poverty

Ration Challenge participant shares her experience

July 2, 2018

“I’ve been to Syria and seen it as a functioning society where there was everything we have here. There were shops, you could get ice cream – all the things we take for granted, they had too. I had a few people say, oh, they won’t know any different. But they do. And even if they didn’t, does that make it better or worse?”

Cara McGrath and her team hold the small amount of food they ate during Ration Challenge week – exactly the same food distributed to Syrian refugees living in camps in Jordan.

Cara McGrath was one of over 5,000 Kiwis who took on the Ration Challenge, experiencing a glimpse of one of the many challenges that refugees face day in, day out, by eating the same rations they do for one week. The funds she and other participants raised will provide food and access to healthcare and education for Syrian families facing an indefinite amount of time in refugee camps in Jordan, as well as contributing to Oxfam’s work around the globe – particularly in the Pacific region.

She felt drawn to the challenge as she thought of her experience in Syria in 2001, remembering a time in the Middle East long before the refugee crisis we’re witnessing today. Seeing the challenge on Facebook was a call to action for Cara, and a chance to stand in solidarity with millions of displaced, traumatised families now seeking refuge in Jordan.

“The challenge was hard, but I still had a nice bed and a nice house, I had my family around me, I wasn’t traumatised or afraid. I hadn’t realised it but food is a big part of what motivated me through my day. It is so much a part of how we interact with each other.”

Cara is part of Team OLS, the Ration Challenge’s front-running fundraising team, sitting on an incredible team total of $10,665.

“We are the teachers, board, school fundraising team and supporters for a tiny little school in Methven in the South Island, called Our Lady of the Snows School. One of the school’s core values is social justice, so it’s great to know that parents are doing something at home and it’s happening in the classroom too. Everyone’s on the same page.”

The food in the ration packs that Cara and over 5,000 other Kiwis ate during Refugee Week is exactly the same food, in almost exactly the same quantities, that is distributed to refugees in the camps – just a small amount of rice, lentils, chick peas, kidney beans, sardines, flour and oil.

“I wasn’t a huge fan of the lentil soup, I have to say. I ate it for two or three days in a row, and when I only had a tiny bit left I put it in with my rice and had fried rice and lentils – and it was really good! I was so disappointed that I’d been eating lentil soup for three days when I could have been eating fried lentils!”

Fortunately for Cara and her team, they fundraised enough to gain rewards to add a little variety to their week – spice, sugar, milk, vegetables and even some extra protein, all achieved by meeting fundraising targets. But for Cara, the biggest motivator was knowing that – for her – the challenge would come to an end.

“We get to finish it. I kept thinking, I’ll have that on Friday when I finish. It would be so much harder not knowing when it’s going to finish, or if it’s going to finish. We’re so remote and isolated here, we’re in our own little bubble, and sometimes it’s hard for people to think outside their bubble.”

One member of Team OLS – Tania Goodwin – even extended the challenge to her junior students, crafting a full day of teaching around the refugee crisis. The children were taught about the realities of refugee life, and watched videos of refugee families. They wrote prayers to Syrian children, a helped their teacher measure out her rations for the week. They even fled from their classroom and into a safe space, where they built shelters and worked from inside them.

A class of children from Our Lady of the Snows School help their teacher, Tania Goodwin, ration out her food for the week.

Cara has a word of advice for those thinking about being part of the challenge in future: “Read the information and get to know the stuff. Oxfam sends out loads of great things, so using those and building an understanding then means it’s more than just an experience where you don’t eat very much for a week – you actually learn something too.”

This awesome Ration Challenge team consists of Deidra O’Shea, Sonia Cullen, Rachel Clark, Kylie Fitzgerald, Connie Quigley, Becky Dirks, Georgia Annear, Tania Goodwin, Pattie Ree, Colm McGrath, and Cara McGrath.

To support them, visit their fundraising page.

What’s wrong with wealth?

January 23, 2018

Lan, 32, works in a factory in Dong Nai province, southern Vietnam, which produces shoes for global fashion brands. She works on 1200 pairs of shoes a day, yet she can’t afford to buy even one pair for her son on the amount she earns each month. Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam

Blog post by Nick Bryer
Oxfam Global Inequality Lead (Davos)

Oxfam’s new inequality report is bound to ruffle feathers at the World Economic Forum – the annual get together of the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland.

Some will accuse us of being ‘anti-rich’, and of focusing on billionaires because we’re jealous of their success. They will say we should be focusing on the hundreds of millions of people who are still trapped in poverty, rather than on those at the top who are doing so very well for themselves.

Two sides of the same coin

Don’t be fooled. We are absolutely focused on people living in poverty. What has become increasingly clear over the years, however, is that there’s no way we’re going to end poverty unless we tackle extreme wealth too. They are two sides of the same coin.

The reality is that all too often the fortunes of the super-rich have been amassed at the expense of the rest of us – and especially the workers and producers who are at the bottom of every global supply chain.

An economy for the rich

The insatiable pursuit of profit by giant corporations and their rich shareholders is fuelling an epidemic of tax dodging that is depriving developing countries of at least $170 billion every year – money that should be going to schools and hospitals. It is driving down wages and working conditions across the globe, leaving hundreds of millions of people in dangerous and difficult jobs, struggling to earn enough to get by.

