Challenging assumptions and broadening perceptions to realize the universality of human rights
The Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights (NUCHR) is dedicated to promoting the universality of human rights, which can only be achieved by recognizing the difficulty in consensus, issues of cultural relativism, and the potential paradoxes between design and implementation.
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News
2.15.2010
RECORDS OF NUCHR 2010 ARE UP!: Find event summaries, photos, videos and powerpoint presentations under "Conference 2010"
1.18.2010
CONFERENCE 2010 BEGINS THIS THURSDAY: "Urban Slums: The Shadow of the Humanitarian Generation" begins Thursday at 8pm at the Owen L. Coon Auditorium in the Kellogg Building. Katherine Sierra from the World Bank will deliver our opening keynote. This event will also be the kick off to NU Stands with Haiti Fundraising Week. Come support not only NUCHR but NU's solidarity with the people of Haiti.
1.10.2010
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE UPDATED: The conference schedule is now updated with times, locations, and speakers under the Conference 2010 section of the Web site.
12.3.2009
THE BLOG IS NOW UP: We've posted the current events we've discussed at our recent general meetings and posts by staff and panelists are to come. Follow our posts to get a feel for the conference topic and add your own comments!
11.29.2009
DELEGATE APPLICATION EXTENSION: The delegate application is now due on Thursday, December 3rd and 5pm.
11.21.2009
SOCIAL EVENT! Celebrate your hard work of the quarter at MK's house!
11.19.2009
SOCIAL EVENT! Another game of capture the flag...yep, still in Tech.
11.11.2009
FALL EVENT HUMAN RIGHTS 101: Our speaking event of the quarter. Legal experts and human rights nonprofit representatives from the Chicago area will tell us what are human rights, whose are they and who protects them.
11.8.2009
DELEGATE APPLICATION: The application is up! Apply to be a delegate for NUCHR 2010 today. Due November 29!
11.6.2009
EXPOSURE TRIP APPLICATION: NUCHR's first annual spring break trip will be to experience slums first hand in Buenos Aires from March 20-27, 2010. Due November 20!
10.15.2009
SOCIAL EVENT! Join us for a game of capture the flag...IN TECH!
9.23.2009
FIRST MEETING OF THE QUARTER: Come hear the new topic and plans for this year. Learn how you can get involved!
Who We Are
Through programming events, seminars, exposure trips and the culminating conference, NUCHR provides a mechanism for critical discourse in order to challenge assumptions and broaden perceptions on international human rights issues at Northwestern and beyond. The three day undergraduate student-organized conference unites student delegates from across the country with distinguished academics, activists and policy-makers from around the globe to address a unique aspect of human rights each year.
Directors 2009-2010
Each spring, the graduating directors appoint successors for the coming year. These rising directors then carry out an application process to determine the remainder of the executive board. Representing a wide range of backgrounds in their interests and skills, this board works together to assemble a topic and organize the next conference.
Mary Katherine Gleissner
Mary Katherine is a senior majoring in Psychology and Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she lived abroad in Egypt for 5 months studying Arabic at the American University in Cairo and filmed a social justice documentary about Islam. She has also worked as a United Nations intern in the West Bank organizing an English camp in the Al-Arroub refugee camp and giving workshops on microfinance topics in several Palestinian refugee camps. She also observed therapy sessions with torture survivors with the Treatment & Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture in 4 different branches in the West Bank. In addition to being one of the Co-Directors of NUCHR 2010, she volunteers as a tutor at the Marjorie Kovler Center for Survivors of Torture in downtown Chicago, and as Vice President of Out-going Exchange in the non-governmental organization AIESEC, she helps send Northwestern students on work abroad. Mary Katherine hopes to advance her Arabic language studies in Washington, D.C after graduation and then to return to Israel and the West Bank to help research post-traumatic stress disorder at Hebrew University.
Julie Kornfeld
Julie is a junior Social Policy and Political Science major with a Global Health minor in the School for Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She originally hails from West Bloomfield, Michigan where her involvement in her Jewish community got her passionate for world-wide human rights. Julie recently spent three months studying abroad in Uganda, where she examined the public health systems of Uganda. While abroad, Julie worked with a local NGO who sheltered street, needy and orphaned children and helped developed a play with them that educates their community about how to treat their children. This past summer Julie interned with Trinity Health, working in their community relations department, helping put on health events for the impoverished surrounding community. Besides being a 2010 Co-Director of NUCHR, Julie is also very involved in her sorority Delta Gamma, the Northwestern Global Engagement Summit and Gung-ho, the Northwestern women’s ultimate Frisbee team. After graduation Julie plans to travel back to Eastern Africa to do research or aid work before getting a law degree focusing on human rights issues.
