Over 2,000 paraplegic women have received treatment and training at the Paraplegic Centre of Peshawar, in northern Pakistan, enabling them to earn a living despite being confined to a wheelchair. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Nov 24 2014 (IPS) – When a stray bullet fired by Taliban militants became lodged in her spine last August, 22-year-old Shakira Bibi gave up all hopes of ever leading a normal life.
Though her family rushed her to the Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar, capital city of Pakistan’s northern-most Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, doctors told the young girl that she would be forever bed-ridden.
Bibi fell into a…
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 2015 (IPS) – The government of Guatemala has been praised for a programme helping young women avoid unwanted pregnancies and finish their education.
On the opening day of the Commission on the Status of Women at U.N. headquarters in New York on Monday, Guatemala was held up as an example of how governments can develop frameworks to protect and promote the rights of young women.
Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, praised Guatemalan Vice President Roxana Baldetti for her government’s ‘PLANEA’ initiative, providing sexual education to adolescents.
“Young people can break away from the cycle of poverty and create a sustainable future, but first we have to invest in their health, s…
NEW YORK, Apr 22 2015 (IPS) – On Earth Day, Apr. 22, Kenyan activist Phyllis Omido takes the stage in Washington DC to receive the Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts to defend her community from lead poisoning and force the closure of a lead smelting plant that was emitting fumes and spewing untreated acid wastewater into streams, poisoning the neighbourhood – including her own baby.
Courtesy of the Goldman Prize.
“At first we thought he had malaria or typhoid, but doctors found he was suffering from lead poisoning,” Omido recalled. The lead was traced to a smelter where Phyllis had recently started work as a community liai…
Lucy Cadena is co-coordinator of the Climate Justice and Energy Programme for Friends of the Earth International
Is the G7 commitment to an energy transition that aims to gradually phase out fossil fuel emissions this century to avoid the worst of climate change just hot air? Credit: CC BY-SA 2.5
LONDON, Jun 11 2015 (IPS) – One of the promises made by the leaders of the world s seven richest nations when they met at Schloss Elmau in Germany earlier this week was an energy transition over the next decades, aiming to gradually phase out fossil fuel emissions this century to avoid the worst of climate change.
Let us be clear: a target of zero…
is a Senior Adviser in the Office of the President of Kenya. Follow her on twitter:@ruthkagia. is the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative to Kenya. Follow him on twitter: @sidchat1
The First Lady of Kenya, Governor Ali Roba and the Executive Director of UNFPA, Dr Osotimehin, in Mandera County. Credit: UNDP Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 9 2015 (IPS) – Mandera in northeastern Kenya, has often been described as “the worst place on earth to give birth.” Mandera’s maternal mortality ratio stands at 3,795 deaths per 100,000 live births, almost double that of wartime Sierra Leone at 2,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.
But Mandera also demonstrates wha…
On the right Bruce Wilkinson, President and CEO of CMMB – Healthier Lives Worldwide. Next to him (in the middle) stands Ambassador Mwaba Kasese-Bota, Permanent Representative of the Mission of Zambia to the United Nations, at the CMMB conference on $500 million for the U.N. SDGs, event on March 21. Photo: CMMB
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 2016 (IPS) – CMMB Healthier Lives Worldwide– a leading international nonprofit health non-governmental organisation (NGO) – has pledged 500 million dollars to help implement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals ()– with a specific focus on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health.
The commitment will be deployed through t…
A high school student in eastern India, studies a leaflet on menstrual hygiene. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, May 27 2016 (IPS) – Around the world girls are struggling to stay in school when their menstrual hygiene needs are forgotten or ignored, yet the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and education sectors have remained reluctant to address the issue.
Menstrual Hygiene Day, celebrated on May 28, aims to raise awareness of the fundamental role that MHM plays in enabling women and girls to reach their full potential in areas such as education.
Globally, 52 percent of the female population, or 26 percent of the total po…
Air pollution in Cairo, Egypt. Credit: World Bank/Kim Eun Yeul ” Source:
ROME, Sep 29 2016 (IPS) – The warning is sharp and the facts, alarming: 92 per cent of the world’s population live in places where levels exceed recommended limits. And 6.5 million people die annually from air pollution.
And the warning comes from the leading United Nations agency dealing with health, which rolled out its most detailed profile of the scourge ever in a bid to slash the deadly toll.
“Fast action to tackle air pollution can’t come soon enough,” the Geneva-based UN World Health Organization () top environmental official Maria Neira on 27 September of th…
Children look for a living in garbage in Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2017 (IPS) – Unhealthy environments both inside and outside the home cause the deaths of more than 1.7 million child under the age of five every year, according to two new reports released by the World Health Organization (WHO) Monday.
Even in their own homes, many children in developing countries have neither clean air to breathe nor clean water to drink, the reports found.
“Almost half of the world’s population is still cooking or heating or lighting their households with very dirty fuels” such as coal or animal dung, Maria Neira, D…
A child from drought-stricken southern Somalia who survived the long journey to an aid camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, May 26 2017 (IPS) – World leaders must step up and take action in fighting famine to prevent further catastrophic levels of hunger and deaths, said Oxfam.
Ahead of the 43rd G7 summit, Oxfam urged world leaders to urgently address the issue of famine, currently affecting four countries at unprecedented levels.
“Political failure has led to these crises political leadership is needed to resolve them…the world’s most powerful leaders must now act to prevent a catastro…