Poverty – The Daniel Society

Empowering Women and Girls with Hope

Recognizing and realizing the potential of women and girls has a transformative impact on society. Evidence shows that investing in women and girls causes a ripple of positive change in families, communities, and nations. The Daniel Society is committed to empowering women and girls as a means of eradicating poverty and spreading a message of hope.

Women’s economic empowerment leads to numerous positive outcomes. A woman’s income has a multiplier effect, since women who work are more likely to invest their incomes in their families than men, allowing more money to be dedicated to the education and health of the next generation. Indeed, studies reveal that the children of working mothers have better educational and health outcomes and that families in which mothers control family finances have reduced rates of child mortality. The benefits of a woman’s participation in the labor force are hardly confined to her own family. For example, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that over 100 million people could be lifted out of hunger if women’s participation in agricultural labor were equal to men’s.

In spite of the ample evidence in favor of women’s economic participation, women and girls face numerous hurdles hindering their equal engagement in the labor force. In societies worldwide, women are disproportionately responsible for unpaid home labor such as child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning, which may preclude paid employment and limit educational attainment. Furthermore, women may face codified discrimination that confines their potential: the World Bank’s 2016 Women, Business, and the Law report found 155 economies of the 173 studied had at least one law restricting women’s economic participation that did not apply to men.

Ensuring women have the basic technical, financial, and intrapersonal skills needed to attain employment is critical, as is with a supportive social and legal context. This is not only imperative to gender parity per se, but also would contribute to better health and economic outcomes, lifting millions of people out of poverty across the world.

The Daniel Society’s Center for Global Initiatives is currently designing a pilot project in a Zambian village called the Women’s Economic Development Club to empower women and their families. The Club will provide micro-loans and savings plans to approximately 20 women entrepreneurs, creating a secure economic future for participants and their families. In line with the Daniel Society’s mission of hope building, the Club will implement practical curriculum to restore hope to families living in extreme poverty. Bolstered by practical financial skills and a hopeful outlook, participants will be able to build a brighter future for themselves and their families.

To learn more about the Women’s Economic Development Club, visit us at https://www.danielsociety.org/women-economic-development-club.

Mackenzie Sumwalt, Research Assistant, Center for Global Initiatives

The Daniel Society’s Collaborative Hope Building Model

The Daniel Society is confronting extreme poverty on a global level. We do this work because we believe all lives have value, purpose and potential. Our Center for Global Initiatives is designing poverty reduction projects in Sub-Saharan Africa to lift people out of extreme poverty. We will apply our 7-Step Collaborative Hope Building model to empower people and bring hope, healing and purpose to communities.

To learn more about each step, please read our complete Collaborative Hope Building model.

Women’s Role in India’s Economy

A member of the so-called “BRICS” countries, India is noted for its rapidly expanding economy. Though India has certainly grown more prosperous in the recent decades, some groups have benefited from this boom more than others. In particular, women have faced a range of structural and social barriers in fully participating in the Indian economy, which not only hinders their individual agency but also limits India’s ability to continue to modernize.

Gender discrimination begins at a young age. Girls face a range of structural barriers that contribute to unequal educational and economic performance: for example, only 53% of schools have sanitary facilities for girls. Further, the threat of gender-based violence discourages girls and women from leaving their homes and is used by some parents to justify marrying off daughters before the legal age of 18; however, marriage provides girls little protection from violence—over 50% of both male and female adolescents justify wife beating, and 6 in 10 men admit physically abusing their wives. There are numerous instances of rapes and sexual assaults on girls and young women across the country, most notably the gang rape and subsequent death of a physiotherapy student in Delhi in 2012 that spawned nationwide protests and the BBC documentary India’s Daughter.

These factors contribute to women’s limited economic participation in adulthood. Women produce merely 17% of India’s economic output in terms of GDP contribution; however, Indian women spend almost 10 times as many hours as men engaging in unpaid care labor, which, while work, is not factored into conventional economic metrics.

In 2010, only 40% of women aged 25-54 were economically active (defined as either employed or actively seeking employment). Between 2005 and 2010, women’s workforce participation fell from 42% to 32%. In this period, India lost 3.7 million manufacturing jobs, 80% of which were filled by women. India’s decline in women’s workforce participation may also be explained by the country’s shrinking agricultural sector and may be felt most sharply among poor, uneducated women living in rural areas, who have few other economic opportunities. Indeed, 85% of rural women who work are in the agricultural sector. Since 2005, non-farm job opportunities have expanded only in urban areas.

