LatinaLista — From May 20-31, the United Nations will host more than just their usual array of international dignitaries — they will welcome the Maasai of Africa, the Yawanawa from South America, the Māori from South East Asia, the Lakota from North America to Indigenous Peoples from around the world attending the annual United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Traveling to New York City to attend such a function is out of the reach of most indigenous peoples but a new global online campaign aims to let everyone’s voices be heard during these important talks.

Proud to be Indigenous, the brainchild of the U.S.-based First People’s Worldwide, is a week-long campaign to rally pride, support and awareness of indigenous issues and cultures.

Striving to celebrate all facets of indigenous cultures, the campaign began with a simple request to have people e-mail photos of themselves holding a sign saying “Proud to be Indigenous.” Response to the request was so gratifying for the campaign’s organizers that they expanded the concept.

Each day of Proud To Be Indigenous Week will have a theme. These themes focus on different facets of Indigenous culture and serve as a discussion tool to facilitate learning between each other during this special week.

On Monday, we want to hear all about your LAND. Send us pictures of your mountains, your waterways, your ancestral lands, or the place you call home. Send us articles about land issues you are having. If we all share where we are from, we can show the world that Indigenous People are everywhere. Most importantly, we want to know WHY you love your traditional territory.

The other days are devoted to: language, art, food and knowledge.

The campaign will be driven by social media with conversations continuing on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtags #Proud2BIndigenous or #P2BI.

However, organizers of the campaign know that there are many non-indigenous people who sympathize with the challenges and issues facing indigenous everywhere. As a way to show support, the campaign created widgets, special ‘twibbons‘ to put on Facebook and Twitter profile photos, as well as, a unique Facebook cover image and Facebook badges to use during the week.

Updates on the progress of the campaign and the stories received will be shared daily throughout the week with those who sign up for the daily newsletter.

First People’s Worldwide, the organizers of the campaign, is also a BlogBeat partner of Latina Lista. In support of their campaign, we will be featuring a story a day about indigenous issues from First People’s Worldwide.

LatinaLista — We’ve all seen the commercials. The music starts with a melancholy and dramatic melody as the camera zooms in on the sad and dirt-stained face of ‘Maria,’ an elementary school-age girl, as she shyly hovers in the doorway of her impoverished family’s shack wearing a hand-me-down dress recycled through one too many children. The camera pans to the sides and we see that Maria’s home sits off an unpaved road, chickens running amok, sewage in the streets, deep in the heart of some third-world country.

Suddenly, a deep voice is heard who explains that by sponsoring ‘Maria’ for just a few dollars a month, it would be enough to buy her and her family food, medicine, shoes and clothes so she can attend school. The speaker pleads, “Won’t you help Maria?”

Such commercials elicit one of two responses — we either pull out our checkbooks or we turn the channel dismissing the tug-at-your-heart commercial as a scam for our money with someone, probably the narrator, pocketing donations to ‘Maria.’

Yet, a new study shows that international child sponsorship, for the most part, isn’t a scam but actually does create positive outcomes for children like ‘Maria.’

Published in the Journal of Political Economy, the study found that the money we’re sending is the leading form of direct aid to these children in developing countries and is having fantastic results — higher rates of school graduations and the greater likelihood of being employed in sustainable jobs when they reach adulthood.

The study’s researchers found that donors typically give between $25-$40, which accounts for “approximately 3.39 billion dollars spent to sponsor 9.14 million children internationally.”

For the study, researchers looked at one of the largest international child sponsorship organizations, Compassion International, and studied the outcomes of the children they helped who lived in such countries as Bolivia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Uganda and the Philippines.

From the study, it was seen that donations are targeted for the greatest outcomes and they are achieving their goals. The study found that due to international sponsorship, the probability of a child completing secondary school ranged from 27%-40%, getting a university education by 50%-80%, and increased the odds of getting a white-collar job as an adult by about 35%.

The authors caution that the results of their study don’t “necessarily apply to all child sponsorship programs” given the fact that each organization has different guidelines and distributes their monies differently towards improving the well-being of children in developing countries. As such, it makes it harder to measure their success rates.

The authors identified 207 organizations worldwide which sponsor international child sponsorships. They are all based in either the United States or Europe with four of the largest ten being faith-based organizations.

While this is the first published study investigating if international child-sponsorship programs actually do help the intended children, an unexpected find by researchers — that some organizations reported that even during the recent recession their donations did not suffer — underscored just how serious a commitment people feel towards improving the lives of children in developing countries.