It is no coincidence that most of these people are women.

The effects of inequality

Women like Lan, who is a garment worker in Vietnam, working in a factory far from her home. Lan’s pay is so low, and she has to work so much overtime, that she goes months at a time without seeing her young children. She will earn in her lifetime what a CEO of a top garment company earns in just ten days. Or Dolores, who works in a US poultry factory, and has to wear diapers to work because she isn’t allowed to take toilet breaks. And that’s in the richest country on earth!

A broken system

So yes, if people are getting rich at the expense of others, we have a problem with that.

If companies are paying out huge dividends to their rich shareholders and bumper pay packets to their top executives, while workers in their supply chains aren’t earning enough to feed their families, then yes, we have a problem with that.

If billionaire fortunes are the result of monopolies, of crony capitalism, of vast inherited wealth – the gilded results of a broken economic system that rewards wealth rather than work – yes, we have a problem with that.

Of course, it is true that some billionaires contribute a lot to our societies. Many are pioneers in their fields, innovators and risk-takers who have created things we can all enjoy and benefit from. Many of them are very generous philanthropists, giving away vast sums of money to help those less fortunate than them.

But this doesn’t change the fact that they are the beneficiaries of a broken economic system that is enriching them first and foremost at the huge expense of millions of others who remain trapped in poverty.

Toward a fairer, more human economy

We need a different kind of economy now. One that shares value more fairly. One that treats women as well as it treats men. One that increases prosperity and well-being for all, without trashing the planet in the process. An economy that rewards work, not wealth.

We need to see governments acting in the interest of ordinary workers – implementing and enforcing living wages, limiting excessive rewards for investors and top executives, regulating new technologies to ensure they benefit the majority, cracking down on tax dodging, investing in healthcare and education for all.

And we need businesses that are ready to act in the interests of their workers and wider society, and not just rich shareholders. That means more responsible tax behaviour, it means ensuring better working conditions, it means no longer paying out big dividends until they can be sure that everyone in their supply chain is being paid enough to live a decent life.

Say goodbye to poverty

These are necessary, practical steps that can help us consign both extreme wealth and extreme poverty to the history books.

You can help spread the word and join the growing global demand for governments and big businesses to do things differently.

Richest 10% of Kiwis control more wealth than remaining 90%

June 15, 2014

The richest ten per cent of New Zealanders are wealthier than the rest of the population combined as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.

Oxfam New Zealand’s Executive Director Rachael Le Mesurier said the numbers are a staggering illustration that the wealth gap in New Zealand is stark and mirrors a global trend that needs to be addressed by governments in New Zealand, and around the world, in order to win the fight against poverty.

“Extreme wealth inequality is deeply worrying. Our nation is becoming more divided, with an elite who are seeing their bank balances go up, whilst hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders struggle to make ends meet,” said Le Mesurier.

Figures for the top one per cent are even more striking. According to the most recent data, taken from the 2013 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, 44,000 Kiwis – who could comfortably fit into Eden Park with thousands of empty seats to spare – hold more wealth than three million New Zealanders. Put differently, this lists the share of wealth owned by the top one per cent of Kiwis as 25.1 per cent, meaning they control more than the bottom 70 per cent of the population.

New Zealand’s wealthiest individual, Graeme Hart, is ranked number 200 on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires, with US$7 billion. That makes his net worth more than the bottom 30 per cent of New Zealanders, or 1.3 million people.

The news comes ahead of the G20 meeting of Deputy Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Melbourne this weekend, which New Zealand will join at the invitation of Australia, the chair for 2014. Last year the G20 countries endorsed a plan to crack down on multinational corporate tax dodging by taking, “the necessary individual and collective action.”

Le Mesurier said, “Our government says it is significant New Zealand has access to these meetings and praised the G20 as a key vehicle for tackling the world’s economic challenges. Have we taken the necessary individual steps to stop corporate tax dodging in our country and are we well-placed to contribute to this urgent collective action in Melbourne? It’s a fair question.”

In January Oxfam released a landmark report showing half of the world’s population – 3.5 billion – own the same wealth as the 85 richest people. By March the number dropped to only 66 people. Oxfam’s report warned that inequality is creating a vicious circle where wealth concentrated in the hands of a few is used to buy political influence and rig the rules in favour of a small elite. This year US President Barack Obama, the World Economic Forum, the OECD, the Pope, and the heads of the IMF, the World Bank and the UN have all called for action to address inequality, recognising it as bad for growth and the driver of serious social ills.

Child poverty is emerging as a major New Zealand election issue. A new book by Jonathan Boston and Simon Chapple, Child Poverty in New Zealand, explores the nature of the problem and the solutions, while all political parties are touting their strategies for reducing it.

“Extreme inequality is a sign of economic failure. New Zealand can and must do better. It’s time for our leaders to move past the rhetoric,” said Le Mesurier.

“By concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few, inequality robs the poorest people of the support they need to improve their lives, and means that their voices go unheard. If the global community fails to curb widening inequality, we can expect more economic and social problems.”