Cost of Goods Checkpoint Essay

A multi-step income statement for a trading business highlights the fact that between 40% and 60% of revenue from sales is accounted for as the cost of goods sold. The cost of goods attributed to a company’s products is expensed as the company sells these goods. There are several ways to calculate COGS but one of the more basic ways is to start with the beginning inventory for the period and add the total amount of purchases made during the period then deducting the ending inventory. (According to Kimmel, Weygandt, and Kieso), cost of goods sold is found by taking the cost of goods available for sale (beginning merchandise inventory + net purchase), less the ending merchandise inventory (p. 244). In a wholesale or retail trading business, merchandise held for resale in the normal course of business is the largest asset owned by the organization. For this reason it is vital that accurate up-to-date records be maintained when goods are acquired and inventories taken. Finished goods and or merchandise makes up cost of goods sold. There are two classifications of inventory: merchandiser or manufacturer. In a merchandiser company inventory consists of many items all different. Whereas, a manufacturer, some inventory may not be ready (Kimmel, Weygandt, & Kieso, p. 282). Examples of items that make up cost of goods include; produce, clothing, electronics, items that can be resold from manufacture to a company to the customer. This means when the business acquires a finished product, the cost of the product goes into an inventory asset account. The customer will then purchase the product, finished good, the business transfers the cost of the product from the inventory asset account to the cost of goods sold expense account because the product is no longer in the business’s inventory (Kimmel, Weygandt, & Kieso, p. 282). References Kimmel, P. D. , Weygandt, J. J. , & Kieso, D. E. (2011). Financial accounting: Tools for business decision making (6th ed. ). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.

Negetive Effects of Technology Essay

In this century that we are living, there are many different ways to communicate and interact with the people we need. New developed technologies have made our lives much easier than the old days. Many people prefer to look at a screen and explore new things, do our homework, chat with our close ones, listen to a song, watch a movie, buy new clothes and so on. These are the things that we can do. Moreover, it saves time and money. One of the important decisions we make is to work at home in front of a computer. However, high developed technology has disadvantages like if we look at a screen it is bad for you health, we do not know if it is true and guaranteed for hundred percent. First, when we speak of the impact of technology on society, we always talk about the positive effects of technology and about how technology has made life easy. We talk about the Internet as an information resource and a communication platform and conveniently ignore the fact that an overexposure to it leads to Internet addiction. We often discuss how technology has made life easy but easily forget that it has made us overly dependent on it. see more:is technology making us lazy Have you thought of the impact of technology from this point of view? I am sure, most of you haven’t. Let us look at this aspect of technology here. People will (and are beginning to) miss out on face-to-face contact and thus their social skills will decline. It is possible that after decades of having no, or extremely limited human contact, that we will loose the ability to read body language. This could cause all sorts of misunderstandings and problems. Secondly, depending on a screen rather than meeting face-to-face is very bad for health. It will make our spine back ill. Sitting for long hours and looking to a screen also makes our eye bad. When i was little i played and watched movies on a computer for long hours because it is was fun. Since then my eye kept getting bad and i had to wear glasses. It really annoys me a lot when i play basketball and to run in the morning. What’s more, four days ago my back hurt because school started and i have been sitting for long hours and been looking at a computer screen Having limited human contact will cause us to have even less trust in others, and in turn, we will be even less friendly and even more stand-offish. Thirdly, for people who do their works by using the internet has also bad sides to the society. We are getting lazy and not going outside for a walk. Our movement gets limited only in our home. Also, it is making the person isolated from the society outside which the he or she is might become lonely just communicating with the computer. My best friend’s big brother doesn’t have any friends to go out with because he spends all of his time on he computer. I think it is a very bad habit for him to get isolated from the real life. Think of the days when there were no computers and no modern means of transport. Human life was highly restricted due to the unavailability of technological applications. Daily life involved a lot of physical activity. Life of the common man was not as luxurious as that of modern times, but he was more active. Exercise was integrated into routine physical activities. It was contrary to the sedentary lifestyle of today, which leaves no time for exercise and fills days with inactivity and laze. Today we don’t want to, and thanks to technology, don’t even need to, walk, move around or exert physically to get things done. We have the world is at our fingertips. We think of technology as a boon to society. I am afraid; it’s not completely a boon. The Internet has bred many unethical practices like hacking, spamming and phishing. Internet crime is on the rise. The Internet, being an open platform lacks regulation. There is no regulation on the content displayed on websites. Internet gambling has become an addiction for many students. Overexposure to the Internet has taken its toll. In this virtual world, you can be who you are not, you can be virtually living even after you die. Isn’t this weird? Children are spending all their time playing online and less or almost no time playing on the ground. Youngsters are spending most of their time social networking, missing on the joys of real social life. Moreover, we have become excessively dependent on technology. Is so much of dependency good? Is it right to rely on machines to such an extent? Is it right to depend on computers rather than relying on human intellect? Computer technology and robotics are trying to substitute for human intellect. With the fast advancing technology, we have started harnessing artificial intelligence in many fields. Where is the digital divide going to take us? How is our ‘tomorrow’ going to be? ‘Machines replacing human beings’ does not portray a rosy picture, does it? It can lead to serious issues like unemployment and crime. An excessive use of machines in every field can result in an nder-utilization of human brains. Over time, we may even lose our intellectual abilities. You know of the declining mathematical abilities in students due to use of calculators since school, don’t you? In conclusion, as technology is getting better people are trying to make their work easy and fast. From this we become lazy, weak and ill. It makes our immune system go bad and we have the ability to get the diseases fast. From all the examples above it shows face-to-face contact is still necessary in our lives and society.