By Alex Hillsberg
Finances Online

Your morning caffeine fix is but a drop in the global bucket that makes coffee the number two most traded commodity in the world after petroleum. But with 100 million Americans like you drinking coffee every day, the bucket easily overflows to make the US the world’s top coffee consumer, according to the International Coffee Organization data used in the infographic. That’s enough to perk up a big chunk of our economy, or to be precise, $18 B spent for coffee last year. And it’s all because you love coffee.

But how far down the supply funnel does your coffee dollar go? Follow how coffee is made from your favorite house specialty blend to the farmer in a developing country struggling to make both ends meet. It’s a journey across social classes, lifestyles and cultures that will make you see coffee in a different light. It’s big businesses that run coffee in America. But it’s the small farmer in a developing country who starts it all.

Should you care for the farmer who grows your favorite coffee? Would you care even if you don’t know him?

LatinaLista — Every shopper has heard the “fair and square” retail promise at one time or another where stores try to ‘sell’ themselves to buyers as the go-to place for fair value. Yet, there’s another ‘fair’ buying campaign that goes beyond the fair value promise.

The Fair Trade Towns USA campaign started in 2005 as an offshoot of the international Fairtrade Towns campaign begun in the United Kingdom in 2000. The campaign matches buyers with quality products made in developing countries. Products with the Fair Trade stamp ensure buyers that these products were made without the use of child labor or hazardous chemicals or genetically modified enhanced methods and are a fair price for both buyer and seller.

Mayan basket weaver’s products are sold in the U.S. through Fair Trade initiatives.

But the biggest selling point of buying fair trade products is the potential to lift the people who made the products out of poverty. Whether it’s a Colombian coffee farmer or a Mayan weaver or a Brazilian honey keeper, their hard work should garner them what’s only fair in this consumer-driven global economy that allows them to pay for their children’s education, gives women a source of income and the confidence to succeed.

The Fair Trade Towns USA campaign has over 30 cities nationwide in their network. Designated a Fair Trade Town means buyers can find a range of fair trade products at their local retailers.

Described as a grass roots movement to build awareness and connect communities across borders, the campaign strives to make participation in the campaign relevant for both sellers and buyers. One way is through an unique meet-and-greet.

In April and May, two of the fair trade sellers from Guatemala will be touring some Fair Trade Towns on the east coast and meet the people who are buying their products. Miguel Mateo, a Fair Trade coffee farmer, and Gloria Chonay, a Fair Trade basket weaver, will see for themselves where their products are going, how they’re showcased and what people have to say about them.

Though the pair will be on the East Coast, they’ll be able to talk to fair trade buyers across the country since their appearances will be livestreamed as part of the campaign’s Kickin’ it Series.

To reach as many people as possible, two videochats with both Miguel and Gloria will take place throughout April into May. The first videochat, with Miguel, takes place this evening, Monday, April 15, at 6 EST. To participate, registration is required.

LatinaLista — At one time or another most women and girls in the United States have experienced the occasional unwanted catcall or whistle. As long as the guy committing the street harassment stays in his own (work) zone, it’s easy enough to ignore, but that’s not always the case.

Street harassment can also entail stalking and even rape of stranger on stranger. In countries in South America and Asia where street harassment is unofficially sanctioned by the culture, it can take on much more violating forms from the onset. Whether it’s a hand thrust between a woman’s legs as she walks down a sidewalk, to a slap on the rear to grabbing of breasts on a city bus to eventually a gang rape, street harassment is a serious problem that seems to only be getting worse.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and it’s the season of the year (spring) when there is also an increase in street harassment because of longer daylight hours and warmer temperatures. That’s why, April is a natural month to highlight the global issue of street harassment.

This week, April 7-13, is International Anti-Street Harassment Week. It’s a project of Stop Street Harassment.

The goals of the week-long observation are for the victims to reclaim public spaces, educate the offenders who think it’s ok to talk disrespectfully to anyone on the street and to educate the victims in how to call out those who are being disrespectful.

Events around the globe are being planned from rallies to plays to marches. Yet, organizers realize that for the movement to be sustained and carried forward victims need to share their stories, talk to one another, and bounce ideas off of each other on ways to stop the harassment.

So, from Facebook to Twitter (#streetharassment, #endsh), social media is playing an important part of the international campaign to keep people informed of the progress being made to getting people to see each other as equally human.