Diana Nielsen
Diana is a senior Comparative Literature and Philosophy major with a minor in Gender Studies in the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. Diana originally hails from Sacramento, California, but has also lived in Switzerland and Austria. Diana will be working for Professor Scheffer at the Northwestern Law School this summer, and will work specifically researching International Criminal Court proceedings. Diana will spend next fall in Paris studying European Union Studies at Sciences-Po. She will also be working at Lambda Legal in Chicago, where she will help develop educational programming for Lambda Legal’s right to marry campaign. At Northwestern, she also serves as the Co-Director of the Gender Studies Undergraduate Board, the Co-President of the Undergraduate Philosophy Society, and the Rainbow Alliance Community Outreach Chair, as well as being a columnist for the Daily Northwestern. Post-graduation Diana plans to pursue a joint MA in international relations, PhD in political theory, before going to law school.
This Year's Topic
This academic year, the conference will be held from January 21-24, 2010 at the Northwestern University campus in Evanston, Illinois. Entitled "Urban Slums: The Shadow of the Humanitarian Generation,” the topic will examine the phenomenon of urban slums both locally in the United States as well as abroad. We wish to question whether or not the inhabitants of these slums can be guaranteed human rights, and what the responsibility of the international community as well as state sovereigns are to slum populations. Discussions of the recognition of migrant populations, public health, economic development and national sovereignty will be crucial to the topic.
HUMAN RIGHTS 101
Press: Daily Northwestern, "Forum looks to foster human rights activism"
What are they? Whose are they? Who protects them?
Wednesday, November 11
7:30pm
Swift 107
Listen to a panel of speakers discuss their experiences within the local, bilateral and global levels of human rights application.
Panel includes:
Leonard Cavise
An instructor at DePaul University's College of Law, Professor Cavise has a long background in litigation, both criminal and civil, including substantial pro bono litigation. In addition, he has worked in international human rights for many years, including lectures and training sessions in El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Italy, France and other locations throughout the world. Several projects were designed to train Latin American human rights lawyers in the art of trial advocacy. In 1999, he founded the Chiapas Human Rights Practicum and has taken law students to work in human rights offices in Chiapas every year since then. He was the Director of DePaul's Lawyering Skills Program from 1983 until 1990 and currently, he is the Director of the Center for Public Interest Law at DePaul's College of Law. Today he is also involved with a law reform project in Haiti. The project aims to bring Haiti in line with the movement in most other Latin countries to transition their criminal systems (at least) from the European inquisitorial model to the party system (or accusatorial) model.
Kari Kammel
Kari Kammel is the Deputy Executive Director of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul Universitys College of Law. She received her J.D. from DePaul College of Law, cum laude with a specialization in International and Comparative Law; an M.A. in International Human Rights Law from the American University in Cairo, cum laude; and an A.B. with honors from The University of Chicago in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. At DePaul, she was a Senior Text Editor on the DePaul Journal of Healthcare Law, a Health Law Fellow, and a Sullivan Human Rights Law Fellow. She is admitted to the Illinois Bar. She has also researched and published articles relating to the Law and the Middle East.
Doug Schenkelberg
Doug Schenkelberg is the Associate Director of Policy and Advocacy for the organization, Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. In this capacity, he heads the Illinois human rights campaign, From Poverty to Opportunity, which aims to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. In 2008 the Campaign achieved one of its goals in the formation of Illinois' Commission on the Elimination of Poverty, the first of its kind in the nation.
Conference Overview
Day 1
The conference will present delegates with both an analytical framework to examine urban slums and then an opportunity to apply their knowledge to a unique case study. On the first day, the panels will focus on three key themes: the human rights violations that occur within a slum, the forces that maintain slum conditions, and possible solutions for the violations that take place within slums.
The Human Rights Violations Panel will confront the problems slum dwellers face. Panelists will examine issues ranging from a lack of common amenities such as water and electricity to deficiencies in education and the inflation of crime.
The Perpetuating Forces Panel will focus on the factors that maintain slum life. This panel will analyze the tensions between slums and government policies, the effects of globalization and urbanization on the development and growth of slums, and the responsibility of the international community towards slums.
The Solutions Panel will be composed of panelists with a wealth of experience working in urban slums. Through the speakers’ personal stories, this panel will explore different motivations and approaches in addressing the human rights violations of slum dwellers.
