Tag Archives: Covid-19

BGR Offers Emergency Assistance during the Pandemic

Posted on May 27, 2021 by | Comments Off on BGR Offers Emergency Assistance during the Pandemic

By BGR Staff

In May 2021, BGR donated over $60,000 from our emergency funds to support communities, both globally and in the U.S., adversely impacted by the Covid pandemic. Most of our assistance has gone to organizations working in India, which has been hit especially hard by the pandemic.

Photo: International Medical Corps

In May 2021, BGR donated over $60,000 from our emergency funds to support communities, both globally and in the U.S., adversely impacted by the Covid pandemic. Most of our assistance has gone to organizations working in India, which has been hit especially hard by the pandemic.

BGR began its emergency assistance to India on May 6th with a donation of $6,000 divided as follows among four organizations:

  • $2,000 to CARE India, to provide essential hospital services, health workers, beds, oxygen supply, and more.
  • $2,000 to the International Medical Corps, which is working with its partners in India to meet the most urgent health needs, including medical supplies, personal protective equipment, sanitation, and hygiene supplies.
  • $1,000 to Ketto, a fund-raising platform in Mumbai, to purchase oxygen concentrators.
  • $1,000 to Akshaya Patra Foundation, which is providing food to thousands of needy people across India.

Shortly after making this donation, BGR received an extremely generous donation from an individual donor in the amount of $20,000, for which we are deeply grateful. This was distributed to five organizations, in the amount of $4,000 each. The five beneficiaries were:

  • UNICEF-USA,  the US branch of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, to ensure that children around the world are vaccinated against Covid-19.
  • World Food Program USA, to provide urgently needed food aid to Yemen and the Central African Republic.
  • CARE India, for emergency medical relief, in addition to the $2,000 given earlier.
  • Akshaya Patra Foundation, for food assistance, in addition to the $1,000 given earlier.
  • Cambodian League for Promotion of Human Rights (LICADHO), to provide food and hygiene supplies to women and their young children in Cambodian prisons.

On May 16th the BGR Board decided to donate an additional $1,000 to UNICEF-USA, the World Food Program USA, and LICADHO, to bolster their donations to $5,000 each. CARE India and Akshaya Patra had already received additional funding under our earlier donation.

At its meeting on May 16th, the Board agreed to provide $2,500 in emergency assistance to the Karuna Trust, a social service organization in Sri Lanka, to provide parcels of dry food rations to poor families left desperate and hungry because of the pandemic.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is dry-rations-distribution-1.jpg
Dry rations distribution by Karuna Trust

The Board also decided to offer a donation of $5,000 to UNRWA-USA, the U.S. branch of the UN relief agency assisting Palestinian refugees. The organization is currently providing shelter, food assistance, health care, and other life-enhancing programs to Palestinians in Gaza left hungry and often homeless on account of the recent Israeli air raids.

In mid-May, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote to his friend, Ven. Bhante Ananda, general secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society, Bengaluru, to inquire about the condition of the monastery in Bengaluru, where he taught in 2019. The Maha Bodhi Maitri Mandala, the humanitarian service wing of the Maha Bodhi Society, operates a hospital in Bengaluru. Bhante Ananda wrote back to Ven. Bodhi to inform him that the hospital desperately needed five ventilators, each costing almost $10,000. They had received funds from supporters in Switzerland for one ventilator, but needed funds for the other four.

Ven. Bodhi proposed that BGR provide funds for a ventilator; a donation of $10,000 from the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS) to BGR enabled us to cover the costs of a second ventilator. Ven. Bodhi requested his publisher, Wisdom Publications, to donate for a third ventilator. And Indian Buddhists living in the greater New York area offered to raise funds for the fourth ventilator. In this way, by May 21st, the Mahabodhi Maitri Mandala had acquired the funds needed to purchase the four ventilators, which would be used to preserve the lives of their hospital patients.

Ventilators at the Maha Bodhi Hospital in Bengaluru
donated with help from BGR

Finally, on May 19th, BGR provided an emergency donation of $2,500 to the Foundation of His Sacred Majesty, an organization in India that renders services to the poor, deserving, and needy section of the Indian population without distinctions of caste, creed, race, sex, or religion. The Foundation urgently required outside assistance to help provide Covid relief.

In addition to these international donations, BGR continues to provide a monthly contribution of $3,000 to Feeding America, an umbrella organization supporting U.S. food banks, and a $500 monthly donation to the food program of Empty Cloud Monastery in West Orange, New Jersey.

