Combs 1
Julia Combs
Professor Combs
English 1010
April 2, 2009
Annotated Bibliography: OmniPeace as Solution to Extreme Poverty
Bisoux, Tricia. “All Eyes on Africa.” BizEd 7.3 (May/June 2008): 42-48.
In this article, Tricia Bisoux suggests that American universities should partner with African education systems to help Africa produce better business programs that will train Africans to join the global market. She notes that economists are happy with what they see happening in China and India, but they should not exclude Africa Most of the business programs in Africa are not adequately staffed and have been hampered by political intrusion and unrest. The best and brightest students often leave Africa to get a higher education. Then seldom return. She stresses that a better education system would encourage these bright students to stay at home. The article has several case studies. One of the most interesting case studies to me was from KampalaUganda, where an exchange program is set up between DrakeUniversity in DesMoines, Iowa and the University of Makerere Busines School in Kampala, Uganda. Students who go there claim, “Until you go there, you do not understand poverty.” The “supply” of business education does not meet the “demand.” This article addresses educational needs at a higher educational level than the other articles,
Conn, Ann. “The Importance of Educating Girls and Women: The Fight against Poverty in African Rural Communities.” UN Chronicle. 44.4 (Dec 2007): 44-47.
In this article, Ann Conn convincingly argues that educating the girls of Africa is the single most important thing that can happen to solve extreme poverty. She claims that educating girls has three advantages: reduces rural poverty, improves maternal health, and reduces the cases of HIV/AIDS. She calls the education of girls a “vaccine” against aides and notes that educating a girl changes not only the girl’s destiny but also the future of her children. She notes that the world agrees that poverty extreme poverty needs to be eradicated, but that people can’t agree about how to go about solving the problem. For Conn, the solution is clear, educate young girls. Help them escape the cycle of exploitation and exclusion from education. She notes a case study from Tanzania in which the government dropped fees for school enrollment and Primary Education Development Plan. They dropped fees for school, trained teachers, and invested in textbooks. The result was a rise in enrollment in Primary schools from 60 percent in 2000 to 96 percent in 2006. She notes that some of the girls educated through CAMFED (the organization she represents Campaign for Female Education) has trained some girls who have become lawyers and doctors. While the article is clearly biased in favor of CAMFED and its goals, Conn gives case studies and appeals to rational thinking when she claims that educating a young woman is critical in the fight against extreme poverty. This article relates to my paper because it shows the extreme importance of education in the battle against world poverty. OmniPeace is committed to education in helping to eradicate poverty.
Omnipeace. 2008. 3 Mar 2009. <
This is the official website of OmniPeace, the organization founded by Mary Fanaro that is dedicated to help to eradicate extreme poverty by 2025. The website is updated continually. In the last two months, it has changed significantly. For example, the site indicated that Fanaro was going to travel to Ethiopia and Senegal to have a more “hands on” experience with where the money from OmniPeace was going and what it was doing. In the past month, a picture of the school built in Senegal is on the website. The website features pictures of the products worn by celebrities such as Courtney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, and Kevin Costner. It also features interview on video clips of Larry King Live, Entertainment Tonight, and MSN. There are links to OmniPeace’s history and mission, as well as to the background and inspiration behind OmniPeace. This website relates directly to my topic. Although I was initially somewhat bothered by the pictures of the celebrities, I think she has a good idea. The celebrities will call attention to the problem and possibly help the cause. In a positive way, Fanaro is “exploiting” the celebrities.
Pitzl, Gerald R. “Uganda." Encyclopedia of World Poverty. 2006. SAGE Publications. 9 Mar. 2009. <
This depressing article tells the sad truth: Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2001, more than 82 percent of the people in Uganda were living in extreme poverty. Nearly half of the people in Uganda do not have access to clean drinking water. Encouraging statistics indicate that literacy went up from 70 to 79 percent from 1990 to 2001. However, the depressing side of the story is that the population is growing rapidly. The average life expectancy is 52, and the fertility rate for women of childbearing age is 6.7, a rate that far exceeds the world average. The future does not look bright for Uganda according to these statistics. The population is growing faster than the solutions. It was a depressing article. This article relates directly to my subject because it gives statistics of how severe the poverty is in this area of Africa and what the future holds if current trends continue. The statistics are trustworthy, but they may be dated. The article was written in 2006. That was a couple of years ago.
Pyrah, Joe. “Merry-Go-Round Makes Electricity.” Daily Herald. 19 June 2008
This article is about an elderly couple who served an mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The school in the community where they lived in Africa had no electricity. They noticed how much energy the children had and often wished they had a way to harness all of that energy.” Ultimately, they constructed a merry-go-round that generates enough electricity to provide power for the school simply by using the energy of the children as they play. Their idea has grown into a project that BrighamYoungUniversity students continue to carry out. They are building playgrounds in other areas in Africa. This relates to my subject because it is another example of someone who is doing something to try to educate people as a way to combat extreme poverty. They, like Mary Fanaro, see eduation as the key.
Ramberg, J.J. “Star Power: This Entrepreneur is Enlisting a Little Help from Hollywood to Meet Her Double Bottom Line.” US New and World Report. 10 November 2008. 9 March 2009.
Ramberg explains how OmniPeace was founded. He notes how OmniPeace donates 25 percent of its profits to ending poverty in Africa. He explains the connection with Millennium Promise. He notes that Mary Fanaro’s OmniPeace products are now sold at several high end stores like Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and chic botiques. She relies on celebrity support. The most important part of the article for me is the information about how much has been donated to Africa in the past few years. He lists $150,000 in donations, with much more ready to be sent. He quotes her as saying she’s going to Ethiopia and Senegal to see where to target her donations. Apparently, that has happened, since the website now has pictures of the school built in Senegal. This article backs up what I see on the website, and it provides me with numbers as far as the amounts that have been donated.
Sachs, Jeffrey D. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.
I haven’t read this book yet. Waiting for it to come. I think this source will help me because it will discuss Sachs’ philosophy of how to end extreme poverty. I know he stresses education, so I think that’s what this source will ultimately do for me.
Waskey, Andrew J. “Extreme Poverty.” Encyclopedia of World Poverty. 2006. SAGE Publications. 9 Mar. 2009. < worldpoverty/ Article_n228.html>.
This article defines extreme poverty as being a condition in which a person lives on the less than the equivalent of one American dollar per day. Waskey notes that in some areas poverty is decreasing: Mexico, China India. In other areas, poverty is increasing: Africa, Latin America, former Soviet Union. Things look worse fro Africa than for other areas. The number of people living in extreme poverty in Africa has doubled in the last twenty years. The United Nations adopted a goal to reduce extreme poverty by one half by 2010. Others adopted the goal to reduce it by the year 2015. (I guess that makes OmniPeace even more conservative. OmniPeace’s goal is to get rid of it by 2025, but then again, maybe OmniPeace means to get rid of it totally. The UN only wanted to reduce it by one-half.) The reduction in poverty in Indian and China is not doing anything to help the problem in Africa. Waskey notes that “little is being accomplished in halving the presence of extreme poverty.” He also notes that the population living in extreme poverty is healthy enough to reproduce, and that is making the problem worse. This article was written in 2006. I wonder how close the UN is to its goal now. More current information would be helpful. The article helps me by giving me a concrete definition of what extreme poverty is and by helping me identify where Africa falls in the overall world picture of extreme poverty. The picture is not a pleasant one for Africa.