The latest State of Global Air report, published by US-based research organisation Health Effects Institute (HEI) on Wednesday, covers more than 7,000 cities around the world. It is the first such study to focus only on urban air pollution.
The world’s biggest cities are suffering from extremely hazardous levels of toxic air, which has killed more than 1.7 million people.
Middle Eastern states are to land a $1.3tn (£1.09tn) windfall from extra oil revenues over the next four years, according to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF said it expected oil and gas exporters in the region, notably the Gulf states, to benefit from high prices and opportunities to ramp up their market share.
The windfall is expected to benefit some of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds including the Qatar Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Kuwait Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala and ADQ. Gulf states are expected to spend the proceeds of the oil boom on building huge infrastructure projects, as well as investing overseas.
Middle East states in line for $1.3tn windfall from extra oil revenues | Oil | The Guardian
Worsening harvests, infertile soil and increasing food poverty are affecting the majority of small farmers across the globe, especially in the Global South. But the climate and food crises are not isolated phenomena. They are the result of a global capitalist system that has prioritised big corporate agricultural profits over people and the planet.
“Most farmers can no longer produce adequate food for their families,” says Vladimir Chilinya, a Zambian coordinator for FIAN International, an organisation that campaigns for the democratisation of food and nutrition.“Profit-making entities control our food systems… including the production and distribution of seed.” He explained, “Under recent policy changes, priority is given to maize production. This is one of the key drivers for monocropping, which is responsible for the reduction in varieties of available foods in Zambia.”
FIAN is documenting how the corporate control of agriculture is weakening food security. Seed systems have gone from being cooperative-led (which gives farmers more agency and fair prices) to being corporate-led (which prioritises profits).
In May, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the number of people living in famine conditions has increased by more than 500 percent since 2016, and more than 270 million people are now living in extreme food insecurity.
While Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions on Russia has exacerbated this crisis climate change and capitalism are the primary engines behind this global food emergency.
By 2030, global warming will have diminished the world’s average agricultural production by more than a fifth.
In Zambia, the maize harvest for 2021/22 is expected to be down by a quarter, thanks to droughts and flash floods between 2019 and 2021,
The so-called “Green Revolution” was a collaboration between India and the U.S. with USAID and the Ford Foundation being key actors)] and was dependent on agrochemical usage and intensive plant breeding. High-yielding hybrid crops were introduced – the main one being IR8, a semi-dwarf rice variety – alongside the use of fertilisers, pesticides and lots of groundwater (these high-yielding crops required a lot more water). Calorific food was valued over nutrition, and these foods had costly inputs.
Despite occupying less than 25 percent of the world’s farmland, small-scale farmers provide 70 percent of the world’s food.
This shift towards big agriculture and more profitable monocultures made small farmers more dependent on expensive chemical fertilisers, forcing them into ever greater levels of debt. In India, 10,677 agricultural workers were reported to have taken their own lives in 2020, many of them farmers trapped by mounting debts resulting from the high costs of these farming inputs.
“Land degradation is affecting food production in Kenya because of the overuse of chemical fertilisers,” said Leondia Odongo, co-founder of social justice organisation Haki Nawiri Afrika.
In 1980, Kenya was one of the first countries to receive a structural adjustment loan from the World Bank. It was conditional on reducing essential subsidies for farmer inputs, such as fertilisers. This process instigated a shift towards farming cash crops for export, such as tea, coffee and tobacco, instead of farming key staples for the local population, such as maize, wheat and rice.
Save the Children and Oxfam found that 3.5 million people in Kenya are already suffering crisis levels of hunger – and this is likely to rise to 5 million. Meanwhile, only 2 percent of the $4.4 billion required in humanitarian aid (for Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia) has been funded. In the country, malnutrition remains concerningly high, with 29 percent of children in rural areas and 20 percent of children in cities being stunted. Despite experiencing deficits which threaten its population’s food security, Kenya remains a vital food exporter, with major exports in tea, coffee, vegetables and cut flowers.
Capitalism is causing the food crisis, not war | Progressive International
Introductory note.
