Reflection about hunger

Good afternoon, today I want to present you someone. His name is Peter Mumo, he is 25 years old and he is from Kenya. He went to university and nowadays he is working in an Agrochemical and Fertilizer Development company in Nairobi as the development manager. His future does look optimistic, doesn´t it? Well, now he can say he is happy and that he has everything he always wanted: he can afford food and provide all his basic needs. But this has not always been the same. He was born in a family with not enough income to cover the basic needs of the eight family members. They did not have enough food, nor sufficient water. They had no electricity, no good house, no clothing, they struggled to live. He told us that they lived on a single meal per day that consisted of mixture of maize and beans. Beans were scarce and expensive and so the number of beans in the mixture was extremely small. Most of the available beans would be reserved for the youngest siblings. His whole family suffered from malnutrition and this led to a lot of health problems such as the total exposure to the malaria disease. He was one of the lucky children who could benefit from a ´´ school feeding program´´. In his school, all the students would get a cup of porridge for breakfast and 5 biscuits for the evening. He describes this as one of the best things that could have ever happened because then his parents did not have to worry so much about the meals, and could focus on other problems. He believes that his meals gave him energy and a reason to work hard and hope for the future. The program also helped him build up his immune system.

Like Peter, there are millions of families that struggle to live every day. According to the Hunger Project, today there are eight hundred fifteen million people who do not have enough to eat. Most people believe that the place where the hunger is the worst is in Africa, but it is not, it is in Asia with five hundred twenty million people. Half of the deaths in children is attributed to undernutrition, which supposes about 3 million young lives a year. 66 million primary school age children attend classes hungry and the WFP calculates that $3.2 billion would be needed per year to reach the 66 million hungry school children.

 How can we help? There are a lot of ways that we can help, we can donate money of course, but there are other alternatives that do not involve the economical factors. Let´s see some of them: We could Share information in your social profiles, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.. Reconsider what we eat. 50% of the food that is produced is lost, we do note at, leftover, they are not as attractive as they should be…. So we should start thinking about it. Finally, join an association or NGO such as Manos Unidas or Unicef for example, it is a way of getting involved with the problem and be as informed as possible.

 People have to know about this situation, we should stop acting like this problem does not affect us. Human beings die every day because they are hungry, whereas in other parts of the world we waste the food. We need to open the eyes and HELP.

Corruption in Spain: A trend that never ends

Corruption. It is a word that nowadays can be heard everywhere, in the news, in the streets, in companies… But this topic is not as recent as we think; it is nothing new as it has been active since the kingdom of Felipe III. When the Democracy started in 1975, Spanish citizens believed that, as it was a government by and for everybody corruption would end, but that didn’t happen. It can be seen that even in during the government of Adolfo Suárez (1957-1982) when over 600 people died because of the case of the rapeseed oil.

During the government of Felipe González (1982-1996) there were many cases of corruption such as the Seat case or the Guerra case in which was discovered that the vice president Alfonso Guerra helped his brother to enrich himself. With Aznar, it can be found cases such as Tabacalera or Sanlúcar, in this last one, members of the PSOE and some local businessmen tried to bribe a councilman of the PP in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.But it is during the government of Zapatero (2004-2011) when the corruption lifts, with extremely famous cases such as ERES case, or Noos case or Malaya case. But one of the most important ones was Gürtel case, led by Francisco Correa who had organized with a number of partners a business conglomerate to draw on funds from public bodies of municipalities and autonomous communities such as the Community of Madrid, Comunidad Valenciana and Galicia.

With Mariano Rajoy (2011-…) it continues with corruption, with cases such as Bárcenas or “ Tarjetas Black”, when it was revealed that during the presidencies of Miguel Blesa and Rodrigo Rato there was a Visa credit card issued by the entity (Bankia) with which they had carried out for personal expenses. But the most recent case of corruption has been operation Lezo in which Ignacio González, former president of the community, through the management of the Canal de Isabel II; Acquired Latin American companies paying a price higher than that established by the market.

These are some of the cases that Spain has faced. It is extremely complicated to give an exact number of the amount of money that has been stolen, but experts believe that it goes from 40 thousand to 90 thousand euros.

So, all these people are in jail? Have they returned they money that they stole? Most of them not. Only one of every five imputed is condemned. Another problem is that there are not enough judges (for every 100,000 habitants, there is a judge) so when they judge the accused, many times the crime has prescribed. Government sometimes gives a pardon to the accused and an example of it is the case of José Ramón Manzanares Codesal who was convicted in 2001 for a crime of prevarication. The Government of Jose Maria Aznar pardoned to him on 2004. In July of that same year he occupied again his job in a court of Sabadell. 

We can find a non-governmental organisation called Transparency International (TI), which is in charge, since 1993, of promoting different measures against corporative crimes and corruption. Every year they publish the Corruption perceptions Index. In 2016 Spain had a score of 58 (meaning 0 a lot of corruption and 100 no corruption), which placed it as the 41th country out of 176. This has supposed an improvement over other years.

Corruption affects to the whole country in two ways: economically and socially. A report done by the European Commission showed that the corruption costs 120.000 millions of euros per year to the European Union. In the social field, there have been done many studies about how corruption affects to society, one of them was published by the magazine Nature in which they discovered that individuals where more honest in countries with low index of corruption. Another study carried out by Gächter and Schulz is that corruption supposes a vicious circle and that they can become endemic in concrete parts. BR

5 Reasons not to vote Trump

I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” 

 “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” 


“The other candidates — they went in, they didn’t know the air conditioning didn’t work. They sweated like dogs…How are they gonna beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen.” 