As much as we lament the devastation that the Covid pandemic has brought to so many communities around the world, and the grief it has inflicted on countless families that have lost loved ones, we feel privileged to be able to offer tangible relief in the form of food supplies and medical aid and thereby save the lives of people who might have otherwise succumbed to illness or despair. We thank all of our donors for making this assistance possible, and we hope they rejoice in the good they make possible through their generosity.

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Global Health and Development Orgs: Biden Must Launch A Global Vaccine Program to End Covid Pandemic

Posted on April 13, 2021 by | Comments Off on Global Health and Development Orgs: Biden Must Launch A Global Vaccine Program to End Covid Pandemic

News release from Public Citizen

Sixty-six global health and development organizations have appealed to President Biden to launch a global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic. U.S. leadership of such a program would provide billions of additional Covid-19 vaccine doses to the world. Buddhist Global Relief was one of the signatories to this appeal.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Public Citizen and 65 other global health, development and humanitarian organizations today called on President Joe Biden to announce and implement a global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic and build a globally-distributed vaccine infrastructure for future pandemics.

 “Much more ambitious U.S. leadership is needed to end to the global pandemic,” said Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Director Peter Maybarduk. “The U.S. government should establish, urgently, a manufacturing operation for the world, that would share vaccine recipes and work with the World Health Organization to alleviate suffering and bring billions of additional vaccine doses to humanity.”

 The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a movement of health and humanitarian organizations, has endorsed the letter. Some of the largest U.S.-based international groups, FHI360, International Rescue Committee, Helen Keller International and International Medical Corps, as well as advocacy organizations including RESULTS and PrEP4All, have also signed onto the letter.

 The letter noted the only way to get the pandemic under control is to immediately ramp up vaccine production across the world. The group requests Biden announce a new manufacturing program in his fiscal year 2022 budget and help produce billions more vaccine doses within one year. The U.S. can do so for about $3 a dose, a fraction of the cost of inaction, according to the coalition. Without a global manufacturing plan, the economic costs to the U.S. alone could be between $800 billion to $1.4 trillion in 2021 alone.

 The letter comes ahead of a fundraising conference this Thursday, hosted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for the COVAX facility, dedicated to increasing equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines.

 “Given the increasingly connected nature of today’s world and the risks that we consequently share, it is vital that we act proactively and decisively to address those risks,” said Nancy Aossey, president and CEO of International Medical Corps. “The U.S. has the intellectual and financial resources necessary to help lead this initiative, working across borders with other governments, and with international health agencies, to end this and future pandemics.”

“Vaccine donations alone won’t end the pandemic,” said Abby Maxman, Oxfam America CEO, a signatory to the Biden letter. “The commitments planned for COVAX are critically important, and yet entirely inadequate to meet global need. Without urgent new manufacturing commitments, billions of people may wait years for a vaccine.”

 The groups said the U.S. government should not only expand production in the U.S. and abroad, but also work with the World Health Organization (WHO) to set up production hubs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These hubs would democratize production and improve global health security, particularly if they are accountable to the public and equipped with adaptable technologies, such as mRNA platforms, that could help defeat the next pandemic.

 “The U.S. government has helped produce hundreds of millions of vaccine doses for people living in the U.S., on a relatively short timeline. The same is needed—and within reach—for all countries,” Maybarduk added. The key missing ingredient is ambitious political leadership, to end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.”

Here is the text of the letter, along with a list of the signatories:

April 13, 2021

 President Joseph R. Biden
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

 Dear President Biden,

 Thank you for your leadership strengthening the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. We appreciate your administration’s commitment to COVAX and the recently announced Quad partnership, to support vaccine access abroad. Yet without much more ambitious leadership, the scale of global vaccine need will not be met.

 Even as our country expands access to Covid-19 vaccines through the broadest vaccination campaign in U.S. history, for most of the world, there is no relief in sight. Few of the billions of people living in low- and middle-income countries will be vaccinated against Covid-19 this year. Many may not be vaccinated until 2024, if ever. Virus variants threaten to deepen and prolong the crisis.

 The only way to get the pandemic under control is to accelerate global vaccine manufacturing. The United States has capabilities to help the world make billions more doses of Covid-19 vaccine for about $3 a dose, a fraction of the cost of inaction, and shorten the pandemic.

