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Editors note: Today’s “Humanitarian Friday”  post on literacy and the Room to Read program were inspired by a recommendation from the Blog Mastermind, Yaro Starak.

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Editors note: Today’s post is part of my regular “Humanitarian Friday” series. When I started mytropicalescape.com one of my goals was to help spread some awareness of the tremendous disparities in the quality of life that exists around the world. Surprisingly, many people have actually been reading these posts (Google Analytics is watching you) even though they do not draw many comments, and as a way of expanding the series the standard format for the next couple of weeks will be changing, but only a little.

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The other day I just happened to be thumbing through a magazine that had an article on women’s rights and female mutilation. The article had one quote that really caught my attention, it stated, “Bearing the pains of mutilation is believed to toughen girls for childbirth and wife-beating.” Truly, an almost unfathomable thought.

During my life I have had the very good fortune of being able to travel to a lot of countries and sample completely different cultures. Extended periods of travel, or even your standard yearly vacations, are a tremendous way to broaden your horizons and increase your global knowledge.

However, one sad detail of world travel that has always amazed me are the hardships that many women (on a global scale) face on a day to day basis. In many countries women are the primary caregivers, the house cleaners, the cooks, the water fetchers, and the garden tenders. For most of us in the western world I think we would crumble under the weight of their duties.

Life is hard and it can be a struggle to survive everyday.

As stated above, life can be difficult, and if you include domestic violence or other forms of abuse, such as being treated like a third class citizen, then living can almost be unbearable.

According to Amnesty International, “Women and girls suffer disproportionately from violence - both in peace and in war, at the hands of the state, the community and the family.” Currently Amnesty International has a program aimed at Stopping Violence Against Women which focuses on 5 key areas to help empower the global improvement of women’s lives. The key components are as follows:

• Pushes for the implementation of existing laws that guarantee access to justice and services for women subjected to violence including rape and other forms of sexual violence
• Calls for new laws to be enacted that will protect women’s human rights
• Demands an end to laws that discriminate against women
• Urges the ending of violence against women perpetrated by a state and its agents
• Works to empower women

If you care about women’s rights please visit the Amnesty International website and support this organization.

Editor’s note: This is just a quick Humanitarian Friday post because my jump drive (with all of my draft posts) crashed and I am on the ferry from Culebra over to the big island (Puerto Rico) for Christmas shopping.

During the past week I published the post, “The Ten Most Inspirational Bloggers of 2007.” In the article the first person highlighted was Scott Rigsby, who was the first double amputee to complete the IronMan Triathlon in Hawaii.

Scott also runs a nonprofit organization that helps to support physically challenged athletes. During this holiday season, if you would like to support a GREAT organization that has been created by a truly amazing person then please have a look at the Scott Rigsby Foundation website.

For the specifics “the Scott Rigsby Foundation is a 501(C)(3), non-profit organization dedicated to the support of physically challenged athletes and their athletic pursuits. Founded in 2007 by double amputee and record setting triathlete Scott Rigsby, the Foundation will also promote education and awareness of physically challenged athletes and their use of prosthetics to help reduce barriers between individuals.”

I am impressed by Scott, and his foundation, because he chooses to focus on what people can do, instead of what they can’t.

See you next week – Mark!

This is the second installment of ‘Humanitarian Friday’ last week we looked at the crisis in Darfur. For this post I thought I would highlight malaria, which is a disease that greatly affected our lives while we lived in Papua New Guinea.

When we lived in Papua New Guinea malaria was quite a common ailment. In fact, during the last night we spent in our village a young girl passed away from cerebral malaria. It was truly awful because the villagers only had quinine, a common malaria medication, in the pill form. Unfortunately, the health worker could not get the pill down the young woman’s throat, which would have saved her life. Additionally, if we had quinine in an injectable form she would have lived. Instead she died a horrible death.

So how is malaria spread?

