using our literacy skills for good

Last week we reported about the release of the United Nations Millenium Goals Report. The report shows that not enough progress is being made to meet the targets in time.

The G8 summit was also last week. They started, as we all should, with a nice breakfast:
"The official cook of the Italian national soccer team, Claudio Silvestri, was in charge of breakfast and served a staple from Italians' breakfast tables for nearly 65 years -- Nutella. The roasted hazelnut spread was offered in the form of a balanced breakfast -- on bread accompanied by milk and fruit. Fortified by this nutritious breakfast, the world's leaders were then ready to tackle the globe's pressing issues through the rest of the day."

One of the pressing issues they took on was maternal and child health last week. Here is how the Guardian reported the attempt:
"...perhaps believers of the Make Poverty History generation should not give up hope just yet. While the G8 failed to increase their aid for maternal and child health (which currently represents a miniscule 3% of total aid) they were persuaded to commission a new assessment of the finance that is needed to reach the millennium development goals (MDGs). Reportedly this line in the statement was hastily agreed as the meeting was breaking up and a number of leaders were impatient to leave for an earthquake tour."

And so it goes.

Anotonia Zerbisias posted a copy of this ad which exhorts these world "leaders" to use the literacy skills, learned from their mothers, to ensure global health and well-being.

Your mother taught you how to write your name, now she'd expect you to sign it.

Every single minute a mother dies in pregnancy or childbirth. 80% of those deaths are preventable. At this week's G8 Summit in Italy, you are the 8 people who can prevent them -- it's as simple as that. Reduce maternal mortality and make every mother proud of you.

Mothers everywhere are watching and hoping.

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math,
that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe.
~ kurt vonnegut ~
in hocus pocus, 1990

But it could mean that we do all we can to help make the universe a humane and beautiful place for all of inhabitants. Hazelnuts and chocolate for all!