In order to incorporate increasing student interest regarding international crisis action, delegates will meet in discussion groups between speaking events. Each group will investigate a world slum scenario using the conference’s themes as guidelines. Encouraging undergraduates to reflect on what they hear broadens their academic foundations and allows for more informed and effective engagement. After further analysis, delegate groups will submit proposals of solutions developed in response to their urban slum scenario. The authors of the best proposal will receive a human rights action grant and will be honored at the closing banquet.
Day 2
Delegates will continue work on their proposals between 2 panels designed to aid the finalizing process.
The Case Study Panel will begin the day examining the slum-like conditions of Chicago. With the conference’s subtitle in mind, we want to illuminate the fact that slums exist everywhere, not only abroad, and to emphasize that human rights work methodology should be applied even in the cities the humanitarian generation springs from. After watching panelists apply the conference framework to Chicago, delegates will have a better understanding of how to approach the action plans within their own proposals.
The Human Rights Youth Leaders panel will then bring together delegates from past NUCHRs who are working in human rights with Northwestern and other Chicago-area university students involved in fields related to urban slums. This panel will give delegates ideas on how to implement what they take from NUCHR 2010 into their university-life as well as into their future careers.
Opening Speech:
Katherine Sierra, VP for Sustainable Development, World Bank
Katherine Sierra, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank opened the Conference telling the directors, I think youre onto something important as more and more people move into urban spaces and more and more of those people are poor. She acknowledged that there are many definitions for slums, but what underlies them is that poverty is urbanizing about one-third of todays urban residents live on less than two dollars a day. Slums develop due to overlapping forces, most prominent of which is bad governmental policies. For example, India refuses to build affordable housing in pursuit of low density in the cities. Instead, sprawl and informal housing arises. In Brazil, the cities are also unprepared for large populations. With poor regulation of land, inhabitants double up, bulid on marginal land and squat on other peoples land. One World Bank initiative works to move those who live in stilted houses in Alagados, Bahia to dry land. It is important to acknowledge how resourceful slum dwellers can be such as those in these stilt communities or those in Bangkok who build on active train tracks and routinely pack up to allow a train to pass.
The World Bank recognizes the right to the city. Slum life is disconnected from the modern age, jobs, adequate water, loans, sports and leisure, citizenship, voice, redress and security. World Banks Voices of the Poor study found that more than good housing and water, participants desired to be heard. With this in mind, eviction is not a solution to the problem of urban slums. It gives the residents no alternative, choice or compensation. All of their assets are in their house and not only physical, but social aspects are destroyed with it. Instead, there needs to be legal and financial reform. For example, Brazil has put into place a city statue law implementing the right to a city. It is a legal framework backed up by the National Social Housing Funds which gives grants to cities to invest in programs. However, the country has still not changed its land laws. World Bank has expanded its lending for financing in the recent years.
Sierra and the World Bank see four most important lessons learned from slum improvement. This first is that long term commitment is paramount. We need to get beyond pilot programs and find a systemic answer to the problem. We need political will, the backing of the local government, policy discussions and a citywide, multiyear program. The second lesson is that there is not a one-size-fits-all plan. Each policy is highly contingent on local people, history and land use plans. We must work with policy analysts and ask the residents what they want. Third, resident participation is the key to impact and sustainability. And fourth, we must view the people as an asset, not a problem. The change agent is the poor.
In conclusion, Sierra encouraged the undergraduate audience to continue learning, volunteer with an NGO and talk to peers and the government to encourage reflection and action.
Click here for more pictures
hilarysilver
Perpetuating Forces Panel:
The goal of the Perpetuating Forces Panel was to focus on the factors that maintain slum life. The speakers were Deborah Martin (associate professor of geography, Clark University), Edward Goetz (Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota), and Mary Wiltenburg (print and multimedia reporter).
Deborah Martin explained that by the UN Habitat definition, 5.8% of the US populations lives in slums. In the United States, slums are not grouped into one sector of a city and therefore less obvious and less visible. Martin would like to see an increase in housing rehabs, as opposed to building new homes.
Edward Goetz argued that the value of housing is distributed in a spatial manner and reflects markets, so if the housing becomes undesirable due to issues such as racial segregation (white flight), then the value of that property falls and the housing becomes an urban slum.
Mary Wiltenburg ended the panel by explaining that the media serves as a unit of storytelling to promote change. She stated that it is difficult to note change when one is not familiar with the people/area one observes.
