Asha for Education – Purdue Chapterpresents screening of the movie BARFI! – India’s official entry for the Oscars next year.. Come and enjoy an evening watching the Bollywood blockbuster while savoring Indian snacks. With the movie having English subtitles, it is an opportunity for everyone to enjoy..
NO ENTRY FEE..
and as it has always been, the funds we raise from the sale of food will proceed towards the cause of providing education to the underprivileged children in India.
A bunch of enthusiasticAsha for Education, Purdue chapter volunteers have come together and initiatedTeam Asha Purduefor raising awareness and funds for education of underprivileged children in India. To get started with, about 40+ Team Asha Purdue members will be running for 5k run on March 31st which is organized byAcademy of student Pharmacists. Team Asha Purdue is hoping to raise about 4k through this event and to achieve that goal your help is needed. In future, Team Asha Purdue will be participating in 15k and half marathons. I will be running 5k run on 31st March and will be targeting half marathons in coming months. I request all of you toplease donateany amount possible- $5, $10- anything will be helpful for the kids’ education back in India.
Theday of 7 billionis here. As per United Nations predictions, world population is estimated to reach 7 billion in coming months. UN is going to announce the projected world population of 7 billion on Oct 31 which is also being referred to as “day of seven billion”. The day is more of symbolic in nature as the seven billionth baby is not going to be born untilnext March 2012. By taking into account 1-2% margin of error in the projection model, 7 billionth baby could be born anytime between March 2012 and July 2014. As per Lutz et al., there is a 60% probability that the 7 billionth baby will be born between March 2012-Jul 2014 (source). The figure here shows uncertainty distribution of the time at which the world’s population reaches 7 billion.As a symbolic gesture, NGO Plan International is going to issue a birth certificate on Oct 31, marking an Indian baby girl in Uttar Pradesh as the 7 billionth child.
Well, if you want to know where you fit in this crowd of 7 billion, you can visit BBC page or7 billionandme page. I was 4,372,720,343rd person alive on earth when I was born, while I was 78,916,646,853rd person ever born since history began. So What’s your number? The most astonishing number I got from the data was that since the day I was born 767,963 species have become extinct; that’s a mind boggling number! Another interesting number is the ratio of population under 15 vs population over 60. We are one of the youngest generation in history; majority of this younger generation lives in developing countries with scarce resources and opportunities.
The concern here should not be the exact date when the seven billionth child will be born but rather what steps need to be taken in coming years to handle the issues which are already looming upon us–scarcity of natural resources, food insecurity, fresh water scarcity, lack of sanitation and health care, imbalance in wealth distribution, imbalance in population distribution across different ages and so on. It’s a complicated issue and is going to affect all of us around the globe. Collective action would be required and hopefully the number 7 billion will result in 7 billion ideas, 7 billion steps forward…
Top image credit: Boston.com/Bigpicture|Edgard Garrido/Reuters
Asha for Education is participating in ongoing Chase Community Giving Program. Yourone click can help Asha for Education in winning $500,000 which will be used for education of underprivileged community in India. Voting ends tomorrow, May 25th. Do Vote!
Here is the BigIdea about How Asha will use funds if it wins $500,000:
Asha For Education is dedicated to driving socio-economic change in India through education of the underprivileged. With over 270 million illiterates and over 370 million below the poverty line, a large section of the population reaps very little benefit from the ongoing economic boom. We believe that education is a critical first step towards bringing the underprivileged into mainstream. Over 20 years, we have served tens of thousands of children in the lowest socio-economic strata of society through 400 project partners and 73 worldwide chapters. We would use $250K to start a “rural entrepreneurship” initiative that would help 750 people in rural India start and operate small businesses through a customized “mini-MBA” program. We would use the other $250K to start a “Vocational education” initiative that complements our formal education efforts. We will help 3,000 graduates find skilled jobs through career guidance and training in computer skills and spoken English.