This text, published in Russian here, on the website of the Russian section of the International Workers’ Association, was written by a teenage school student in a small town in Russia’s Far East. The illustration shows people lining up to form a Z — a symbol of support for the “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The authorities are pushing the idea of love for the motherland-nation into the heads of the common people, presenting the idea in an extremely perverted form, with all its consequences… There are expressions of hatred and violence against other peoples, national conservatism, chauvinism. Autocratic tendencies in society are intensifying, which is why, in practice, a human community torn apart by “ethnic” contradictions is gradually being formed. Some people are pitted against others, often regardless of kinship and similarity of origin.
This is how a real social catastrophe is created in order to maintain a power monopoly of parasites who want to subordinate the working people to their will, distracting them from understanding the real state of affairs in the country. People become like little kittens who have nowhere to go without their mother, or to be more cynical, they become unfree, duped slaves, eventually turning out to be soulless amoral cogs whose purpose in life is to work in inhumane conditions. Such people are completely crushed inside and disconnected from the outside.
Our main character, let’s call him Petya, 15 years old, born in the Far East in a small town, comes from a working class family, is attracted to leftist ideas and actively interested in the history of the USSR and many other “socialist states”, communism, as well as Marxism, actively opposing capitalism, considering it an obsolete economic formation. When the Russian-Ukrainian war began, Petya, naturally, as befits a leftist, spoke from class positions, saying that this war is a conflict for the redistribution of spheres of influence between the Russian and Western bourgeoisie, and also that the ambitions of “our” ruling class contradict the interests of ordinary workers. That all the costs of the war will fall on the shoulders of ordinary workers. Anti-social measures such as pension reform will begin with renewed vigor. All those few freedoms that citizens have will decrease even more, until their complete extinction. Of course, relations between Russians and Ukrainians will finally deteriorate, causing a deep split between them.
And what is it for? For the sake of some vague “denazification” and “demilitarization”, with an admixture of slogans about protecting the “Russian world”, which are just “dust in the eyes” to justify their predatory, imperialist intentions. They are well aware that the elite needs this conflict to strengthen their influence more and more, both in the country – through violence and exploitation of workers – and outside the country, through dubious adventures, one of which was the “special military operation” on the territory of Ukraine. Naturally, the main character could not but speak out against the war, which did not meet the needs of the working people of Russia.
The first story: a class
At the beginning of March, on the last day of the working week, on Friday, a hour-long class was held at his school on the topic of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This event combined such ideological attitudes as national conservatism, patriotism with a touch of chauvinism, Russian nationalism, and, of course, Russia’s civilizing role in protecting the fraternal Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.
It was very much like a verbal performance. According to the teacher, Russia is fighting the cunning West, advocating a “multipolar world.” Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians are, it appears, almost a single nation with small peculiarities. It was the “damned Bolsheviks” who created Ukraine and its culture by implementing the policy of indigenization, thereby alienating peoples of similar blood. After that, the USSR, in which all nations formed a single whole, collapsed. And now independent Ukraine unleashed a full-fledged terror against the Russian-speaking population, and at the head of this terror were, of course, the very Ukrainian nationalists whom the Soviet government had failed to finish off. Meanwhile, the “beast”, represented by Western states, decided to surround “poor Russia” by expanding its influence in Eastern Europe, which violated the non-existent agreement between the Soviets and the United States on non-expansion of NATO. The peak of these trends was the Euromaidan, as a result of which neo-Nazis took power in Ukraine, dragging the country into organizations hostile to Russia. Russia, of course, is a peacemaker trying to stop the fascistization of Ukraine by returning it to a pro-Russian orientation, because kindred peoples will be better off sticking together. The annexation of Crimea, together with the confrontation in the Donbas, are the protection of the Russian people from right-wing radicals and liberal-minded Kiev authorities.
Summing up what we heard, we can say that at this cool event it was said in plain text that we, ordinary citizens, should support the “bread ambitions” of “our” government, which wants to expand its imperialist sphere of influence in the world. Which, as you understand, is presented as the liberation of Ukraine from the “Banderite-Westernist yoke”, the protection of our “Great Motherland” from external enemies.