As a whole, the three panelists used their expertise to explain the perpetuating forces leading to slums and the forces necessary to end slums. The panel, though, did not demonstrate much fluidity taken as a whole, but this result was to be expected since the panels intent was to explain differing perpetuating forces at work in urban slums.
Solutions Panel:
The Solutions Panel was composed of panelists with a wealth of experience working in urban slums. Through the speakers personal stories, this panel explored different motivations and approaches in addressing the human rights violations of slum dwellers. The speakers for the Solutions Panel were Christopher Pablo (Operation Officer at the World Bank in Manila), Mark Kramer (author of Dispossessed: Life in Our Worlds Urban Slums), and Laurie Spengler (President of ShoreBank International).
Chris Pablo stated slum problems in the Philippines revolved around crowded areas, difficulty obtaining goods and services, and few opportunities for social uplift. The Government has no coherent policy for slum upgrading. Going forward, the first step is for the government to recognize that there is a problem, and that it must be part of the national agenda, then the government must bring all the stakeholders to the project, especially the NGOs.
Mark Kramers solution to slums revolves around story telling because storytelling can fight against the lack of awareness, lack of engagement, and lack of motivation to act. Foremost, stories need to go beyond sympathy, focus more on empathy. Slums must also be normalized slums because too often slums are depicted as strange and mysterious places. These principles are concerned with educating people about slums rather than only moving them to feel pity.
Laurie Spengler is the president of Shorebank which links Commercial Banks and MFIs to Slum Dwellers.
Their Commitment is to do small business finance responsibly and profitably. The bank fights slums by offering incremental housing loans. The bank has found that if you divide up a housing loan into smaller pieces, the slum dweller will incrementally refurbish their home, beginning, per se, with plaster on the roof and eventually build a house much more successfully. Also, there is almost complete repayment of the loan; if people want a home and you provide a product that is priced appropriately, repayment rates are very solid.
The three panelists spoke of very distinct solutions to slums which added variety to the issue. This panel worked well in its purpose as a Solutions Panel because there is never only one solution to any problem.
mark kramer ppt
chris pablo-slum upgrading in the philippines
laurie spengler ppt
Urban Slum Chicago
By addressing Chicagos history of racism, severely detrimental housing policies, and the countermeasures taken to combat concentrated poverty in minority communities, panelists Maurice McGough, James E. Rosenbaum, Steven McCullough, and Mary Cahillane, challenged the notion that urban slums are solely the problem of developing nations. Chicago has had, and continues to have, severe problems with race and poverty. As Maurice McGough, director of the Chicago Operations and Compliance Program Center, explained, Traditionally Chicago has been included among the most segregated city in the United States [and] you cannot separate the issue of disinvestment and slums from the issue of race. Up until the early twentieth century, powerhouse organizations, from the Federal Housing Administration to the Homeowners Association, institutionalized housing segregation, creating mass concentrations of severe deprivation and little opportunity. This, according to Stephen McCullough, President and CEO of Bethel New Life, has created severe isolation in Chicago neighborhoods like Garfield Park and Austin, separating mainly minority residents from transportation, industry, retail, service, education, politics, and banking, perpetuating the poverty cycle. In conjunction with McCullough, both James E. Rosenbaum, Professor of Sociology, Education, and Social Policy at Northwestern University, and Mary Cahillane, the Interim Executive Board Chair for ShoreBank, stressed reintegration and asset-based development as the most effective tools in combating urban slums: The bottom line is that there is a lot of potential in [those] that live in the housing projects, but it is potential that you cannot see as long as they are located in housing poverty (Rosenbaum). Rosenbaum explained a successful relocation project that moved 7000 families to predominately white neighborhoods, offering them access to greater opportunity and education. McCulloughs approach, through Bethel New Life, has led to the creation of the Bethel Center in a high-poverty area, offering residents a daycare center, access to banking, a connection to public transportation, and retail space. Through ShoreBank, Cahillane focuses on community development through finance, providing investment opportunities and manageable mortgages to low-income, minority communities. Utilizing asset-based development and by reversing longstanding housing segregation, concentrations of impoverished minorities can be both empowered and reconnected with the city, and urban slums can be converted into productive and diverse areas of growth.
Youth Leaders Panel:
The Youth Leaders Panel highlighted the themes of asset-based development, creative problem solving, heightened awareness, and improved communication through a question and answer approach and featured Meixi Ng of Northwestern University, and three delegates from NUCHR 2009, Mike Wenger of Colgate University, Stephanie Parrish of the University of Michigan, and Benjamin Bechtolsheim of Brandeis University.