Ela Bhatt

Ela Bhatt : Hilary Clinton’s heroine – WASHINGTON: US secretary of state  Hillary Clinton  has hailed India's eminent social activist Ela Bhatt as one of her â€Å"heroines† for her pioneering work in empowering women. â€Å"I have a lot of heroes and heroines around the world,† Clinton said on Thursday, adding that one of them is Ela Bhatt, who started an organization called the Self-Employed Women's Association (Sewa) in India many years ago. She was a very well educated woman who had the options available to those in her class with her intellectual ability, but she chose to devote her life to organizing the poorest of the poor, women who worked in fields, who sold vegetables, who were domestics, who struggled to eke out a living for themselves and their families, women who were considered the last to eat, the least important,† Clinton said while speaking very highly of Bhatt. (Source:http://articles. timesofindia. indiatimes. om/2012-06-23/us/ 32381949_1_ela-bhatt-heroines-hillary-clinton ) Ela Bhatt is founder of  SEWA, India’s largest labor union which represents 1. 2 million women in the informal sector from women stitching embroidery and making food products to day-laborers, artisans, waste collectors, street vendors and small farmers. She has received numerous international awards for her work and is a member of  The Elders, a group of eminent global leaders who were brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007. The Gandhian Movement ; Penning of the book on the Gandhi movement The grand history of Khadia was retraced when Ela Bhatt, founder of Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), released the book `Mahatma ki chaon mein' or ‘Under the shadow of Mahatma' penned by her maternal grandfather late Dr Manidhar Shankarlal Vyas who was a freedom fighter and a revolutionary who had participated in the Dandi March. ———————————â₠¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€- A founding member of Women's World Banking, Ela Bhatt is also the founder of the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), one of the most successful organizations for the economic empowerment of women in India.She also founded SEWA Cooperative Bank in 1974. In 1989, she was the first woman appointed to the Planning Commission in India. Prior to this, she was a member of the Indian Parliament. Mrs. Bhatt's many awards include the Right Livelihood Award and the Ramon Magsasay Award and she was named to the Elders Project by Nelson Mandela in 2007. She has served on the WWB Board of Trustees since 1980, and was Chair from 1988 to 1998. Ela Bhatt â€Å"I realized that although eighty percent of women in India are economically active, they are outside the purview of legislation. † Ela's StoryBorn in 1933 to a middle class, well-educated family, Ela Bhatt has spent her life fighting for the rights and welfare of India's ‘invisible' worke rs. Her grandparents worked with Mahatma Gandhi in the non-violent struggle for Indian Independence from the British. Deeply influenced by Gandhi, Ela has followed his ideals all her life. She has pioneered the idea that people themselves, no matter how poor or uneducated, are able to solve their own problems if they organize together to do so. To help provide this, she founded SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association.Called â€Å"one of the best – -if not the best – – grassroots programmes for women on the planet,† SEWA proved so successful that it has become a model for micro-finance programs in other parts of the world. Ela started as a lawyer with the Textile Labour Association (TLA) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a union founded by Gandhi, who had deep respect for India's textile producers. Working in the women's division, Ela soon found that women were doing many of the labor-intensive tasks needed in textile production, as well as in other fields of wor k. However, as workers, they were invisible.Out- raged, Ela said, â€Å"Personally, I don't think there can be any greater injustice to anybody in the world than to have one's work contribution negated†¦ Who is the backbone of any economy in the country? It's the poor! Yet they are not recorded as workers in the national census. They are described as non-workers! † Home-based workers are the least visible of all. In the textile industry, contractors give the women cloth pieces which are already cut out to form parts of a garment. The women sew the garments together at home and return them to the contractor. The women have to work fast and for long hours, because they are paid by the piece.Often, young daughters help with the sewing after school. The contractor would pay whatever he wished, often an extremely low rate of 4-5 rupees per day. The women, because they were unorganized, had no way to demand higher rates. Other women workers in the informal sector also had very difficult working conditions and were often exploited. These women included vegetable sellers, rag pickers, bidi rollers (a hand-rolled cigarette), incense makers, cleaners, laborers, cart pullers, and silk and cotton workers. â€Å"I realized that although eighty percent of women in India are economically active, they are outside the purview of legislation. Ela recognized that these women needed the help that they could get only through organizing together as a large group. To meet that need, she founded SEWA in 1972 to organize for better pay and working conditions. SEWA, which today has 250,000 members, helped workers at the lowest level of society become empowered to take control of their lives. It soon became apparent that women workers had a serious problem with money and banking. Even though many of the women worked twelve hours a day or more, they made little money, had no savings, and never had enough capital to improve their conditions.For example, a home- based textile assembler might have to pay high rent on the sewing machine she used. She never had enough money at one time to buy the machine. Even if a woman was able to get a little money together, the money often was not safe at home, where men felt entitled to whatever was in the house. If a women wanted to borrow money to further her business (for example, to buy extra vegetables to sell in the market), she would have to borrow from money lenders at outlandish rates, sometimes 50% per day.Since women's wealth was often in the form of jewelry, they also got funds through pawning. Because they were largely illiterate, these women were unable to sign their names at a bank and were unfamiliar with banking routines. A male relative would have to sign for them, gaining access to the money. In addition, bankers, who had never dealt with illiterate low-income women, treated them badly. SEWA had a meeting to which 2000 women came and told of their difficulties with the banks. Finally, someone said, à ¢â‚¬Å"Let's start our own bank! † Others agreed, and the idea was underway.SEWA Bank was registered in 1974 with 4,000 members. When money had to be raised to register the bank, the women, saying, â€Å"We are poor, but we are so many! † raised the needed RS. 100,000 within six months. Ela says that the idea that illiterate women cannot be decision-makers in finance is an untrue middle-class notion. A major problem was that the women could not sign their names. How could they be identified at SEWA Bank? SEWA found a way that was so successful it is now used in banks throughout India. Each woman was photographed holding a slate with her bank account number on it.One copy of the photo was in her bank passbook, while another copy was kept at the bank. This definite identification meant that women could now have money in their own names: men were no longer part of the process. When a woman joins SEWA Bank, the first step is saving. The woman must save an amount every week, no matter how small. Even if she makes only RS. 4, she is encouraged to save half a rupee. SEWA even provides a locked piggy bank for the purpose, and representatives from sewa come to the woman's home to take the savings to the bank.After acquiring the habit of saving, a woman will be allowed to take out a loan. Designed to meet the needs of low-income women, the loans are small with a long payback period, up to 36 months. Ela pioneered the concept of micro-lending, the idea that very small amounts, as small as $5, may be all that is needed to make a difference. Women used the loans for practical purposes: buying equipment they had formerly rented, expanding a business, installing indoor plumbing, and paying for children's education. Over 95% of the loans are repaid on time, a much higher repayment rate than for other banks.SEWA Bank also educates and assists the women through other services, such as day care, maternity protection, and job training. SEWA Bank, which now has over us $3 million in assets, has been so successful that there are now branches in other parts of India, and men have even asked to be included. It is important to realize that all this has been accomplished without any outside financial help whatsoever. The women did it themselves. Most important, the SEWA Bank model, through its concepts of micro-finance, has been used to empower poor women throughout the world.Towards this end, Ela joined with nine other women at the first UN World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975; these women shared the belief that the world's financial institutions must become accessible to low-income women. Incorporated in 1979, Women's World Banking now has 43 affiliates in 35 countries. Ela Bhatt has served as its chair since 1985. The far-reaching effects of Ela Bhatt's work have been recognized internationally through many awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (the alternate Nobel Prize) for ‘Changing the Human Environment' in Stockholm in 1984. Formal EconomyIn India today, only about 11% of workers hold regular jobs with formal employer- employee relationships. These jobs are documented and the workers are protected by whatever laws are available. Informal Economy Nearly 89% of India's workers are undocumented. Their work in the informal sector is usually not covered by legal protection that may be available to workers in formal sector jobs. They work either on their own, or as piece workers with a contractor or middleman, in relationships that depend on verbal agreement. Home-based Work Part of the informal economy, this work is done at home, usually by women.She gets raw materials from a contractor or middleman, assembles the finished product, and brings it to the middleman for payment. Often at the mercy of the contractor, she must accept whatever pay he is willing to give. This type of worker is the most invisible in the economy. Macro-Finance Works with the large amounts of money used by banks, governments, st ock markets, corporations, and other large institutions. Micro-Finance Micro-finance works with the very small amounts of money actually used by low-income people. It is often the most appropriate way to implement social programs at the grassroots level.Things to Do and Discuss 1 Imagine that you are a poor woman working in Gujarat, India. Construct a family, home, and job for yourself. You may want to consult a book or encyclopedia to get more information. What problems do you think you would have? How would you use a loan from SEWA Bank to improve the lives of yourself and your family? 2 How is women's work considered in your own country? In what ways is it similar or different from the situation in India? Do you think that changes such as SEWA provides would be useful in your country? ————————————————- Ela R Bhatt ——————— ————————— Extremely gentle and soft-spoken, yet firm and determined and widely recognized as pioneer in pushing for entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development leading to women empowerment – this is the practicing Gandhian economics and septuagenarian, Ela R Bhatt, popularly known as Elaben by members of Self Employed Women's Association or SEWA, which she founded in 1972. She helped the self-employed women to organize themselves. Its members include vegetable vendors, fisherwomen, bidi-rollers, weavers, and saltpan workers who were exploited for generations by middlemen.SEWA empowered them to explore direct market linkages, removing middlemen from the chain. Next it propagated the concept of self-reliance by producing and marketing to other villages leading to self-sustained village economy. It has formed 102 cooperatives including milk and grain and a Rural Distribution Network called RUDI to help women lin k with other villages in a 100-km radius. Next came a cooperative bank called SEWA Bank in 1974 to help these women have access to banking services which otherwise were not available.Like a banyan tree the SEWA today has spread to countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. ————————————————- Ela R Bhatt ————————————————- Extremely gentle and soft-spoken, yet firm and determined and widely recognized as pioneer in pushing for entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development leading to women empowerment – this is the practicing Gandhian economics and septuagenarian, Ela R Bhatt, popularly known as Elaben by members of Self Employed Women's Association or SEWA, which she founded in 1972.She helped the self-employed women to organize themselves. Its members include vegetable vendors, fisherwomen, bidi-rollers, weavers, and saltpan workers who were exploited for generations by middlemen. ————————————————- SEWA empowered them to explore direct market linkages, removing middlemen from the chain. Next it propagated the concept of self-reliance by producing and marketing to other villages leading to self-sustained village economy.It has formed 102 cooperatives including milk and grain and a Rural Distribution Network called RUDI to help women link with other villages in a 100-km radius. Next came a cooperative bank called SEWA Bank in 1974 to help these women have access to banking services which otherwise were not available. Like a banyan tree the SEWA today has spread to countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. ————————————â €”———- Ela Bhatt Of SEWA Awarded Indira Gandhi Prize For Promoting Peace :New Delhi, 18 Feb (Tehelka Bureau): Ela Bhatt is a name which has seen the transformation of close to 17 lakh people in the last four decades. As one of the founders of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), she has promoted the cause of women relentlessly allowing millions of them to become independent and self reliant. The impact of her work has been recognized consistently and it was lauded once again on Monday when she was honored by the President of India with the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development.This makes Bhatt only the third Indian in the history of the award to receive the prize constituted in the memory of the late Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. The other Indian recipients are former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and father of green revolution MS Swaminathan. Bhatt used the opportunity to re-examine the idea of peace and interpreted it as an instrument which disarms and renders war useless. Equating poverty with day-to-day violence, she found it to be no less destructive than war and said that its removal is essential for building peace.Stressing