Wednesday, July 25, 2007
New Canadians
Ever since the day I wrote this post, I've been thinking a lot about challenges facing New Canadians, especially those who are coming to Canada as refugees or who come in hopes of escaping poverty.
A friend and colleague recently introduced me to William. William is one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" and moved to Canada seven or eight years ago.
William has been running an all volunteer-run after-school tutoring program for African kids who are falling behind in school. And here's but one example of the problems facing New Canadians: Kids coming from other countries are assigned to school based on their age. So a 13 year-old kid who has just arrived from Sudan is being put in the same grade as a kid who has lived here all their life. That would be no problem if Sudan taught the same things and had the same level of education as Canada but how likely is that? Never-mind homework! Homework is at least somewhat reliant on having a parent able to oversee, assist or at least encourage the child in their studies but many of the parents of these kids never had the opportunity to be educated, leaving the kid alone to study and figure it out. What good is the chance at a new life if they're not supported with the basic ingredients needed to have a chance at succeeding in the new life??
So that's part of the problem. Here's part of the solution: William has been organizing a volunteer-run tutoring program for New Canadian kids struggling at school. According to him, it's pretty ad-hoc and in need of more tutors and in need of a permanent space (the church that they have been using gave notice that they can no longer host the group for free) but from my conversations with William and others like him, I'm beginning to come to a few distinct opinions that I'm going to share in separate blog entries this week.
In summary:
I'm going to argue that it might be a better "investment" for us to focus on the New Canadians arriving here from lives of poverty and conflict;
For those that don't give abroad because "charity begins at home," I'll outline a "two for the price of one offer" (horribly crass but used with the intent to provoke);
I'll expand on what I think is an evolution from "Immigrant" to "New Canadian" to "Canadian" and provide an argument that if we make the investment in the resources needed to make the transition to "Canadian" that we'll create new capital (financial and human capital) that will find its way overseas to address international development issues;
And finally, I'll try and express my thinking around the concept of "business planning" for giving.
Please join the discussion.
A friend and colleague recently introduced me to William. William is one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" and moved to Canada seven or eight years ago.
William has been running an all volunteer-run after-school tutoring program for African kids who are falling behind in school. And here's but one example of the problems facing New Canadians: Kids coming from other countries are assigned to school based on their age. So a 13 year-old kid who has just arrived from Sudan is being put in the same grade as a kid who has lived here all their life. That would be no problem if Sudan taught the same things and had the same level of education as Canada but how likely is that? Never-mind homework! Homework is at least somewhat reliant on having a parent able to oversee, assist or at least encourage the child in their studies but many of the parents of these kids never had the opportunity to be educated, leaving the kid alone to study and figure it out. What good is the chance at a new life if they're not supported with the basic ingredients needed to have a chance at succeeding in the new life??
So that's part of the problem. Here's part of the solution: William has been organizing a volunteer-run tutoring program for New Canadian kids struggling at school. According to him, it's pretty ad-hoc and in need of more tutors and in need of a permanent space (the church that they have been using gave notice that they can no longer host the group for free) but from my conversations with William and others like him, I'm beginning to come to a few distinct opinions that I'm going to share in separate blog entries this week.
In summary:
I'm going to argue that it might be a better "investment" for us to focus on the New Canadians arriving here from lives of poverty and conflict;
For those that don't give abroad because "charity begins at home," I'll outline a "two for the price of one offer" (horribly crass but used with the intent to provoke);
I'll expand on what I think is an evolution from "Immigrant" to "New Canadian" to "Canadian" and provide an argument that if we make the investment in the resources needed to make the transition to "Canadian" that we'll create new capital (financial and human capital) that will find its way overseas to address international development issues;
And finally, I'll try and express my thinking around the concept of "business planning" for giving.
Please join the discussion.
Labels: canada, charity, development, immigration, international, migrantworkers, refugee
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Abortion in Uganda
From Pig-e-Banks to Abortion in Uganda. I just found this interesting article online and I thought it would be interesting to get readers comments on it.
If you're a "lurker" on this blog, I'd really like to hear from you.
While in Uganda, I read in New Vision (a local newspaper in Uganda and the source of the article I have linked to), that the Uganda parliament was debating whether to legalize abortion in Uganda.
One of the Millennium Development Goals is to "reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio" in the world. Given that most all agree that a significant contributor to Maternal mortality is complications that stem from crude abortions.
This New Vision article I read tonight quotes a consultant gynecologist at Mulago hospital who said that "775,000 Ugandan women aged between 15 and 49 have unintended pregnancies every year and 297,000 have induced abortions." That number could be much higher given the primitive means of self-administered or crude intervention abortions that lead to severe injury and death to the woman that never receive medical attention and thus might never be counted as part of that statistic.
The Ugandan government is divided on whether to legalize and in what scenarios legalization occurs. In the same article, the gynecologist is quoted as saying "abortion was morally bad but because of the many deaths involved, it had to be thought about seriously and interventions made."
Clearly, reducing maternal mortality is a worthy goal. And, it stands to reason that one of the contributing causes of maternal mortality is death from crude abortions.
Should Uganda legalize abortion? Would legalizing it actually make a difference to those who need it most, the poor, rural women who will otherwise try to abort using crude techniques?
Would a medical NGO (especially one with US ties) dare to carry out proper abortions as part of a plan to reduce maternal mortality?
Does the "right to life" argument hold as true if the life in question is doomed to absolute impoverishment?
I want to hear from you.
If you're a "lurker" on this blog, I'd really like to hear from you.
While in Uganda, I read in New Vision (a local newspaper in Uganda and the source of the article I have linked to), that the Uganda parliament was debating whether to legalize abortion in Uganda.
One of the Millennium Development Goals is to "reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio" in the world. Given that most all agree that a significant contributor to Maternal mortality is complications that stem from crude abortions.
This New Vision article I read tonight quotes a consultant gynecologist at Mulago hospital who said that "775,000 Ugandan women aged between 15 and 49 have unintended pregnancies every year and 297,000 have induced abortions." That number could be much higher given the primitive means of self-administered or crude intervention abortions that lead to severe injury and death to the woman that never receive medical attention and thus might never be counted as part of that statistic.
The Ugandan government is divided on whether to legalize and in what scenarios legalization occurs. In the same article, the gynecologist is quoted as saying "abortion was morally bad but because of the many deaths involved, it had to be thought about seriously and interventions made."
Clearly, reducing maternal mortality is a worthy goal. And, it stands to reason that one of the contributing causes of maternal mortality is death from crude abortions.
Should Uganda legalize abortion? Would legalizing it actually make a difference to those who need it most, the poor, rural women who will otherwise try to abort using crude techniques?
Would a medical NGO (especially one with US ties) dare to carry out proper abortions as part of a plan to reduce maternal mortality?
Does the "right to life" argument hold as true if the life in question is doomed to absolute impoverishment?
I want to hear from you.
Labels: abortion, africa, international, politics, uganda, womensrights
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