Blog Archive
Working to Save Africa’s Rich Biodiversity
February 25th, 2010The United Nations has named 2010 International Biodiversity Year, acknowledging the continued loss of plant and animal species around the world from population growth, urbanization, deteriorating habitats, invasive species, and more. Last year, the U.N. reported that 17,000 animal and plant species are at risk of extinction and some 60 percent of our planet’s ecosystems [...]
PBS Turns a Much-Needed Spotlight on Maternal Health Risks in the Wake of the Haiti Earthquake
January 29th, 2010It isn’t surprising that a team from the PBS newsmagazine NOW turned to Ann Starrs, president and cofounder of Family Care International, when it wanted to better understand why women in Haiti have the highest rate of death in childbirth in the Western Hemisphere and what some 63,000 pregnant Haitian women now face in the [...]
Alternatives to Orphanages Bring Hope to Africa’s Vulnerable Children
December 19th, 2009The United Nations estimates that more than 55 million African children have lost one parent and that almost 15 million of them have lost a parent to AIDS. Orphanages are often seen as a solution for these orphaned and vulnerable children. In a recent article in the New York Times, Celia Dugger suggests an alternative. [...]
For Aid for Africa Members, Every Day is World AIDS Day
December 1st, 2009Two-thirds of the people in the world living with HIV and AIDS are in Sub Saharan Africa. In its 2009 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, UNAIDS found that more than 22 million people in the region have HIV/AIDS. In 2008, 1.4 million people in the region died of AIDS and almost 2 million became [...]
Surviving Drought through Small Businesses
November 19th, 2009According to Reuters some 23 million people are in need of food aid in East Africa because of severe drought. Last month the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development asked the international community for aid to feed 6.2 million people affected by the drought. In Kenya, hundreds of thousands of cattle and goats have [...]
The Nobel Economics Prize and Africa
October 14th, 2009Tapping Elinor Ostrom as one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics is exciting for anyone interested in issues of saving forests, wildlife conservation, agricultural development, and environmental protection—all of critical importance in Africa. Aid for Africa members bring to life the ideas and principles Ostrom identified about how people come together to [...]
Strengthening Women’s Healthcare to Stem Rising Preterm Births
October 7th, 2009A new study by the March of Dimes with the World Health Organization finds that globally each year almost 13 million babies are born prematurely—one of every ten newborns. Four million of these preterm babies die in their first month of life. And those who do not die face lives of impairment. In Africa, the [...]
The Power of Books
October 1st, 2009Today’s Diane Rehm radio program featured the amazing story of a 14-year-old boy from Malawi, William Kamkwamba, who taught himself how to build a windmill out of garbage, bringing light to his remote village and transforming the lives of everyone in it. For us, the most notable piece of the story, featured in the new [...]
Aid for Africa Launches New Web Site
September 24th, 2009Today, Aid for Africa announces the launch of its new web site. We hope this site will be a resource for those looking to support the causes – clean water, sustainable agricultural development, and the health of women and children, and others — that are so crucial to Sub Saharan Africa’s growth and prosperity.
Whether it [...]