End of one child policy

Today we finished the video about population and  women's treatment in some countries and talked about kiva project a little. Then we also talked about the end of one child policy in China.

China had a one child policy that was used to control the increase of the population in past few years. But now the government has already allowed couples whose parents had only one child to have two children because of the aging of population. In fact, in China people also could have more than one child by paying money to the government before ending policy (Owen is an exception). Some students said the international students they knew all had two children in their family. This was a truth. Like me, I had a little brother who is 8 years old; and my friend Nancy, who had a little sister; and Owen had a sister too. Because most of their families could afford the fine easily, and their parents also wanted to have more than one child. Mr. Schick thought that ending one child policy is a very good thing for Chinese people because they can save a big amount of money that pay for the second child, but I don't think so. Though people like our parents would like to have more than one child, they cannot use the policy (because they are not in childbearing ages and most of them are not the only child in their family). Nowadays many young couples only want to have one child, although the policy allows them to have more, they will not do that. Therefore, I don't think this policy is very useful.

Kiva essay (finished)

Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. It’s very easy to lend money to people in kiva because you only need to find a borrower and make a loan, then you will get repaid in your kiva account after the time. So you can also repeat doing it. Kiva has a good reputation because its repayment rate is over 98 percent.

I totally found two borrower in kiva.com. The first one is a girl who comes from Kyrgyzstan. Her name is Kymbat, and she needs some money to pay for tuition fee of AUCA. She had a wish to study at the AUCA from her 9th grade, but she knew that it was hard to be admitted to the AUCA and it cost a lot. She has already solved the first problem and been successful to gain it by kiva, and now is trying to borrow money for the second one. I think this is a fantastic way because it let her doesn’t need to think too much about money and only pay attention to studying. She will have a long time on kiva that can repay money to people, and the loan of people in kiva also has no interest.

Kyrgyzstan, where the girl lives is a developing country and very poor. The average annual income of it only is $2,500. Though Kyrgyzstan had 9 years education between ages 7 and 15, the Gross Enrolment Rate in Higher Education still was 12,5% in 2011/2012. I think these may be some reasons of her need to borrow.

The second borrower I found on kiva also is a girl and her name is Nilufar. She comes from Tajikistan and needs a loan to pay for her father's medical treatment. Nilufar is a young woman who is 22 years old, married, and has no child. She lives in the Pyandj area, where she was born and raised. Nilufar studies through the distance learning department at a university in Dushanbe. She stays with her aunt there and also works as an assistant with Kiva and MDO Humo. She needs the money because now her father is sick and in need of an operation, but they cannot afford it. So this loan will help her save her father's life. In addition, Nilufar has get pregnant, it means that her father will become a grandfather soon which is the thing he dreamed of for a long time.

I think this is a good way for her to deal with the problem, because what she needs is not a small amount of money, so if she wants to make it, it must spend a long time. However, her father has to do an operation recently, so it is the only way for her to borrow money from others. She decides to borrow money on kiva, and then she can get a loan with low interests and a long time for repaying.

Tajikistan, the country Nilufar lives, also is a poor developing country. The average annual income of Tajikistan is only $2,700. I think the most important effect the location has on her need to borrow still is poverty. The poverty of country makes people poor. Therefore, most of people in Tajikistan still cannot receive treatment though they have medical technologies that can cure some dangerous disease.

Kiva

Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. It’s very easy to lend money to people in kiva because you only need to find a borrower and make a loan, then you will get repaid in your kiva account after the time. So you can also repeat doing it. Kiva has a good reputation because its repayment rate is over 98 percent.

I find a borrower in kiva.com today. She is a girl who comes from Kyrgyzstan. Her name is Kymbat, and she needs some money to pay for tuition fee of AUCA. She had a wish to study at the AUCA from her 9th grade, but she knew that it was hard to be admitted to the AUCA and it cost a lot. She has already solved the first problem and been successful to gain it by kiva, and now is trying to borrow money for the second one. I think this is a fantastic way because it let her doesn’t need to think too much about money and only pay attention to studying. She will have a long time on kiva that can repay money to people, and the loan of people in kiva also has no interest.