on the need to address the â€Å"realities of our own countries rather than catching up with the western economic models†, Bhatt urged the people to follow a principle which ensures six basic necessities- food, shelter, clothing, primary education, primary healthcare and primary banking- are available within a 100 mile distance. â€Å"If these necessities are locally produced and consumed, we will have the growth of a new holistic economy,† she said. ————————————————- The President praised her by calling the prize a â€Å"tribute to her unflinching zeal towards the betterment of women in society†New Delhi, 18 Feb (Tehelka Bureau):  Ela Bhatt is a name which has seen the transformation of close to 17 lakh people in the last four decades. As one of the founders of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), she has promoted the cause of women relentlessly allowing millions of them to become independent and self reliant. The impact of her work has been recognized consistently and it was lauded once again on Monday when she was honored by the President of India with the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development.This makes Bhatt only the third Indian in the history of the award to receive the prize constituted in the memory of the late Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. The other Indian recipients are former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and father of green revolution MS Swaminathan. Bhatt used the opportunity to re-examine the idea of peace and interpreted it as an instrument which disarms and renders war useless. Equating poverty with day-to-day violence, she found it to be no less destructiv e than war and said that its removal is essential for building peace.Stressing on the need to address the â€Å"realities of our own countries rather than catching up with the western economic models†, Bhatt urged the people to follow a principle which ensures six basic necessities- food, shelter, clothing, primary education, primary healthcare and primary banking- are available within a 100 mile distance. â€Å"If these necessities are locally produced and consumed, we will have the growth of a new holistic economy,† she said   ————————————————- ————————————————-Dr. Ela Bhatt, recipient of the University of Chicago's 2007 William Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service, presented a public lecture on Novermber 27th in the Weymouth Kirkland C ourtroom. Ela R. Bhatt is widely recognized as one of the world’s most remarkable pioneers and entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development. Known as the â€Å"gentle revolutionary† she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India’s poorest and most oppressed women workers, with Gandhian thinking as her source of guidance.In 1972, Dr. Bhatt founded the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – a trade union which now has more than 1,000,000 members. Founder Chair of the Cooperative Bank of SEWA, she is also founder and chair of Sa-Dhan (the All India Association of Micro Finance Institutions in India) and founder-chair of the Indian School of Micro-finance for Women. Dr. Bhatt was a Member of the Indian Parliament from 1986 to 1989, and subsequently a Member of the Indian Planning Commission.She founded and served as chair for Women’s World Banking, the International Alliance of Home-based Workers (HomeNet), and Women in Infor mal Employment: Globalizing, Organizing (WIEGO). She also served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation for a decade. Dr. Bhatt has received several awards, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Right Livelihood Award, the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award, and the Legion d’honneur from France. She has also received honorary doctorates from Harvard, Yale, the University of Natal and other academic institutions.In 2007, Dr. Bhatt was named a member of The Elders, an international group of leaders whose goals include catalyzing peaceful resolutions to long-standing conflicts, articulating new approaches to global issues that are causing or may cause immense human suffering, and sharing wisdom by helping to connect voices all over the world. The Benton Medal The William Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service is given to individuals who have rendered distinguished public service in the field of education. This field includes â€Å"not only teachers but also . . . veryone who contributes in a systematic way to shaping minds and disseminating knowledge. † Previous Benton Medal recipients include John Callaway, Katharine Graham, and Senator Paul Simon. ————————————————- Source: http://www. law. uchicago. edu/node/1502 ————————————————- ————————————————- The President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 18 February 2013 conferred 2011 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development Award to Ela Ramesh Bhatt, a renowned Women social worker.The award was given away at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. Ela Bhatt was given away the award for life time achievements in women empowerment, promotion of gra ssroot level entrepreneurship as well as contribution towards promotion of equitable development and peace. Ela Bhatt has her organisation SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association). President Pranab Mukherjee while giving away the award announced that SEWA was a vehicle of self employment and self reliance for the Indian women, while at the same time being synonymous with the rural inclusiveness. Ela Bhatt †¢ Ela Bhatt is the founder of more than 1 million SEWAs in India. Since years, Ela Bhatt has been working for women empowerment and bringing women out of poverty through promotion of Self Help Groups. †¢ SEWA has empowered women with freedom as well as financial self- reliance (Source: http://www. jagranjosh. com/current-affairs/ela-bhatt-conferred-2011-indira-gandhi-prize-for-peace-disarmament-and-development-award-1361254391-1) ————————————- It honours the hard work of the poor: Ela Bhatt Tuesday, Feb 19, 2013, 16:44 IST | Place: Ahmedabad | Agency: DNA Says Ela Bhatt on receiving Indira Gandhi peace prize.Noted social worker Ela Ramesh Bhatt was on Monday conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development by President Pranab Mukherjee. After receiving the award, Elaben (80), founder of Self-Employed Women's Association (Sewa), said the prize is recognition of hard work by the all poor working women and their leadership worldwide, who hold peace, disarm violence and reduce poverty with their honest work. She said that award has given her the opportunity to explore what constitutes the peace. â€Å"I have often stated that poverty is violence.This violence is by consensus of society that lets other human beings go without roti, kapada and makan. Poverty is not god given. It is a moral collapse of our society. Garibi hatao to me also meant, indeed, shanti banao. Garibi Hatao is a peace song,† said founder of Sewa which has 17 lakh members now. She said that when Mahatma Gandhi talked about Swaraj, he talked about economic decentralisation. She urged people to ensure that six basic needs are met from resources within 100 miles. ————————————————- â€Å"I call it the 100-mile principle.If food, shelter, clothing, primary education, primary healthcare and primary banking are locally produced and consumed, we will have the growth of a new holistic economy that the world will take note of,† she said. She insisted that catching up with the western economic models will turn us into incompetent followers, not leaders. ————————————————- (Source: http://www. dnaindia. com/ahmedabad/1801728/report-it-honours-the-hard-work-of-the-poor-ela-bhatt ——————â €”—————————- Ela Bhatt conferred prestigious Indira Gandhi PrizeFeb 18, 2013 Ela Bhatt, a well-known social worker, was honored for her life time achievements in empowering women and promoting grass root level entrepreneurship. Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), was presented with the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for the year 2011 by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee at a glittering ceremony today. Ela Bhatt was honoured for her life time achievements in empowering women, promoting grassroot level entrepreneurship and for her contribution towards promoting equitable development and peace.Ela Bhatt is known globally for her work over decades (though officially only since 1972) that has created SEWA with a membership in excess of 1. 3 million. She also founded the SEWA Cooperative Bank in 1974, which has an outreach of 3 million women —    simple figures that speak volumes of her dedicated efforts and leadership to successfully bring women out of poverty into a life of self-confidence and esteem. Speaking on the ocassion President Pranab Mukherjee said Ela Bhat's orgainisation SEVA has today become synonymous with rural inclusiveness and a vehicle of self employment and self reliance for women.The President praised her work for bringing women out of poverty and empowering them with the freedom to choose and attaining financial self-reliance through the promotion of Self Help. Congratulating her, the President said her life and work is reflective of the philosophy and ideals espoused by India's former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in whose memory the prize was instituted. The President said Ms Bhatt’s example would spur many more initiatives in our country and elsewhere, aimed at renewal of society and all-round development of people. If women are under represented in the productive efforts of our economy, i t is not only injudicious but also detrimental to the cause of social progress,† the president. â€Å"Due to the untiring efforts of Ms. Bhatt, SEWA has become an effective vehicle for promotion of self employment and self reliance amongst women. To realize these goals, the organization has been providing support services in the areas of savings and credit, health care, child care, legal aid, insurance, capacity building and communication. It has become a multi-dimensional entity – a labour collective, a co-operative and a women’s movement. ————————————————- Speaking on the occassion, India's Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh said, â€Å"By saying that poverty is the moral failure of a society, Ela-ben throws down the gauntlet to society at large. Her own attempt to attack poverty by organizing poor women and helping them empower themselves economical ly is at once aimed at the twin evils of poverty and gender discrimination. † Ela Bhatt : The ‘gentle revolutionary’; a pioneer in women’s empowerment and grassroots development, founder of the more than 1 million-strong Self-Employed Women’s Association in India.There are risks in every action. Every success has the seed of some failure. But it doesn't matter. It is how you go about it. That is the real challenge. † Ela Bhatt has been a member of The Elders since the group was founded in 2007. Profoundly influenced by Gandhian thinking, she advocates local, grassroots solutions for those who are poor, oppressed or suffering the effects of violent conflict. She joined her fellow Elders to encourage peaceful Palestinian protest and self-reliance during The Elders’ two delegations to  Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.One of India’s foremost women’s rights activists, Ela Bhatt welcomed the Elders to India in F ebruary 2012, where the group lent their support to young people in the state of Bihar campaigning to end  child marriage  in their own communities. One of India’s foremost women’s rights activists, Ela Bhatt welcomed the Elders to India in February 2012, where the group lent their support to young people in the state of Bihar campaigning to end  child marriage  in their own communities. â€Å"We are poor, but so many†Ela Bhatt is one of the world’s most remarkable pioneers and entrepreneurial forces in grassroots development. Known as the ‘gentle revolutionary’, she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of India’s poorest and most oppressed women workers. In 1972 she founded the  Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a trade union for women workers in India’s huge informal sector, who make up 94 per cent of the female labour force and yet have never enjoyed the same rights and security as those in f ormal employment.Today SEWA has more than 1. 2 million members across nine Indian states. â€Å"We may be poor, but we are so many. Why don’t we start a bank of our own? Our own women’s bank, where we are treated with the respect and service that we deserve. †Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Chandaben, SEWA member The following year, Ela Bhatt founded the  Cooperative Bank of SEWA. The bank helps women to gain financial independence and raise their standing in their families and communities – and puts into practice the Gandhian principles of self-reliance and collective action.Empowering women workers Among the organisations Ela Bhatt has created and inspired, she founded and chairs: * Sa-Dhan (the All India Association of Micro Finance Institutions in India) * The Indian School of Micro-finance for Women * Women’s World Banking * The International Alliance of Home-based Workers (HomeNet) * Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing, Organizing (WIEGO)| She has also served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation for more than ten years.In recognition of her work to improve the status of women and the working poor in India and elsewhere, Ela Bhatt was awarded the first-ever Global Fairness Initiative Award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Right Livelihood Award, the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award, and the Legion d’honneur from France. She has also received honorary doctorates from Harvard, Yale and the University of Natal. ————————————————- Women, work and peace Ela Bhatt,  18 February 2013 â€Å"Poverty is day-to-day violence, no less destructive than war. Receiving the 2011 Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, Ela Bhatt re-examines our idea of peace, arguing that equity, local economies and the empowerment of women through work are central to supporting economic freedoms, and therefor e peace. Honorable President of India, Honorable Shrimati Sonia Gandhi, Honorable Prime Minister of India, and distinguished dignitaries and friends: Thank you for this singular honor. I humbly accept the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development on behalf of the self-employed women of  SEWA. This year, SEWA is 40 years old; I turn 80.We are a sisterhood of 17  lakh  [1. 