The protagonist was clearly not thrilled with such verbal twists. There were quite mixed feelings in the classroom. For example, when Petya, who was sitting next to one of his classmates, was finally asked what he thought about the event, replied along the lines of: “This is all complete nonsense!” Another classmate asked: “So we were shown cute, fluffy stuff and then fobbed off with crap?” To which Petya replied: “Yes, that’s the way it is.” But if we talk about the whole stupid class, then we have to admit that the majority probably “took the bait” on this propaganda hook, without even thinking about how they tried to fool them.
The remaining two stories are smaller in scale but quite revealing.
The second story: conversation with churchmen
One day, having gone together with two classmates to do poetry for one of the contests in a small building near the church, we came into contact with two colorful personalities. They turned out to be a man and a woman who, judging by their appearance, have positions of some kind in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). They spoke in this vein: “Despite the difficult situation in the world, we must wish good luck to our troops in liberating Ukraine from fascism, and also remember the figures who loved and understood their Homeland.”
To be honest, it was somehow even strange to hear from representatives of the church about the correctness of the armed method of resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, seasoned with bourgeois patriotism. At the same time, this should not surprise us, because from time immemorial, large religious institutions such as the ROC have been the mainstay of the authorities, being usually the most reactionary organizations of society, stifling any popular aspirations.
The third story: political information
The last incident occurred on political information, when many classes gathered in the assembly hall to listen to a woman who, by the look of her uniform, was probably from some sort of law enforcement agency. She gave the following speech: “What is extremism? This is when people organize violent actions directed against the state and to achieve their goals. Which often echoes terrorism. There are many organizations of this kind whose ideology is neo-Nazism. Making a certain protest event, they are actively trying to involve young people in it, through the same social networks. Therefore, be careful with such appeals, because you, minors, can simply be taken and sent to the police station, fining your parents because you, as a person under the age of 18, cannot visit places where actions of this nature take place. And in general, it is better not to participate in protests directed against the authorities, for the reason that you can injure yourself, ruin your reputation, eventually achieving nothing, wasting all your strength, and be left with nothing.”
Most of all, Petya was amazed by the statement that all “extremists” are, of course, Nazis, nationalists, fascists, etc. Left-wing activists defending their rights and freedoms, actively taken away from them by the authorities, and leading a trade union, protest, explanatory information struggle, clearly did not exist for her. Also, the belief that everything can always be solved peacefully without violence is in itself a lie. It doesn’t happen that way.
Sad afterword
The trouble is that now in Russia there is no major force representing the interests of workers. The opposition is represented by the same rosy Social Democrats like the organizations of Gennady Zyuganov, Sergei Mironov and the like. After all, they do not aim at a real coming to power, remaining only the “left hand” of the regime, symbolizing the illusory democratic confrontation of parties of different ideologies. At the same time, paradoxically, these same quasi-popular parties stifle any initiatives from below aimed at improving the quality of life of the working population.
The population is now impoverished to such an extent that the struggle for relief of their situation often turns into a fight for the last piece of bread. In Russia, there has been established a dictatorship of politicians who care only about their own enrichment and personal situation… The authorities want to take all the levers of pressure into their hands, do whatever they want, “laying bombs under Russia”, dividing it into several separate economic and political provinces, strengthening the status of Russia as the periphery of the West — the countries of the capitalist core, really without solving “ethnic” issues and in no way stopping the stratification not just between the poor and the rich, but also between the rich and the middle stratum. These authorities continue their policy of forming a police state, while at the same time dragging the country into campaigns that are completely strange in their design, serving, naturally, to strengthen the position of “our” haves and weaken the working class.
There is an important question tormenting the main character: “Why”? In fact, why was it necessary to tell all this to those living here in the Far East? In a region where the authorities have become completely brazen by implementing an autocratic regime, nepotism. corruption, and destruction of the Soviet legacy. Observance of the rights and duties of the individual has long been a formality here. And any alternative sources of opinion are broken and torn to shreds. Not to mention the red tape.
