On November 13th 2015 in Paris, 129 people died and hundreds were wounded. This disaster came from gunman and suicide bombers from ISIS. This was a incredible tragedy and according to news this was set up and planned by the IS. The president of France describes this as a “act of war”.
These bombings were not far off. One was placed right outside a soccer stadium and the second unfolded right outside in a town center. This is a extremely critical moment in France and it is affecting people in the United States. This certainly was a unexpected Friday the 13th.
President Francois Hollande of France has vowed to destroy every last bit of ISIS. He’s meeting up with President Barack Obama (US) and the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin to discuss battle plans. President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad said the only enemy to Syria is ISIS. As you can see almost the entire world is pretty much at war against ISIS.
As for Paris, France we give them hope and our best wishes. We soon shall see what move the world will pull against ISIS or what move will ISIS pull against the world. PFPParisbombings
Over the past 2 weeks, there has been a problem that is increasing dramatically. In the Mediterranean sea, nearly 741 migrants drowned trying to make a better life for themselves in Europe. It gets even worse! 7,000 migrants were stranded in the Andaman Sea with very little food and fresh water, which will soon run out. The boats are often severely overcrowded, and extremely unsanitary. This makes spreading disease or malnutrition much more likely. These ships are also structurally dangerous, causing a greater chance that the ship will capsize or sink.
This shows a graph over the years of how many people have tried to get to Europe for a better life.7000 boat migrants stranded at sea waiting for help. (BBC News)
This is an example of a huge risk that boat migrants will take. The reason they do it is because they need a better life. The migrants pay people called smugglers to sneak them into richer countries. But, many countries in Europe are turning their boats away because their cities are already full to capacity. If they take anymore people they would need more houses, jobs, and food.
Recent actor and star Matt Dillon shared his thoughts. “It was heartbreaking,” he said after meeting a young man with a raw, open leg wound from a road accident with no means to treat it. Mothers carrying babies with clear signs of malnutrition stood listlessly outside row after row of identical bamboo huts, toddlers playing nearby in the chalky white dust. “No one should have to live like this, and these people are really suffering,” said Dillon, who is one of the first celebrities to get a look at what life is like for the people of Rohingya in the western state of Rakhine. “They are being strangled slowly, they have no hope for the future, and nowhere to go.”
This is why Kiva helps these people. Things like this matter in the world, and no person in the world should ever have to go on a boat to try to sneak into another country. These are the simple things in life. If we just helped a country get better, we could change millions and million of lives around the world and no one would ever want to move or leave their country.
Thousands of migrants have tried to get to Europe but many have died on the journey trying. (BBC News)
This infographic shows how much an average person living on each continent makes. We learned that the poorest countries in the world are found in Africa. The cool thing about Kiva is that the majority of our loans have gone to people in Africa.
This is a before and after of the Nepal earthquake.
View of the damage that the Nepal earthquake caused!
On April 25th, a massive 7.9 earthquake shook the Himalayas causing a series of avalanches and mudslides. There are an estimated 5,000 deaths but the government of Nepal says the total could raise possibly to 10,000 deaths if action is not taken. They say they’re on “War Footing” as they try to help survivors recover from the devastating earthquake that struck. Many climbers and tourists that were climbing Mount Everest were severely injured and some even faced the loss of their life because of the multiple avalanches.
Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries with an unemployment rate of over 40%. The average person makes $1,000 dollars per year and they will have to pay a estimated amount of $10 billion USD or half of the national GDP. That will be hard since 59 of 75 districts are severely damaged. To add on top of that housing construction standards in Nepal are extremely low do to poverty.
Since the earthquake hit Nepal we are going to keep our eyes open on Kiva for people in Nepal that need help rebuilding their lives because of all the damage that has happened in the past week. We hope for the best for Nepal.
Marisol has lived in her own house, with her family for four years. She is happy that she has a place where she can live quietly. Marisol is 45 years old and earns money by raising pigs, which she then sells. She wishes to complete the construction of her house.
As she cannot afford the outlay of money required, she is seeking a loan of 500 dollars from FUSAI to buy bricks, cement, sand, gravel, and rebar to complete her house as soon as possible.
This is extremely important because her house is just wood, that’s falling apart and the weather that El Salvador is getting, is terrible. There will be rain over the next couple of days, some sunshine, but chances of rain follow. If you think about our houses, they’re built sturdy with brick and cement. This is really important because a loan of 500 dollars is helping one person to build for their family, one loan at a time. We can help poverty!