7 million]. Our journey is long and perhaps endless. This prize has given honor to all working poor women and their leadership worldwide, who hold peace, disarm violence and reduce poverty with their honest work. And therefore, it gives me deep contentment to be here today. I still hope someday they will hold a central place in our economy. This peace prize gives us an opportunity to re-examine our ideas of what constitutes peace. Certainly, absence of war is not peace. Peace is what keeps war away, but it is more than that; peace disarms and renders war useless.Peace is a condition enjoyed by a fair and fertile society. Peace is about restoring balance in society; only then is it lasting peace. In my view, restoration and reconstruction of a society are essential and key components of the peace process worldwide. If we look carefully at our world, we find that where there is unfair distribution of resources, there is unrest. When people cannot enjoy the fruits of their labors fairly, when they are forced off their land and homestead and forest, we have the basis of an unjust society. Where there is violence and conflict, we invariably find poverty.And where there is poverty, we find anger and acute struggles for justice and equity. And we see governments resorting to repression for ensuring ‘law and order’. I have often stated that poverty is violence. This violence is by consensus of society that lets other human beings go without  roti  and  kapada  and  makan. Poverty is not God-given. It is a moral collapse of our society. Poverty strips a per son of his or her humanity and takes away freedom. Poverty is day-to-day violence, no less destructive than war. Poverty is lack of peace and freedom. In fact, removing poverty is essentially building peace.I know I am not saying anything new. Garibi Hatao  to me also meant indeed  Shanti Banao. Garibi Hatao  is a peace song. In India, we are proud of our multicultural society. Bahudha  is at the heart of what makes us who we are: social diversity, political diversity, religious diversity, biological diversity. But in our rush to modernise let us not forget one of our greatest assets: our economic diversity. In our markets, we have the street vendor, the cart seller, the kiosk owner, the shop owner, and the supermarket owner, all plying their trades at the same time.Let them cater to different strata of society, co-existing and competing in a natural, organic way. Let our planning include ample room for the millions of small entrepreneurs and self-employed, who cater to the widest strata of society, to flourish and grow. They are the agents of an economic development that reaches the grassroots; they weave the living web of social and economic relationships that will bind our nations together. Gandhiji talked about  swaraj; he talked about economic decentralization. I would urge us to ensure that six basic primary needs are met from resources within 100 miles around us. I call it the â€Å"100 mile principle†.If food, shelter, clothing, primary education, primary healthcare and primary banking are locally produced and consumed, we will have the growth of a new holistic economy, which the world will sit up and take note of. And it  is  possible in and around India – in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan – women have done it. Catching up with western economic models will turn us into incompetent followers, not leaders. But if we address the realities of our own countries, we can create a development that makes u s leaders of our destiny. Let me make clear, however, that the 100 mile principle is not a recipe for isolation.I am not asking at all that we go back but move forward with heightened awareness about how and where we spend our money and what our work is doing to us and those around us. In fact, technologies can help to share knowledge and ideas across countries. However, we do need to get away from a world where people grow what they do not eat, and eat what they do not grow; where they have lost control over their basic production and daily consumption; where they have become part of a system whose outcomes are determined by people far away, in a manner not in their interest and outside their control.This awareness is already growing among the younger generation the world over. In India, we have a running start because our local economies are still alive. Let us give them the respect they deserve by investing in people who survive despite our neglect. And where do we start? I have faith in women. Women have shown, if we care to observe, that disarmament in the end is not a treaty by two nations to render arms useless, though such treaties are much-needed in this world. In my experience, as I have seen within India and in other countries, women are the key to rebuilding a community. Why?Focus on women and you will find an ally who wants a stable community. She wants roots for her family. You get a worker, a provider, a caretaker, an educator, a networker, a forger of bonds. I consider thousands of poor working women’s participation and representation an integral part of the peace and development process. Women bring constructive, creative and sustainable solutions to the table. Also, in my experience, productive work is the thread that weaves a society together. When you have work, you have an incentive to maintain a stable society. You cannot only see the future, but you can plan for the future.You can build assets and invest in the next generation. Li fe is no longer just about survival. Work builds peace because work gives people roots, as well as allowing them to flower; it builds communities and it gives meaning and dignity to one’s life. Work restores man’s relationships with himself, with fellow human beings, with the earth and the environment, and with the great spirit that created us all. Being one of The Elders, I listen to Nelson Mandela, dear Madiba, telling us frequently that â€Å"money won’t create success, but the freedom to make it, will. True, in Gaza, the men and women said to me, â€Å"Without work we can neither forgive nor forget, because what have we to look forward to? † In a Sudanese camp, I heard refugees crying for work, not charity. After the earthquake in Kutch, when I visited the area, everywhere I went the women, who had lost everything, said to me, â€Å"Ben, have you brought work? † By work, I do not mean sweatshops and cheap labour in factories that leave a perso n a slave to yet another kind of exploitation.Treating land and forests and people and even work as a commodity cannot build a fuller human being, nor a holistic society. Such work strips them of the multifunctional, multicultural character of work that fosters a dynamic and organic growth in society. A woman who tends a small plot of land, grows vegetables, weaves cloth, and provides for the family and the market, while caring for the financial, social, educational and emotional needs of her family is multifunctional worker and the builder of a stable society.One who labours long hours at a factory where he has no control of his work or his skills, contributes one product to society whose work is ‘measured’ and therefore given greater credence by us, while her work is unaccounted and ignored. It is the GDP at the household level that matters. The use of word ‘domestic’ in GDP should not be overlooked. Peace and development cannot be measured in numbers. I do hope that one day peace and development will shine on the face of our land and the people, and the world will enjoy the wisdom of my India.Thank you very much. Ela Bhatt delivered this speech upon accepting the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, on 18 February 2013 in New Delhi. ————————————————- Source: http://theelders. org/article/welcoming-my-fellow-elders-india Welcoming my fellow Elders to India â€Å"We hope to listen to girls affected by child marriage, their parents, their teachers and community leaders – and amplify their needs and concerns in our conversations with government, media and other influential people. Ela Bhatt is joined in India by her fellow Elders Desmond Tutu, Gro Brundtland and Mary Robinson at the start of a week-long visit focusing on the empowerment of girls and women. I am very happy to be welcoming my frie nds Desmond Tutu, Gro Brundtland and Mary Robinson to India. This is the first time the Elders have travelled here as a group, and I hope that by the end of our visit to Delhi and Bihar, we will have become even â€Å"wiser†. Our aim is to listen and learn, not lecture. I also hope this is the beginning of a continued relationship with the people and leaders of India.As some of you may already know, the Elders work together as independent global leaders, supporting peace-building and human rights. These issues are closely related in my view. Peace, human rights and human development go hand in hand, and the Millennium Development Goals – the international benchmarks for progress on poverty, health, education and other issues – are a very important tool. I strongly believe that peace is not a political issue, it’s a human one, and will only be achieved when everyone has the freedom to grow at their own pace and to fulfill their potential.In India, the focu s of our visit is to support Indian girls in particular to realize their full potential by drawing attention to the practice of child marriage. In this way, we hope we will also contribute towards India’s own development as a peaceful partner in the global family of nations. In the developing world an estimated one in three girls is married before the age of 18. One in seven marries before 15. Around ten million girls a year are affected by child marriage and one third of them live in India. Child marriage is, however, a truly global practice.It occurs across all major religions and regions, from West and East Africa to South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and communities in Europe and the United States. There are many reasons why child marriage happens, but we now recognize that marrying later, delaying pregnancy and continuing girls’ education, providing them adequate skills and financial literacy, are all important ways to support development and build a more peaceful world. As I mentioned, the Elders are not here to lecture or prescribe.Nevertheless as home to a significant proportion of the world’s child brides, addressing this issue in India is very important on the global scale. What we hope to do is to listen to girls affected by child marriage, their parents, their teachers and community leaders – and amplify their needs and concerns in our conversations with government, media and other influential people. I am very sympathetic to the difficult decisions that families must make here in India. Even if they want their daughters to be educated, there are often no schools nearby, especially outside the big towns and cities.Physical security is a real concern if girls have to travel long distances or stay in dormitories away from home. In India, family and community are also central to most people’s security – both physical and financial. Marriages are not just between individuals, but weave together families and communities in mutually supportive networks. This makes marriage complex and important to social cohesion. Like everywhere in India, we are seeing change. I have seen differences in age of marriage from my mother’s generation to my own, and my daughters’. But it is far too slow.We hope that the Elders’ contribution will help to create an enabling environment where everyone works together – government, young people, media, NGOs, and businesses too – so that girls can become equal members of the family, not second class members, and can truly fulfil their potential. We look forward to sharing our thoughts along the way, and hope that you will join the conversation too. ———————————————————————————— Peace by practice: Mandela Day 2011 Ahead of Mandela Day 2011, Ela Bhatt asks how we can live up to NelsonMandela's example and discusses the power of â€Å"thinking local† to change our communities and create a better world. To me, Nelson Mandela is a supreme symbol of freedom’s struggle. Next week, on 18 July, he will celebrate his 93rd birthday, a daythat around the world people now recognise as ‘Mandela Day’. Let us take this opportunityto reflect on the life of a man we have come to know and respect as a great leader, one who sacrificed his own freedom for the freedom of his people. How best do we honour his achievements? What can we do to live up to Madiba’s example? Looking for a solutionIt is often said that the problems facing our world are too overwhelming or intractable – that you find endless conflict, injustice and poverty. I agree that if you want to fixthe world’s problems, you have a mightytask. In my own country, India, the scale of the poverty we see is enough to break you r heart. After decades of independence, freedom has still not come to everycitizen – discrimination has taken new forms, and the poorest of the poor live on the margins, the invisible engine of our so-called ‘Tiger economy’. When we see such suffering, it is natural to wish to solve everything at once.We turn to our governments for a solution, and feel frustrated when theyfail to act. But I have never been one to argue that governments have all the answers. Change is up to us Our greatest source of strength is right under our noses; the families, work-places and communities that give us strong foundations, on which equal societies are built. Thinking local, we can turn power upside down. In my work with Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), I have seen some of the poorest, most vulnerable women transform their lives and the communities theylive in.From being home-based workers, landless labourers or illiterate food vendors they have claimed their right s and have become the owners of their own resources, the beneficiaries of their own land. They meet resistance from the authorities at everystage but theystand firm, together, saying â€Å"We are poor, but so many! † I believe strongly that to bring widespread change, we must first make that change ourselves. Another great teacher, Mahatma Gandhi, imagined this as ripples in water, small circles of change that grow ever wider.Our actions have an impact we may never even see. Peace by practice Rather than find yourself immobilised bythe scale of the world’s problems, look around you. Even when a problem is right under your nose, it is easyto ignore it – we curse fate, blame tradition or sayâ€Å"it’s God’s will. † But you will not have to search far before you find people who are hungry, lonely, downtrodden, persecuted – sometimes we just need a reason to reach out to them. When Nelson Mandela founded The Elders, he invoked the idea of ubuntu: that we are human onlythrough the humanity of others.What he describes is more than charity, it is a certain outlook or way of life. Byserving others, we actuallyfulfil our own humanity – these actions are full of faith, a form of prayer. This Mandela Day – a dayfor personal, local action – let us spend our energies serving our own communities to honour the 67 years Nelson Mandela dedicated to fighting for a better world. (Source : ————————————————- Harvard varsity to honour Ela Bhatt (Source: http://articles. timesofindia. indiatimes. com/2011-03-14/ahmedabad/28687384_1_ela-bhatt-sewa-honour )BOSTON: The prestigious  Harvard University  will honor Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), for her â€Å"life and work† that has had a â€Å"significant impact on society† . Bhatt (77), whose trade union has helped over a million women in  India  gain access to opportunities for themselves and their families, will be awarded the Radcliffe Institute Medal by Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She would be presented the medal, awarded annually to individuals who have substantially and positively influenced society, on Radcliffe Day on May 27.Some of the illustrious past winners include  Toni Morrison  in 2007,  Margaret Atwood  in 2003, Billie Jean King in 2002 and  Alice Walker  in 1992. â€Å"The Radcliffe Institute is proud to honor her this year, in which gender in the developing world is one of its dominant themes,† the Institute said. Recipient of several prestigious awards, Ela Bhatt founded SEWA in 1972. Conceived as a women's trade union, SEWA has grown into an NGO that offers micro-lending , health and life insurance and child care — all overseen by more than a hundred women-run cooperatives.In January 2010, SEWA membe rship had reached 1. 