9 August is National Women’s Day in South Africa. It commemorates the day in 1956 when thousands of women of all races marched to parliament to demand justice, equality and democracy across genders and races.

Their demands were ignored for the time being, but their impact upon the world was huge.

Today the rights of women still feature prominently at rallies and debates. Many people mistakenly believe that it is due to bitterness or thanklessness, or that it is merely a matter of “equality is my human right”.

The truth is that there is more to the equality, voice and education of women than meets the eye.

In fact, it has been shown that educating girls is a pivotal factor in eliminating poverty.

Greg Mortenson (and he is a MAN) said,

“Educate a boy and you educate the individual, educate a girl and you educate a community.”

 

[Image courtesy of Ferdinand Reus' Flickr photostream]

Why is this so?

Statistical studies have shown that strata of women with higher education levels have a higher percentage of contraceptive usage. This results in two things:

1.    Lower birth rate

2.    Lower HIV-incidence

This is important to developing countries because lower birth rate = fewer children per household = fewer mouths to feed, which goes a long way to help households with a limited income. And a lower HIV-incidence helps the country by costing the health care system less and by having a healthy workforce.

Education also sees to critical thinking abilities. In other words, tell an uneducated woman that she HAS to marry so-and-so, HAS to allow her husband to sleep around, MAY NOT work, MAY NOT get a divorce for any reason whatsoever, and she may just believe you, as that is the way it has always been done in her culture. But try telling that to educated women and you get women who retaliate, women who march the streets, women who demand change.

 

 [Photo courtesy of quest for the heartstone's Flickr photostream]

To make a fairly obvious point, educating women also equips them to get better-paying jobs. So if she is married, her household gets a better income. If she is unmarried or has a husband who only shows up when he feels like it, she still has a means of survival, instead of being cast out to vultures.

Either way, here education = employment = income = food, health, and education for the next generation.

Let’s put this blog into context for those of you in countries where education is free: In most of the developing world, free education is an ideal strived for, but rarely achieved. Many children are kept from school because their parents cannot afford it, or they need the children’s help working the lands so that they can at least have food on the table. As patriarchal societies go (and it must be understood that African-, Indian-, Asian- and certain South American cultures are still very patriarchal) boy-children get first choice for education. In many countries it is a laughable matter for girls to go to school. Many governments have gender equality merely on paper and not in practice.

Finally: of all the illiterate adults in the world, 66% are women.

Thus, when you hear people “moaning” about women’s rights and education for girls, they are not being ungreatful gripes and they are not complaining about something long-since solved.

So here’s to women: not because they are horrible feminists who want to castrate all men, but because their literacy will be pivotal to the upliftment of nations that are drowning in poverty.

 

It has been tradition for many years in the UK for young people to find summer job during their summer holiday from either School, College or University. With the current jobs market this tradition is under threat as the number of summer jobs have significantly decreased and the amount of people applying for them has increased.

It’s not just young people on summer breaks who are now applying for these jobs its older people to who can’t find work and will take anything for a bit of money until they can find something more permanent. With the financial decline it will also means that more people had to fund their way through University as their parents may not have the funds to help them. This means more students applying for jobs including those that a few years ago may not have had to.

Summer jobs were normally low skilled jobs in the tourism, retail or seasonal trade. However with the current unemployment problems people with top notch CV’s, qualifications and experience are applying for these jobs making the competition even harder for students. With more applicants applying for vacancies employers can be more picky about who they bring in. Sometimes a recommendation from a friend use to be enough to get you a job somewhere but now even friends who work in places are having problems getting their other friends in.

As well as summer jobs there is unpaid work experience and internships over the summer period but now that students need money they can’t afford to do unpaid work and now there are lots of unemployed people doing work experience and internships just to get some more experience and contacts to boost their CV’s in this competitive market.

So after a hard slog all year in education young people have to start battling out over the summer as well.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

In new studies recently released it says that young people are the most optimistic about this country getting itself out of recession than any other demographic but they are being the worst hit by job losses and the lack of jobs going around with a high percentage now out of work and/or claiming Job Seekers Allowance. Some over 16’s have now been out of work for some years and some are yet to be able to find their first job.

