplies.
To maximize its responsiveness to emergency situations, MSF maintains four logistical centers based in Europe and East Africa and stocks of emergency materials stored in Central America and East Asia. The logistical centers purchase, test, and store equipment including vehicles, communications material, power supplies, water-processing facilities, and nutritional supplements. Logistical centers ensure that, within 24 hours, planes can be loaded with essential equipment and flown into crisis areas.
There are many kinds of kits being used as every emergency is different. A typical kit would contain items such as medicines, medical devices: renewable supplies, medical devices: equipment, stationary and a specific module and in this example it would include a rapid malaria tests and antimalarial drugs. Medicines would include paracetamol, oral hydration salts etc. Medical devices, renewable would include things like bandages, gauze, gloves etc. Medical devices, equipment would include jerry cans, buckets, trays, scissors etc. Stationary would include items like notebooks, pencils, treatment guidelines in different languages etc. And in this case the supplementary module, this case for malaria the kit would include malaria tests and additional medication for malaria, syringes/needles and other items to treat people for malaria.
Please visit Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors without Borders website for more information.
For specific information on refugees and IDPs, please visit this site prepared by Doctors without Borders.
Of special note, Doctors Without Borders has created a particularly powerful slideshow about the global Refugee/IPD crisis.