The real solution to ending world hunger

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Eradicating world hunger is one of the dominant reasons for giving to charity. However, donating food may just be a stopgap solution to a growing problem. After all, when the giving stops, the eating stops as well.

The saying “…give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour; if you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn,” written by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie and now an oft-cited proverb, is one of the inspirations for sustainable solutions against world hunger and poverty. People in the most impoverished areas around the world are increasingly relying on government aid and charity donations for their daily rations instead of actually learning livelihoods.

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What governments and charitable organizations can do is create programs that teach self-reliance in subsistence. Education can be the key to end world hunger, not limited food handout programs. Technology on how to grow food faster and more efficiently already exists, but knowledge of productive use is still wanting. Giving access to such technologies provides subsistence and a renewable source of income, and the opportunity to grow further economically through the sale of surplus produce.

These reforms need to be cushioned by governments. Protecting small farmers from the agricultural monopoly of big corporations is crucial their survival in the market and in life.

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Alex von Furstenberg dedicates his life to many charitable institutions via the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation. More information about the Mr. von Furstenberg’s work with the foundation is detailed at this website.

Heart of Los Angeles: College access to underserved kids

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What used to be a luxury reserved exclusively for the rich is now a right that everyone deserves to have—education. The Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), an organization providing underserved youth with exceptional programs in academics, arts, and athletics, believes that kids belonging to low-income families should get an equal opportunity in attaining a college education from top-tier institutions.

HOLA attests that such kids have a low representation at top colleges and universities in the US but are overly represented at public access two-year schools. There are several reasons why it is such a struggle for underprivileged youth to get through elite colleges, and topping the list is the fact that low-income families can’t afford the cost of applying to more than one college. Kids also often face the pressure from their parents to stay local, or worse, to skip college. Moreover, the lack of outside support causes teens to not have a better understanding of their abilities and talents. Hence, they wouldn’t know what their choices are in college, which sometimes results to the decision of not going to college at all.

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HOLA understands that intervention is indicative of significant worth for all kids to have a bright future. It firmly values the need to strengthen more nationally recognized programs that exercise efforts of putting low-income youth in selective colleges. The organization appeals to these colleges to readdress their application and admission processes in order to widen their doors to low-income youth.

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Philanthropist Alex von Furstenberg’s advocacy to help the youth get access to education has been going on for years as evidenced by his support for the Heart of Los Angeles, among other organizations. Get to know more of his humanitarian efforts on this Facebook page.

Strategic giving: Approaching philanthropy with a different mindset

In spite of the recession and the still recovering economy, generosity remained abundant in the US. The philanthropic community has been notably active in the previous year, with about 64 million volunteers and 65 percent of households donating to a charity or a specific cause. As a whole, foundations, corporations, and individuals gave about $298 billion.

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While philanthropic work in the US continues to be a strong driving force in promoting social change, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen noted that there is still much that can be improved. Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen, who teaches four philanthropy courses at Stanford, has made materials on studying and teaching philanthropy available online to encourage other learning institutions to start their own programs.

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Majority of the donors to philanthropic ventures are driven by emotion or a generous feeling. Therein lies a great but yet untapped potential because there are greater things that can be achieved when people take time to learn about the potential impact of their donations.

Shifting from emotion-driven giving to strategic philanthropy can empower the givers. The new generation of philanthropists is hungry for more information, and they want to know just how much impact their efforts and donations will have. In giving them the materials they need, they can go beyond being passive givers who are just hoping that their contribution will help and become effective planners and implementers of social change.

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This Twitter page on Alex von Furstenberg is regularly updated with links to stories about developments in philanthropy around the nation.

Lessons in philanthropy

Little by little, the world is changing its views on philanthropy. It is no longer the endeavor of wealthy individuals with cash to spare. With the advancements in technology and information, philanthropy has become a challenge to every individual to contribute to causes and programs that are geared toward solving some of the various problems that the world has today.

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In order to give more power to the act of giving and to have it make more of an impact, people will have to learn about modern philanthropy. There is a need for people to know about the various aspects of philanthropic work (what works and what doesn’t) for them to be able to formulate better solutions for the many problems of the modern world.

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Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, who teaches philanthropic courses at Stanford University, has revealed in an interview that more than half of all individual philanthropists give to charity without knowing exactly how their contribution will impact the cause. She further goes to say that there is a massively untapped potential there and that results could be improved if the givers were better informed of how their generosity can be translated into something that affects the world in a more meaningful way.

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Recently, Ms. Arrillaga-Andreessen has shared her notes and syllabi on philanthropy online, in hopes that making educational material on charity easily available can spur other educational institutions to start offering their own courses on philanthropy and strategic giving.

Follow this Twitter page on Alex von Furstenberg to find more articles on matters related to philanthropic work.

Information literacy: Because there's a need to know

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Information literacy has been making strides toward the center of the American educational system—all because of its powerful and dynamic nature, which transcends from simple reading, writing, and computing, for learning and problem solving purposes. In other words, information literacy is the capacity of people to find needed information and use that information accordingly.

However, although the modern world has become a global society of information technology, the implementation of information and computer skills has also been sluggish. Penny Moore, PhD, educational research consultant and executive director of the International Association of School Librarianship, affirms that information technology has not been fully successful in laying the groundwork for students to face the digital age.

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Yet everybody should have the right to access information as a means to improve lives. From the overflowing information, individuals have to search for and find the right information to address varying needs, be it personal, social, or economic. With this, information-literate individuals should be able to do the following:

• Understand and put their problems in words to be able to recognize what information is needed.

• Get the information from identified, useful, and relevant sources, including people, government agencies, websites, and books.

• Verify the veracity of the information, such as knowing the distinction between a profit-making marketing pitch and authentic information.

• Assemble the information in such a way that they can be used correspondingly and create significant results.

For people not to drown in the sea of information, they need to be aware of ways to look systematically for the information they wish to get.

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Business maven and philanthropist Alex von Furstenberg helps the less fortunate gain access to information and education. This Facebook page shows updates on his philanthropic efforts.

Why breaking away from test-and-punish theory steps up American education

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Compared to other students in the world, American students are the most tested, yet least examined. The rationale behind its education system’s testing of students is this: Frequent testing enhances learning and attaching scores to a battery of multiple-choice type of tests is apt. Thus, the US government has made decisions in relation to issues concerning promotion or castigation of students, retention or retrenchment of teachers, and rewarding or punishment of schools when they fail in certain tests.

However, this test-and-punish argument actually blunts the country’s quality of education instead of strengthening it. Here are some reasons:

1. Schools, especially in low-income communities, reduce or eliminate teaching in non-tested subject areas, like science and social studies. This results to an inferior curriculum, giving learners the lack of knowledge and skills.

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2. When government punishes schools for incurring low testing scores, it pushes them to keep high-achieving students but kicks out underachieving ones. This discourages struggling students to get the learning they so need.

3. The test-based educational system redirects the focus into far more important disparities, like child homelessness, state funding system, and disintegrating schools in destitute communities.

The test-and-punish accountability is rooted in the notion that learning will not progress without the attachment of sanctions and punishments to students, schools and educators. But it’s high time to reconsider the lessons this country can learn from other developing nations, like Finland and Singapore. Although their students are less tested, the kinds of tests they run range from thought-provoking essays to oral examinations that require critical and problem solving, unlike America’s multiple-choice tests.

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Philanthropist Alex von Furstenberg is a philanthropist who values quality education among the youth. This Twitter page links to more information about his advocacies.