ACTUALITY: VILSACK STATEMENT ON BLACK FARMER SETTLEMENT APPROVAL: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack with comments on a federal judge's final approval of a 1.2 billion dollar settlement in the second round of settlements in the so called Pigford case. This settlement is directed to farmers who were denied payments in the first round because they missed the filing deadlines. The settlements in the case are over claims that some black farmers received unfair treatment by the USDA. The lawsuit was filed in 1997.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
This blog is to provide all our readers and people that visit that we care about the healthcare our environment and the world.we look at providing help and guidance in all forms of healthcare and have related posts for the elderly, disabled and infirm.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Let’s Move to Buy Groceries with SNAP
Let’s Move to Buy Groceries with SNAP
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
It can be a challenge to build a healthy plate of fresh fruits and vegetables. That’s why First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Faith and Communities initiative is helping community and faith-based organizations to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable food in the communities. These organizations are moving across the country in several creative ways: hosting farmers markets, organizing food pantries, and starting community gardens. ACTIVE Life, a non-profit supporter of Let’s Move!, is working to “make healthy the norm” so that people build and sustain healthy communities in Texas.
One way that ACTIVE Life is tackling the challenge of low access to produce is by helping youth and families use Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), to buy groceries. SNAP helps more than 45 million people put healthy food on the table each month. An easy-to-use electronic benefit transfer card, much like a debit card, is provided to SNAP participants and accepted at most grocery stores. The First Lady has encouraged organizations to promote affordable and accessible food by helping families, congregations, and communities sign up for SNAP online or by calling the National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-3-HUNGRY for information.
But good nutrition doesn’t stop at the grocery store. That’s why ACTIVE Life is helping SNAP participants learn to make healthy eating and active lifestyle choices through nutrition education. ACTIVE Life is part of Texas’ statewide SNAP-Ed plan, which helps SNAP participants make healthy decisions when shopping with a SNAP card. ACTIVE Life created a nutrition curriculum to teach shoppers how to plan menus before heading to the grocery store and to cook healthy meals with the understanding that money can be saved without taking up too much time. They’re teaching shoppers that nutrition doesn’t have to be expensive and that healthy eating on a budge can be easy if shoppers choose wisely. This curriculum was brought to students and families at more than 380 sites across Texas last year. One SNAP-Ed teacher said, “What I notice most [in response to the ACTIVE Nutrition lessons being taught to our participants] is that the kids begin to think about what they eat and ask themselves if it fits with what they discuss in the lessons. It’s the first step towards a happier, healthier self, but it’s a big one.”
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Keep Up with Latest Career Opportunities on USAID Global Health's New Employment RSS Feed
Keep Up with Latest Career Opportunities on USAID Global Health's New Employment RSS Feed:
The new Bureau of Global Health employment opportunities RSS feed helps readers keep up with the latest job postings for USAID GH.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Rural Champion Leads Efforts to Re-Build Hurricane Ravaged Town
Rural Champion Leads Efforts to Re-Build Hurricane Ravaged Town
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Linda Roberson is the Town Manager and Finance Director of Zolfo Springs, Florida. The Town Zolfo Springs in a very small rural town in Hardee County, Florida. The town has financed 2 water and waste projects, purchased a back hoe, and a city hall ADA improvement project. They have worked very hard to mitigate issues with their old water system and have been successful in that effort.
The town was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Charlie in 2004. Since then the city has rebuilt its police and fire station and continues to make efforts to improve the town both structurally and financially. They provide a self-nomination for the Community Development award that has more details.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Rural Champion Rebuilds A Five-Generation Family Farm with Help from a USDA Loan
Rural Champion Rebuilds A Five-Generation Family Farm with Help from a USDA Loan
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
A five-generation family farm, Young’s Greenhouse was severely damaged in a tornado. Since the early 1900s, Young’s Greenhouse has been family owned and operated providing vegetables and flowers to the community. The tornado ripped through the families 300 plus acres destroying all of their greenhouses and numerous outbuildings that support their livestock operation.
The Young’s sought the help of the USDA Farm Service Agency’s Emergency Loan Program which provides assistance to help producers recover from production and physical losses due to natural disasters. With this loan the Young’s were able to pay off the major bills incurred during reconstruction. Since then with the help and support of their family, friends and the community the Young’s have rebuilt eight greenhouses, making them extra long. Additionally, they added one 30’ x 300’ cold frame greenhouse.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Simple Technologies Can Improve The Lives Of Millions In Developing World, Say Global Health Leaders
Simple Technologies Can Improve The Lives Of Millions In Developing World, Say Global Health Leaders: Delivering babies in the dark, breathing toxic smoke in the kitchen and walking miles to fetch water -- not to mention boiling every drop before its potable. These are the daily realities for many people in developing nations, particularly the poorest of the poor in rural communities.