 We urge your administration to announce in your fiscal year 2022 budget an ambitious global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic and build vaccine infrastructure for the future.

 Proposal

 The United States should help the world produce billions more vaccine doses within approximately one year.

For example, modest capital investments (about $2 billion) can retrofit vaccine manufacturing facilities and install additional mRNA production lines. Doses can then be manufactured for less than $3 each. U.S. leadership is likely to inspire co-funding by other governments and international organizations. A total investment of less than $25 billion, including whole-ofgovernment efforts to source raw materials and provide technical assistance, can support the rapid production of 8 billion doses of mRNA vaccine, enough for more than half the world’s population.

 The U.S. should support a massive expansion of manufacturing and establish hubs for vaccine production with the World Health Organization, including hubs located in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These hubs will democratize production and improve global health security, particularly if they are accountable to the public and equipped with adaptable technologies, such as mRNA platforms, believed critical to defeating the next pandemic.

 The United States should ensure that technology is shared openly, including via the WHO Covid-19 Technology Access Pool, so that scientists and manufacturers worldwide can support vaccine delivery and development. Where necessary, the U.S. government should use its power under existing law to license technology, ensuring its availability and affordability now and for the future. Notably, taxpayers made substantial investments in Covid-19 vaccine research and development, and the U.S. government owns a key patent relied on by the major vaccine makers.

 Without a vaccine manufacturing plan of global ambition, millions more people may die, with tens of millions pushed into extreme poverty. Black and Brown communities will bear the brunt of this preventable suffering. The progress achieved through decades of U.S. overseas development assistance will be reversed. People living in the United States may feel the ripple effects with ongoing threats of virus mutations. The economic costs to the United States are estimated at $800 billion to $1.4 trillion.

 U.S. history demonstrates that by mobilizing extraordinary resources and the country’s full capabilities, while working closely with global partners, the country can solve complex technical challenges and support humanity in times of great need. This is one such moment, and there is no time to lose. We urge you to launch an ambitious vaccine manufacturing program in your FY22 budget to help end the global pandemic. 

Public Citizen
Access Challenge
Action Against Hunger
American Jewish World Service
American Medical Student Association
American Medical Women’s Association
American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene
Amnesty USA
AVAC
Be a Hero Fund
BRAC USA
Buddhist Global Relief (USA)
Center for Popular Democracy
Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH)
ChildFund USA
Chinese-American Planning Council
Christian Connections for International Health (USA)
CORE Group
Doctors for America
Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, North America
Episcopal Relief & Development
Families USA
FHI 360
Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR)
Friends Committee on National Legislation
FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
GOAL USA
Health GAP
Helen Keller International
HelpAge USA
Human Rights Watch USA
Incentives for Global Health
International Medical Corps
International Rescue Committee
International Treatment Preparedness Coalition
Islamic Relief USA
Jesuit Refugee Service
John Snow, Inc.
JustActions
Last Mile Health
Management Sciences for Health
Marie Stopes International
Médecins Sans Frontières, USA / Doctors Without Borders
National Council of Churches USA
Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Oxfam America
Partners In Health
Pathfinder International
People’s Action
Physicians for Human Rights
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
PrEP4All
Prescription Justice
RESULTS
Right to Health Action
Salud y Farmacos
Social Security Works
Sojourners
SumOfUs USA
The Borgen Project
Treatment Action Group (TAG)
Union for Reform Judaism
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)
Yale Global Health Justice Partnership


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Posted in Covid-19, Emergency relief, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Interfaith action, News item

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Covid-19 and Hunger: A Double Crisis of Inequality

Posted on October 25, 2020 by | Comments Off on Covid-19 and Hunger: A Double Crisis of Inequality

The coronavirus pandemic is causing a hunger crisis, and at the same time revealing vast wealth inequality

By Randy Rosenthal

Buddhist monks distributing food parcels at a temple in Sri Lanka

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a recurring headline that hardly anyone is talking about. It has never been the main story, up at the top and in large font. But it’s been there on page two or three, first in April, and then again in June, and more recently in September. I’m referring to the impact of COVID-19 on hunger, both in the U.S. and globally.

Before the pandemic began, there were about 135 million people in the world who faced crisis levels of hunger. According to a report by the UN World Food Programme’s executive director, David Beasley, that number will double over the next year, to some 270 million who will be “marching towards the brink of starvation.” In a briefing to the UN Security Council on September 15, Beasley stated that the World Food Programme (WFP) needed about $5 billion in order to prevent 30 million people from dying of starvation. Not over the next few years, but by the end of this year. Now.