According to the World Health Organization, “Malaria is a disease which can be transmitted to people of all ages. It is caused by parasites of the species Plasmodium that are spread from person to person through the bites of infected mosquitoes. The common first symptoms – fever, headache, chills, and vomiting – appear 10 to 15 days after a person is infected. If not treated promptly with effective medicines, malaria can cause severe illness that is often fatal.

Malaria transmission differs in intensity and regularity depending on local factors such as rainfall patterns, proximity of mosquito breeding sites and mosquito species. Some regions have a fairly constant number of cases throughout the year – these are malaria endemic – whereas in other areas there are “malaria” seasons, usually coinciding with the rainy season.”

What is malaria’s global impact?

*Approximately 40% of the world’s population, mostly those living in the world’s poorest countries, are at risk of malaria.

*Every year, more than 500 million people become severely ill with malaria.

*Most cases and deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa. However, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Europe are also affected.

*Travellers from malaria-free regions going to areas where there is malaria transmission are highly vulnerable – they have little or no immunity and are often exposed to delayed or wrong malaria diagnosis when returning to their home country.

What can you do to help?

One organization that is trying to make a difference in people’s lives where malaria is prevalent is SurfAid. They have been working in Indonesia to spread health awareness, and providing treated mosquito nets to villagers to try and prevent deaths from this disease.

Recently, SurfAid was awarded the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO) 2007 Humanitarian Award at the World Congress of NGOs awards ceremony in Toronto, Canada.

The award recognizes SurfAid as one of the best non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the world, a testament to their groundbreaking and effective approach to providing aid.

If you would like to support them and the valuable work that they are undertaking you should go to their site http://www.surfaidinternational.org/ to learn more about their efforts and make a donation.

About a month ago I wrote a guest post on ZenHabits about “Stepping Outside of Your Comfort Zone and Moving Beyond Fear.” In the article I discussed an online humanitarian organization that I have been thinking about starting, and some factors that have been holding me back.

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Even though the threat of a hurricane during the season is ever present here in Culebra, today’s hurricane post is the second guest article from Henkel Smith of Water’s Edge International Realty in Nicaragua. They recently experienced hurricane Felix and the following is his update.

As hurricane Felix approached Nicaragua and Honduras in early September, we received a flood of phone calls and emails from concerned friends, family, and of course Nicaragua real estate owners. Major international media covered the story of hurricane Felix’s devastation to Nicaragua, which caused a lot of confusion and unrest for Nicaragua real estate owners. In response to this confusion, we decided to explain how Felix affected the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, and about hurricanes and their potential affect on Nicaragua real estate.

In Spanish, the word for hurricane is “huracan”, which comes from the Carib god of evil “Huracan”, because the majority of hurricanes occur in the Caribbean Sea. More importantly, hurricanes form in the region between 5º and 20º north and south of the equator, with the highest percentage forming between 10º and 20º.

The majority of Nicaragua’s Pacific coast real estate developments sit at approximately 11º north of the equator, meaning the likeliness of being hit by a hurricane is much lower than anywhere in the Caribbean or the Pacific coast of Mexico. We saw this proven again with hurricane Felix, as it headed towards Belize and ultimately made landfall close to the Nicaragua / Honduras border. Meanwhile, in San Juan del Sur, we were going about our day as usual under sunny skies. Tourists headed to the beaches and were partaking in other activities around town, and the only effect we had from hurricane Felix was some scattered rain showers.

Although Felix had virtually no effect on San Juan del Sur and the Tola beaches, the east coast did take a beating. Clean up and relief efforts are still underway, and a great amount of assistance is still desperately needed. If you have the means, we encourage you to please make tax-deductible contributions to:

Rotary Club of Pittsburgh Foundation
555 Grant Street Suite 328
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

The Foundation will acknowledge contributions in excess of US $50.00, and please include a note stating Nicaragua Hurricane Relief / Water’s Edge International Realty.

Editor’s note: you can reach Henkel directly at henkel[at]realtornicaragua.com or visit his website Water’s Edge International Realty