Blog
Posted on May 31, 2023
By Heifer International
Maty speaking on Gindiku radio program. Photo: Sylvain Cherkaoui/Heifer International
Today, 66-year-old Maty Tine is a pillar of her community in western Senegal — a progressive farmer, environmental advocate, and radio presenter in her local dialect. But growing into this role has been a long journey.
“I have deep regrets,” Maty said of the fact that she dropped out of school before high school. It was an era when there were few women in public service and girls were encouraged to marry young. “I could have been a minister or local government official because I was very clever.”
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Posted on May 24, 2023
By Susan Sola – Pangea Latin America Pod Chair, May 21, 2023
Along with other LA Pod members, I recently attended a panel presentation “Corruption and Impunity: A Crisis of Democracy in Guatemala.” The panel included representatives from Acción Ciudadana (Guatemalan Chapter of Transparency International); Seattle International Foundation; Global Rights Advocacy; and the Seattle Office of Immigrant & Refugee Affairs, most of Guatemalan origin, as well as young members of Global Visionaries. All were very frank, knowledgeable, and uniformly pessimistic about the country’s near-term future.
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Posted on May 17, 2023
By Debika Goswami, Senior Program Lead, S M Sehgal Foundation
Farmer in his millet farm in Nuh, Haryana, India. Photo: S M Sehgal Foundation
In the culinary history of India, the existence of millets, also known as nutri-cereals, can be traced back to 4500 BC, which indicates it was an integral part of local food cultures for centuries. However, millet varieties were referred to as coarse grains in the post-Green Revolution phase in the later twentieth century. They were rapidly replaced by their more-refined counterparts, wheat and paddy, as significant staples in the agricultural landscape of India. With the marginalization of millets as a staple on consumers’ plates, its cultivation also became less cash remunerative. Hence, millet’s share in the total grain production of India gradually decreased from 40 to about 20 percent.
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