LatinaLista — This morning, the White House hosted a special installment of their ongoing “Champions of Change” series by honoring 11 people “who embody the spirit of Cesar Chavez’s legacy and commit themselves to working in their communities to advocate and organize around immigration-related issues.”

jmacosta)" width="300" height="225" class="size-medium wp-image-23423" /> Part of the honored delegates at this morning’s Cesar Chavez Champions of Change ceremony at the White House. (Photo: Taken from the Twitter feed of @jmacosta)

The Cesar Chavez Champions of Change program featured people from all corners of the nation who, like Chavez, are working towards a goal of inclusive justice.

The recipients of this year’s Cesar Chavez Champions of Change are:

Lawrence Benito
Chicago, IL

Lawrence Benito serves as the Chief Executive Officer at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), one of the leading organizations with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement fighting for just and humane immigration policies. The son of immigrants from the Philippines, Lawrence has spent the last twenty years working for justice for immigrants and other disenfranchised groups, through community and electoral organizing. Currently, he serves on the board of directors for Chicago Public Media, and is a proud Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ghana, ‘93-95).

Yvanna Cancela
Las Vegas, NV

Yvanna Cancela lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is the political director at UNITE HERE’s Local 226, the Culinary Workers Union. Yvanna’s work has increased clergy and community involvement and political mobilization. She is currently helping to coordinate a statewide campaign for comprehensive immigration reform. Yvanna has dedicated herself to ensuring workers have a strong voice on the job and in their communities. She believes all jobs should give people the opportunity to provide for their families and themselves. Yvanna graduated from Northwestern University in 2010.

Ian Danley
Phoenix, AZ

Ian is a community leader and community organizer whose work for nearly 10 years has been directing youth leadership and college preparatory programs for local urban youth at Neighborhood Ministries. The program has led to scores of low-income youth graduating from high school and connecting to career and post-secondary options. Ian serves on the advisory board at Promise Arizona and is active at his church. He was also recently elected to the Governing Board of the Phoenix Union High School District in November where he plans on bringing a grassroots perspective towards change to local high schools. Ian is married to his wife Shiloh and they are expecting their first child, Tyler, to be born this summer.

Jason Mathis
Salt Lake City, UT

Jason Mathis is the executive director of Salt Lake City’s Downtown Alliance and EVP of the Salt Lake Chamber overseeing policy initiatives for immigration and urban development. He excels at framing public discourse to accomplish strategic goals and has successfully managed several high-profile issues in complex settings. Jason helped draft The Utah Compact by bringing together diverse stakeholders to create a simple values-based document. The Compact changed the trajectory of Utah’s policies and the national discussion, creating a more civil, compassionate and comprehensive approach to immigration reform.

L. Mireya Reith
Fayetteville, AR

L. Mireya Reith is Executive Director of Arkansas United Community Coalition (AUCC), Arkansas’ first nonprofit working at the state level to empower immigrants. Inspired by her experiences growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, Reith founded AUCC in order to more broadly foster the integration of her state’s newly emerged immigrant population. Reith proudly served her country as a municipal development volunteer with the Peace Corps in El Salvador, and currently serves her state as the first Latina and youngest person ever appointed by the Governor to the Arkansas State Board of Education. Reith’s commitment and passion for diversity further derives from her 14-year career in the field of international political development, where she worked across five continents with American nonprofit organizations and the United Nations to engage marginalized communities in democratic processes.

Judy Rickard
San Jose, CA

Judy Rickard, author of Torn Apart: United by Love, Divided by Law, Findhorn Press, 2011, has worked to promote civil rights since 1973 as a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activist. She has extensive experience working with politicians and educators in San Jose/Santa Clara County, California where she lives. Speaking engagements, a blog, and a website continue her advocacy for comprehensive immigration reform that will include the recognition of same-sex binational families in the United States. She is a pioneer in applying for a green card for her wife, UK national Karin Bogliolo, with The DOMA Project.

Maria Rodriguez
Miami, FL

Maria has worked to defend basic human rights of low-income and migrant peoples for 25 years. She is a graduate of Georgetown University, where Maria was active in the anti-apartheid and Central America solidarity movements. She connected with Tenant and Workers’ United, where she became the lead organizer on a campaign to create a housing cooperative. She has worked to defend public health care coverage and promoted the growth of award-winning free clinics: La Clinica del Pueblo in Washington, D.C. and Good News Care Center in Florida. She also served as Deputy Director of the Human Services Coalition in South Florida. Maria has been a Board Member for Florida New Majority, ACLU of Florida, New World Foundation Board in New York, and the Highlander Center in Tennessee. She co-founded FLIC in 2005 and is the mother of Dante.

