According to a report the Philippines struggles to curb child labour. More than half of the country's five million child workers do so under hazardous conditions. For example they work on garbage dumps, in charcoal factories and in sugarcane fields.

But now the government says its new policies will be able to eliminate child labour by 2016.

Many children work because they want to support their parents, but they are part of the illegal economic system of child labor.

Every child has the right to the most basic of necessities in life like a healthy environment, formal education, and most importantly, a loving family to come home to. Yet, poverty hinders the child to any of these things and forces labour in farming fields, mining shafts and peddling in the busy and dangerous streets in Manila and beyond.

Star of Hope runs two schools and one preschool in the Philippines. All together almost 3,000 children get their basic education and family support by Star of Hope to get a good start in life to create a more positive future for themsleves!

All the children smile in the same language. Star of Hope supports many children and give them education, hope and a good start in life.

As part of the recovery program after the earthquake in January 2010 Star of Hope started a sewing school in the fall of 2010, as a pilot project where young women and men from the Boyer area have received professional level seamstress training.

They have been taught appropriate technology and given design skills to enable them to produce products that are marketable both inside Haiti and outside.

The school was a success and the pupils graduated in the summer of 2011. The program continued to Jeanton village in late 2011 and the students will graduate next week. In the fall the program continues in Hesse.

You can pictures from last years graduation here.

There is a new StarTeam in Haiti. Four men from Ellinwood, Kansas will be installing and teaching how to install “hurricane ties” on the new roof structure on the new building in Bois Negresse.

This is a follow up team to the Swedish E-Team that was just there painting the new building.

By seeing that the foreigners place such an importance on this structural tie down Star of Hope project manager Tony has observed that local builders often adapt to these technologies. The acquired skills they then use to improve homes and other buildings in the area.

When I stayed in Haiti for longer period of times in 2010 and 2011 I meet many StarTeam members and it was great times. They brought happiness, joy and they taught the kids and the school staff many different things.

One team came down to teach local workers to produce all the school furniture that Star of Hope now uses in the newly built school.

I’m looking forward to the reports from this week’s StarTeam.

These pics are from earlier Starteam trips when I was in Haiti.

During the last 2 ½ years since the earthquake the number of displaced Haitians has dropped from 1.5 million to just under 400,000 changing the look of a capital whose landscape was defined for many months by piles of rubble and fraying tent encampments.
But the progress is largely cosmetic. Although a few camps have benefited from aid programs, a grave underlying housing shortage means that the majority of those who left the camps have disappeared into the overcrowded homes of relatives or constructed precarious shacks in hillside slums, which is really another disaster to happen.
The recent clearing of the major public square Champs de Mars is one sign of how urgently Haiti's government and its image-conscious elite want to return public squares to normality.

On the eve of the earthquake it was estimated that 300,000 new lodgings were required in Port Au-Prince. And a post-quake survey showed 20 per cent of the estimated 414,000 buildings in the capital were damaged beyond repair, with 25 per cent needing structural repair.

The report shows reconstruction efforts have focused on building temporary shelters, which have absorbed 79 per cent of the $461m spent. A total of 109,000 temporary shelters have been constructed while only 5,000 permanent homes built.

All the above feels very strange and beyond my understanding somewhat. Why is everything so delayed and not happening?

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner is very popular in his home country, but internationally she is not as well regarded. But what will happen now that the domestic economy is losing momentum?

Over the past ten years the economy has grown by an average of 7% in Argentina. It is good of course and many are satisfied. But this year the increase will, according to experts, only be 2.5%. Argentina also recently become energy importer instead of exporter.

In April, the state mysteriously took control of a local oil company worth $ 10 billion. Spanish major Repsol owner was not happy about this. Add to this the harsh verbal dispute over the Falkland Islands.

At the end of the 1990s the Argentine economy collapsed. It got very favorable loans, but now that the lenders of that time are not paid, they have turned sour and bitter over Kirchner.

With the global uncertainty in the economy together with the state's murky trade barriers and tactics have made that reality catch up. Many experts expect that Argentina will be in real difficulty within soon.
How does economy affect the vulnerable minority populations in Argentina? For the group of Qom in the province of Chaco in northern Argentina, it has become better general in some places over the last 15-20 years.

In and around Saenz Pena, Star of Hope has worked hard to improve conditions in the past thirty years. Through many different efforts the work produce even better results. More and more people come up higher in the educational system with really good grades (although racism and oppression), more and more come into work and create their own opportunities. Most have had a good start in life thanks to Star of Hope.

However, 75-100% of the Qom-population depending on which province lives with many basic needs unmet. No or poor housing, poor access to electricity, water and sanitation are common in some places.
Star of Hope's development continues, and we would like to help more people in different ways and levels.

What will happen now with the Qom population when the economy is shrinking?