capabilitiescoalition - Tumblr blog

[capabilitiescoalition]

Elizabeth Warren has a plan to make college “debt-free.”

In May, presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill calling for public colleges and universities nationwide to offer free tuition to students. Less than a month later, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has managed to out-do him. Her plan starts with the federal government partnering with states in funding.

[capabilitiescoalition]

Using the sun to power vaccines & communities - a grandfather’s perspective

Modibo Dicko

Modules and systems (lighting, battery-charging and pumping systems) that use solar power can now be seen on sale in every market and in use in households and fields across developing countries just as any other common consumer goods. So it is very surprising to see how much policy and decision-makers of the energy sector in the developing world continue to think about solar energy like grandfathers!

I am now a grandfather, but in the 80s I was a young civil servant working in a research laboratory in Bamako, Mali. Solar panels were then very costly. Since then, more than 40-fold decrease in cost occurred! Yet policy and decision makers continue to think solar is too expensive as I used to do in the 80s. 

The first solar refrigerators that we received for testing in Bamako came from NASA: solar refrigeration was really “rocket science”!

An example of a modern solar fridge used for vaccines in DRC. Photo: Gavi/Phil Moore. 

At that time, the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) was the only health program that reached out to populations in the most remote rural areas – those that typically lack grid electricity. Vaccines were the health products “par excellence” which needed refrigeration. Therefore, it was decided to use solar refrigerators for vaccine storage only. Rules were enacted to prevent storing other products in refrigerators and using electricity from their batteries for other purposes. Batteries were the “weakest link” of the first generation solar refrigeration systems. This led to the development of solar direct drive refrigerators (without batteries). This new development put an end to all possibilities of energy diversion to power other needs. 

However, refrigeration is not the only energy need in a health centre. Other important needs are also present such as: lighting, communication (charging cellphones and/or computers/tablets, or powering radio links), small biomedical equipment and water pumping. The installation of a solar refrigerator in a health centre can and should be used as an entry point for the electrification of the health centre and later on of the entire village (figure 1).

Figure 1:Populations without access to electricity in the world 2008 – 2030. 

Solar energy is now technologically mature, economically efficient in most cases and commercially available. But policy and decision makers in the developing world still have a grandfather’s mentality about it. And the result is so detrimental: today about 1.5 billion people still lack electricity in the developing world and, if people don’t stop thinking like grandfathers about solar, there will still be 1.2 billion people without electricity in 20 years from now (figure 1)!

Figure 2: Using solar refrigeration as an entry point to rural electrification.

Solar can do so much more than keep vaccines cool. Solar refrigeration must be considered as an entry point to powering all other energy need of health facilities, including lighting an communication, and seen as a step toward electrification of entire villages (figure 2). When we adopt such a view, we shall go beyond our usual silo and comfort zone to reach out to other stakeholders, including the most important ones: communities!

[capabilitiescoalition]

Racism is real

Video

[capabilitiescoalition]

When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have to have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you can only work in a poor-paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So, it’s a very vicious cycle.

Malcolm X (via disciplesofmalcolm)

[capabilitiescoalition]

Despite significant advancements in workplace health and safety in the 44 years since the Occupational Safety and Health Act become law, today and every day 150 people will be killed on the job or die from job-related illnesses and diseases. That and other sobering statistics about the preventable deaths and injuries workers face each day are in the 2015 edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect released today.

In 2013 (the latest figures available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) 4,585 workers were killed on the job, and some 53,000 died from occupational diseases. Also, nearly 3.8 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported. The true toll is likely two to three times greater or 7.6 million to 11.4 million injuries a year. Said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

No worker should be exposed to fatal injuries and illnesses at work, yet every day 150 men and women die from a work injury or occupational disease. Their deaths remind us that Americans still—in 2015—face too many dangers at the workplace.