But a handful of non-profits are launching innovative approaches to deliver simple, life-changing technologies to this "last mile." Kopernik, an online technology marketplace co-founded by Toshi Nakamura, was among the efforts spotlighted at last week's annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.
The Kopernik website offers a menu of around 50 solutions -- from solar-powered lamps and biomass cooking stoves to rolling water drums and drip irrigation systems -- that are manufactured by companies from around the world and then sold at minimal cost to end-users. The product list is connected to on-the-ground organizations, which can choose those items most appropriate to their community's specific needs. Projects are crowd-funded through the website, and once necessary funds are collected, the merchandise is delivered directly to the local groups, which are typically run by women. The women distribute the items within their village network and often sell the subsidized goods to neighboring communities as well -- in a fashion similar to American Tupperware or Avon parties.
"There's big money getting pumped in, but it is not always reaching the people," Nakamura told The Huffington Post. "The aid industry is made up of a bunch of diplomats and bureaucrats that tend to recycle the same ideas over and over again without taking risks."
"We're trying to counterbalance that," he said.
On a panel last Thursday at CGI, Nakamura, formerly of the United Nations and who now runs his non-profit out of Bali, told the story of an Indonesian woman who sold 50 water purifiers in two weeks. The woman, who previously lived on less than a dollar a day, took home $60 in commission. And in the process, she saved the time and health of many more women and their families.
"In our culture, women believe that boiling water is the best way of purifying it," Betty Kyazike, a branch manager for Living Goods, said during another CGI panel discussion. "But they don't always boil it up to boiling point, so it's not safe for drinking."
Even if they properly cook off the cholera and other pathogens, the water rarely tastes good, said Kyazike, who proudly declared that she currently leads the the top-performing branch of an Avon-like network of health promoters. In addition to distributing products, Living Goods also provides education -- from the proper use of water filters to the importance of hand-washing in disease prevention.
Women's water troubles don't stop with pathogens, however. Lugging the water from the well can be a major drain of time and energy, added Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer for Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company.
"I actually did this walk in the heat with a lady in South Africa," said Weed, also on Kyazike's panel. "With the weight of the vessel on the way back, I was a complete wimp and had a backache by the end of it."
Kopernik's menu supplies another answer: a 13-gallon donut-shaped plastic container that can be easily rolled with a rope to and from the well.
Water conservation can also limit such trips, said Weed. Teaching women to recycle the three or four buckets of water typically used for a load of laundry onto their vegetable garden, for example, could further improve their quality of life.
Indoor air is yet another source of significant concern. Millions of women in the developing world still cook with firewood. This practice, which involves gathering and chopping the increasingly scarce resource, is another time and energy sink that keeps women and girls from more productive activities, like going to school. And cooking over an open flame or with a traditional cook stove means inhaling thick, toxic black smoke, noted Neil Bellefeuille, chief executive officer of The Paradigm Project, which aims to leverage carbon markets on behalf of the poor.
Associated respiratory illnesses are a pandemic in the developing world: Every year, an estimated two million people die from breathing smoke created by cooking fires, which is more than die from malaria, noted Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations in a HuffPost blog.
"This is a large issue, and it remains mostly under the radar," said Bellefeuille, a member of Nakamura's CGI panel and whose company sells clean cook stoves. "It's literally like having a campfire in the living room."
A biomass stove sold through Kopernik is 80 percent more efficient than one that burns firewood, while producing minimal smoke and carbon dioxide. Since the charcoal fuel can be created with everything from corn husks to coconut shells, it also reduces the burden on trees and therefore the pace of deforestation.
Also contributing to toxic indoor air pollution is kerosene. Without access to electricity, many populations in the developing world rely on costly and dirty kerosene lamps. Solar lights, offered through Kopernik, provide a cheaper, cleaner light source. In many rural villages, these now allow families to be more productive and babies to be delivered safely at night.
"The quality of light is good, so we can see the condition of the mother, and if there's any bleeding, we're able to see it," says a midwife in Oecusse, East Timor, in a video created by Kopernik.
What's more, with the solar devices, a family's monthly lighting costs drop from an average of $14 to less than a dollar.
"This is really simple stuff," said Nakamura.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
But a handful of non-profits are launching innovative approaches to deliver simple, life-changing technologies to this "last mile." Kopernik, an online technology marketplace co-founded by Toshi Nakamura, was among the efforts spotlighted at last week's annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.