Paradoxically, women’s labor force participation rates are lower in urban areas: merely 15% of women in Indian cities have jobs, approximately half of the rate of rural women.

India has undertaken a range of initiatives to promote women’s rights. In order to provide protection to women who work, the Indian government offers new mothers three months of paid maternity leave and guarantees job protection during this time, although a survey of married working women in Delhi revealed that fewer than a third of respondents continued working after giving birth.

Additionally, over 12,000 Indian schools have implemented gender education programming in order to address misogynistic attitudes. Early reports on the program suggest individual level change, though it remains to be seen whether this curriculum will lead to broader social change. It is clear more work must be done to empower women and girls in India to fully realize their potential.

The Center for Global Initiatives Discusses HIV/AIDS and Economic Empowerment in Zambia

Earlier this month, the Center for Global Initiatives held a number of meetings in Lusaka, Zambia to discuss ideas for a global health initiative targeting people living in extreme poverty. Our founder and president, La Toya McBean, met with local government officials, UNAIDS, research institutions, prison officials, religious leaders and families living in extreme poverty, to discuss efforts addressing the prevalence and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS-related deaths in Zambia have declined significantly, thanks to support from the United States and other countries. During one meeting, a policymaker said “people aren’t really dying from HIV/AIDS at the same rate as before.”

On the village level, most people who are living with the disease in one high-rate village are living normal lives because they are taking antiretroviral medication and visiting the community clinic regularly for treatment. They are also no longer afraid to talk about HIV/AIDS, which signals progress in efforts to address the cultural stigma attached to the disease. Church leadership associations are also helping to combat the stigma by educating pastors and congregations about the disease.

However, despite such good progress, we learned that less than 50% of children with HIV/AIDS are actually receiving treatment. Children living in impoverished rural villages in the Western Province are particularly vulnerable and in need of lifesaving treatment. In addition, child marriages and sexual assaults upon children contribute to the spread of the disease among children. This is an alarming crisis and a human rights issue that must be addressed immediately.

Further, with the help of Ubumi Prison Initiatives, we toured two prisons to learn more about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in prisons. We visited and met with officials at the Kabwe Maximum Security Prison and Lusaka Central Prison. The deplorable conditions from massive overcrowding is a significant problem in Zambian prisons. Such unbearable conditions foster an environment for the spread of the disease. Youthful offenders are also at risk of contracting the disease when housed in the same cells as the adult population.

We also met with families living in extreme poverty to get their ideas about entrepreneurial projects to lift them out of poverty. We learned that in certain villages, there is a dearth of resources to combat extreme poverty. For example, in Lusoke Village of Chongwe District, many women and youth have no income or opportunities to move them forward in life.

What The Daniel Society Will Do

First, to address the pressing need and gaps in providing treatment to children living with HIV/AIDS in the impoverished Western Province, the Center for Global Initiatives will form a collaborative to launch a Rural HIV/AIDS Children’s Initiative. Over the next few months, we will work with our Advisory Board, research team and various Zambian agencies and organizations to analyze HIV/AIDS data and the severity of the treatment gap based on geography in the Western Province. In early spring, we will host a stakeholders meeting in Lusaka to discuss the components and goals of the initiative. To learn more about this project, visit us at www.danielsociety.org/women-economic-development-club.

Second, the Center for Global Initiatives will develop The Daniel Society Women’s Economic Development Club of Lusoke Village to promote the economic well-being of women and families living in extreme poverty. The Club will provide micro-loans to women for entrepreneurial pursuits and a savings plan to secure their children’s educational future. To learn more about this project, visit us at www.danielsociety.org/hiv-aids-children-initiative.

Third, the Center for Global Initiatives will continue to have discussions with prison officials about addressing the massive overcrowding and HIV/AIDS prevalence in prisons. We will also explore areas of research to help prison officials tackle the rate of HIV/AIDS transmission and prevalence in prisons.

Upcoming Zambia Trip to Discuss Global Health Project

Bringing healing to those living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is a top priority for us. This is why I will be traveling to Zambia this Saturday, October 29, to discuss ideas that will help us design an HIV/AIDS project that targets children, young women and incarcerated individuals living with HIV/AIDS. On my trip, I will meet with government officials, NGOs, advocates and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Our intent is to be incredibly effective in helping the most vulnerable people suffering, and dying, from this disease. HIV/AIDS may no longer be at the forefront of public policy in the U.S., but this remains a significant problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, there were1.2 million people in Zambia living with HIV/AIDS—85,000 of those infected were children between the ages of 0-14; while 640,000 of those infected were women above the age of 15. In addition, Zambia was among the eight eastern and southern African countries where nearly 50% of new infections occurred. Although new infections have declined by 66% on a pediatric scale from 2010-2015, adult infections are simply not decreasing fast enough.