“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”



When Trump won the elections I could not believe it, how could a man like that become president of most powerful country in the world? What will happen with him in the power? I think everybody asked those questions to themselves when he was elected, but hey it is democracy, United States voted him But personally I can't believe that they voted him.Yes, Americans:  Have you heard his words? Have you seen his campaign? So, here it goes: 5 reasons not to have voted Trump:


He wants to build a wall in Mexico so immigrants cannot pass to the US.  When he came up with this idea, he claimed that Mexico would build and pay the wall, but now he is changing his first words. So, why did he promised things that it would break the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). even he did not know that he would accomplish? Another thing about this wall is that it goes against human rights. We are always trying to end with the invisible walls that are between some countries, and suddenly appears Trump wanting to create a wall which will suppose a huge gap between two neighbour countries. 

 He hates women. He has publicly claimed that as he is rich, he can have any woman that he wants (CNN published a video of it). He uses women as objects, he refers to them as aesthetically beautiful things. Many times has spoken about women in the world of journalism and he believes that they got their jobs because of their physical appearance. In this context, thousands of women have demonstrated on different cities on the US because of this behaviour of the President.

He focuses more on the economic field than on the humans. It is true that he is a great businessman, and that he has created an empire from nothing, but US is not another company. When I have heard his speeches, I felt like he was speaking about another enterprise. He should not forget that a country must focus on its citizens, not just on economic benefits. It is true that economy is extremely important, but Trump forgot about people who struggle, who have problems, who don't have money, in fact; he forgets about people in need.

Nepotism. Once in the White House it can be seen how her daughter, Ivanka, has been in many meetings such as with Trudeau, president of Canada. But now she has become an assessor of his father and his husband Jared Kushner too. Instead of having professionals with him, Trump prefers having his family around. His daughter has not renounced to her inversions and it has been published that the marriage continues getting benefits.   

No freedom of expression. He is always against media. He doesn't let the journalists to do their job. He does not answer to their questions and he has recently claimed that his enemy is not the Democrat Party, but the press. Here we can see a tweet in which attacks to the most important media outlets in the US

So these are the main reasons why in my opinion Trump should not have reached the power. Of course, they are much more reasons, but for me, these are the principals, because someone who does not respect humans does not deserve a powerful position. BR

HAZTE OIR

"Los niños tienen pene. Las niñas tienen vulva. Que no te engañen.  Si naces hombre, eres hombre. Si eres mujer, seguirás siéndolo".

Bus of Hazteoir.org (EL PAÍS)

Wow, I have no words to describe this message. When I read the piece of news I was shocked. How can it be possible? How can a group of people still think that transexuality is a fraud, a delusion? 

First of all, I will explain the conflict for those who haven't heard what has happened. Last week a bus run in Madrid. It was orange and it came with a clear message, a message against transexuality. The reactions of the passers-by were of astonishment and disagreement. Some of them couldn't believe that such a bus was running in the city. Since then lots of tweets, and comments have been made; most of them negative. Finally, Courts have forbidden temporarily this bus. But in a press release, the director has claimed that although "Gay Inquisition" (this is how he calls to the town hall of Madrid) has "kidnaped"  the bus, they will release two buses in order to "fight" them.

This is the short part of the story. When I heard this I decided that I wanted  to research about this organization, because I would like to know what goes around the minds of these people. So that is what I have done. 

Logo of CitizenGo. (http://www.citizengo.org/es)

Hazteoir.org is a civil association that is inside the group of CitizenGo. CitizenGo defines itself as a "community of active citizens who work together, using online petitions and action alerts as a resource, to defend and promote life, family, and liberty. We work to ensure that those in power respect human dignity and individual rights."  CitizenGo gets its financiation thanks to donations of private citizens who share their beliefs. 





Hazteoir.org is its platform in Spain. It has similar values and its financiation comes from a subscription of  members, different private donations, from heritage or campaigns. Its chief is Ignacio Arsuaga. The people who work with this platform are volunteers of different ages who feel identified with these values. This group is not only against LGBT community but against abortion. 

                           

Logo of Hazteoir.org ( http://hazteoir.org/conocenos)

After this quick research some thoughts came to me. The first one is that they are supposed to enact some values as freedom and life. But is transexuality against freedom and life? This organization claims that wants the equality between people, and is not equality to treat everybody fairly? So why they decide to show a bus that is making a difference between people? 

We must understand transexuality. I believe that there are people who know since they are kids that the body that has been given to them is wrong, they feel the other sex and there is nothing wrong about it. We cannot decide whether it is right or wrong, is something that can happen to people that can even be closed to you. Transexuality DOESN'T depend on your education or environment. Is something that is inside you. 

Nowadays, people like to claim that are open-minded, that understand to the whole community of LGBT, but then appear things like this bus. So what is happening in the world? Why cannot we accept LGBT community? Why there still exist groups like this that have more than 460.000 subscriptions per year? 

To sum up with this reflection I would like to say that it is sad to see how this things still occur and that there are people that support those ideas. And that people are not only of 50 years old, there are young citizens that share this beliefs and hates LGBT community. Why? Why we still hating our neighbour? What difference can I find between a transexual person and a non transexual person? They are humans  like everybody that suffer with this  type of hate speech and the ones that consider speaking about it because they feel judged, as if their feelings were wrong. What is our society doing?
B.R