Back in April, Beasley warned the Security Council that the world was on the verge of a hunger pandemic. People in India, Colombia, and Kenya were more concerned that they would die from hunger than from the coronavirus. Donors and countries heeded the call and passed a $17 trillion fiscal stimulus package, and the UN was able to help 100 million people in 88 countries. For this work, the World Food Programme was recently awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet in September Beasley warned that a new wave of hunger would sweep the globe and overwhelm already unstable nations reeling from violent conflict, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Specifically, he mentions the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Yemen, currently the site of the gravest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Along with food insecurity, overall poverty rates are also drastically increasing, a reversal of three decades of progress. Nearly every nation’s economy has shrunk since April, but it is the poorest countries that have been hardest hit, those that cannot afford large setbacks. India, for example, suffered a 24% shrinking of its economic output between April and June, with about 120 million jobs lost. The Asian Development Bank estimates that 160 million people in Asia alone will be under the poverty line this year. Latin America, too, is seeing hunger rise due to economic disaster. There, according to a UN study, 45 million more people will fall under the poverty line, prompting warnings that Latin America must brace for “a lost decade.”

Yet most of the news we read regarding the pandemic is about the U.S. and Europe. There are reports on unemployment and death tolls, but many articles have headlines like these: “Can our summer vacations still be saved? What will restaurants do to stay in business once winter comes? Is it safe to fly? Or to take a train?” These questions and topics are all valid concerns, as the virus has affected each of us in our own way, and we’re all just trying to survive and stay sane. And yet these lifestyle issues clearly pale in comparison to the threat of starvation faced by 270 million people.

Seeing that nations have hesitated over committing more funds, David Beasley pivoted and addressed individuals to help. Specifically, he appealed to billionaires to pitch in, calling out those who have made “billions upon billions” during the pandemic. What does he mean by this reference? Well, just recently, a survey by the Swiss bank UBS and consultancy group PwC showed that the combined worth of the world’s 2,189 billionaires now stands at $10.2 trillion. The survey also showed that since March, when the coronavirus lockdown began, their wealth has surged to ever higher levels. How can this be possible, when so many people around the world are unemployed, sick, and suffering? The answer is stocks. Most of the gains are due to investments in technology and healthcare companies involved in developing vaccines and therapies against the coronavirus. The gap between the wealthiest .01% and everyone else has been steadily growing over the past decade, but in the words of the survey’s authors, “the COVID-19 crisis just accentuated the divergence.” In fact, the wealthiest Americans have become 170% richer.

Interestingly, and somewhat reassuringly, there has been a corresponding increase in donations by billionaires to charitable causes, with $7.2 billion given between March and June. Nearly $5 billion came from U.S. billionaires, who dwarfed their counterparts in China, India, Australia, and the UK—the survey made no mention of Russian billionaires, despite Russia having more billionaires than any other country. This philanthropy is perhaps why Beasley emphasized that he is not criticizing billionaires—after all, he’s only asking for $5 billion. “I am not opposed to people making money,” he said in his UN briefing, “but humanity is facing the greatest crisis any of us have seen in our lifetimes.”

And yet for many of us, it doesn’t feel like the greatest crisis any of us have seen in our lifetimes. Why is that? Is it because we don’t actually see hunger? That our news media endlessly covers Donald Trump and political pundits, but not devastated areas in Africa? If we saw just a few of the 20 million people in crisis in Yemen, would we demand our government do more to stop the fighting there?

Again, don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming the media, especially because these stories on hunger are out there—that’s how I’m compiling this article. But these are not sexy stories. The crisis is often happening to other people, people far away, in parts of the world that are in dire situations anyway. And the causes of the global hunger crisis are complex—a combination of lost wages, disruption of food supply chains, the collapse of oil prices, the evaporation of the tourist industry, and continued disasters arising from climate change such as droughts, floods, and locust plagues are all contributing factors.

It’s so complicated, it seems like there’s nothing we can do. So, we think, we might as well meditate, read more articles about politics, watch sports, and plan our next vacation. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But we can also donate to organizations like Buddhist Global Relief, which since the COVID crisis erupted has been providing monthly donations of $3,000 to Feeding America, a central hub for U.S. food banks. This is in addition to its regular projects assisting poor communities around the world.

