Just Focus member Geoff Cooper shares his thoughts and experiences from his visit to Haiti. “It was a full on trip to a country that few of my family wanted me to visit! The first question that I was asked on my arrival back in NZ was “were you surprised at the level of poverty?”

Clearly, Rupert Murdoch is a very gifted entrepreneur, from one local newspaper to a $30b (US) media empire. While at first this may not seem connected to poverty, it gains a certain logic when you link it up with the fact that newspapers, TV and other media sources are where most people find out about world events.

All the time we hear about global pandemics like Bird Flu. We’re always told that we are at risk, but never given the guts of it… Like for instance, HIV/AIDS. What does it mean for me, an average young person living in Aotearoa New Zealand? Why should I care? It’s a scary thing that exists on the other side of the world and we’d rather ignore it right? Wrong.

By Omar Hamed.
Youth rise up against low pay and discriminaton with Supersizemypay.com

Between August and October 2005 a group of dedicated students from Athena Montessori College in Wellington started investigating poverty.

They ended up painting a mural at the intersection of Ghuznee and Willis Streets in Wellington.

Big props to the students from Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti in Christchurch who ran a rally in the Square and held a forum about poverty.

By Cameron Walker

World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) claim to have the noble aims of helping third world nations to finance the building of infrastructure and to bridge balance of payments difficulties. However, many claim both institutions help ruin the economies of Third World nations through forced structural adjustment programmes.

By Nicole Mathewson

What do Chris Martin (Coldplay), Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Antonio Banderas and Alanis Morrisette have in common with a sack of corn?

By Geoff Cooper, Auckland
Ever get the feeling that the more you find out about your world, the less you wish you knew? Is it simply that the human race is incompetent at managing the planet and people? Or perhaps that our attempts at global euphoria have just gone badly astray?

By Samantha Davidson. Odd, but true: some New Zealand teenagers (or their parents) are forking over $160 for a single item of clothing, while not even being able to get enough together for school fees.

Did you know that almost one in every three young New Zealanders lives in poverty? Children and young people in New Zealand also have the fifth highest rate of death from maltreatment in the developed world and are more at risk from human rights abuses than any other group.