2 million. Bhatt has been recognised for her long battle for social justice. In November last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had honoured Bhatt with the Global Fairness Initiative Award for helping move more than a million poor women in India to a position of dignity and independence. Radcliffe Day is the Institute's annual celebration of women, as well as the alumnae and fellows of Radcliffe College and the Radcliffe Institute.It is traditionally held on the day after Harvard's commencement. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University is a scholarly community where individuals pursue advanced work across a wide range of academic disciplines, professions and creative arts. Within this broad purpose , the institute sustains a continuing commitment to the study of women, gender and the society. ————————————————- An exhibiti on on Ahmadabad’s forgotten heroine TNN  Nov 17, 2012, 06. 44AM ISTAHMEDABAD: She was respected by lakhs of textile workers and the poor – Anasuya Sarabhai(1885-1972), fondly known as ‘Motaben', holds a unique place in the history of the country. She is best remembered for joining hands with  Mahatma Gandhi  in leading the historic strike of mill workers in Ahmedabad, which eventually led to the founding of the country's first Textile Labour Association (TLA), in 1920. A 13-day exhibition, starting on Saturday is being held in the city, chronicling Motaben's life. It also marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Sewa (Self-employed Women's Association) as well as the 127th birthday of Anasuya Sarabhai. Her reputation among mill workers, and the love and trust they showed in her leadership, were key to Gandhiji's eventual success,† says Somanth Bhatt, who conjured up rare pictures of Anasuya for an exhibition at Shantisadan on Mirzapur Road in the walled city. â€Å"Anasuyaben's thoughts and spirit nurtured Gandhi's ideologies. This is the first time a labour organization is getting involved in an exhibition for a labour leader, Motaben,† says founder of Sewa, Ela Bhatt, who first worked with Motaben in 1955. Shantisadan was where Ansuyaben lived and founded the labour movement. This is a rare oppurtunity to exhibit history in the place where it occured. The unique thing about this exhibition is that it is presented in a way that speaks about Anasuyaben in her own words and photographs,† says Bhatt. She further adds, â€Å"Many would not know this but Motaben was the force behind the major labour laws of our country. In my opinion, Motaben and her contribution to the reedom struggle and labour movement should become part of school textbooks. † ————————————————- Ela Bhat Source : http://www. tole rance. org/activity/ela-bhat) â€Å"I realized that although eighty percent of women in India are economically active, they are outside the purview of legislation. † Ela's Story Born in 1933 to a middle class, well-educated family, Ela Bhatt has spent her life fighting for the rights and welfare of India's ‘invisible' workers. Her grandparents worked with Mahatma Gandhi in the non-violent struggle for Indian Independence from the British. Deeply influenced by Gandhi, Ela has followed his ideals all her life.She has pioneered the idea that people themselves, no matter how poor or uneducated, are able to solve their own problems if they organize together to do so. To help provide this, she founded SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association. Called â€Å"one of the best – -if not the best – – grassroots programmes for women on the planet,† SEWA proved so successful that it has become a model for micro-finance programs in other parts of the worl d. Ela started as a lawyer with the Textile Labour Association (TLA) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a union founded by Gandhi, who had deep respect for India's textile producers.Working in the women's division, Ela soon found that women were doing many of the labor-intensive tasks needed in textile production, as well as in other fields of work. However, as workers, they were invisible. Out- raged, Ela said, â€Å"Personally, I don't think there can be any greater injustice to anybody in the world than to have one's work contribution negated†¦ Who is the backbone of any economy in the country? It's the poor! Yet they are not recorded as workers in the national census. They are described as non-workers! Home-based workers are the least visible of all. In the textile industry, contractors give the women cloth pieces which are already cut out to form parts of a garment. The women sew the garments together at home and return them to the contractor. The women have to work fast and for long hours, because they are paid by the piece. Often, young daughters help with the sewing after school. The contractor would pay whatever he wished, often an extremely low rate of 4-5 rupees per day. The women, because they were unorganized, had no way to demand higher rates.Other women workers in the informal sector also had very difficult working conditions and were often exploited. These women included vegetable sellers, rag pickers, bidi rollers (a hand-rolled cigarette), incense makers, cleaners, laborers, cart pullers, and silk and cotton workers. â€Å"I realized that although eighty percent of women in India are economically active, they are outside the purview of legislation. † Ela recognized that these women needed the help that they could get only through organizing together as a large group. To meet that need, she founded SEWA in 1972 to organize for better pay and working conditions.SEWA, which today has 250,000 members, helped workers at the lowest level of societ y become empowered to take control of their lives. It soon became apparent that women workers had a serious problem with money and banking. Even though many of the women worked twelve hours a day or more, they made little money, had no savings, and never had enough capital to improve their conditions. For example, a home- based textile assembler might have to pay high rent on the sewing machine she used. She never had enough money at one time to buy the machine.Even if a woman was able to get a little money together, the money often was not safe at home, where men felt entitled to whatever was in the house. If a women wanted to borrow money to further her business (for example, to buy extra vegetables to sell in the market), she would have to borrow from money lenders at outlandish rates, sometimes 50% per day. Since women's wealth was often in the form of jewelry, they also got funds through pawning. Because they were largely illiterate, these women were unable to sign their names at a bank and were unfamiliar with banking routines.A male relative would have to sign for them, gaining access to the money. In addition, bankers, who had never dealt with illiterate low-income women, treated them badly. SEWA had a meeting to which 2000 women came and told of their difficulties with the banks. Finally, someone said, â€Å"Let's start our own bank! † Others agreed, and the idea was underway. SEWA Bank was registered in 1974 with 4,000 members. When money had to be raised to register the bank, the women, saying, â€Å"We are poor, but we are so many! † raised the needed RS. 100,000 within six months.Ela says that the idea that illiterate women cannot be decision-makers in finance is an untrue middle-class notion. A major problem was that the women could not sign their names. How could they be identified at SEWA Bank? SEWA found a way that was so successful it is now used in banks throughout India. Each woman was photographed holding a slate with her ban k account number on it. One copy of the photo was in her bank passbook, while another copy was kept at the bank. This definite identification meant that women could now have money in their own names: men were no longer part of the process.When a woman joins SEWA Bank, the first step is saving. The woman must save an amount every week, no matter how small. Even if she makes only RS. 4, she is encouraged to save half a rupee. SEWA even provides a locked piggy bank for the purpose, and representatives from sewa come to the woman's home to take the savings to the bank. After acquiring the habit of saving, a woman will be allowed to take out a loan. Designed to meet the needs of low-income women, the loans are small with a long payback period, up to 36 months. Ela pioneered the concept of micro-lending, the idea that very small amounts, as small as $5, may be all hat is needed to make a difference. Women used the loans for practical purposes: buying equipment they had formerly rented, ex panding a business, installing indoor plumbing, and paying for children's education. Over 95% of the loans are repaid on time, a much higher repayment rate than for other banks. SEWA Bank also educates and assists the women through other services, such as day care, maternity protection, and job training. SEWA Bank, which now has over us $3 million in assets, has been so successful that there are now branches in other parts of India, and men have even asked to be included.It is important to realize that all this has been accomplished without any outside financial help whatsoever. The women did it themselves. Most important, the SEWA Bank model, through its concepts of micro-finance, has been used to empower poor women throughout the world. Towards this end, Ela joined with nine other women at the first UN World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975; these women shared the belief that the world's financial institutions must become accessible to low-income women. Incorporated in 1 979, Women's World Banking now has 43 affiliates in 35 countries.Ela Bhatt has served as its chair since 1985. The far-reaching effects of Ela Bhatt's work have been recognized internationally through many awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (the alternate Nobel Prize) for ‘Changing the Human Environment' in Stockholm in 1984. Formal Economy In India today, only about 11% of workers hold regular jobs with formal employer- employee relationships. These jobs are documented and the workers are protected by whatever laws are available. Informal Economy Nearly 89% of India's workers are undocumented.Their work in the informal sector is usually not covered by legal protection that may be available to workers in formal sector jobs. They work either on their own, or as piece workers with a contractor or middleman, in relationships that depend on verbal agreement. Home-based Work Part of the informal economy, this work is done at home, usually by women. She gets raw materials from a contractor or middleman, assembles the finished product, and brings it to the middleman for payment. Often at the mercy of the contractor, she must accept whatever pay he is willing to give.This type of worker is the most invisible in the economy. Macro-Finance Works with the large amounts of money used by banks, governments, stock markets, corporations, and other large institutions. Micro-Finance Micro-finance works with the very small amounts of money actually used by low-income people. It is often the most appropriate way to implement social programs at the grassroots level. Things to Do and Discuss 1 Imagine that you are a poor woman working in Gujarat, India. Construct a family, home, and job for yourself. You may want to consult a book or encyclopedia to get more information.What problems do you think you would have? How would you use a loan from SEWA Bank to improve the lives of yourself and your family? 2 How is women's work considered in your own country? In what way s is it similar or different from the situation in India? Do you think that changes such as SEWA provides would be useful in your country? ————————————————- Interview with Ela Bhatt Founder of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) A good combination of struggle and constructive work Create, as a strategy, alternative economic organizationsAhmedabad, Gujarat, India | Ela Bhatt. Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke. | | Self-employed  vegetable vendors in Ahmedabad. Click  to see a series of photos. Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke. | Ela Bhatt  is the founder of the  Self Employed Women’s Association(SEWA) and was SEWA’s first general-secretary. Based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, SEWA is the largest single trade union in the country with a membership of 687,000 women. SEWA’s members are vegetable and garment vendors, in-home seamstresses, head-load ers, bidi rollers, paper pickers, construction workers, incense stick makers, and agricultural workers.They come from India's â€Å"unorganized sector† and organize for their just dues and rights. 96% of all women workers in India are in this sector. Among their achievements is the SEWA Bank whose capital is made up entirely of their own contributions. The SEWA Bank was founded in 1974 by 4,000 women each contributing ten rupees. This interview was conducted August 31, 2003 by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine in Ahmedabad. Also see interview with  Jayshree Vyas  Ã¢â‚¬â€œÃ‚  Managing Director of SEWA Bank. * The Independence Struggle * Self-employed laborers * A leading role in the women’s movement You have to be for something * In Gandhi’s thinking * Civil disobedience and sit-in strikes * Satyagraha and street vendors * Face-to-face talk * Alternative economic organizations * Cooperatives and trade unions * Full employment and self-reliance – social change * The diversity of our society * Literacy education * Democratic values * To serve * Changes in the garment industry * Globalization: the construction industry * Embroidery and migration * Only because we had an organization * The interests of the local producers * Using the technology * Changing the balance of powerThe Independence Struggle In Motion Magazine:  What made you think you needed to start the organization SEWA? Ela Bhatt:  I’m a product of the later years of the freedom movement, the independence movement of my country. As we were studying in school and then in college our teachers and everybody around was talking about independence. In the family, also, there was the atmosphere of the independence struggle. My own grandfather, my mother’s father, was in the Salt March. He was in jail. My mother’s two brothers were in jail. (Editor: begun March 12, 1930, the Salt March led by Mohandas (Mahatma) K.Gandhi was a 24-day march from his ashram in Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea to make salt and protest the British ban of an Indian’s right to make salt. ). When I was studying in college, our teachers asked us to go the villages and live with the villagers. Mainly against injustice, against poverty. We never had to question how to do it because Gandhiji had shown the way — how to go about it and what kind of discipline you have to follow. There I met my husband (