The Daniel Society’s Center for Global Initiatives is researching these issues and raising awareness about this lingering health crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. During my week-long trip, I will travel to rural communities to meet with people living in extreme poverty and suffering from HIV/AIDS. Reaching out and listening to the ideas of people facing adversity is one of our core strategies. If we give them the dignity to speak, we may discover simple solutions to the most pressing challenges facing our fight against this disease (see Step 1 of our Collaborative Hope Building model).

Why Not End Extreme Poverty?

“The end of extreme poverty is at hand—within our generation—but only if we grasp the historic opportunity in front of us,” argues internationally renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs in his seminal work The End of Poverty. I join the optimism and idealism of Mr. Sachs to believe that people can—and should—be lifted out of extreme poverty. Unlike other causes that were born out of anger or fear, the fight against poverty is motivated by a different force: compassion. However, compassion that leads one to actively fight to end extreme poverty cannot be attained from a distance. For me, this type of compassion was born out of my proximate experiences with people living in extreme poverty and my faith.

In 2005, I was invited to join several other 20-something year olds on a missions trip to Beius, Romania. We all worked on Capitol Hill at the time, but this wasn’t my first time abroad. After college, I had spent a year in China teaching English to Muslim college students. I had also visited other countries like Myanmar, Thailand and South Korea. Unlike any other place I had visited, Romania had the most profound impact on my journey to compassion for people living in extreme poverty. Remarkably, it was a premature baby that communicated this powerful message of compassion to me.

Under Romania’s former communist dictator, Ceausescu, many abandoned children lived in state-run hospitals. Although the country has implemented new policies and practices to tackle this crisis since Ceausescu’s fall in 1989, it was still very much a problem in 2005 when I visited one of their hospitals. Our team was on a carefully guided tour that day, which meant that we could only use a particular elevator to visit the floor where the children were housed (although, sadly, we knew that what we saw that day weren’t a reflection of the true conditions faced by the children who were housed on other floors).

I didn’t expect compassion to possess me that day, but it did, and it happened as I held a premature baby, whose twin sibling was asleep in another bassinet. The babies were abandoned by their mother shortly after delivering them in that hospital. As a young, idealistic woman, I could not understand how a mother could possibly abandon her two babies in a state-run institution. What I learned that day is that it wasn’t uncommon for a poor woman to check herself out of the hospital and leave her newborn behind.

And in an instant, without a murmur or cry from this baby, the power of compassion possessed me as I held that baby and became proximate to the consequences of extreme poverty. I returned the U.S. and immediately began plans to start a nonprofit organization called The Daniel Society to help poor families live a better life. It would take 10 more years to develop the scope and mission of The Daniel Society, and this is where my faith comes in.

My Judeo-Christian faith has taught me that we are to be kind to the poor. But what does it mean to be kind to “the poor?” For me, it simply means that we have a responsibility to extend this awesome power of compassion to them in practical ways such as providing clothes, food and clean water to them. The Daniel Society will do this through our Refugee Basic Needs Initiative.

Next, we want to welcome the immigrant and make them feel at home in our country. The Daniel Society is designing a Central American Asylum Project to provide pro bono legal services to children fleeing gang violence in their home countries, and a Welcome Home Legal Aid Initiative to assist low-income, immigrant communities in New York City.

My faith has also taught me to take care of the sick. Through our Compassion-In-Action Initiative, The Daniel Society is developing an HIV/AIDS public health initiative for implementation in Zambia, Africa next summer. This initiative will target poor young women, children and incarcerated individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

And last, we want to remember those in prison, and as such, we are tailoring a prisoner reentry program through our Renewed Purpose Initiative. This initiative will teach young men how to reconcile with their family, community and law enforcement.

Eleven years ago when I held that premature abandoned baby, I never imagined that the power of compassion would overtake me and lead me to start The Daniel Society. It seems foolish to think that a baby holds such power. But this is the power of those who are facing extreme poverty. They hold the power to end extreme poverty by imparting compassion that compels others to advocate on their behalf. This is why I am optimistic, and why I believe extreme poverty could end.