Featured series 
Tag: Poverty
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Nation & World
‘Dirty Work’
As reports of the subprime mortgage meltdown continue, an exhibition on view through March 16 in Gund Hall Gallery highlights a real estate crisis of an altogether different sort. A third of the world’s city dwellers — 1 billion people — live in shantytowns.
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Nation & World
Calderón cites nation’s progress
The election that put Felipe Calderón Hinojosa into office as the president of Mexico was a real squeaker — the closest vote in the modern history of his country. It took a couple of months for the federal electoral tribunal to certify him as the winner. Even then his chief opponent wouldn’t concede. An hour…
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Nation & World
Community Gifts supports work of local environmental rights group
This is the first in a series of Gazette articles highlighting some of the many initiatives and charities that Harvard affiliates can support through this month’s Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign. The Community Gifts campaign allows you to donate to a charity of your choice through cash, a check, or a payroll deduction. For more…
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Nation & World
Closing the ‘achievement gap’
The achievement gap in American K-12 schools is well-documented, and is characterized by racial and class differences.
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Nation & World
1.8 million veterans lack health coverage
Of the 47 million uninsured Americans, one in every eight (12.2 percent) is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance who are also Harvard Medical School researchers. The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Approximately 1.8…
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Nation & World
Improving child survival around the globe is key goal of United Nations
Reducing child mortality rates for children under 5 — which in 2004 was 6.5 (per 1,000 children annually) in Latin America and the Caribbean, about 20 in South Asia, and 39 in sub-Saharan Africa — is one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals were established at the beginning of this decade…
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Nation & World
Improving women’s health key Indian strategy
Detailed research of Indian health disparities has revealed that significant differences in access to health care exist even within families, with the health and nutrition of women and girls taking a backseat to that of men and boys.
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Nation & World
Chidambaram talks about ‘rich poor’ India
At 60 years old, India is a young nation. It is also a country that is both rich and poor.
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Nation & World
Nobel laureate Yunus gives Wiener Lecture
On Oct. 13, economist and microfinancing pioneer Muhammad Yunus stood in front of a cheering capacity crowd at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. One year earlier, to the day, he had received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize — news that Yunus said “exploded with happiness all over Bangladesh.”
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Nation & World
Wade hails ‘African renaissance’
His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade, president of the Republic of Senegal, visited Harvard last week (Sept. 27). Looking younger than his 81 years, he walked onto the stage at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum to the sound of a tama, a West African “talking drum” used to telegraph complex messages.
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Nation & World
New index quantifies performance of governments
“All citizens of all countries desire to be governed well.” That plain statement — universal and self-evident — is the first sentence of a Harvard-generated report released this week in London. According to its authors, it is the first attempt in the world to systematically and objectively quantify governance.
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Nation & World
Farmer, Magaziner: Get involved!
Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer and Ira Magaziner, a one-time policy adviser in the Clinton White House, brought humor, counsel, and cautions to a public conversation on student engagement Sept. 20.
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Nation & World
Changes to system and self necessary for health reform
Major changes, including personal and market-based reforms, are needed in order to bring health coverage to every American, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told an audience at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Tuesday (Sept. 25).
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Nation & World
Versatile vocalist Mahogany headlines benefit at Sanders
Local fans of jazz and blues will soon have a chance to hear some of the most talented and admired performers in those genres and to help the homeless as well.
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Nation & World
First class of Ruffolo Fellows introduced at Kennedy School ceremony
A ceremony was held Sept. 21 at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) announcing the establishment of the Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowships in Sustainability Science and introducing the first Ruffolo Fellows to the Harvard community.
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Nation & World
The rights of children are focus of Bar Association conference at HLS
In the United States, a child is born into poverty every 36 seconds. Every six hours, an American child dies of neglect or abuse. And every year, the number of children in abuse investigations could populate a city the size of Detroit.
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Nation & World
Food, sex conference draws SRO crowds
Money. Race. Health. War. That list of potent topics summarizes the first four years of conferences on gender sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. This year’s gender conference (April 12 and 13) added a fifth topic: food, which by some accounts has elements of all the others combined.
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Nation & World
Through a child’s eye
At first glimpse, the photos don’t seem particularly revealing: a fish on a plate, a television, clean dishes on a rack, a toddler with outstretched arms, a lighted porch. But to Wendy Luttrell, these pictures — and 1,600 others like them in her data base at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) — open…
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Nation & World
The achievement gap, a look into causes
Paul Tough’s prescription for making children better students sounds like a license to have fun: Read to them, sing, play, emphasize encouragement over criticism, and converse a lot. Research shows a correlation between how many words a child hears in the first three years of life and brain development, he said. The more words, the…
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Nation & World
Wilson urges alliance to save species
Edward O. Wilson sees a future in which science and religion join forces to save the natural world. Without such an alliance, said the legendary Harvard biologist and author, an alternative future is in store for the human race: one of accelerating environmental cataclysm fueled by overpopulation, deforestation, declining fisheries, and climate change.
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Nation & World
Poor fall behind in birth control
Modern contraception has come a long way in the past 20 years, what with diaphragms, hormones, implants, intrauterine devices, condoms, spermicides, and sterilization. But the boom in birth control has been a bust for the poorest women in the world.
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Nation & World
HBS models look for new markets while serving the global poor
At $55 a copy, “Business Solutions for the Global Poor” (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) won’t be a hot seller in what economists call the base of the pyramid (BOP). That’s the informal, localized, and little-known stratum of the global market in which 80 percent of humanity – living on an average of $700 a…
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Nation & World
Heat waves deadliest for blacks, diabetics
Heat waves, like the one that scorched the country in July, are more deadly for some people than for others. Poor blacks and diabetics fare the worst. As you might guess, extreme heat is also hard on the elderly. But as you might not guess, extreme cold has a greater impact.