Oxfam America Blog

There’s a new book out there that makes sobering reading—and it may help bring a little perspective to the unease financially comfortable Americans are feeling as they watch the value of their homes plummet and their savings evaporate.

Called “The Measure of America,” it’s a clear-eyed, methodical examination of one of our treasured myths: That with pluck and persistence the American dream—a decent standard of living, a long and healthy life, a good education—can belong to all of us.

It just ain’t so.

Read the rest of this entry »

Singa is a 43-year-old teacher now living in a camp for displaced people. He longs to be back in the classroom, but there are no schools where he is. Jobless, he is praying for peace.

Rebecca Wynn, an Oxfam press officer, continues her  reports from the war-torn eastern provinces of Democratic Republic of Congo. Here, she visits a school that is now serving as a shelter.

By Rebecca Wynn

The children I am meeting here in Kibati in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at school, but they get no education. The school is where they sleep. It’s their home. Ever since they fled from the violence in their villages, it’s where they have slept, with leaves as their mattresses and their bodies snuggled close.

A blackboard hangs on the wall, unused. On the left-hand side of it, scrawled in chalk, is a roll call from some weeks ago. On that day, 37 children attended school, seven were absent. Now every school child is absent. The classrooms are homes for Congo’s displaced, who have nowhere else to go. It’s a devastatingly sad scene.

Read the rest of this entry »

For one of the richest countries in the world, we have a dark underbelly. It’s laid bare in a new report that measures the well-being of people rather than the size of our gross domestic product or the vitality of our stock market.

The truth that emerges from these 246 pages is that poverty—gauged by educational attainment, income, and longevity—stretches across this land of plenty. It’s not just a problem for developing countries; it’s a problem right here. Read the rest of this entry »