Panelists offered advice and explained their past and current human rights involvement as well as their motivations, perspectives, expectations, and future plans. Ng, founder of the Amber Initiative, a youth-led organization that champions human dignity through education, advocacy, and awareness, saw human rights as a huge part of every single day, encouraging students to open their eyes to what is around them and to see people as assets. Wenger added the importance of the communication and technological aspects of human rights work, explaining, There are so many solutions and organizations out there, and all are operating on separate learning curves. Innovations arent being spread, [so] I am working forOpen Action to provide greater transparency and connectivity for greater awareness. One way to reach out, Bechtolsheim explained, is through faith-based organizations: The only institution of any note [in some places] is the faith community. We improve capacity to deliver health and hygiene education practices through this network. Addressing human rights on a more individual level, Parrish, a member of the ONE campaign, stressed empowerment through voice, citing her experience in Kibera, Kenya: The people have good ideas but no access to organizations for grants. I try to give a voice and put voices to statistics so people have access to [aid]. Spread the word! (Parrish). After the panelists finished, Northwestern Globemed representative Peter Luckow spoke about the need of a united response to the crisis in Haiti, calling for both student and faculty involvement, and highlighting the importance of asking critical questions and understanding Haitis current and historical political and economic situation. Along with the other panelists, he established three pillars necessary for human rights work: cooperation and communication, education and awareness, and community empowerment.
Robert Neuwirth stressed the importance of recognizing the people of slums and coming to understand them on a personal basis. Neuwirth suggested that by giving people a voice and engaging with them on their turf, under their conditions, one can create cooperation. It is amazing that the informal economies around the world add up to more than the United States GDP, but it leaves one to wonder, so what? What do we do with that information beyond recognizing it? How can we use it for policy without bringing it into the formal sector? The difference between policymakers and observers of urban slums was made clear. It seemed that the main thing undergraduates could do with their skills is to travel and report back. Later, we will develop legal and financial knowledge that can make the upperlevel legislature, but for now that is inapplicable and in the distance. Is this quitting or giving up when were faced with concepts we dont immediately understand, or is it important to acknowledge our own individual limitations?
Past Conferences
"Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid: Sovereignty, Accountability, and Effectiveness"
Directors: Shalyn Hockey, Hallie Ryan and Sarah Malin
Held from January 22-25, the 2009 conference was based in the context of man-made and natural disaster response. Speakers examined the complexities involved with satisfying the humanitarian imperative and addressed the potential disjuncture between theoretical and realistic humanitarian aid goals. The conference focused on the work of non-governmental organizations and the balance they seek between the ethical responsibility of the international community and the sanctity of state sovereignty.
Nicolas De Torrente, the Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders delivered our opening key note speech and Dirk Salomons, the Director of the Humanitarian Affairs Program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs delivered our closing key note speech on how to successfully withdraw from humanitarian situations. David Kobia, Director of Technology Development at Ushahidi provided a "youth leader" perspective describing the work of his organization that develops technological applications to aid reporting of human rights atrocities as they happen.
The Tensions Between State Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect Panel examined the legal and civic aspects of humanitarian aid initiatives. Tracing the development of the concept of state sovereignty from its origin as political protection for newly independent countries to its relevancy to our topic, this panel examined the argument that the state government has the right to provide its people with disaster relief. However, in light of multiple atrocities where natural disasters become man-made disasters as governments ignore the needs of their people, the argument behind the Responsibility to Protect comes to light where the international community is moved to action. But can this concept be an excuse for imperialism? Balancing the rights to local governance and freedom from foreign intervention with the rights to immediate food, water and shelter will be the focus of this panel. Roberta Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Jim Kolbe, Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Jon Pevehouse, Associate Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago were panelists.
The Accountability and Humanitarian Aid Panel examined the ethical underpinnings of humanitarian aid initiatives. Topics included the search for an overall good, maintaining neutrality, state responsibility, the necessity for sustainability, non-governmental organization (NGO) accountability, the occurrence of conflict exacerbation and more. Robert Ottenhoff, the President and CEO of GuideStar and Alexandru Grigorescu from Loyola University of Chicago spoke on this panel.