Hazard and vunerability analysis (Case) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hazard and vunerability analysis (Case) - Essay Example A terrorist wanting to target a populated area where the biggest affects could take place would choose and have chosen a largely populated area like the World Trade Center. The targets chosen by the terrorist on September 11th were vulnerable targets. Profile sectors in the community contributed to its vulnerability. The location was on the east coast and easy for those coming from the Middle East to access. The city is near water and there were only few ways to get in and out of the city. In the midst of a panic, this would make it difficult for emergency crews to get it and help. The height of the building makes it impossible to evacuate everyone in a quick and timely matter. All of these events, after being profiled are a perfect fit for a terrorist attack. The severity level was catastrophic on September 11th. Many lives were taken and the building was completely destroyed. There is no way around it; the World Trade Center was too vulnerable to an attack. There needs to be higher awareness of other areas that can have catastrophic losses from a terrorist attack. The terrorist are smart and often plan very carefully before a huge attack like September 11th. The terrorist may have been targeting D.C. as their main target. September 11th could have been used as a distraction while the other planes went to Washington D.C.. This is why it is very important to make sure that even after one event occurs, no one is safe. The enemy may also have plans in force to target another area. 2. What factors, if changed, may have pre-empted the disaster? There were factors that could have lessened the severity of the loss that occurred on September 11th. The building was easily accessible by many, it was located along the coastline, and there are few ways to get to and from the building. Circumstances like this create too much vulnerability. Vulnerability is what makes an area a target for terrorist attacks. The buildings location should send a flag up that the area is a hig hly targeted area. Being on the coastline allows the building to be accessed by anyone in the world. Because of this, the plane was able to come right off of the coast and straight into the building. When a building is that vulnerable a border patrol type security needs to be set up and able to monitor flights coming in and going out. If some sort of security was able to stop the plane first, the affects could have been lessened. Having an effective evacuation plan could have pre-empted the disaster. Buildings that are vulnerable need to make sure that there is a way to get as many people out of the building as possible. These evacuation plans need to apply to everyone in the building and enforced. Not only is an evacuation plan important, it is important for emergency response vehicle to get to and from the disaster. If a plan was in force and New York was prepared, the severity would have been lessoned. It is all about being prepared. Being prepared may not be able to stop the att ack from happening, but it can lessen the severity. It is never to late to be prepared for a disaster. Many vulnerable areas can learn a lesson from what happened and learn to prepare their selves if a similar incident happens. 3. Is there any indication that New York or Washington D.C. utilized a hazard and/or vulnerability analysis in their planning for this type of disaster? There wasn’t a strong indication that N

