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World's Poor Get Poorer
"So let us not become tired of doing good; for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest." (Galatians 6:9)
The world's poorest people will be hungrier, sicker and have fewer jobs as a result of the global financial crisis, and cash-strapped aid agencies will be less able to help, aid groups are warning.
The charities that provide food, medicine and other relief on the ground say cutbacks have already started, but it will take months or more before the full impact is felt in the poorest countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Aid agencies face more than just the prospect of plummeting donations. The economic conditions themselves — higher food prices and more joblessness — are greatly increasing the number of people who need assistance.
Philippe Guiton of World Vision told The Associated Press that his agency plans to cut back hiring, which will have implications for delivering aid to the needy overseas.
"What we are going to do now is to issue an order to reduce spending, to delay recruitment, delay purchases of capital assets, etc., until we can see clearer how much our income has dropped," he said.
Robert Glasser, secretary-general of CARE International, said the agency has "a number of major donors who have invested heavily in the markets and have now seen their portfolios take a big hit."
What that will mean on the ground could take months or more to gauge — and perhaps years for a complete recovery, aid groups say.
In impoverished Haiti, funding for projects to rebuild from tropical storms that killed nearly 800 people and destroyed more than half the nation's agriculture hangs in the balance.
"It's too soon to tell yet because we haven't heard back positively or negatively from our major donors," Greg Elder, deputy head of programming for U.S-based Catholic Relief Services, said by telephone from the battered southern port of Les Cayes.
The group is waiting for word from the U.S. Agency for International Development on whether it will get $2 million for 10 new food-for-work projects, which provide Haitians with rations in exchange for building roads, irrigation systems and environmental projects.
An additional $500,000 is needed to repair 12 existing projects whose work was wiped out by the storms. "It's just we can't start these new projects, these rehabilitation projects, until we get the go-ahead," Elder said.
During global recessions in the 1970s and 1990s, aid spending dropped sharply and took years to recover, said Matt Grainger of the British-based charity Oxfam International.
That means problems across the board, said CARE's Glasser. Wealthy countries will stop investing in developing countries, and cut back on imports from poorer countries, leaving their governments with less money to pay for health care and schools, he said.
In Zimbabwe, a Red Cross food program for 260,000 orphans and HIV-infected people began last month to make sure AIDS victims have sufficient nourishment in a nation where millions are going hungry because of drought and land-seizures that have devastated agriculture.
HIV-infected people are especially vulnerable because without food they cannot tolerate their medicine.
"The farmers' food stores are depleted. There is no food available," said Peter Lundberg, country representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"I spoke to a family a few days ago and I said, 'How are you coping?' Basically this was a poor farmer family. And they said, 'We used to have three, maybe four, meals a day and now we're down to one meal.'"
Medecins Sans Frontieres, which runs AIDS clinics in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha in South Africa, said it's "far too early" to determine the impact the crisis would have on donations.
"The money we're spending now was collected some time ago," said Henrik Glette, a South Africa-based spokesman for the group.
But Neil Tobin, an employee of UNAIDS in Sierra Leone, warned: "It is well documented that AIDS is a problem compounded by poverty. Thus the concern is that any sharp economic downturn may present increased challenges, particularly for developing nations in responding to the epidemic."
Top scientists meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, said they feared the financial turmoil would curb research into a new AIDS vaccine.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said "the increases in the budget we had hoped for will not be forthcoming."
Alan Bernstein, head of Global Vaccine Enterprise, said the financial meltdown is "not good news for research in general and vaccine research in particular."
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Associated Press writers Jonathan M. Katz in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Michelle Faul and Donna Bryson in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Clare Nullis in Cape Town, South Africa contributed to this report.
From the desk of Five Loaves and Two Fish Indonesia Foundation (Yayasan Lima Roti Dua Ikan Indonesia): Please stand by us so we don't have to cut back on our programmes to feed the poor in this country. And also please pray for the staff and the volunteers so they can be able to withstand the crisis and still be able to minister to the poor and the needy. God bless us all...
Keong mas itu hama atau makanan?
Kalau kita bertanya kepada para petani apakah yang paling menakutkan mereka lebih dari tikus? Jawaban mereka adalah keong mas (golden apple snails). Keong mas sangatlah ditakuti karena bisa merusak sebidang sawah hanya dalam satu malam.
Keong mas dapat ditemukan bergantungan pada tanaman padi atau pada tepian sawah. Keong ini merupakan hama utama sawah sawah padi di Asia Tenggara. Pada sekitar akhir tahun 1980 an, hama ini menghancurkan hampir setengah dari total tanaman padi di Filipina dan membuat para petani di sana amat merana.
Keong mas (Pomacea Canaliculata Lamarck) berkembang biak sangat cepat. Menjadi dewasa kurang dari satu bulan dan memproduksi telur sekitar seribu telur sebulannya dalam kurun waktu tiga sampai empat tahun usia mereka.
Yayasan Lima Roti Dua Ikan Indonesia mencoba untuk merubah paradigma para petani di Indonesia agar mereka mau dan bisa merubah hama ini menjadi makanan dan sumber protein mereka. Walau kelihatan berlendir dan sedikit menjijikkan, keong mas ini mengandung 12.2 gram protein, 0.4 gram lemak, 6.6 gram karbohidrat dan 83 kalori dalam setiap 100 gram nya. Bandingkan dengan daging sapi yang mengandung 18.8 gram protein, 14 gram lemak dan 207 kalori dalam setiap 100 gram nya.
Di desa Rawa Apu, Cilacap, kami memberikan penyuluhan kepada para petani yang sawahnya terkena hama ini untuk bagaimana merubah hama yang utama ini menjadi makanan yang lezat. Pertama-tama keong mas direbus dengan air panas (jangan sampai mendidih) supaya gampang dikeluarkan dari cangkang untuk dibersihkan. Bagian perut dibuang dan bagian kepala yang hitam dipencet keluar dan dibuang (untuk mencegah keracunan). Setelah itu dicuci bersih dengan air panas.
Bumbu-bumbu seperti daun pandan dan sereh di oseng di wajan, lalu ditambahkan bawang merah dan putih. Masukkan juga jahe, kunir dan cabe setelah itu. Setelah tercium bau harum, tuangkan santan secukupnya dan tunggu sampai lima menit. Masukkan keong mas yang sudah dibersihkan itu dan panaskan sampai kuah santan hampir menjadi kering. Akhirnya tambahkan bumbu penyedap, garam, daun kemangi dan daun jeruk, aduk sampai merata dan makanan lezat pun siap dihidangkan.
Juga dapat kita membuat sate dari keong mas ini menjadi sate yang luar biasa enaknya. Sambil berebut para petani melahap makanan keong mas ini, yang tadinya merupakan musuh utama mereka. Salah satu diantara mereka berkata dengan riangnya, “Perut kenyang, hama hilang, padi selamat dan lumbung menjadi penuh…”
Dan selanjutnya terserah para petani untuk menyebutkan keong mas itu hama atau makanan. Dan bila hama menjadi makanan, maka pada musim tanam ini desa Rawa Apu akan panen raya dalam skala yang lebih besar, apalagi saat ini terjadi kenaikan harga bahan-bahan makanan mencolok di seluruh dunia termasuk beras. Desa makmur maka negara juga menjadi negara yang kuat. Inilah harapan kami semua di Yayasan Lima Roti Dua Ikan Indonesia…
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