Rich Stolz
Seattle, WA

Rich Stolz was born in South Korea, grew up in California, and lives in Seattle, but has lived and organized in communities as diverse as Maine, Alabama, Arizona, and Washington, D.C. He is the Executive Director of OneAmerica, the largest immigrant rights advocacy organization in Washington State. Previously, Rich worked at the Center for Community Change (CCC).

Matthew Soerens
Glen Ellyn, IL

Matthew Soerens serves as the US Church Training Specialist for World Relief, which is the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. Matthew previously served as a Board of Immigration Appeals-accredited legal counselor at World Relief’s local office in Wheaton, Illinois and, before that, with World Relief’s partner organization in Managua, Nicaragua. He is the co-author of Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate (InterVarsity Press, 2009). Originally from Neenah, Wisconsin, Matthew and his wife Diana live in Glen Ellyn, Illinois and are expecting their first child in June.

Javier H. Valdés
Brooklyn, NY

Javier oversees the organizing and policy work at Make the Road New York in the areas of civic participation, civil rights, education, housing, environmental justice, LGBTQ, and immigration. He also supervises MRNY’s youth programming, including school partnerships, Student Success Centers and after-school youth leadership development, as well as MRNY’s administrative and operations functions. Previously, Javier served as the Director of Advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC). Javier also led the Immigrant Advocacy Fellowship, a leadership program for emerging immigrant leaders in the city and state. Until August 2005, Javier was the Program Officer for Latin America at the Synergos Institute where he worked extensively in the US-Mexico border, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. He holds a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from New York University and has two sons.

Bonnie M. Youn
Tucker, GA

Bonnie M. Youn is a recognized Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) community leader in Georgia. Ethnically Korean but born in the Philippines, she began practicing as an immigration attorney in 1997 and is principal of her own law firm, the Youn Law Group. She has worked tirelessly to provide a voice for immigrants and AAPI communities. She led teams that organized the 2013 Georgia AAPI Legislative Day, gathering the largest number of AAPIs in history at the State Capitol to meet and lobby elected officials. In 2012, she worked closely with the White House Initiative on AAPIs to organize its Southeast Regional Action Summit at Emory University in Atlanta. The Summit brought together over 500 participants to meet federal agency officials, culminating in a town hall meeting discussing concerns about immigration, healthcare and mental health issues, small business, and housing needs. Her current passions are advocating for more AAPI judges and political appointees, challenging state legislation that disenfranchises immigrants, and creating a legacy of a sustainable AAPI Commission for Georgia.

LatinaLista — The year 2006 will be forever remembered as the time when the Latino community came together and marched for immigration reform. As anyone who took part in those infamous marches of 2006 that swept the country from Los Angeles to Dallas to Chicago to New York City, those marches weren’t so much about policy as it was personal.

It seems like everyone knew or knew someone who knew someone who was undocumented. It was that personal connection, no matter how many degrees removed, that made people so passionate about walking the streets of their cities shoulder to shoulder.

A few times since then, immigration activists and advocacy organizations have tried to replicate those memorable marches, and in all honesty, they just haven’t been able to recapture the same intensity of emotion or participation.

But this year could be different.

Though the White House is seen to be sincere in getting immigration reform passed and a bipartisan group of Congressmen are spearheading a compromised approach to the issue, there are still too many politicians in Congress who are critical of immigration reform and regurgitating old and exaggerated rhetoric to oppose it.

It’s this opposition, when the potential to get something done is as high as it’s ever been, that could be enough of an impetus to get people to lace up their shoes again and take to the streets one more time to speak out for a path to citizenship for 11 million people.

At least that’s the hope of a massive event planned for April 10, 2013 in Washington DC.

Citizenship for 11 million is a rally planned on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capital Building in Washington D.C. While the vast number of participating organizations and groups are known for championing immigration reform over the years, there are some new members to the group from the business, technology and education sectors.

The main goal of the rally is to “educate, march, rally, pray and knock on the doors of Congress until President Obama signs commonsense immigration reform that includes a realistic path to citizenship.”

It’s a path that may finally be realized.

LatinaLista — In almost any conversation dealing with immigrants and/or immigration reform, someone points out the obvious — “Immigrants come to work.”

A new social media campaign strives to expand on that sentiment by declaring that immigrants are Here for Good.

