People-First Tourism Lab Blog

The World Health Organization estimates that 1,500 women die from pregnancy or childbirth related complications every day. Ninety-nine percent of those women reside in developing countries. The oppression and devaluation of women in developing countries is a major factor in this sobering statistic. Despite programs and initiatives that have been created by a number of international organizations (for example the WHO and UN ), maternal health continues to be a burgeoning issue in the fight for women’s equality.  What social issues affect the health of women developing countries? How do you feel about the approach and effectiveness of intervention programs described in Half the Sky ? Drawing from these and other examples you may have found, what is the next step in reducing the maternal mortality rate in developing countries?

As Kristof and WuDunn explain in the first chapters of Half the Sky , women are at the crux of global poverty.  Women are generally the ones who suffer most from poverty and they have crucial roles in childbearing and in managing scarce household resources.  Their oppression is pervasive both in rich and less economically developed countries.  This means that, for example, in poor communities in North Carolina, it is women who are suffering most from the current rise in unemployment, from America's failing health system, from the cost of healthy foods, from... Preliminary results from a report published by UN Women / World Tourism Organization reveal that, under some circumstances, women are able to leverage opportunities provided by tourism to gain agency and improve their and their families' wellbeing.  Have we done enough to understand the causes and consequences of women's oppression?  Have we done enough to understand which circumstances can make touri...

Muhammad Yunus leapt into the global spotlight when he and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for microlending efforts in Bangladesh. What most people do not realize, however, is that Yunus had been working to alleviate poverty in his home country since 1976, when he created the Grameen Bank. He has since launched more than 25 separate initiatives aimed at this objective. In his 2007 book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism , the economist presents his most recent and potentially world-changing idea: Social Business. His idea of Social Business is relatively simple, yet quite bold. A Social Business is a fully functioning enterprise aimed at a social good rather than profit-maximization. “A social business is not a charity. It is a business in every sense. It has to recover its full costs while achieving its social objective. When you are running a business, you think differently and work differently than w...