Can Ice cream help pull Rwanda out of poverty?
Question by Faith: Can Ice cream help pull Rwanda out of poverty?
Do you often make it a point to "taste the sweetness of life with some ice cream"?!
We should...this makes so much sense..
Odile Gakire Katese, the woman behind the shop - which opened June 5 and whose name translates as Sweet Dreams - the carefree pleasure that ice cream represents is exactly what Rwanda needs. "Life isn't just about survival," says Katese, "It's about living. And what better way to taste the sweetness of life than with some ice cream?"
In one of the world's poorest countries, with over 50% of its population living below the poverty line, Katese's focus on happiness might seem an unaffordable luxury, and ice cream a bizarre means to achieve it. Not so, says Josh Ruxin, head of Rwanda Works, an NGO committed to improving health in part through expanding the country's dairy industry. Ruxin calls the bias in development towards fighting HIV, improving maternal mortality rates, and helping children survive to the age of five "obvious." But citing NGOs such as Film Aid International that focus on nurturing the mind as well as the body, he says that "in general in development we aim too low - it's [viewed as] enough to address the most basic human needs and not these higher needs."
Though ice cream may seem an unorthodox way to meet our higher needs, Katese's visionary thinking has already succeeded in bringing joy to people who had ceased to believe they deserved it.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1997330,00.html
Best answer:
Answer by ernesthinton
Nothing will help: Africa is inherit with corruption. The money will never get to those that really need it.
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Tagged with: cream • help • poverty • pull • Rwanda
Filed under: Ice Cream
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building businesses may help,but a fundamental change needs to also come from the culture.
you are developing a good world awareness.
It’s possible, but many factors have to be taken into consideration, the biggest is corruption, heck it happens everywhere. But I have always supported industry that has a tactile product. People love ice cream. People will pay big bucks to ease their conscious and satisfy their sweet tooth. Look at Ben and Jerry’s it’s good ice cream and they put money in projects like saving the rain forest.
Yes if the money we keep sending them was invested in building an ice-cream factory instead of going into the pockets of the corrupt Dictators.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs should answer that. When you can’t even have enough food to live, ice cream is a waste of energy (need to keep it cool) and other resources.