Launched this week by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), the campaign strives to highlight the economic and cultural contributions of refugees and immigrants to the United States.

Whether it be establishing new restaurants, new service companies, sharing their culture at community events, the campaign’s goal is to put a human face to the issue of immigration reform. The hope is that it’s harder to deny a people who are making positive contributions to their local communities and the nation.

On the campaign’s Facebook page, people are invited to share their stories of what motivated them to come to the U.S. Affiliate organizations of USCRI from around the country share their photos of new arrivals and if there’s one common theme among the stories and photos posted so far it’s that they all call the U.S. home.

LatinaLista — The Annie E. Casey Foundation released an update on the issue of youth behind bars, which is a mixed bag of news.

The good news is that over a 15-year period, from 1995-2010, youth incarceration dropped by 40 percent. However, the bad news is still bad.

According to the KIDS COUNT Data Snapshot: Youth Incarceration, kids are being sent to detention and juvenile facilities for mostly non-violent offenses.

…nearly 40 percent of juvenile commitments and detentions are due to technical violations of probation, drug possession, low-level property offenses, public order offenses and status offenses (activities that would not be crimes for adults, such as possession of alcohol or truancy). This means most confined youth pose relatively low public safety risks.

The rest of the bad news is that students of color make up the bulk of the incarcerations.

The decline in confinement has occurred across all of the five largest racial groups with the biggest declines occurring among Asian and Pacific Islander and Latino youth. However, large disparities remain in youth confinement rates by race. African-American youth are nearly five times more likely to be confined than their white peers. Latino and American Indian youth are between two and three times more likely to be confined.

Even with the improving trend, it’s clear that children of color were/are considered ‘throw-away’ kids. To be jailed for minor offenses such as truancy, drug possession, public disorder offenses, etc. underscores a prevailing attitude that these particular students weren’t/aren’t worthy of an education.

The over-reliance of the juvenile justice system on incarcerating youth of color more often than their white peers, rather than trying to keep them in a learning environment, illustrates the systemic racial attitudes that permeate not just the juvenile justice system but the educational system as well.

The report’s authors make several recommendations such as: restricting incarceration only to youth who pose a demonstrable risk to public safety, creating alternatives to incarceration and establishing treatment-oriented facilities “that can provide a humane and developmentally appropriate setting in which their delinquent behavior can be treated effectively.”

The report doesn’t excuse or make light of misbehavior but, at the same time, the report makes very clear that society’s response to these students has been out of proportion to what they committed — making it a no-brainer that these same children grow up thinking that no matter what they do they’ll end up behind bars, and so they might as well do something that truly warrants it.

LatinaLista — In 2000, world leaders created the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was a promise that the developed countries of the world would work together to end extreme poverty by 2015.

Two years from that goal date finds that the world has made a lot of progress:

The number of people living in poverty has fallen to less than half of its 1990 level. Over two billion people gained access to better drinking water. The share of slum dwellers living in cities fell, improving the lives of at least 100 million people.

However, there are 1.4 billion people still living in extreme poverty.

Every 4 seconds a child dies from preventable causes and over 900 million, particularly women and young people, suffer from chronic hunger. Meanwhile our population is set to rise to 9.5 billion by 2050 and the food system is at breaking point.

Climate change threatens to destroy the lives of millions more and undo all the progress we have made so far. Inequality is growing everywhere and human rights are being undermined in the worlds most fragile and conflict affected countries while the world economy continues to falter.

Even with the doom-and-gloom outlook of what is left to be done, there is still hope that MDG goals can be continually met. Organizers of a new global campaign — The World We Want 2015 — say that the planet’s population has the “resources to end poverty and grow our world sustainably.”

But the key ingredient is global cooperation. To that end, The World We Want 2015 campaign offers people from around the world the opportunity to share in that cooperation by voicing their concerns/aspirations on the website. The organizers hope to pass along the thoughts and ideas collected on the site to the United Nations and world leaders to help in drafting a new global development agenda to be launched in 2015.

On the site, various “Global Online Conversations” are held concerning different themes. Open conversations are referred to as thematic consultations which are based around a specific issue. For example, the United Nations is hosting a consultation on how to address inequalities in the world.

Contributions don’t only have to be made via the web site. Social media is also being tapped to make it easy for people to share their ideas. On Twitter, the conversation can be found @worldwewant2015 and also with the hashtags: #post2015, #beyond2015, #Inequalities2015.

To urge people to participate, organizers pose one simple question to the world’s population:

What kind of World do you Want?