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Jobs for Development: Challenges and Solutions in Different Country Settings

Gordon Betcherman and Martin Rama

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Book

This book is a sequel to the World Bank's World Development Report 2013: Jobs. The central message...

ClareR (5721 KP) rated A Spell of Good Things in Books

Mar 31, 2023

A Spell of Good Things

Ayobami Adebayo | 2023 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò is a book that looks unflinchingly at the have’s and have not’s in Nigeria. The two main characters come from two very different backgrounds.

Eniola is a boy who looks like a man. His schoolteacher father loses his job due to a shakeup in the education system, and falls into a deep depression. This leaves Eniola working as an errand boy for the local tailor, collecting newspapers and begging (much against his will). He wants so much more for his life, though…

Wuraola is from a wealthy family. Her parents are proud of her succeeding in her aim to be a doctor - and now they expect her to marry. And Kunle is the son of friends that they favour. But he’s volatile in private (to say the least).

We follow the stories of Eniola and Wuraola and the differences in their lives are stark. Eniola goes to school hungry, he’s beaten by the teachers because his parents pay their school fees late (if at all). And finally, he thinks he has found a way out of his poverty - when in fact it’s something far worse.

Wuraola’s life is difficult in a different way: she has a well-paid, well-respected job, but the Nigerian health system is overstretched, underfunded and doesn’t have enough doctors. But she believes in doing her duty, so she works hard, and says yes when Kunle proposes.

Wuraola’s and Eniola’s lives are on a collision course though.

I inhaled this book. It’s gritty and doesn’t hold back in any way. It’s an insight into lives I’ve never experienced and so powerfully told. The themes of domestic abuse, poverty, access to education and political corruption make for a heartbreaking read.
Recommended.

Kudos

Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir in Books

Feb 5, 2018

A human experience in the BLM movement

There has recently been an upswing of works relating to racism in the US, so it was only a matter of time that one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement spoke about this issue.

Patrisse Khan-Cullors is eloquent, and her experiences are truly harrowing. From watching her 12 year old brother being assaulted and harrassed by police officers, growing up in poverty, to being an adult and watching another brother being locked up for being mentally disabled. It is really quite horrifying to see the spectrum of violence that black bodies still endure even post-Jim Crow laws. Cullors will argue that this is but an extension of those days.

It is a timely piece, and one of the better writings on the topic, mixing activism and academia with her own memoir.

Kudos

Nicole Hadley (380 KP) rated Fight to Learn: The Struggle to Go to School in Books

Jun 18, 2018

Fight to Learn by Laura Scandiffio brings interest and excitement to going to school. While most people have heard of Malala, they may not have heard of all of the great people in Scandiffio's book: people helping to change education for poverty-stricken Indians and Roma, Pakistanis denied an education because of their gender, children ripped away from schools becoming soldiers, and separate, but not equal, schools on First Nation land.

Liked that the book was divided into different challenges children face rather than by geography. It even included an example in the U.S. I also liked that the book highlighted the people, many of whom are children, who are finding solutions to this issue.

A fantastic resource for older students.

I received an ARC copy from Annick Press via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Kudos

The Marinated Meeple (1848 KP) rated Snowpiercer (2013) in Movies

Oct 30, 2018

Snowpiercer (2013)

2013 | Sci-Fi

7.9

(59 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Interesting Premise (0 more)

How it's seemingly incohesive, and not explained well enough. (0 more)

So I watched this movie based on the positive reviews....

I get the basic premise.... humanity is down to one single running train, and on that train there is a caste system, the poor ride in the back in poverty and the rich ride in front, living it up. Chris Evans must fight his way to the front in a bloody revolt. But I mean this is the very last of humanity, and yet still people are not valued.... I also get that the train is only so big, and must be kept at a perpetually maintained eco-system that is balanced. But yet, how it ended, was so abrupt and painful. They elude to the future, but really seems wasteful on so many levels.