The Null and Alternative Hypothesis for The Piggy Bank Options Essay

The Null and Alternative Hypothesis for The Piggy Bank Options - Essay Example Online purchasing is a rising trend in the purchasing behavior of the world population since more people are becoming online users. As of 2006, there were over 1.1 billion online users worldwide. In the United States in the fiscal year 2006, the total e-commerce sales were $106 billion, while the US total retail sales were $3,905 (Plunckett Research, 2007). Online sales to retail sale ratio are 0.027 or 2.7%. This data still does not clear up the purchasing tendencies since the second product offering is sales of clothing. In the same year, 2006, in the United States the overall clothing sales were $214.3 (Plunckett Research, 2007). So far the data provided gives us a better view of how to set up a null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis to create a hypothesis test for the Piggy Bankcard incentive problem. A statistician sets up a null hypothesis in order to test a claim. In reality, the statistician knows there is a more viable solution than the null hypothesis, thus the goal of the test is to reject the null hypothesis in order to go with the alternative hypothesis solution. The market research data could make a person think that considering that total clothes expenditure in the US is double than the US online sales then the most likely scenario is that it is better to go with the clothing store incentive. This is all the data needed to create a null and alternative hypothesis. The null and alternative hypothesis for the Piggy Bank options is illustrated below: Null Hypothesis (Ho) – (U1-U2) = 0.

EMBA 550 inital post week 4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

EMBA 550 inital post week 4 - Essay Example Products are trauma (implants and instruments for surgical treatment of fracture), spine (treatment of degenerative instabilities, fractures, tumors and deformities for cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine), and CMF (craniomaxillofacial systems with complete array of implants and instruments for treatment of facial trauma, tumor resection and reconstruction, mandibular and maxillofacial skeleton) (Synthes, 2013). My company is St. Jude Medical, a medical device company. In choosing a second company to provide comparison, I selected another medical device supplier which, like St. Jude Medical, is among the 100 largest (based on revenues) firms in the industry, and which has approximately the same level of assets (SJM - $8.1 million, Synthes - $7.9 million) (Pharma.Live.com, 2012). The comparison is more relevant if it is between two firms engaged in the same scale of business. The customer experience is promised in their value propositions (Barnes, et al., 2009). Yes, the value proposition lies primarily with the types of products. The equipment and services of SJM address cardiac, neurological and chronic pain disorders, while that of Synthes addressed trauma, spine and CMF disorders. Secondarily, the value proposition also lies with the strategic vision. While both profess being guided by customers’ pain alleviation, SJM specifies its ‘focus’ is on ‘putting greater control in the hands of health professionals’ while Synthes specifies it is ‘Patient-driven, surgeon-focused, innovative, with attention to quality and integrity.’ The products Synthes innovates are concentrated on surgical wares, while that of SJM is more general, creating products for the health professionals to use in the course of treatments. The qualitative elements are correctly evaluated, because they pertain to the specific functions of precision instruments (products). Both value propositions

Disability and literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Disability and literature - Essay Example There is one common denominator as far as social order workings are concerned and this centers on gender and its role in the society. In this respect, there is much debate going on concerning the relationship between gender and disability. The concept of feminism features prominently in this debate and scholars have advanced different theories to support their claims. Critical analysis of â€Å"Good Country People† by Flannery OConnor indicates a clear point of intersection between disability and gender. Deriving important theoretical concepts echoed by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson in Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory gives a picture of what the society think about disability and gender with much focus on the womenfolk. In Flannery O’Connor’s case, there are two main characters in Joy who is also referred to as Hulga and the young man who sells bible. There is also Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman who plays a significant role through behavior to exp lain the interesting disability and gender relationship. The society sees women as lesser beings on various premises and this sort of prejudice assigns women some level of disability. Feminists argue that women have long been considered sex tools by men but undergo depreciation in terms of beauty and physical structure with time. This form of natural process is considered some sort of a weakness woman who is treated as a disability. This explains why the elderly women, who have most probably attained menopause phase of the reproductive life, are considered to be of less value. This is an aspect of physical disability being analogous to deficiency in terms of performing some activities. In ordinary society, men can be physically incapacitated but still pursue their dreams and end up marrying as a complete individual. However, the case of a disable woman is viewed with pity and is

