Why We Need To Educate The Poor

Education is the most powerful tool anyone could ever have to uplift their lives. Even the poorest of the poor who had access to a good quality education were able to transform their lives for the better. They are able to compete with others who were raised by more affluent families and have higher chances of going up the corporate ladder or finding a decent job that will put food on the table, a roof over their heads, and even pay the bills aside from helping them become self-actualized individuals.

Most of the time, it is the government’s responsibility to educate its young citizens because they are the future of any nation. While the intent is noble, the challenges are huge. Money is definitely an issue because you pay for books and facilities as well as the salary of the teachers. Then, there are other school supplies that must also be met aside from making sure that kids are fed, so they have the energy they need to absorb all the new things they will learn in school each day.

Plan International Cambodia has launched a three-year project to help young children living in remote and disadvantaged areas in Ratanakkiri and Stung Treng provinces receive education and health care services.

The Young Bamboo project, which has a budget of over $1 million, aims to enhance the capacity of parents, caregivers, and preschool teachers to educate and take care of young children, and avoid disease.

The project will be implemented in four districts of Ratanakkiri province, including Bar Kaev, Ou Chum, Ta Veaeng and Veun Sai, and two districts in Stung Treng, including Siem Pang and Thala Barivat districts. The project will run until June 2020.

Speaking at the launch ceremony yesterday, Yi Kimthan, national project manager at Plan International Cambodia, said the project will help children get ready to enter primary school.

(Via: http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5077520/project-offers-children-education-remote-areas/)

This is a common initiative in far-flung and third-world countries where the government has a hard time meeting the needs of the people. It is often a holistic project that aims to address all the factors surrounding a child’s education and not just the ones required within the four corners of a classroom. These nations will keep on struggling with uneducated citizens in their midst and keep on relying on others for help especially during calamities if they aren’t empowered now through education.

For much of the last decade, global leaders in business, government and the non-profit world have been sounding a loud alarm about a mounting youth employment crisis. With good reason. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are about 71 million unemployed 15-to-24-year-olds around the globe, many of them facing long-term unemployment. This is close to an historic peak of 13%.

Nearly every country in the world grapples with this challenge, but it hits low-income countries especially hard. And even where there is work, much of it is low-paying. The ILO estimates that about 156 million (or 38%) employed youth in emerging and developing countries were living in extreme or moderate poverty in 2016 -- equivalent to less than $3.10 per day.

(Via: https://www.forbes.com/sites/schoolboard/2017/08/11/how-education-can-solve-the-global-youth-unemployment-crisis/#4aa70213bc61)

Education shouldn’t be just a second thought anymore considering that the largest part of the world’s population today is made up of the youth. They’ll soon make up a big chunk of the workforce but what will happen to the positions vacated by more senior officials if the kids in line aren’t knowledgeable or skilled enough to assume more technical or executive positions in any given company or organization?

Education is still the key to achieving success in life, so they shouldn’t lose sight of what is important amidst the many distractions in today’s modern world. Even the poor deserve a chance to find jobs that can create a positive impact in their life and that of their families. If not, they’ll be trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty where they can barely feed themselves and stay out of the streets.

Why We Need To Educate The Poor was first seen on IAmNotAnArtist.org/blog

source https://www.iamnotanartist.org/why-we-need-to-educate-the-poor/

Animal Preservation At Its Finest

We all know that our lives here on earth are finite. Nothing goes on forever except the planet perhaps. At some point or another, we all get hurt and eventually die. That’s the cycle of life. And while death isn’t always the end for most species, for some it is. It’s what you know as extinction. We know about various animals that used to walk this planet but are now gone forever. Various factors are at play as to how extinction works but it does happen and continue to occur until today.

Considering that there’s the lingering threat of global warming and climate change, it is highly possible that more animal species will disappear for good if we don’t act on it today. Fortunately, scientists are already at work in ensuring the survival of those species nearing extinction. It is all made possible by new technologies that aim in preserving genetics, so we can continue to perpetuate those endangered species regardless of the current circumstances in their immediate environment and the world at large.

And now a new technology has emerged to help do just that, preserve rare and important livestock genetics.
The new technology comes via Canadian Animal Genetic Resources (CAGR), a joint initiative of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the University of Saskatchewan (U of S), to preserve the genetic diversity of Canadian livestock and poultry breeds, and to develop new techniques to conserve germplasm. The three branches of CAGR include Genetic Diversity, Gamete and Embryo Biology, and Cryobiology.
Dr. Carl Lessard, with the University of Saskatchewan explained the program at present is focusing on preserving the sperm of dead or recently castrated farm animals.
“Agriculture andAgri-Food Canada’s Canadian Animal Genetic Resources (CAGR) program has developed a method to salvage sperm cells from epididymis (reproductive organ sitting on the testes) from dead or castrated animals,” said Lessard, lead researcher at CAGR in a release. “If the gonadal tissue is packed properly for shipping, sperm cells can show a good movement up to 48 hours following the castration or the death of the animal, meaning that we can preserve this viable material in our gene bank.”

(Via: http://www.yorktonthisweek.com/agriculture/agriculture-this-week-new-tech-helping-preserve-genetics-1.21735009)

And while this technology is aimed at preserving livestock, for now, it won’t take long before newer technologies will be developed that will also work on more diverse groups of animal, and perhaps, even humans too if we get lucky. No need to worry further about losing a certain breed of animal anymore because we can simply create one from the lab using genes saved up for this very purpose.