The Effectiveness of Humanitarian Aid Panel examined the economic impact of humanitarian aid initiatives. Topics included war economics, economic breakdowns, aid sustainability, economic growth, reliance on foreign resources and more. Suzanne Berman, Field Coordinator for CARE USAs Central Region, Emmanuel Letouze from the UNDP and Victor Tanner, an independent researcher and consultant and part-time employee at Development Alternatives Inc. spoke on this panel.
The Burma Case Study panel criticallyconsidered the humanitarian situation in Burma in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. Joel Charny, Vice President of Policy at Refugees International, Ivan Lupis from the Asia Pacific Section of the UNs Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Mary Callahan, Associate Professor from the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington spoke on the panel.
alexandrugrigorescu_accountability
dirksalomons
joelcharny_burma
effectiveness panel notes
sovereignty panel notes
jonpevehouse_sovereignty
"Globalization and the Universality of Human Rights"
Directors: Gauthami Soma and Elizabeth Nielsen
The Conference examined the impact of globalizing forces on the tension between cultural relativism and the universality of human rights in four key areas: cultural and religious tensions, multinational corporations, international justice, and health.
Keynote speakers included Nicholas Kristof, Sheri Fink and Mark Hanis.
Since NUCHR was founded in 2004, topics have included torture, human trafficking, American policy towards HIV and AIDS in the developing world, and American interventionist policy abroad. We have featured distinguished speakers such as Romeo Dallaire, Richard Holbrooke, Bernard Kouschner, Stephen Lewis, John Miller, and Cherif Bassiouni. This year, we have decided to expand the scope of our discussion to incorporate the increasingly pervasive phenomenon of independent student interest and mobilization towards international crisis action. Encouraging undergraduates to reflect and broaden their academic foundations on this topic will allow for more effective initiative and engagement.
Delegates can access the Delegate Discussion Forum here
Learning from Slums
As opposed to reviewing the negative attributes of slums, this article highlighted the positive aspects. Notable topics in this article include the resourcefulness of the people who live in slums, slums' proximity to cities and thus their economic advantage over subsistence farming, their ecologically friendly nature, their strong sense of community and as a result relatively low crime rates. This new framework for viewing slums has prompted some architects, philanthropists, and researchers to "mitigate the problems with slums rather than eliminate the slums themselves." However, the article still acknowledges some of the negative aspects to this approach, such as its expense, which is arguably higher than simply "building a new settlement with infrastructure in place from the outset."
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/01/learning_from_slums/
Barack Obama and Shorebank in Kenya
This video discusses the slums that Senator Barack Obama visited several years ago in Kenya. The video focuses on Shore Bank, a Chicago community bank, that has started making loans to people in slums with the hope that these people will be able to bring themselves up and out of poverty. Shore bank does not expect to end poverty quickly. The long-term goal is to make change possible for the next generation. This brought up questions of whether this prolonged approach to reducing poverty was the most effective method.
http://www.facebook.com/ShoreBank?ref=search&sid=1233660030.3217774637..1
Organ Trade Thrives in Indian Slums
Organ transplantation in urban slums is a serious issue that raises many ethical concerns. Heres how it works: Poor slum-dwellers will sell their kidney or another organ to an organ trader for a small price. The organ trader turns around and sells this kidney to a hospital at a significant markup, pocketing the profits. The amount of money the slum-dweller receives for the kidney is usually only enough to pay off short-term debts, leaving the person worse off in the long run. Questions have been raised about whether the coercive nature of these transactions is a violation of human rights. On the other hand, others argue that prohibiting people from selling their organs may also be a violation of human rights.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,488281,00.html
Jakarta Faces Swelling Population and Shortfall of Proper Housing
Jakarta is currently facing a multitude of problems as the city, designed to accomodate 800,000 people, is host to an estimate of 12 million people during the work week. The city continues to attract large numbers of people, whom they're able to offer job opportunities but not housing, and thus slums continue to develop. The problems encountered and solutions pondered by the city of Jakarta in the case of slums is telling of the experience many cities face with urban planning. One of the most controversial decisions cities face is whether to tear down the slums and relocate the inhabitants or to improve the conditions in the slum. This article discusses a situation in which Jakarta successfully relocated inhabitants but also provides cautions to tearing down rather than improving slums.
http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/jakarta-faces-swelling-population-and-shortfall-of-proper-housing/339472
Foreign Policy Photo Essay: Planet Slum
Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen spent six weeks living in the slums of Nairobi, then Caracas, Mumbai, and Jakarta. His remarkable panoramic images take us inside slum families' lives, revealing the profound human impulse to fashion not only shelter but a home.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/03/planet_slum?page=0,0
2009
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