Addressing Poverty

[Victor Strange]

Our goal at Peace Portal is to expand economic opportunity by connecting projects which bring Access, Markets, and Community to those in need. Prosperity Program is designed to expand opportunity for those in, or at risk of, persistent poverty via programs that: increase income security, help people connect to the globalized information age labor market, protect their earnings from theft, and enable them to advance into a more sustainable lifestyle.

Escaping persistent poverty is a daunting challenge, particularly those in third world countries where government assistance is essentially impossible. It is private non-profit groups which provide the majority of services to the most impoverished people;

Doctors without Borders & Red Cross provide health services, Room To Read educational services, ManyOne Foundation a public Internet Utility, and many faith based Missions help by bringing food, building shelters, setting up solar power, and most importantly with water projects. Through cooperative humanitarian outreach and effective programs that provide fishing poles instead of donating a fish, such as the FDU Game, many impoverished families can succeed in entering the Information Age labor market thereby building digital earnings and assets, and prospering from the growing global digital economy of the Internet.


Objectives in Addressing Poverty
Income Security: To improve income security and wealth based on non-natural resources (such as shooting a Lion video, instead of the Lion for his skin,) by advancing policies and programs designed to increase income and assets even for those not utilizing tools of the information age.

Reducing Barriers to Self-Employment using the Internet: To reduce barriers to employment by offering opportunities for self-created jobs over the internet, direct exchange of hand-crafted goods, an unencumbered currency that has no debt repayment responsibilities, and support for no cost Access Points which facilitate entrance into the digital market for the most impoverished Users.

[leehoward]

it seems we should change the marketing tag to:

war on poverty

not

war of terror

with the financial collapse, we are freed to begin again. There will be no recovery, there will only be us, re imagining what life on this planet can , and some say, should look like. Instead of chains, we can give ourselves wings

leehoward
bassiste/human
http://architectsofanewdawn.ning.com/profile/leehoward

[Peace Portal]

Well said Lee, we can have wings - we already have them all we need do is use them - our wings are our Free Will, our ability to choose something new, create something new, and start taking Self-Response-Ability for our world.

Thanks to Victor too for the post about Peace Portal, we truly appreciate all you and the Foundation are doing to support our work. Be well, be blessed.

[Peace Portal]

Charities can help, try the Peace Portals Charity Fund Raiser that Pays YOU!!!
I love a win-win.

[Deborah J. Boyd]

I am so glad to see this posting. I applaud you. Poverty exists because it benefits the wealthy. As long as there are starving people they will work for food and little else. Employers use them as examples. If the worker doesn't like the job they have or the pay they get, they too might become poor. With all the technology we have today we can surely eliminate poverty if we really work together.
Please let me know where I can be of help. Love, Deborah
[e-mail]

[Ian Bentley]

Rob Veldt is moderator of the group, ThinkTankThursday, on Linkedin. Rob challenged his group to brainstorm the problem of poverty and to collectively agree on an innovative project that the group as a whole could implement.

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers&dis...

Unfortunately the challenge has not as yet elicited the level of response that such an important issue deserves. I’m hoping that I can help to trigger a greater level of participation by sharing my own thoughts on a possible project which I believe can truly make a difference …

I live in Africa, and my proposed project, of necessity, addresses the kind of poverty inherent in the under-developed post-colonial countries in the sub-Saharan region. It takes cognizance of a diverse range of issues – including culture, values, resources, skills, etc.

If I examine the sub-Saharan reality (and this no doubt would also apply in a number of other geographic locations around the world), I immediately see one unique resource that could, under properly controlled and well-managed circumstances, contribute towards improving the lives of both the local people and the world population at large.

The region represents a veritable treasure chest containing a rich and wondrous variety of herbal cures. This vast array of traditional medicines is believed by millions of people to work ... and many of them have proved remarkably effective in preventing and/or curing any number of diseases and other maladies.

This potential has already been (albeit only to a very limited degree) commercially exploited … but by Western commercial interests with the end result that the local people have seldom benefited in any tangible way.

That treasure chest is faced with one small problem ... it has a time-lock …
and Humanity is gradually allowing the keys to disappear before our collectively uncomprehending eyes.

The reason is that the guardians of those keys are gradually dying off … and taking this priceless and timeless knowledge with them to the grave. Tragically, much of it is already lost.

What remains of this precious treasure is dwindling with every passing day … its survival undercut by the relentless advance of Western commercialism.

It is an emergency … this knowledge (and along with it a vast number of plant species) must be preserved – no matter what the cost.

My proposal to the members of ThinkTankThursday is to devise a way of collecting what still remains of that dwindling reservoir of knowledge … and then develop a very smart method to enable each affected community (who, let's face it, are the successors and rightful heirs to this knowledge) to cultivate and commercially exploit these species …
- For the benefit of the people and the survival of their respective cultures,
- For the protection and ultimately the survival of many plant species, and
- For the collective good of the people and ultimately of the planet.

Assembling that information presents a daunting logistical challenge. However the problem is dwarfed by a far more complex one – how to persuade the (rightfully) suspicious guardians of this knowledge to part with it.

If you have any brilliant ideas as to how this could be done, please share them!