USDA works to address 'food deserts' - UPI.com

USDA works to address 'food deserts' - UPI.com: "Part of first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative, the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, will expand the availability of nutritious food to food deserts -- low-income communities without ready access to healthy and affordable food -- by developing and equipping grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores and farmers markets with fresh and healthy food.

'These grants will put resources into rural and urban economies to create and support direct marketing opportunities for farmers' Kathleen Merrigan, deputy agriculture secretary, says in a statement. 'Consumer and farmer enthusiasm for direct marketing has never been greater. This year we will place emphasis on food deserts because America's low income and underserved communities need greater access to healthy, fresh food.'

For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service will competitively award grants to projects that develop producer-to-consumer market outlets, including but not limited to farmers markets, community supported agriculture, and road-side stands.

The number of operational U.S. farmers markets listed in the USDA National Farmers Market Directory has risen from 1,755 to 6,132 since 1994."

Wellness Update: Asia: Indonesia Climate Change Education Forum

When it comes to climate change, we have no planet B | The Jakarta Post: "The British Council was one of more than 20 participants in the first-ever Indonesia Climate Change Education Forum and Expo at the Jakarta Convention Hall last May 26-29. The National Council on Climate change (DNPI) hosted the forum which had the theme “A call to cope with the climate crisis”.

Indeed, local and central government offices, private firms, environment NGOs, media outlets, international organizations and foreign embassies participated in answering that call. Many school-age children came to listen and learn. For the non-expert, the forum was a copious clearinghouse of current information on climate change.

DNPI, for instance, distributed a single, A4-sized flow chart explaining the impact of climate change in Indonesia on seven levels.

Human activity in the use of fossil fuels and changing land-use practices produce greenhouse gas
emissions, particularly carbon dioxide. That in turn causes the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect causes global warming which brings about climate change indicated by a change in rainfall patterns, an increase in temperature, and rise in the level of seawater. These three climate change indicators have impacts."

Wellness Update: North America: Hackers gather around the globe to fight climate change

Hackers gather around the globe to fight climate change - CNN.com: "this weekend, self-proclaimed hackers around the world will gather at 'hackathon' events to tackle disaster-risk management and climate change. The occasion is the semiannual Random Hacks of Kindness global conference, which seeks to leverage Internet data to address world problems.
Gatherings will be held in cities around the globe, from Atlanta to California's Silicon Valley and from Basel, Switzerland, to Bogota, Colombia. The conference is the result of a 2009 collaboration by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank, which founded Random Hacks of Kindness. (Both the organization and the events it organizes are known as RHoK.)
The group solicits 'problem definitions' from organizations in the field of disaster preparedness, relief and climate change and puts them before 'tech-savvy do-gooders,' according to Elizabeth Sabet from SecondMuse, RHoK's global operational lead.
It's this synthesis between subject-matter experts and computer hackers that makes RHoK effective, its leaders said.
'Technical solutions created only by technical people are often too cumbersome for the field,' said Philadelphia organizer Mike Brennan. 'Solutions created by field experts alone often lack the technical and scientific basis for an effective solution. RHoK is looking to address these weaknesses directly.'"

Wellness Update Africa: How Governments Can Engage the Private Health Sector to Improve Health in Africa (IFC & World Bank Report)

Ghana News :: <i>Feature</i>: How we can engage the Private Health Sector ::: Breaking News | News in Ghana | health: "Responding to the urgent need for effective partnership with the private sector, IFC and the World Bank are launching a report titled Healthy Partnerships How Governments Can Engage the Private Health Sector to Improve Health in Africa.

For the first time, the report offers a standardized assessment of how public-private engagement is working. The report offers a framework for policy makers and an analysis of the key elements of success. Good practice examples show that the government must recognize the private sector as a partner in service provision and ask for its full participation in achieving national health goals. Private providers themselves are asked to do their part and organize in a way that enables the government to interact with them effectively.

The key conclusion is that the health system must be seen as one; that parallel systems lead to wasted resources and unnecessary loss of lives."

Wellness Update: Australia to face new foreign aid request

Australia to face new foreign aid request: "Australia's commitment to curb global infant death rates will be tested this month when Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd faces requests for a fresh wave of funding.

Mr Rudd will attend the Saving Children's Lives pledging conference in London where global health alliance GAVI, will seek billions of dollars to help deliver vaccines to combat child mortality.

In the year 2000 the United Nations undertook to slash by two-thirds - between 1990 and 2015 - the death rate of children aged under five years.

The goal is set to fail and in a last-ditch effort to improve the outlook, GAVI is calling for help to deliver vaccines to nearly a quarter of a billion children across the world in the next three years.

Australia has already committed $A90 million directly to GAVI for 2006 to 2013, and made a further $A250 million commitment over 20 years through the alliance's investment branch, the International Finance Facility for Immunisation.

The facility now aims to make up a $US3.7 billion shortfall in funding for programs through until 2015.

In practical terms the money would pay for new vaccines with the potential to save some four million lives by 2015, GAVI says."

Career Tips: How to Recover from a Career Setback?

Recover from a Career Setback | Monster: By Ian Christie, Monster Contributing Writer

You're good at your job. You fit well with your team and within the organization. You receive solid performance appraisals and have a track record of accomplishment. Then, when the chance for that promotion you've been working toward finally arrives, you get passed over.

Welcome to an all-too-common reality. Major career disappointments happen even when you seem to be doing all the right things. How do you recover after a major career setback? Here are six steps:"

Summary:

1. Handle Your Emotions

2. Get Support

3. Analyze the Cause

• You Don't Fit: In most cases, you don't have control or influence over the employer's hiring requirements. While you might think you're the perfect fit for an internal position, the company may have different ideas altogether -- ones that may be based on soft rather than hard skills.
  

  If this is the case, it's a clue that you must better understand yourself and where you belong. It's also an indication that you need to better qualify your goals in the future. Often, what you may think is the next most logical career step is not the best fit.

• You Don't Measure Up: In today's competitive economy, the rewards go to people who don't just meet the requirements, but surpass them, and who've done a superlative job of building personal networks.
  

  What is lacking in your career portfolio? Specific knowledge or experience? Strong personal networks? Visibility? Understand how you can strengthen yourself and your future prospects.

• You're Needed Where You Are: Organizations make decisions in their best interest, not yours. You may be doing such a good job in your current position that your manager doesn't want to let you go. It may be easier or cheaper to find someone else to fill that other job than it would be to move you into that position and then have to replace you.
  

  This is a difficult situation. You either need to find a way to move up within the existing organization or you need to look elsewhere.

4. Evaluate Your Options

You have the power to choose. Figure out what you want and why.

5. Close the Gap

6. Recalibrate Your Goals

pls click website for complete article and info. thanks!

Career Tips: Stop Hurting Your Career

11 Ways to Hurt Your Career | Monster: " By Megan Malugani, Monster Contributing Writer

While most career advice focuses on how to succeed, we can all learn valuable lessons by dissecting career failure as well. Workplace experts offer insights into some of the top ways workers undermine their own careers and jeopardize their career development. " .

Here's the summary:

1. Not Taking Your Education Seriously

2. Not Having a Plan

3. Lying

4. Sullying Your Reputation on Facebook or Twitter

5. Not Respecting Professional Boundaries

6. Gossiping, Slandering, Excessively Criticizing

7. Carrying on an Inappropriate Relationship with Your Boss

8. Not Controlling Your Alcohol Intake or Libido

9. Job-Hopping Just for the Money

10. Losing Touch with References

11. Leaving a Job on Bad Terms

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