Blog Action Day 2011 #BAD11

Today is Blog Action Day. Yesterday I was redecorating my kitchen and didn't get to have lunch because 1)  I was busy painting and 2) the cupboards were all covered with splash sheets and I couldn't get to the fridge. By 5pm I was very, very hungry. I did not enjoy the hungry feeling and could not wait for food.

I woke this morning and remembered it was Blog Action Day and World Food Day. I started my breakfast with a lovely cup of hot clean water and then had some cereal. I turned on the TV to check the news and watched an interview with a representative from the Red Cross on Sky News. I scribbled down these statistics:

There are 13 million hungry in East Africa today.
They spend 80% of their income on basic food.

It's only been an hour or so but already I want a cup of tea and my toast to finish my breakfast routine. How wrong is this inequality? I could not imagine having to go without food everyday. The Blog Action Day focus on food has made me think.

In St Wolstans we deliver a Development Education programme in Religion with the help of Self Help Africa and Mr Patsy Toland, so I turned to the Self Help Africa website for some inspiration.

Here it is - It starts with a seed.




@blogactionday11

#BAD11

#WorldFoodDay

Taking part in Blog Action Day - Water

Here are some facts from the Self Help Africa booklet on Water.


The Bigger Picture:
The amount of water in the world has not changed but due to pollution the quantity available has reduced by 30% since 1970.

In the meantime the numbers using the worlds water has increased dramatically. In the year 2000 the figure passed 6 billion – by the year 2050 the projected figure is 9 billion.

Today, more than 10 conflicts in the world are linked to water in Turkey, India, Egypt, Israel and other countries.

In the Antarctic an ice shelf (the size of Luxembourg) called the Larsen B came adrift from the mainland. It had been there for the last 12,000 years and it disintergrated over a period of 35 days.

If ice caps continue to melt at their present rate then within 10 years 17% of the land of Bangladesh will be under water, displacing 27 million people and the area of land available to produce food to feed a growing population will be further under threat.

In the developed industrialised countries of the world 60-80% of the water is used in industry.
In developing countries only 10% is used in industry.

1,000 litres of water are used in the making of 1 car.
9 litres of water are used in the making of 1 bar of chocolate.

Within 10 years 1 billion people could be given access to clean, safe water for less than the world now spends on weapons in 90 hours.

So these facts may have given you something to think about.....
How important is water to us?
How well do we use it?
How can we protect it?

A Village in Africa blog

Follow journalist Ciara Kenny as she spends a month in Africa for Self Help Africa and updates her blog each day.

TY's might find this useful for Religion or their Geography project. I know a few TY's were planning on volunteering while on their virtual round the world trip!

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/avillageinafrica/

TY's collect for Self Help Africa

Eileen just sent in this report......

Yesterday morning, Sunday 14th February Robin, Eimear and myself collected money outside the church in Celbridge in aid of Self Help Africa. We collected for about 2 hours and people were extremely generous. We had great fun while collecting for a great cause. We were glad we could help out and get involved through TY.

It was a pity it had to rain towards the end :)

Eileen :)

Self Help Church Gate Collection

Some students are giving their time this weekend to help Patsy Toland with the Kildare area Church Gate collection in aid of Self Help Africa. Patsy has given us a lot of help with our Towards 2015 book project so it's nice to be able to return the favour:)

Once again, thanks to everyone who has volunteered and to Grainne Clarke for organising the teams.
Mrs L

Development Education workshops

On the 30th of November we all hopped on a bus to Maynooth but we nearly had to postpone the trip because of the terrible floods that occurred the night before. In the end we got to NUI Maynooth.

For the workshops we got split into 3 groups and put into different rooms for different talks. The first talk we got was about HIV and AIDS. Two women from Uganda and Tanzania came to talk about the dangers of the disease and how to prevent it.

The 2nd talk was about all the problems in the world today like drought, famine, inequality and disease.

The 3rd talk was by Darren Irvine from Schools Across Borders which we have already heard from. He talked about the conflict on Palestine and Israel.

The day was organised by Self Help Africa and the Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium, NUIM. It was very beneficial. Thanks to Patsy Toland, Self Help Africa, and Joe Clowry, CDPC, for organising it.

Nicolle