A certain picture of the state of affairs is emerging. It turns out that the idea of “convenient patriotism” goes hand in hand with nationalism, is implanted everywhere and penetrates absolutely any strata of society. Dissenters, or people of other positions, are under incredible pressure with threats of deprivation of economic liberties, political persecution and criminal charges. And the decisions that are being made from Moscow have nothing to do with any national goals in terms of security, ideological anti-Westernism, resistance to neo-Nazism and the like. “Those from Moscow” are guided, first of all, by their selfish and narrow intentions, having long ago turned Russia into a growing pile of trash, without solving the very essence of the problem, leaving it to others, believing that everything will settle by itself and it is not worth worrying about it at all.
The saddest thing is that the people are quite indifferent to everything that is happening. The population lives apolitically, not worrying about current events, living in accordance with their everyday routine of life. It is the problem of unwillingness to think with one’s own mind, taking for the real truth those tall tales that come “from the top”, that generates a combination of ignorance and stupidity in the minds of the population. All this strengthened the cultural, economic, political, and social primacy of the plutocrats. The current social surveys only confirm the emerging negative trend in modern Russian society, showing, once again, the severity of the problems. The bright ray in this pitch darkness remains political enlightenment among the people, building up their organizational potential, understanding their class position and interest. Without which some slaves of one slaveholder will be doomed to fight with the slaves of another slaveholder.
Petya and the authorities – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)
Globally, almost 50 million people are living in emergency or catastrophic levels of acute hunger.
The world is facing a hunger and nutrition crisis of unprecedented scale with one child already being pushed into severe malnutrition every minute, and eight million children are at risk of death in 15 crisis-affected countries unless they receive immediate treatment.
Millions of children at risk of death unless immediate action is taken to fight the global hunger crisis, warn six of the world’s largest child-focused NGOs. The impact of such sheer volumes of people experiencing extreme hunger will have devastating and lifelong impacts on children’s rights to health, nutrition, education, protection and survival. Children are at heightened risk of violence, exploitation and abuse due to dropping out of school, forced labour, recruitment and use by armed forces or armed groups and family separation. Children without parental care are especially vulnerable to food insecurity and its multiple effects. Girls are at particular risk of child, early and forced marriage, early pregnancy, school drop-out, sexual exploitation and abuse. When food is scarce, girls and women often eat less and last.
Famine is preventable. Food security is not a privilege but a right enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Immediate action needed to protect children from the global hunger crisis – World | ReliefWeb
Global population will continue to rise in the coming decades, peaking at perhaps 10 billion in the 2060s. Most of this increase will be in the tropical regions that are worst hit by climate catastrophe, causing people there to flee northwards. For example, more than 13 million Bangladeshis – nearly 10% of the population – are expected to have left the country by 2050.
The global north faces the opposite problem – a “top-heavy” demographic crisis, in which a large elderly population is supported by a too-small workforce. North America and Europe have 300 million people above the traditional retirement age (65+), and by 2050, the economic old-age dependency ratio there is projected to be at 43 elderly persons per 100 working persons aged 20–64. Cities from Munich to Buffalo will begin competing with each other to attract migrants.
Large populations will need to migrate, and not simply to the nearest city, but also across continents. Those living in regions with more tolerable conditions, especially nations in northern latitudes, will need to accommodate millions of migrants while themselves adapting to the demands of the climate crisis. Migration is not the problem; it is the solution.
The coming migration will involve the world’s poorest fleeing deadly heatwaves and failed crops. It will also include the educated, the middle class, people who can no longer live where they planned because it’s impossible to get a mortgage or property insurance; because employment has moved elsewhere. The Welsh capital, Cardiff, is projected to be two-thirds underwater by 2050.
The climate crisis has already uprooted millions in the US – in 2018, 1.2 million were displaced by extreme conditions, fire, storms and flooding; by 2020, the annual toll had risen to 1.7 million people. The US now averages a $1bn disaster every 18 days. By 2050, half a million existing US homes will be on land that floods at least once a year. More than half of the western US is facing extreme drought conditions.
Migration is not the problem; it is the solution. Nation states are an artificial social structure predicated on the mythology that the world is made of distinct, homogenous groups that occupy separate portions of the globe, and claim most people’s primary allegiance. The idea that a person’s identity and wellbeing is primarily tied to that of one invented national group is far-fetched, even if this is presupposed by many governments. Most people speak the languages of multiple groups, and ethnic and cultural pluralism is the norm.
