Search results for: Coronavirus
Poverty, Hunger, Racial Inequality Supersized Amid Coronavirus
Before the coronavirus outbreak, food insecurity was already a serious problem in the United States. In 2018, 1 in 9 residents were food insecure—that’s 37 million people, including 11 million children. Poverty already hindered the well-being of 38.1 million U.S. residents, including 16% of the nation’s children. The nearly 2.3 million people in U.S. prisons…
Read MoreLife in Ghanaian Alleged Witch Camps Under COVID-19
Earlier this month, student journalists from Ghana contacted us to provide an update on the increasingly dire conditions of the country’s camps for alleged witches. Our poverty-alleviation program Humanist Action: Ghana will soon be turning into an NGO working to impact the lives of these very people. Coronavirus disease as a global pandemic struck Ghana…
Read MoreAnnouncing the Winners of the 2020-21 Heart of Humanism Awards!
FBB gives the annual Heart of Humanism awards to recognize sterling service from Beyond Belief Network (BBN) teams, as well as individuals who make extraordinary contributions to compassionate humanism. 2020 presented enormous challenges to humanists striving to making an impact in their communities. We faced dual obstacles: heightened need and unprecedented changes to how we…
Read MoreAnti-Homeless Laws Across the U.S. Criminalize Survival
U.S. cities with a high number of people without housing keep passing new laws to push unhoused people out of view. Camping is often banned, as well as sleeping in public and living in vehicles. People are routinely evicted from encampments, many losing their belongings. Government restriction of these essential, life-sustaining activities criminalizes the very…
Read MoreFood Insecurity Rising Rapidly: Who Is Being Affected?
Food insecurity is defined as the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food to live an active, healthy lifestyle. It might mean that sometimes you have enough food and sometimes you have healthy food but rarely do you have enough healthy food. Food insecurity is at the worst…
Read MoreFire devastates enormous Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh
More than 400 people are missing and 15 confirmed dead after a fire at the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. An estimated 45,122 people have been affected — mostly all Rohingya, who fled Myanmar from ethnic cleansing in 2017. Many are seeking shelter in nearby camps, friends or families’ shelters, and learning centers, according…
Read MoreJune & July Beyond Belief Network Roundup
Volunteers in the Beyond Belief Network (BBN) have been staying busy this summer despite the pandemic, and so have we. So busy, in fact, we fell behind on publishing our monthly BBN roundups! We won’t let volunteers’ hard work go unrecognized, so this month we’ve put together a BBN Roundup looking at what secular volunteers…
Read MoreCompounding Disasters During COVID19
Disasters don’t happen in isolation. Never has that been more true than today. Hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes are not cancelled because we are dealing with COVID-19. There is no part of disaster response and recovery in 2020 that will not be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. A pandemic means responding to emergencies is harder and…
Read MoreThe Radical Past and Present of Mutual Aid
In the past couple months, you may have noticed an explosion of mutual aid societies responding to the COVID-19 pandemic—groups which share housing, food, health care, goods, or transportation while drawing attention to the politics of inequity. The idea is nothing new. Frequently-cited historical examples of mutual aid organizations include unions, 19th century Friendly Societies,…
Read MoreAs Blood Supply Dwindles, Humanists Call on FDA to Reevaluate Further its Discriminatory Blood Donation Policy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Mon., May 4, 2020) Barker, TX. — Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB), an international secular humanist charity whose work includes recovery efforts following disasters and humanitarian crises, is partnering with the American Humanist Association (AHA) to ask for further reforms to the U.S. FDA’s anti-gay blood donation policy.
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