Did I Say Intractable?
This just in from the United Nations:
"Child mortality rate tumbles to record low."
Have you heard better news in that last month? Year?
Apparently, thanks to promoting exclusive breastfeeding** and campaigns against malaria and measles, the number of deaths of young children has dropped to below 10 million a year for the first time since such record-keeping began in 1960.
This means that outreach and education and fundraising actually add up. This means that big, messy, multi-layered problems that seem unwinnable aren't. This means, in a nutshell, that hope is not unreasonable.
If you feel a little giddy about this, and your VISA number is handy, follow me here to give a little something to UNICEF.
**Correction thanks to Cynthia, a careful reader. [Thanks Cynthia.]
5 Comments:
God bless you.
I hear you on intractable – it’s that belief that often stops people from getting involved in the first place. Why bother? And yet you and I know that places like Breakthrough, KIPP, UNICEF, TFA and many, many others are making a difference.
Can I pontificate for a second on the subject? Because just this week, I read in the KIPP Annual Report letter that, “every year a Gallup poll reveals that 74 percent of Americans believe that the gap in academic achievement between children growing up in low-income households and those who do not is unrelated to the quality of education they receive. In fact, the general public believes that the absence of three main factors contributes to poor school performance: parental involvement, a strong home life, and interest on the part of low-income students.” Basically they are saying that schools don’t matter for low-income kids, because they can’t overcome the environmental factors.
And yet Breakthrough kids are succeeding, 80% of KIPP kids are going to college – and their San Jose school just posted an API score just below Piedmont Schools, despite being 80% low-income and 71% English Language Learners.
I think you mean breastfeeding instead of bottle feeding.
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