Kyrgyzstan, where the girl lives is a developing country and very poor. The average annual income of it only is $2,500. Though Kyrgyzstan had 9 years education between ages 7 and 15, the Gross Enrolment Rate in Higher Education still was 12,5% in 2011/2012. I think these may be some reasons of her need to borrow. 

I will lend money to kiva and find another borrower to write to finish the essay in tomorrow's blog.

TFR and equality in India

In today's class, we watched a video. We knew that Japanese population dropped by half and birth rate also decreased in recent years by video. One of three people in Japan are retired. One of reasons is that Japan doesn't welcome immigrants like United States. This condition also happened in Russia, Germany and many other countries. However, the population in India is keeping raising. We knew that Indian usually have many children. A famous building in India-Tai Mahai, was built because of a queen who bore 14 children, and dead when she bore the 14th one. Many cities in India were overcrowded, even had the number of people as big as half of American.The TFR in India also used to be 6 although now it has been 3.

The treatment of women in India was not very good, many girls didn't be allowed to get education. In the video, we saw a woman almost dies after having 8 children. Another one told her it was very dangerous and she must find money to go to the hospital. She didn't want another baby either, but now she only had 5 children, one son and four daughters, all of the rest have been dead. She needed one more son to take care of her after she got old, because daughters will move to husband's house after they get married.All of the women in India are same as the woman in video. They needed to bear more than one son, although this almost killed them. It was their husbands' decision.

In India, one in every ten children died before five years old. Parents chose the person who would get married to their son or daughter, not the son or daughter themselves. They even didn't know their finace or fiancee before marriage. Many girls would get married at the age of only 14 or 15. When they get married, their parents have to offer something to their husbands as dowry. In India, there are 25,000 women are killed by husband each year, sometimes the reason of using violence for husbands to their wife even only is she has a daughter, men and women's status didn't obtain equality. It always happened in India that, if a woman got a boy, they would feel great; but if the woman got a girl, they would let her have an abortion and conceive again to get a boy.

Test paper & Kiva

In class on Friday we finished reviewing the rest of the test paper. I only did one wrong in the remaining 20 choice questions, because almost all of them have been mentioned in 20 questions with the CIA (maybe some of them were from other parts) The wrong one was that in what year didi the population of the world first reach one billion? I chose the answer a, 10,000 years ago. I thought I was so stupid: all of people knew that it was impossible because it was too early, but I still chose that. I even didn't know why I chose and what I was thinking it at that time. After the review, we talked about the kiva project. Mr. Schick told us some more information about it which made me be more interested in this project. I thought this project was so meaningful because we not only could help some people in need by lending them money (most of people will give money back in future), but also can get some extra points (the more the better for points although I have already been A). I think I will do it tomorrow and write down my blog few days later.

Test paper

We got our test paper back today in the class. I only made 4 mistakes on this test and got 91 points, so I got a "ding" which was same as my last name. It was so interesting. However, the average grade of our class was only around 70 points, it was lower than any other class.

During the class, we checked answers of CIA firstly. I didn't find the GDP do the United States and Finland spend on education during the test time although I searched them for almost four minutes. And now I know that they should be 5.2% and 6.8%. Then I found that the answer of first question on page 2 should be interconnectedness, but I wrote connection in the block and also was thought right. The next part is thinking three elements of infrastructure that a developing country would need for using cellular phones and reducing infant mortality rate. I did one wrong on the infant mortality rate, now I have known it could be medicine, food, clean water, hospital and living condition. And then we talked about rest of the questions that I didi all of them right.

Public servicd

Yesterday we had a assembly in gym in advisor time. This assembly talked about the public service; people who held that encouraged us to do as more as we could. I agreed with him but still thought this assembly was too boring. Then in the human geography class, Mr. Schick told us another way to service and help people that is called kiva.com. This is a website that we can lend some money to someone who really need, and then they will give back when they can. Mr. Schick also told us if we lent 25 dollars to someone in need on website, he would give us 5 extra points; and if many people in our class decided to lend money, we might could get 10 extra points. I thought I would do that, because it was beneficial for almost everyone.