Blog #7- India

For this week's blog post, I decided to cover the topic of ending poverty. Sustainable Development Goal #3 is to Ensure Healthy Lives and Promote Well-Being for All Ages. There isn't a specific target in SDG #3 that covers poverty on its own, however, i believe part of health and well being means having no poverty. The country I decided to cover for this week is India.

While doing my research for this week's post I found a Not-for-profit organization called Care India. Care India is an organization whose goal is to alleviate poverty and social injustice. I like that they have both a vision and mission statement on their website.

     Their vision statement: "We seek a world of hope, tolerance, and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security" (About Care India, 2019).

     Their mission statement: "Care India helps alleviate poverty and social exclusion by facilitating empowerment of women and girls from poor and marginalized communities (About Care India, 2019).

Photo accessed from: https://www.careindia.org/photo-gallery/

One of the projects Care India has in ending poverty is the Madhya Pradesh Nutrition Project. This project aims to: 

-Reduce malnutrition in children due to poverty

-Raise awareness about malnutrition in communities dealing with poverty

-Strengthen governance in India on ending malnutrition 

Care India works hand-in-hand with the Madhya Pradesh Nutrition Project to educate, counsel and motivate families to get out of extreme poverty. The three main districts in Madhya Pradesh that are part of the project are Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh, and Panna- all in Bundelkhand region.

India overall is a huge country. There are an estimated 1.3 Billion people living in India in 2019. In January of 2016, about 6.6% of their population(over 86,843,300 people) were considered to be in extreme poverty. Just 3 years later in January 2019, that number has dropped to 3.3% (45,012,115 people) living in extreme poverty (World Poverty Clock, 2019). This is significant progress that is is on track to continue in progress until there is no more extreme poverty in India.

Citations: 

“About Care India - The NGO Focusing on Ending Poverty and Social Injustice.” CARE India, www.careindia.org/who-we-are/.

“Madhya Pradesh Nutrition Project.” CARE India, www.careindia.org/project/madhya-pradesh-nutrition-project/.

Blog #6-Germany

For my blog post this week, I decided to chose a topic that is important worldwide...Air Pollution. Specifically, I will focus on how Germany is doing their part to have clean air quality throughout their country. Part of target 3.9 is to improve air quality and reduce mortality rates due to air pollution. No one should die or get sick because they don't have clean air to breathe.

Emissions are things like Nitrogen Gas (N2) and Nitrogen Oxide (NO). When these two gases are combined (NOx) they contribute to air smog and pollution which not only affects the air, but the humans that are breathing the air to live (Pollutants Produced by a Car Engine, 2019).

One strategy Germany is putting into place is the Berlin Low Emission Zone. The Berlin Low Emission Zone is the center of Berlin. They have a sticker system that determines a vehicle's emission status. Red being the worse, yellow needing improvement and green being emission friendly. Only vehicles that are approved with a green sticker are allowed to drive and park throughout the city.If a vehicle produces too much diesel soot they will not be allowed to park or drive throughout the city (The Low-Emission Zone/State of Berlin, 2019). The main goal is for everyone to get their vehicles up to date so that the city has less air pollution from old or run-down vehicles that produce a lot of soot.

Some progress has been made to get more people to be considerate of their vehicles emissions when they purchase them. More people are starting to realize the importance of having a low emission vehicle because of the need to drive through the low emission zones. When they buy their vehicles, they tend to look for "Smart Cars" and Eco-friendly makes and models. However some progress still needs to be done to get away from the BMW's and Volkswagen's that are very popular throughout Germany. There are still people who want the luxury models that aren't necessarily Eco-friendly. It will be up to the people of Germany to decide if they will make smarter decisions concerning their air quality.

Photo accessed from: https://www.berlin.de/senuvk/umwelt/luftqualitaet/umweltzone/index_en.shtml

Citations:

Christian Schwägerl, et al. “In Drive to Cut Emissions, Germany Confronts Its Car Culture.” Yale E360, e360.yale.edu/features/in-drive-to-cut-emissions-germany-confronts-its-car-culture.

"Environmental Protection." The Low-emission Zone / State of Berlin. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2019.

Blog #5- Australia

For this week's blog, I chose Australia. There were a few different things I wanted to focus on. They all fall under the category of improving maternal health (Target 3.1.1) and lowering the mortality rates of children and infants (Target 3.2.1). 

Australia hopes to invest  A$1.6 Billion to help maternal and children health. This investment with go to providing health care services towards women on any point in motherhood.

The Australian Government's Department of Health plays a role in making sure each state is not only improving, but also maintaining their Maternal Health Services. One way they are doing that is through the Pregnancy Care Guidelines. The Australian government came up with a set of guidelines for health care providers to use to help their pregnant patients. The Pregnancy Care Guidelines encourage doctors to provide routine screenings, tests, and any necessary health prevention so that each pregnancy is as healthy as possible (Pregnancy Care Guidelines, 2019). One great thing about the Pregnancy Care Guidelines is that it gives doctors a list of tests they can do depending on which stage of pregnancy their patient is in. It also gives the doctors common conditions to watch for and even gives them advice to help a patient who may have any social or emotional issues with their pregnancy.

Photo Accessed from: https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/social-and-emotional-screening

Pregnant women are not the only mothers that will be receiving help. Australia wants to improve maternal health on women with young children and under-5-aged infants. In 2017, more than 300,000 women gave birth in Australia. This means there are a lot of young children to keep healthy. Out of the 300,000 pregnancies, 1 out of 10 involved a mother who smoked(Pregnancy, Birth, and Baby, 2019). Australia is trying to stop mothers from smoking while pregnant. Australia's Department of Health is working on broadcasting their research in hopes of stopping pregnant women from smoking. Some of the main points they have come up with are that smoking while pregnant can cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the baby being premature and/or underweight, and even the baby developing lung problems such as asthma. Within the next few years, the goal is to have 0 pregnant women or mothers of young infants smoking at all. 

Citations

Australia will invest around US$1.5 billion (A$1.6 billion) over the five years to 2015 on interventions evidence shows will improve maternal and child health outcomes - United Nations Partnerships for SDGs platform. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=1114.

Australian Government Department of Health. (2019, November 5). Pregnancy, birth and baby. Retrieved from https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/pregnancy-birth-and-baby.