It’sEarth Hour on March 26th, 8:30 PM, your local time. Individuals and businesses all over the globe switch off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour and organize events in order to raise awareness about taking positive action to address the issue of climate change. The event which was started in 2007 in Sydney has now spread all over the globe. This year’s theme is to go beyond an hour, take an extra step than just switching off the lights for an hour, to do something more than what you regularly do. So how are you planning to go beyond an hour? I am planning to eat more of locally grown produce, reduce my use of air conditioning, and maybe volunteer in local schools and organize events about 3Rs- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
Brains of babies are simply amazing. Babies are like little scientists or explorers collecting data/information from their surroundings and analyzing them every moment, every second they are growing up. It’s just amazing to observe how the brains of babies work. When babies are born, their brain cells lack the synaptic connections (connections between brain cells). As they explore their new world, these experiences lead to building of connections between different cells (“synaptic exuberance”). During the first few formative years baby brains are very active, building up millions of such links between the cells. The process starts at birth and peaks up when they are 8-9 months old.
Cerebral cortex produces most of its synaptic connections after birth, in a massive burst of synapse formation known as the exuberant period. At its peak, the cerebral cortex creates an astonishing two million new synapses every second. With these new connections come a baby’s many mental milestones, such as color vision, a pincer grasp, or a strong attachment to his parents. By two years of age, a toddler’s cerebral cortex contains well over a hundred trillion synapses. [Zerotothree.org]
In the above time-lapse video , Francis Vachon who is a journalist and photographer in Quebec, Canada, recorded the 4-hour activity of his 9 months old son Edward. You can see how baby Edward is exploring his surroundings during his 4-hour stay in the room. (If some of you wonder whether the baby was left alone in the room for 4-hours, don’t worry he was not left alone. The shots of adults in the video has been cut to increase the cuteness factor of the video.)
If you look at the plot below, it’s the formative age when most of the cell connections in the brain are made and then the connections start dying out during teenage years. It’s not like we are becoming dumber as we grow up (or maybe we are), but the baby brains overdo the process of making cell connections. As we grow, our life style preferences, nurturing,and social influences starts optimizing or fine tuning these connections. The ones we need are retained and strengthened while the ones which are no more required starts dying out. This process makes each individual unique with a unique personality trait, mentality, aptitude and so on.
It was last year this day, Jan 12th, when a powerful 7.0 earthquake shook Haiti and what remained afterwards were rubbles, dead bodies, crying and wounded survivors. The tragic event killed more than 200,000 people and completely destroyed the capital city Port-au-Prince. Countries promised aid money and resources, non-profit organizations rushed to help the survivors but even after one year much need to be done. Only 5% of rubble in the capital city has been cleared till now; less than 10% of promised aid money has been delivered. Non-profit organizations helped in rehabilitating the survivors, but the whole effort has been so uncoordinated that it has,at many instances, made the situation worse. Nature has been cruel to Haitians, during the past year they encountered hurricanes and thunderstorms and that too while living in make-shift tents. Currently the country is reeling under Cholera epidemic. Haitians are known for their resilience but the NGOs and other nations need to do better job in coordinating the Haiti rebuilding activities. Just the funds, promises and volunteerism will not work, proper planning is needed and hopefully this year things will pick up and situation will improve for Haitians.
About the above picture: Beaudin Lovinsky, a 4-year-old orphan, is dropped off with his belongings in a suitcase by his uncle (left) to be placed in the Children’s Foundation of Haiti orphanage, which is currently housed in makeshift tents in a tent city near the airport on January 10, 2011 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Lovinsky’s mother perished in the earthquake and his uncle said he could no longer afford to take care of him. It is common for Haitian families to place children they cannot afford to care for in orphanages. The orphanage’s building was damaged by the earthquake, forcing many of the orphans into tents. The orphanage has received no governmental assistance and little help from aid groups. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, Haiti was home to more than 350,000 orphans before the earthquake, with many more orphaned following the quake. UNICEF recently announced that around 380,000 Haitian children are still living in camps one year after the earthquake.
May 25, 2013 1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson 1939 Sir Ian McKellen 1959 Julian Clary 1878 Bill Robinson (Mr. Bojangles) 1945 Dave Lee Travis 1961 Anthea Turner 1913 Richard Dimbleby 1958 Paul Weller 1963 Mike Myers
By taking into account 1-2% margin of error in the projection model, 7 billionth baby could be born anytime between March 2012 and July 2014. As per Lutz et al., there is a 60% probability that the 7 billionth baby will be born between March 2012-Jul 2014
