Sparrow Society‘s warehouse opens onto a street, south of the rush of downtown Cape Town, overlooking Muizenberg Mountain. It‘s just blocks away from the sea.
The chattering of sewing machines accompanies the buzz of women working behind the shop, which sells 100% responsibly made, female-farmed coffee and African-inspired home goods and apparel. The afternoon light shines through the front windows, lighting the hands of women cutting, sewing, stitching, and packing.
“Just like the sparrow bird of our namesake, women are often...
Arielle Witter
Global health has come a long way in the past 20 years. Since its 2004 peak, AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 68%, since 1990 the under-5 child mortality rate has fallen by more than half, and much more.
Global crises, unfortunately, are threatening to reverse that progress. We need to effectively fight these crises and invest in global health in order to achieve the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal: good health and well-being.
Here‘s how you can do your part.
Stay informed,...
“Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world,” Nelson Mandela once said. There is power in a quality education, and that is precisely why fair and free access to quality education is among the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Unfortunately, quality education is not a reality for all students. Since 2015, over 500 million children worldwide have not developed the needed skills to read and understand a simple story by the age of 10. They‘re missing a critical literacy milestone...
In 2015, world leaders set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the UN‘s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to change the world for the better. The very first goal on that list: eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. Together, governments want to ensure that no one, regardless of where they are born, lives on less than $1.90 a day.
The good news is each and every one of us can contribute to making this goal a reality! And you...
COVID-19 cases in Africa hit a record high in July. South Africa had the highest officially recorded COVID-19 infections and deaths, with more than 2.5 million confirmed cases over the course of the pandemic, and over 75,000 deaths. In fact, South Africa accounts for almost 40% of all coronavirus-related deaths on the continent.
The blue line refers to South Africa’s total. Visit our Africa Tracker for more data.
The blue line refers to South Africa’s total.
This latest wave of COVID-19 infections...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
With a country-wide unemployment rate of 32.6% and over 2.4 million confirmed cases as of August 2021, COVID-19 has been wreaking havoc on South Africa. And Johannesburg remains the epicenter of the virus‘ spread.
In western Johannesburg, however, Queen of Hearts Circle, founded by Mariam Behr, has been stepping up to support community needs during the pandemic, raising awareness and educating the community on COVID-19 safety.
How Queen of Hearts...
World hunger is a major global issue. Over 800 million people are going to bed hungry each night, and this year, 49 million people across 49 countries are experiencing an “’emergency phase‘ of food insecurity,” according to the World Food Programme. As part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) laid out by the United Nations, however, the international community has set the goal of ending chronic hunger and improving nutrition in general by 2030.
That sounds like a big goal...
Caitlin Baron is the CEO of the Luminos Fund. Photo credit in this piece goes to Mekbib Tadesse for the Luminos Fund.
Like many children in Ethiopia, Esayas hardly set foot in a classroom during the first decade of his life. Instead, he stayed home, helping his parents on their farm, a crucial source of food for the family of six.
Fast-forward 10 months and on average, 90% of Esayas‘s classmates will have transitioned into mainstream school, 75% will stay in...
Majd Mansour, a ONE activist from the UK, is sharing how the unfair vaccine distribution globally is severely impacting already existing inequalities in the world.
It is no secret that some of the world‘s richest nations have a surplus supply of COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, it was expected. However, only 1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose. The director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, went as far as labeling this...
This guest blog was written by ONE Youth Ambassador Veerle Blokhuis.
The coronavirus has brought about a lot of change in the world. The various measures deployed worldwide to combat the pandemic have had a major impact on our daily lives, from many workers losing part, or all, of their income to children no longer being able to go to school. In African countries, however, these impacts are even more severe.
On the continent, lower incomes and less education have led...