For years, local rangers have protected wildlife with boots on the ground and sheer determination. Armed guards spend days and nights surrounding elephant herds and horned rhinos, while on the lookout for rogue trespassers.

Allen’s DAS uses technology to go the distance that humans cannot. It relies on three funnels of information: ranger radios, animal tracker tags, and a variety of environmental sensors such as camera traps and satellites. This being the product of the world’s 10th-richest software developer, it sends everything back to a centralized computer system, which projects specific threats onto a map of the monitored region, displayed on large screens in a closed circuit-like security room.

For instance, if a poacher were to break through a geofence sensor set up by a ranger in a highly-trafficked corridor, an icon of a rifle would flag the threat as well as any micro-chipped elephants and radio-carrying rangers in the vicinity.

(Via: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-09/paul-allen-is-using-technology-to-save-the-african-elephant)

Others take animal preservation quite literally and really go into the wild to ensure that poachers and other hunters can’t further reduce the already dwindling population of wild animals. Most poachers know their way in the area and are familiar with the traps and other deterring efforts set up by conservationists to prevent them from killing more animals, hence the need for more sophisticated technology to be used subtly in the vast open spaces that can alert officials to the presence of potential hunters and poachers nearby.

We still have a chance of saving many of these endangered animals, so let’s not waste our chance (and time) by taking an active part in these efforts or at least support those individuals and organizations that does what many of us aren’t capable of doing – by actually doing all the dirty work to ensure diversity remains to be a big aspect of life on earth and preserving animal species from going into oblivion.

The post Animal Preservation At Its Finest was first published on https://www.iamnotanartist.org

source https://www.iamnotanartist.org/animal-preservation-at-its-finest/

Why People Go To Music Festivals

People pursue various interests in life depending on their personality and unique characteristics. Yet there are still major driving forces that unite everyone together regardless of race, religion, educational background, etc. – it is our love for music. Music has different genres and you are sure to find one that you’d like no matter what your interests are. Music helps you chill out when you have nothing better to do and serves as a great stress reliever too.

But some people don’t feel contented by just simply listening to their favorite tunes on the radio, on TV, or through their cellular phones. Going to a music festival is just as good as going to concerts. You get to see various artists perform live in a comfy and lively atmosphere shared by all music lovers. And the highlight is, of course, seeing your favorite singers and performers perform live. You don’t get to see that often and a music festival gives you all that vibe and so much more. This certain high you get from attending music festivals is one of the reasons why many keep coming back to these events and share their love for music with everybody else.

For many of these fans, the success of the festivals is a foregone conclusion. After all, how hard can it be to run a successful festival? Find a site, sign some bands, sell some tickets and boom — it’s a successful festival.

While that formula does sound appealing, that’s not how it works in the real world. Festivals require a huge amount of work and planning over an extended period of time before the artists can even step on to the stage and deliver what the fans have paid for

Perhaps the biggest misconception is that after a bit of prep work, the festival goes forward for its scheduled duration and then organizers get a well-deserved rest before beginning work on the next year’s event.

“For many years, me and my staff would get asked the question, ‘So what do you do the rest of the year?’ We hustle every day of our working year for this festival,” explained Sandra Butel, the artistic director and CEO of the Regina Folk Festival. “We start the year before in planning and building. There’s so many little things that have to be taken care of and there’s big things that have to be taken care of.

(Via: http://leaderpost.com/life/qc/the-recipe-for-a-successful-music-festival-requires-an-array-of-ingredients)

There is a lot of planning and preparation that is necessary to make a successful music festival a reality. Even in choosing the artists, inviting them, and bringing them to the event takes a lot of multitasking especially that there are factors that you can’t control that can have a big impact on the event. Knowing about all these preparations is what encourages people to go to these events because they know they’d really have a great time. Can you imagine seeing ten, twenty, thirty, or more acts all lined up in one event that you’d never get to experience if you don’t brave going to a popular music festival that even foreign acts grace with their presence?

This seems like kind of a no brainer. Why would you go to a music festival if you didn’t like the music? The reason we bothered saying the music is because North Coast is not a one-trick-genre festival. You can walk in and be immersed in all types of music from hip-hop, electronic, to jam-band. This year's headliners include Deadmau5 & Eric Prydz, Damien "Jr. Gong" Marley, STS9, Primus, Gucci Man and Ween to name a few. If you purely love music and multiple genres, this will be your festival. North Coast’s curators do an amazing job of giving you multiple genres as well as introducing you to artists you may have never heard of before.

(Via: https://www.magneticmag.com/2017/08/reasons-why-we-love-north-coast-music-festival/)

Before you get lost with all the perks a music festival offers, the main motivation for people to go is mainly the music. Would you dare waste your time, money, and effort on something that doesn’t excite you at all? Not likely, probably. Aside from the music, the vibe in the event is quite ethereal as well. Music festival organizers go the extra mile in ensuring everything is A-class and will meet everyone’s standards. It is especially helpful at a time like today where almost everyone is on social media and you can quickly go viral if the public likes what they are seeing in other people’s posts. So, what are you waiting for? Do something crazy now and then so you have something to laugh about when you grow old someday.

Why People Go To Music Festivals is courtesy of IANAA

source https://www.iamnotanartist.org/why-people-go-to-music-festivals/