The Kopernik website offers a menu of around 50 solutions -- from solar-powered lamps and biomass cooking stoves to rolling water drums and drip irrigation systems -- that are manufactured by companies from around the world and then sold at minimal cost to end-users. The product list is connected to on-the-ground organizations, which can choose those items most appropriate to their community's specific needs. Projects are crowd-funded through the website, and once necessary funds are collected, the merchandise is delivered directly to the local groups, which are typically run by women. The women distribute the items within their village network and often sell the subsidized goods to neighboring communities as well -- in a fashion similar to American Tupperware or Avon parties.
"There's big money getting pumped in, but it is not always reaching the people," Nakamura told The Huffington Post. "The aid industry is made up of a bunch of diplomats and bureaucrats that tend to recycle the same ideas over and over again without taking risks."
"We're trying to counterbalance that," he said.
On a panel last Thursday at CGI, Nakamura, formerly of the United Nations and who now runs his non-profit out of Bali, told the story of an Indonesian woman who sold 50 water purifiers in two weeks. The woman, who previously lived on less than a dollar a day, took home $60 in commission. And in the process, she saved the time and health of many more women and their families.
"In our culture, women believe that boiling water is the best way of purifying it," Betty Kyazike, a branch manager for Living Goods, said during another CGI panel discussion. "But they don't always boil it up to boiling point, so it's not safe for drinking."
Even if they properly cook off the cholera and other pathogens, the water rarely tastes good, said Kyazike, who proudly declared that she currently leads the the top-performing branch of an Avon-like network of health promoters. In addition to distributing products, Living Goods also provides education -- from the proper use of water filters to the importance of hand-washing in disease prevention.
Women's water troubles don't stop with pathogens, however. Lugging the water from the well can be a major drain of time and energy, added Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer for Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company.
"I actually did this walk in the heat with a lady in South Africa," said Weed, also on Kyazike's panel. "With the weight of the vessel on the way back, I was a complete wimp and had a backache by the end of it."
Kopernik's menu supplies another answer: a 13-gallon donut-shaped plastic container that can be easily rolled with a rope to and from the well.
Water conservation can also limit such trips, said Weed. Teaching women to recycle the three or four buckets of water typically used for a load of laundry onto their vegetable garden, for example, could further improve their quality of life.
Indoor air is yet another source of significant concern. Millions of women in the developing world still cook with firewood. This practice, which involves gathering and chopping the increasingly scarce resource, is another time and energy sink that keeps women and girls from more productive activities, like going to school. And cooking over an open flame or with a traditional cook stove means inhaling thick, toxic black smoke, noted Neil Bellefeuille, chief executive officer of The Paradigm Project, which aims to leverage carbon markets on behalf of the poor.
Associated respiratory illnesses are a pandemic in the developing world: Every year, an estimated two million people die from breathing smoke created by cooking fires, which is more than die from malaria, noted Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations in a HuffPost blog.
"This is a large issue, and it remains mostly under the radar," said Bellefeuille, a member of Nakamura's CGI panel and whose company sells clean cook stoves. "It's literally like having a campfire in the living room."
A biomass stove sold through Kopernik is 80 percent more efficient than one that burns firewood, while producing minimal smoke and carbon dioxide. Since the charcoal fuel can be created with everything from corn husks to coconut shells, it also reduces the burden on trees and therefore the pace of deforestation.
Also contributing to toxic indoor air pollution is kerosene. Without access to electricity, many populations in the developing world rely on costly and dirty kerosene lamps. Solar lights, offered through Kopernik, provide a cheaper, cleaner light source. In many rural villages, these now allow families to be more productive and babies to be delivered safely at night.
"The quality of light is good, so we can see the condition of the mother, and if there's any bleeding, we're able to see it," says a midwife in Oecusse, East Timor, in a video created by Kopernik.
What's more, with the solar devices, a family's monthly lighting costs drop from an average of $14 to less than a dollar.
"This is really simple stuff," said Nakamura.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
ALERT - Dieters beware – Fiber One Bars Allergy Alert & Recall
Dieters beware – Fiber One Bars Allergy Alert & Recall:
Tagged: allergen, diet, fiber one
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
I just love those Fiber One Bars. Those chocolate bars are great. The Fiber One products are touted by Hungry Girl and weight loss programs. If you are like me, a recalled Fiber One bar may be lurking in your kitchen. Just to make sure, read the recall and tell your diet buddies to check their kitchens also.
Tagged: allergen, diet, fiber one
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)