Some peoples answer to this is to stay in education with applications for Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses going up. These young applicants are obviously hoping if they stay in education long enough the recession will be over by the time they finish their course but if it isn’t then they will have increased debt to deal with and still very limited job prospects.

I think the government need to step in and do a lot more for young people during this period as the more dissatisfied young people with no money and time on their hands we have it could lead to an increased level in youth crime. If we try and look at it positively with so many young people out of work we have so many man hours available to this country which we need to utilize by getting these young people doing something active and positive which helps this country and helps them get back in to work and to build up experience. If we were to do this we would also lessen the chance for youth crime in the young unemployed group.

With more young people out of work more people are claiming benefits which is more government money being spent. Now this money needs to be spent and unemployed people need it but the government need to invest in getting young people back in to work so they don’t need to claim benefits and save this country money in the long term. As the more people claiming money out of the government and not contributing to the economy the longer it is going to take to get out of this recession.

If the research is true and the young unemployed group are the most positive and optimistic about getting out of recession then we need to harness this positivism. Lets repay their positivism and help keep them positive by helping them as we are going to need this energy to help us get out of this recession.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Every college student home for the summer knows this feeling.

Last week I spent about 2 hours driving from restaurant to clothing store to grocery store to department store submitting applications.  I filled out each one thoroughly, sprayed it with a nice vanilla body splash (I got this idea from Legally Blonde), and even included extra notes at the bottoms.  I swear I memorized the order of questions on the standard application form that every company seems to be using these days.

Week and a half later, not one call.  Needless to say, I was slightly frustrated.  After talking about this to my friends and colleagues, it became clear to me that everyone was going through the same issue. 

NOBODY IS HIRING.  Now, the reason for this is due to our national economic distress.  In a recent article on Yahoo! titled, "Temp Work Helps Mask Joblessness among Americans" (AP), Frank Bass discusses this phenomenon.  Apparently, the United States unemployment rate has reached an alarming high of 9.4 percent.  This number does not count discouraged workers (who gave up searching for a new job.)  According to Bass, "nearly 25 million Americans were either unemployed, underemployed or had given up looking for a job in May."

This number also does not address the involuntary part-time workers (who were switched over from full-time without choice.)  Many companies are starting to switch their employees over to part-time rather than blatantly letting them go.  Although this may sound like a good idea, this leaves us college students out of luck for summer jobs.

In fact, my friend Mike was lucky enough to snatch a part-time job at ACE Hardware, but he told us that he's working alongside five guys with families to support.  These men are performing the same tasks and recieving the same wage as a college student on vacation, but they have to support their wives and children!

Many people are bitter about the government's role in this crisis.  The government had situated tens of thousands of citizens with census-centered jobs in order to help with the economic crisis while also completing necessary tasks for the bureau.  Unfortunately, these jobs lasted until May, because the people employed were skilled and the workload went fast.  Now, everyone's out looking for their next "fix."

Hopefully something good will come from all of this.  For now, I'm planning on laying low and enjoying my summer job-free.  Thanks, United States Economy, for giving me a laid-back summer.

How have you guys been affected by this employment issue?

That Obama wants green jobs, but won't legalize hemp. There are well over 25,000 uses for industrial hemp. thats at least 25,000 jobs right there. Henry ford built a car out of hemp, look for it on youtube, its body was stronger and lighter than steel. Hemp can be used for clothes, rope, food, fuel, energy, you name it hemp can probally be used for it. Obama wants to solve the energy crisis with green energy, but won't legalize hemp. Hemp is the only truely green solution. If can be used to power everything from the lights on the street, the engine in your car, the microwave in your house, to the secruity system at the white house. All we need is use 6% of US soil. Lets look at the numbers the US has 2,263,960,477.89 acres, we only need 135,839,628.67 acres, thats not even the size of Texas which has 167,624,960 acres. The best part of all hemp can grow just about anywhere, can be havested in about four months leading to more than one harvest a year in most places. It even puts nutrients back into the soil. Biodiesel made from hemp oil can power your unmodified diesel engine. Can be stored in your unmodified diesel containers. Pumped from your unmodified Diesel pumps. You want green jobs Obama, you want to stop depending on foreign oil, I might of even heard you talking about CHANGE, change the laws on growing hemp. IT CANT EVEN GET YOU HIGH, why keep it illegal if there is only positive, it just dosent make any sense.