The report includes state-by-state profiles of workers’ safety and health and features state and national information on workplace fatalities, injuries, illnesses, the number and frequency of workplace inspections, penalties, funding, staffing and public employee coverage under the OSH Act.

Here are some key facts from Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect:

North Dakota remains the most dangerous state for workers, with an average of 14.9 fatalities per 100,000 workers, more than four times the national average of 3.2 deaths per 100,000 workers. The next deadliest states for workers are Wyoming (9.5), West Virginia (8.6), Alaska (7.9) and New Mexico (6.7).

On the other hand (see graphic above), states with the highest union density are among the safest for workers, with 13 states ranked in the top 20 for both union density and lowest rates of workplace fatalities.

Death on the Job also finds that Latino and immigrant worker deaths, injuries and occupational illnesses are on the rise. In 2013, 817 Latinos died on the job—a rate 18% greater than the national average—and 66% of Latinos killed on the job were immigrants.

In the area of job safety enforcement to ensure employers are not violating workplace safety laws, the report says the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) remain underfunded and understaffed.

In addition, penalties for employers who are found to be lawbreakers are weak. The average federal OSHA penalty for serious violations is just $1,972 and the median federal OSHA penalty for worker deaths is only $5,050. Of the 390,000 worker deaths since 1970, only 88 cases have been criminally prosecuted.

Also many important workplace and mine safety rules remain stalled, some due to administration inaction but mainly because of congressional Republican and corporate opposition. For example, in 2013, OSHA issued a rule that would reduce silica dust exposures and strengthen worker protections against silica, which causes lung cancer, kidney disease, autoimmune diseases and silicosis, a debilitating and irreversible lung disease. It is estimated the rule would save some 700 lives a year and prevent 1,600 cases of silicosis annually. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Construction Industry Safety Coalition, the American Chemistry Council and other industry groups are lobbying against finalizing this commonsense rule.

You can join the workplace safety by clicking here to sign a petition telling Congress that workers need a stronger silica standard. Read the full Death on the Job report at http://ift.tt/1ivxb4q.

Reposted from AFL-CIO NOW

[capabilitiescoalition]

So number one, Reading Rainbow was not cancelled because it was not effective. Reading Rainbow was the most used television resource in our nation’s classroom. In 2009, it was [cancelled] due to No Child Left Behind. That government policy made a choice between teaching the rudiments of reading and fostering a love of reading. So the idea that I am trying to somehow revive a failed endeavor is bullshit. That’s right. I said it. Bullshit.

LeVar Burton (via franfinethesecond)

[capabilitiescoalition]

In France, a gambian woman starts the marathon of Paris walking and holding a sign “In Africa,women walk this distance every day for drinking water”.

[capabilitiescoalition]

Despite the common idea that teen sex itself is inherently dangerous, what actually leads to a lot of bad outcomes is the product of denying teens accurate information — or condoms and birth control and abortions, or even an adult to talk to.

Teen Sex Isn’t the Problem (But Thinking That It Is Sure Is) — Everyday Feminism (via staininyourbrain)

[capabilitiescoalition]

Monica Jones, a trans woman of color who became the face of Phoenix, Arizona’s racist and transphobic “manifesting prostitution” laws, no longer faces charges from the city. 

Prosecutors from Phoenix dropped the “walking while trans” charges against Jones after a lengthy legal battle that put her in a national spotlight. Phoenix’s Project ROSE is a program meant to “save” sex workers by pulling them off the streets — and often into prison — and Jones, along with advocates like Laverne Cox, has been one of its loudest and fiercest opponents. 

Lengthy but important explanation of the law and its implications: 

For nearly two years, Jones has been fighting her “manifesting prostitution” conviction, arguing that the law under which she was charged is unconstitutionally broad in that it “bans pure speech,” according to Jean-Jacques Cabou, one of Jones’s lawyers. The law under which Jones was arrested describes “manifesting prostitutuion” — in other words, exhibiting the intention to sell sex — as repeatedly engaging a passerby in conversation while walking down the street, waving at cars in an attempt to stop them, asking someone if they are a police officer, or attempting to touch someone’s genitals.

