Blog
Contributor Guidelines
Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.
Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.
You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.
If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.
Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.
Posted on July 14, 2014
By Dean Forbes
Most people know the big international anti-poverty organization Oxfam for its work on global food security and finding ways to feed the estimated 1 billion undernourished people on our planet. It brings its work on social justice, disaster relief and foreign aid reform to bear on this problem and others.
This November, Oxfam will add the broad topic of “inequality” to its global portfolio of initiatives that now includes agriculture; climate change; conflicts and disaster; health and education; and trade. Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America, gave a Seattle audience a brief, sneak preview of the new initiative at a reception for him and several Oxfam officials on July 7 while they were in town for Gates Foundation meetings. The reception was organized by Seattle-based Jonathan Scanlon, Senior Advocacy Advisor, Oxfam America, and cosponsored by Global Washington.
Offenheiser said much of the initiative on inequality will focus “on how do we ensure that future populations will have the same opportunities that many of us have for education, access to health, access to environmental services. There will be ample investments being made in many of these countries to enable them to have the chance to work their way out of poverty and to have the kind of social mobility that we have enjoyed in this country.”
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Posted on July 7, 2014
By Julia Knitter
How often should a seven-year old have to worry about their health or education? While these factors are often taken for granted, they can radically change the course of a child’s life. Dreams for Orphans, a new GlobalWA member, is a Seattle-based NGO that focuses on providing safe environments and educational opportunities for orphans in Accra, Ghana. Through improved education and stable living conditions, Dreams for Orphans aims to inspire hope in orphans in developing countries.
“We live in a global society, one in which education will bring positive change in so many ways,” says Dreams for Orphans co-founder Libby Rain, illustrating the importance that the organization places on childhood education.
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Posted on June 30, 2014
By Hannah Atlas
The largest international gathering ever brought together on the subject of ending sexual violence during times of conflict was held June 10-13 in London under the auspices of the United Kingdom’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office. About 1,000 participants representing more than 120 countries attended the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict.
“Together, we committed to break the taboo around wartime rape and take action to put an end to its use, and to shatter the culture of impunity,” according to the summit chair summary. “At the Summit, we united in our determination to tackle sexual violence in conflict, just as previous generations joined forces to put an end to slavery and landmines. This is a matter of our common humanity.”
The summit encouraged nations to incorporate a formal international protocol for documenting and investigating sexual violence in conflict into their domestic laws. There was emphasis placed on the education and training of soldiers and peacekeepers to protect civilians during times of conflict. Improving support and protection for survivors of sexual violence and the elimination of cultural taboos were also emphasized in the summit’s call to action. Continue Reading
