Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, the general secretary of the global rights network World YWCA, said that further economic and social empowerment was needed to change the lives of women in Africa. Credit: Ravi Kanth Devarakonda/IPS

GENEVA, May 7 2013 (IPS) – Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, a human rights lawyer and the general secretary of the global rights network World YWCA, knows what it is like to struggle against poverty and violence: she herself comes from a poor family in Magaya village in Murewa district, which lies northeast of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.

But Gumbonzvanda has travelled a long way from her home. And she has spent much of her life trying to change the lives…

ATLANTA, Georgia, May 31 2013 (IPS) – The U.S. Congress is on the brink of making billions of dollars in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, which provides direct benefits to individuals and families in poverty.

SNAP benefits are already set to decrease in November 2013, when increased benefits that were included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or federal stimulus package, expire.

A selection of foods available on a food stamp budget. Credit: Miss Karen/cc by 2.0

Benefits which currently represent a …

In Malawi, 16 women die every day of pregnancy-related complications. But Charity Salima says that she is yet to record a single pregnancy-related death at her clinic in Area 23, a township on the outskirts of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. Courtesy: Mabvuto Banda

LILONGWE, Jul 3 2013 (IPS) – Charity Salima, 54, has helped to deliver over 4,000 babies in her maternity clinic in Area 23 – one of Malawi’s poorest and most populous townships – and has yet to record a single pregnancy-related death.

In Malawi, the lifetime risk of a woman dying in pregnancy or childbirth is one in 36, compared to one in …

In Egypt, there are few resources for children with disabilities. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

CAIRO, Aug 19 2013 (IPS) – Dina Gamal, whose 10-year-old son was born blind, says it is not him but Egyptian society that lives in the dark.

“They are the ones with the disability,” she says. “They have eyes, but cannot see past his blindness. He is able to do far more than most people think.”

Her son Mahmoud likes music, excels in languages, and with the aid of special software, can surf the Internet. He hopes to be a journalist one day.“A lot of parents feel shame. So they just hide their special needs children and never let them go out of the house.�…

Hasina, one of the 2,438 Rana Plaza workers that came out alive, by the remains of the factory. Credit: Robert Stefanicki/IPS.

DHAKA, Oct 30 2013 (IPS) – Six months after the worst man-made disaster in Bangladesh’s history, safety conditions in garment factories have a chance to improve. But not the lives of survivors or the victims next of kin.

On Apr. 24, the collapse of Rana Plaza factory building took 1,133 lives of mostly female workers. The disaster was too big to ignore. The unprecedented scale of the tragedy shocked people the world over, many of them dressed in clothes made in Bangladesh on request of giants such as Tesco, Carrefour, Benetton or Wal…

Rotarians Against Malaria display one of the insecticide treated mosquito nets being used throughout Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 2013 (IPS) – Enhanced efforts to fight malaria have saved an estimated 3.3 million lives and nearly halved the disease s global mortality rate since 2000, according to the latest edition of the World Health Organisation s (WHO) annual World Malaria Report , released Wednesday.

But much more needs to be done to eliminate the disease, which last year killed an estimated 627,000 people worldwide, about 483,000 of whom were children under the age of five. That pace averages one malaria-caused child dea…

In Russia, vodka is a killer. Credit: Pavol Stracansky/IPS.

MOSCOW, Feb 15 2014 (IPS) – Sitting in the dining room of a Moscow hotel, manager Yulia Golovanova explains why she always likes to see Russians, rather than foreigners, bring guests in.

“Just watch them,” she says as eight well-dressed men sit down at a table and immediately order vodka. “They come in, order round after round of vodka and keep on drinking. When there’s a big group of them they can spend huge amounts on alcohol alone,” she tells IPS.A quarter of Russian men die before they are 55, with most deaths down to alcohol consumption.

Less than an hour later the men have each consume…

This story is the last installment of a three-part series on how social and economic inequalities impact cancer treatment.

Claudia Alvarado, with her parents and her nail polish, who along with Peru’s Plan Esperanza have helped her to bravely face the treatment for leukaemia. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

LIMA, Apr 10 2014 (IPS) – Her tiny fingers and toes have been painted with different shades of nail polish, the bright colours contrasting sharply with the bleak road she has been on for half her young life.

Since she was three years old, Claudia, who has not yet turned seven, has been fighting leukaemia, with the help of a public health cancer treatment programme…

Schools around the world, like this one in Melilla, Uruguay, are trying to introduce healthy eating habits to bring down rates of obesity and overweight. Credit: Victoria Rodríguez/IPS

WASHINGTON , May 31 2014 (IPS) – Over two billion people or 30 percent of the world’s population are either obese or overweight, and no country has successfully reduced obesity rates to date, according to a new study published this week by the British medical journal, The Lancet.

The number of overweight and obese people increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013, according to the research, which was conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at …

Circumcisers in the Gambia publicly declaring that they have abandoned the practice of FGM. Credit: Saikou Jammeh/IPS

BANJUL, Jul 13 2014 (IPS) – Women’s rights activists in the Gambia are insisting that more than 30 years of campaigning to raise awareness should be sufficient to move the government to outlaw female genital mutilation (FMG).

The practice remains widespread in this tiny West African country of 1.8 million people, but rights activists believe that their campaign has now reached the tipping point.

Two years ago, , an apolitical non-governmental organ…