In April 2021, Governor Kristi Noem tweeted: “South Dakota won’t be taking any illegal immigrants that the Biden administration wants to relocate. My message to illegal immigrants … call me when you’re an American.”
Consider that South Dakota only exists because thousands of undocumented immigrants from Europe used the Homestead Act from 1860 to 1920 to steal land from Native Americans without compensation or reparations. This kind of exclusive attitude from a leader weakens the sense of shared citizenship among all, creating divisions between residents who are deemed to belong and those who are not.
Immigration controls are regarded as essential – but for people, not stuff. Huge effort goes into enabling the cross-border migration of goods, services and money. Every year more than 11bn tonnes of stuff is shipped around the world – the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes per person a year – whereas humans, who are key to all this economic activity, are unable to move freely. Industrialised nations with big demographic challenges and important labour shortages are blocked from employing migrants who are desperate for jobs.
Within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, EU leaders enacted an open-border policy for refugees fleeing the conflict, giving them the right to live and work across the bloc for three years, and helping with housing, education, transport and other needs. The policy undoubtedly saved lives but additionally, by not requiring millions of people to go through protracted asylum processes, the refugees were able to disperse to places where they could better help themselves and be helped by local communities. Across the EU, people came together in their communities, on social media, and through institutions to organise ways of hosting refugees. They offered rooms in their homes, collected donations of clothes and toys, set up language camps and mental health support – all of which was legal because of the open-border policy. This reduced the burden for central government, host towns and refugees alike.
Globally, this system of sealed borders and hostile migration policy is dysfunctional. It doesn’t work for anyone’s benefit.
In 2020, refugees around the world exceeded 100 million, tripling since 2010, and half were children. This means one in every 78 people on earth has been forced to flee. Registered refugees represent only a fraction of those forced to leave their homes due to war or disaster. In addition to these, 350 million people are undocumented worldwide, an astonishing 22 million in the US alone, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates. These include informal workers and those who move along ancient routes crossing national borders – these are the people who increasingly find themselves without legal recognition, living on the margins, unable to benefit from social support systems. Today, the 50 million climate-displaced people already outnumber those fleeing political persecution.
The distinction between refugees and economic migrants is rarely a straightforward one, and further complicated by the climate crisis. While the dramatic devastation of a hurricane erasing whole villages can make refugees of people overnight, more often the impacts of climate breakdown on people’s lives are gradual – another poor harvest or another season of unbearable heat, which becomes the catalyst/crisis that pushes people to seek better locations.
As long as 4.2 billion people live in poverty and the income gap between the global north and south continues to grow, people will have to move – and those living in climate-impacted regions will be disproportionately affected. as environments grow ever more deadly, the world’s wealthiest countries spend more on militarising their borders – creating a climate “wall” – than they do on the climate emergency. The growth in offshore detention and “processing” centres for asylum seekers not only adds to the death toll, but is among the most repugnant features of the rich world’s failure to ease the impact of the climate crisis on the poorest regions. We must be alert to “climate nationalists” who want to reinforce the unequal allocation of our planet’s safer lands.
Climate change is in most cases survivable; it is our border policies that will kill people. Human movement on a scale never before seen will dominate this century. It could be a catastrophe or, managed well, it could be our salvation.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is calling for urgent humanitarian assistance and protection for 210,000 people on the move by land northwards through Central America and Mexico.
The irregular migration has increased an 85% in Panama, 689% in Honduras, and 108% in Mexico. If this upward trend continues in the coming months, an estimated 500,000 people would require humanitarian assistance.
Along migratory routes, many people suffer accidents and injuries, face extortion and sexual violence, or disappear and are separated from their families. Others are killed or die from disease or environmental conditions.
Roger Alonso, IFRC Head of Disaster, Crises and Climate Unit, said:
“We are especially concerned for women, children, disabled, the older people, and LGBTQI migrants. They are at extreme risk and need medical and mental health assistance, access to food and water, information, connectivity, and resources to cover vital expenses such as paying for safe places to sleep.”
Most of migrants and refugees in transit through the region are from Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti. Nationals from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico also continue heading north. Main reasons for migrating include improving their income, escaping violence, reuniting with family members, and recovering from the impact of recurring disasters and extreme weather events.
