Design. Charity. Life.

By Daniel Francavilla
TheStar.com – Global Voices

Is the world experiencing a food shortage? Surprisingly, there is no documented shortage whatsoever. There is, however, a huge imbalance in the distribution of food. In fact, the average American consumes as much food as 32 Kenyans do.

In 2005, Health Canada confirmed that obesity rates in Canada have nearly doubled among adults and nearly tripled among children over the past 25 years. Now, one quarter of Canadians are considered obese. This is obviously not positive. So why is it happening?

Dr. Jill Hamilton, MD, FRCPC, who is a staff physician in the Division of Endocrinology at the Hospital for Sick Children and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto explains that, “the rising incidence of obesity over the past 25 years is clearly not related to changes in genes, but rather to changes in the environment, such as increased consumption of highly dense caloric foods and decreased physical activity.”

The opposite of obesity, in this case, is malnutrition. Strangely, both of these severe health concerns are popular in the world today. To clarify, the World Health Organization explains that malnutrition is both a medical and a social disorder, often rooted in poverty.

The book Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel explores the strange situation that we are facing. Right now, there are one billion people who are malnourished and nearly one billion who are overweight. Does anyone else notice an imbalance?

Evidently, people worldwide must rethink their approach to nutrition. It is not simply about calories, but the nutritional quality and quantity of the foods consumed that makes a difference. “This is where major changes need to happen in both developed and developing countries, to try to reverse the problems of both obesity and malnutrition,” adds Dr. Hamilton.

North Americans must become aware of this crucial disproportion that is causing thousands of deaths every week. Governments of abundant countries such as Canada and the United States should take action by increasing their foreign aid. Canadian citizens should lead by example, by consuming less and donating more to worthy causes that will make the world a promising place for all people to live.

To view the article on The Toronto Star website, click here.

By Daniel Francavilla
TheStar.com – Global Voices

Today, in an age where a world of information is accessible with the click of a mouse through sources such as Google News, it appears that many youth are not aware of the events that are occurring around them. From solider deaths in the Middle East to fundraising events in their own community, today’s teenagers are often out of the loop, or are at least missing the details.

Although we are in the unified communications era, the youth does not necessarily choose to stay up-to-date, even with the issues that surround them. Perhaps this is due to unexciting news anchors, lengthy articles in the newspaper, or MP3 players overtaking live radio. So what are teen-minds fueling of off, if it is not the critically important knowledge they should be?

Eushauna Clarke, a grade twelve student from Brampton says that she is more aware of movie and video game releases than important world events. She explains that in general, “students would rather spend hours on social-networking sites like Facebook and chatting on instant messengers like MSN than searching on Google for important world issues”.

The benefits of being aware of world issues are essential. Everything from becoming an informed voter to donating to a needy cause is influenced by one’s consciousness of current affairs.

Unfortunately, many high school courses offered in the GTA do not often include discussions about the “real world”. Several students and teachers suggest the curriculum should include more current events.

Joseph Miceli, a high school religion teacher, agrees. He feels that infusing current events into school curriculum is “a very practical and effective way of making learning more interesting and real”. Although many teachers do an excellent job of making current events relevant in the classroom, Miceli questions whether or not it is consistently used within all subject areas.

“I feel that there is room for discussion on the possibility of somehow ensuring that this occurs,” says Miceli, but also reminds people that teachers are not solely responsible for educating today’s youth. “Parents need to create a healthy learning environment at home and monitor how their children are using their time,” the high school teacher concludes.

Ironically, this issue appears to be a communication problem, in a world of communication technology.

Read this article on TheStar.com.

By Daniel Francavilla
TheStar.com – Global Voices

Yes, there was the Harry Potter craze along with a couple of other popular novels recently – but in general, today’s youth seems to be putting books on the back-burner. The written word can’t compete with an X-Box 360 or an iPod Video.

Despite the lack of interest in North America, literacy is as important as ever for success all around the world. It is shocking to learn that an estimated 875 million adults are illiterate worldwide.

The youth of North America, privileged with accessible education, should be putting more of a priority on perfecting their literacy skills. The question is, how are they handling it?

Kathryn Stevenson, a librarian in Brampton Ontario, thinks that today’s teens aren’t completely out of the loop – teens read, but not what people normally consider reading material. She states that, “The internet has replaced a lot of print material that previous generations read. Of course, everyone including teens could read more,” she also assures us that, “the wealth of novels available for young adults these days is astounding.”

However, being a teacher and a librarian, she argues that teens do not read enough quality material. Including course-related material, teenagers today have vast resources available– whereas children around the world such as South Asia and India are desperate for basic literacy skills.

Living in the 21st century, being literate should be a basic human right. Stevenson believes that we need to address this problem. “It seems unbelievable that anyone in this global community is not equipped with the tools of reading and writing.”

Stevenson also worries that technology will override reading for pleasure and that reading will become task-motivated rather than interest-motivated. “As a society we need to promote reading. Better readers become better thinkers.”

In the end, today’s youth need not seek advice any further than from their favourite childhood author Dr. Suess, who wrote, “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

By Daniel Francavilla
TheStar.com – Global Voices

While a world full of technology — especially in North America — has improved our lives, how has it affected us socially?

Peter Fujiwara, a high school communications technology teacher who has also worked for Microsoft, York University, and at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board Office, feels that there are two sides to the issue of technology and its effects on people’s socialization.

“To many people, technology appears to be removing the human element from everyday life. We go to the gas station with our quick pass, we can check ourselves out at the grocery store, and when was the last time you spoke to a bank teller? It all seems to be pushing us away from everyday human interaction, seemingly isolating us even more.”

Technology has limited the socialization at school, between teacher and student. Assignments, even at the high school level, are being submitted online. A major form of this is done through the website Turnitin.com, where thousands of students submit assignments to their teachers and have classroom discussions online. There is no doubt that this makes the educational experience less personal.

Although more than 600 million people around the world have access to the Internet, there are still 5.5 billion people who do not. Therefore, everyone is not in the loop when it comes to being able to communicate via technology.

The issue is not whether technology is making us less personal, but how can we use it to make us more connected with others and with the world.

“The challenge now is to learn how to integrate these new means of connectedness with our own personal values,” said Fujiwara. “Cyber-anonymity has caused some real problems with cyber-bullying, stalking and other immoral actions. On-line ethics will now play a larger and more significant role as we accelerate the use of this kind of communication. As a new generation begins to take hold of our society, the education system will have to start to integrate these kinds of technologies and the ethics around them into our day to day curriculum.”

Despite the many benefits to technology, it all comes down to how we use it — whether we are consumed by technology and become lazy, or take advantage of its convenience and productivity to save time at work and spend more time with family.