India's tobacco girls: "It must stop with me"

Extreme poverty, lack of education and scant livelihood opportunities have for generations forced hundreds of families in the town of Kadiri in India's Andhra Pradesh to rely on beedi rolling as their only means of survival. Slum clusters in Kadiri have become open-air factories of domestic tobacco industry where women and girls as young as five roll tonnes of tobacco into cigarettes with bare hands and sharp knives daily. They live in crammed, unhygienic conditions, work in oppressive heat, inhale harmful tobacco vapours, and absorb large amounts of nicotine through skin contact. Here is one tobacco girl's story: 

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USAID and Partner Organizations Launch U.S. Global Development Lab to End Extreme Poverty

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers keynote address at launch event

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah announced today the establishment of the U.S. Global Development Lab at an event in New York City. The launch event featured a keynote address by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been a strong supporter of the use of science, innovation and partnerships to further U.S development goals. The Lab and its 29 inaugural Cornerstone Partners will advance a science-and technology-based approach to development, creating a new global marketplace of innovations and taking them to scale to help end extreme poverty by 2030.

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