Martha Keays, IFRC Regional Director for the Americas, said:
It is unacceptable that migrating continues to cost people their dignity and their lives. This is why we are scaling up our current response and standing up our vital emergency support along migratory routes. We call on governments, our partners, and donors to join this humanitarian action. Protecting people migrating in a desperate situation and defending their rights, disregarding their status is a humanitarian imperative and a collective duty. The devastating socioeconomic effects in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, continuing political crises and disasters will continue to ramp up exponentially population movements. The challenge ahead of us is titanic.”
Two-thirds of all UK households will be trapped in fuel poverty by January with planned government support leaving even middle-income households struggling to pay their bills, according to research.
It shows 18 million families, the equivalent of 45 million people, will be left trying to make ends meet after further predicted rises in the energy price cap in October and January.
An estimated 86.4% of pensioner couples are expected to fall into fuel poverty, traditionally defined as when energy costs exceed 10% of a household’s net income, and 90.4% of lone parents with two or more children.
The new study by the University of York also shows huge regional variation in the cost of living crisis with 57.9% of households in the south-east predicted to be struggling with energy bills by January, compared with 70.9% in the West Midlands and 76.3% in Northern Ireland.
While the media focus on the one-year anniversary of the US-NATO retreat from Afghanistan, the country’s people prepare for the coming winter.
Simultaneous crises in the country have caused some of the worst suffering in recent generations. Disasters have battered the country for more than a year now, with new shocks worsening conditions that were already dire. In late June, an earthquake struck south-East Afghanistan killing more than 1,000 people and destroying or damaging homes of 60,000 households leaving them exposed to the elements. Starting July into August, off-season rains brought floods that washed away livelihoods and aggravated humanitarian needs across more than 20 provinces.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is renewing its call for increased global solidarity with the people of Afghanistan who continue to face immense humanitarian need.
Mawlawi Mutiul Haq Khales, Afghan Red Crescent Acting President, said:
“The past 12 months have been extremely difficult for our people as economic hardship, exacerbated by sanctions-related limitations to access income, piles pressure on millions who were already battling acute food insecurity, poverty, and many other shocks…”
Necephor Mghendi, IFRC’s Head of Delegation for Afghanistan, said:
“The people of Afghanistan cannot be forgotten. This is now one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with over 20 million people remaining in need of urgent assistance.”
The IFRC and Afghan Red Crescent are ramping up preparedness for a potentially harsh winter, which will be upon the country in a few months. The greatest concern is high-altitude areas where temperatures are very likely to drop below minus-10 degrees.
Afghanistan: Unending crises driving millions to breaking point – Afghanistan | ReliefWeb
Sickle cell disease changes the shape of blood cells into crescents, These cells then stick together, causing blood clots, intense pain and anaemia, hindering blood flow. Sufferers experience severe painful episodes, which can require hospital admission. The drug Hydroxyurea can reduce the number of episodes, but the only cure is a bone marrow transplant. Life expectancy can be 20 to 30 years shorter than the general population.
About 5% of the global population carry the gene and some 300,000 babies are born with the disease each year. The majority with the disease in low-income countries will die before they are five. The condition mainly affects people of African or Caribbean heritage. In Kenya, where nearly 14,000 children are born with the condition every year.
The drug hydroxyurea is commonly used to prevent sickle-shaped blood cells from forming and is the most affordable option to manage the symptoms, although it does not work for everyone and the term ‘affordable’ is a stretch.
Manjusha Chatterjee, from NCD Alliance, said sickle cell and other non-communicable diseases are more than a health issue.
“They are a major human rights and equity issue, as they disproportionately burden the poorest and most marginalised populations. In countries everywhere, this includes ethnic minorities. Urgent steps need to be taken so that health systems are inclusive and no one is left behind,” she said. “Although millions of people around the world live with sickle cell disease, it is still considered a rare condition. Simply getting a correct diagnosis of a rare disease is difficult – on average, it takes seven years.”
Kenyan, Lea Kilenga, explains “My message to people with sickle cell is there’s no saviour coming. We’ve had 100-plus years to wait for them, they have not shown up to make significant change for us. So we must make this change for ourselves and others like us.”