We can share stories about global hunger on social media. We get ourselves riled up at systemic racism and political maleficence, but we can express outrage about the hunger crisis too, condemning the larger economic system that allows a few to live in luxury while millions starve. We may not be billionaires, but each of us can help in our own way.

Randy Rosenthal teaches writing at Harvard. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications.

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Emergency Relief Assistance to Sri Lanka

Posted on May 29, 2020 by | Comments Off on Emergency Relief Assistance to Sri Lanka

By BGR Staff

On March 31st BGR donated $1,000 to the Karuna Trust in Sri Lanka, which has been distributing parcels of dry rations to poor families hit hard by the strict curfew imposed in the country on account of COVID-19. The Karuna Trust is working together with the the Divisional Secretariats to feed poor children and elders in orphanages and elders’ homes, which now have no way of obtaining food from their regular donors. A few days ago we received the following account from Mr. Mahinda Karunaratne, founder of Karuna Trust, along with several photographs of a food distribution.

On March 30th I sent an email to my donors, well-wishers, and friends requesting funds to help the daily wage-workers who had lost their earnings due to the curfew. In response I collected LKR 3.3 million, including the donation I received from Buddhist Global Relief. I am happy about the trust the people have placed in me. Apart from this amount, Karuna Trust also allocated LKR  1 million, which we will use for the second stage of COVID-19 relief work.

Within this period we have given 3312 dry ration parcels to people who have lost their daily income due to the curfew, in fifteen Divisional Secretariat Divisions. Consumer items have been given to eight orphanages, two bhikkhu training centers, fifteen  Buddhist temples, four temples of Buddhist nuns, and eight churches. All these activities were done under the supervision of the Divisional Secretaries and a representative of ours participated in each and every distribution. Continue reading →

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Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Covid-19, Emergency relief, Engaged Buddhism, Food shortages, Projects & programs

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BGR Supports Hunger Relief during Pandemic

Posted on May 17, 2020 by | Comments Off on BGR Supports Hunger Relief during Pandemic

By BGR Staff

Embed from Getty Images

 

Over the past two months BGR has so far donated close to $40,000 to support communities, both globally and nationally, adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

To assist the international effort, BGR contributed $5,000 to the World Food Program USA to provide food relief to people in other countries afflicted by hunger worsened by the pandemic. While coronavirus is hurting everyone, it is hitting people in crisis zones the hardest. From Syria to Bangladesh, the virus is beginning to spread through crowded refugee camps and people living in extreme poverty. With its logistical and emergency expertise, WFP is ramping up its response to nourish and protect people already living in extremely vulnerable conditions.

We also donated $1,000 to the Karuna Trust in Sri Lanka, which is distributing food to poor families hard hit by the strict curfew currently in place in the country. The Karuna Trust is working together with the the Additional Government Agent of Matale, to assist them in feeding poor children and elders in orphanages and elders’ homes, which have no way now of obtaining food from their regular donors.

Further, BGR gave a donation of $500 to the Bangladesh Buddhist Missionary Society, a BGR partner, to support their efforts to combat the pandemic. The Society is using its spare space as a quarantine center; developing public awareness campaigns; providing hand sanitizer, masks, and other sanitation equipment; arranging for medical teams; and providing emergency food support. And more recently we donated $1,785 to White Lotus Charitable Trust’s Garden of Peace, in Tamil Nadu, India, to help the local community deal with the pandemic.

Here in the U.S., in early April BGR initially donated $7,000 to support food banks providing food relief to poor people affected by the pandemic. Donations of $1,000 each were provided to food banks in seven locations: New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, New Orleans, El Paso, Philadelphia, and central New Jersey. We also donated $500 to provide meals to front-line health care workers on Long Island through a project organized by the Center for Spiritual Imagination at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City.

In late April and on #Giving Tuesday in May, BGR made additional donations of $12,000 each month to twelve food banks working in New York City, Westchester County, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, South Florida, South Louisiana, Texas, southern Arizona, Los Angeles, and the World Central Kitchen. In each of those two months, donations of $1,000 were given to each of these food distribution centers. We intend to continue offering support to food banks here in the U.S., as well as to affected countries around the world. For a list of U.S. food banks, see Feeding America.

BGR is blessed to be able to contribute to the important work being done by these courageous organizations.

To help BGR continue putting compassion into action, please consider making a generous donation to BGR. We are a distinctive Buddhist organization helping poor and neglected peoples throughout the world.   

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