The ACLU has argued that the Phoenix law is too vague, in that the behaviors it describes are easily misinterpreted. For example, talking to passersby could be an indication that an individual is lost and seeking directions or that they are canvassing for a political cause. Morever, Jones toldBuzzfeed News, the law seems to target specific groups of people.

"I think there is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed," Jones explained. "This law needs to be thrown out because it unfairly targets women, transgender women, and people of color living in poverty. Police wouldn’t [arrest] a man standing on the corner talking to a passerby." …

This week’s decision leaves Phoenix’s “manifesting prostitution” laws in much the same state: unchanged. Cabou told Buzzfeed News that dropping Jones’s charges has been a relief to her personally, but Jones and her team are disappointed that laws that can criminalize people for legal activities — and which, Jones believes, are applied disproportionately to trans women of color and low-income citizens — continue to be enforced in Phoenix.

This is a great and well-deserved victory for Monica Jones, but there are so many others like her whose cases haven’t made it to the national level. Project ROSE is one of many programs that unfairly targets trans women and people of color, and until it’s gone, we can’t celebrate too much. 

[capabilitiescoalition]

#gerrymanderVia teabonics-fb

[capabilitiescoalition]

Today the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released long-awaited guidance to ensure equal access for transgender people in homeless shelters. The guidance, issued to shelters and transitional housing programs across the country, call for access to shelter and programs to be based on a person’s self-identified gender.

[capabilitiescoalition]

Bombastic magazine is part of an activist-led campaign to end violence against LGBTI Ugandans by sharing the stories of those who call the east African nation home.

[capabilitiescoalition]

Actually, it is modern day slavery, not just akin to it. It is also human trafficking, which means (1) the person is tricked into it (or forced, abducted, threatened, etc) (2) for the purpose of exploitation, and typically (3) held against their will. The workers are led to believe they will get a better life if they leave their country and go work in another. This typically means they don't speak the language. Their papers are then taken from them, so they cannot leave without getting their passport back. They cannot go to the police without their papers and without knowing the language. And the pay they were promised they never see, sometimes because of hidden debts like that housing which they might be paying around what they earn for and then interest on the cost of getting them there, which is usually reduced cost or free already (though the workers don't know that). They have to pay off their debt before they are allowed their papers, which is deliberately structured to only happen when the company no longer needs them. This is human trafficking.

4,000 could die building Qatar World Cup

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is more than eight years away, but the human costs of preparing for the event are already piling up.

Qatar is expect to spend $100 billion on new infrastructure in the lead-up to the World Cup, and it’s been importing millions of much-needed migrant workers to do the construction. Most of these workers are from developing regions of South Asia — Nepal, India, Bangladesh, etc. — and they go to Doha in the hopes of a better life. Instead, what they find is akin to “modern-day slavery.”

Though the Qatar World Cup committee has denied human rights abuses, emerging reports indicate flagrant disregard for human life. Plus, it’s already on track to be the deadliest sporting event in history, taking the title from the previous record-holder: the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Read more | Follow policymic

[capabilitiescoalition]

Above Photo’s Source: “I Thought I Had Seen It All, Until Alabama Started Taking Pregnant Teens To Court.”

Utterly mortifiying. Not only are they giving fetuses more rights than pregnant persons, but they are using resources that could be used for born sentient people in need, on non-sentient fetuses. Plain and simple; it’s fucking despicable. - Paige

[capabilitiescoalition]

shots fired

[capabilitiescoalition]

Researchers and health care workers in Rwanda are currently testing an amazing new invention: a smartphone plug-in device that tests for HIV and syphilis.

[capabilitiescoalition]

TDS, February 11, 2015

Jordan Klepper looks at the issue of sex education in schools