I'll attach it Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

I'll attach it - Essay Example The postal services industry was big and booming. Nevertheless, with the materialization of the internet, as well as, related technologies such as email and social media, things have changed significantly. Presently, it is easier to send an email or an instant message via social media than sending handwritten letters. The email and the instant message will be delivered to the intended recipient immediately while the letter may take hours or days to reach the destination depending on the distance between the sender and the recipient. This is just an illustration of the principal alteration of information technology. This paper focuses on the impact of information technology on the healthcare profession. The paper argues that information technology has had a major impact on healthcare as a profession including the nature of healthcare practice, relationship with customers, and management of healthcare information/records. The paper is organized into different sections. The first part gives an introduction into the main topic and the thesis. The second section provides the main discussion. It is organized into different subsections that focus on specific areas. The final section will be the conclusion. The conclusion will restate the thesis and highlight the main points emerging from the main discussion. It will also provide appropriate recommendations. Information technology is a growing field that focuses on computer and telecommunication systems that are used in information management. Information technologies, therefore, include computers, computer systems, telecommunication systems, and other information systems. Apart from computers, other typical information technologies include smartphone, enterprise resource planning systems, Tablets, internet, email, social media, and cloud computing among others. The information technology field is much broader. While these examples of IT (information technology) are used

Erection and Construction Procedure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Erection and Construction Procedure - Essay Example This study also looks into the safety measures which ensure that the workers in these projects are safe. There are well laid down standards for any structure, which ensure the safety of the structures and the workers. The study discusses the erection and construction procedure from the designing stage up to the completion stage. Purpose The principal purpose or the objective of this study is to establish the driving forces behind collapses and shifts in the structures. It seeks to establish the recommended procedures for construction of various structures and the guidelines provided to ensure the safety of the workers. The intent of this paper is to give a clear procedure of how structures are supposed to be built right from the design stage up to the completion stage. The paper also intends to explore the regulations governing the construction industry in Britain. The paper also seeks to explain various logistics put in place by various organizations concerned with the safety and he alth of the workers. The Procedure Design and Planning It is essential to note from the onset that the initial step of any construction work is the design. Designing of a construction work is the act of creating a new facility which is represented by a series of steps and specifications. The series of steps explains the activities and materials required for the whole construction. The engineers and architects who are involved in the design and the planning process must well be aware of what the project requires, and they must be an experienced team. During this design stage, the engineers designing any structure must give a list or a breakdown of materials required for the purpose of undertaking the whole project (Pallotta 169). The process of designing has to be completed before the process of erection begins. The process of undertaking any construction project requires all the parties to work in unison and cooperation. Regulations Any construction project is subject to extensive r egulation within the framework of Health and Safety at work which must be adhered to. The supervisors, engineers and managers working on the site should be aware of all the regulations and ensure that they are observed to the letter. The site on which any construction work is to be carried out must not have negative effects to the environment. The relevant authorities survey the site and ensure that it is conducive and does not pose any hazards for the construction of any structure. Project implementers These are the people or organizations which are held responsible for the management of the construction project. Most of the construction works are given out as contracts to contractors; and the project team selected depends on the contract, it may be public or private. The project team is mainly made of the customer, who decides what he wants, supervises the work and pays for the project. The second person involved is the designer; he designs the structure and oversees its construct ion. The principal contractor oversees the whole project and also the health and safety of the construction site. These management team will most of the times use sub contractors and other consultants to help them deliver their duties. The contractor of the project should be based in the construction site throughout the construction process, but the designer, though he has roles in the construction site, is not always there. Steelwork Contractor Most of the structure being erected uses steel metal and

Assignment 2-Exploring Ethnographies Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

2-Exploring Ethnographies - Assignment Example This is observed meticulously and scrupulously. The men of any age, meeting by chance on the road or any place one or more women, not only will keep from being stopped, they will not look at them, [Page 20] 134 cont. will even turn away to look toward the opposite side, as though to indicate that they want even to escape the danger and occasion of their eyes meeting. Failure in this traditional precept is considered very grave, and the culprit would fall into the general indignation, into the censure of all, since any look or smile between persons of different sex and diverse dynasty is generally considered bad and immoral. Never will the women of one dynasty let themselves be seen eating or drinking in the presence of men of another dynasty, and vice versa. There is not, however, any prohibition of these relations between individuals of the same dynasty, be they men or women. Therefore, when one sees, a man talking to a woman, one is to understand immediately that they are from the same dynastic branch, because, even between husband and wife, the same rules are observed in public, even though not so scrupuleusly; it will, however, be difficult for the man to talk or to offer anything to his own wife in public, to place her by his side or for them to be together, except when they leave the house and both go to gather fruits, small tubers, or other things in the ferest; this is considered a private act.† 6. What aspect of the culture subject of your group differs from a practice (or aspect of a practice) in modern-day American culture? Write at least three sentences explaining how it differs, providing at least one example. America is rich in cultural diversity; one can find people belonging to different backgrounds, ethnicity, and race sharing the same space. American constitution allows full freedom to its residents to enjoy life of their own choice. A Negro can marry an Irish born, or a Latin can

Sanctification and Justification Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sanctification and Justification - Assignment Example In other words, a person is able to earn a positive evaluation in his eyes. Justification is closely connected to the idea of righteousness of Christ. Thus, just like the original sin was imputed on the humanity because of Adam, righteousness may be imputed on the humanity after the example of Christ. Another important point that should be mentioned is that justification comes exclusively through the grace of God. It is not based on any particular merit of a person. Therefore, it depends on the actions which are performed by God. However, the biggest significance holds the following notion: although justification is facilitated by God, it comes through the faith which is developed by a person. That is why the latter should also be seen as an irreplaceable prerequisite for justification as if one does not have a sufficient amount of faith, the process of justification will not happen. The next idea that should be carefully examined is called sanctification. It may be defined as â€Å"a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives† (Grudem, 2009). There are certain differences between sanctification and justification. Thus, the latter is performed once in life and lasts for ever. Contrary to that the former is carried out continuously during one’s life. The latter entirely depends on actions of God and the former is a result of cooperation of God and human. One might define three stages of sanctification. The first one begins with regeneration. The second stage involves the entire life of a person. Finally, it is completed only after the death of an individual. All this results in the understanding that the process of sanctification is a peculiar one as it is never completed when a person is alive. Therefore, death is the essential element of sanctification which can not be omitted. As it has been noted previously, the cooperation between God and human

Collaboration and Innovation at Procter & Gamble Essay Example for Free

Collaboration and Innovation at Procter Gamble Essay Look in your medicine cabinet. No matter where you live in the world, odds are that you’ll find many Procter Gamble products that you use every day. PG is the largest manufacturer of consumer products in the world, and one of the top 10 largest companies in the world by market capitalization. The company is known for its successful brands, as well as its ability to develop new brands and maintain its brands’ popularity with unique business innovations. Popular PG brands include Pampers, Tide, Bounty, Folgers, Pringles, Charmin, Swiffer, Crest, and many more. The company has approximately 140,000 employees in more than 80 countries, and its leading competitor is Britain-based Unilever. Founded in 1837 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, PG has been a mainstay in the American business landscape for well over 150 years. In 2009, it had $79 billion in revenue and earned a $13.2 billion profit. PG’s business operations are divided into three main units: Beauty Care, Household Care, and Health and Well-Being, each of which are further subdivided into more specific units. In each of these divisions, PG has three main focuses as a business. It needs to maintain the popularity of its existing brands, via advertising and marketing; it must extend its brands to related products by developing new products under those brands; and it must innovate and create new brands entirely from scratch. Because so much of PG’s business is built around brand creation and management, it’s critical that the company facilitate collaboration between researchers, marketers, and managers. And because PG is such a big company, and makes such a wide array of products, achieving these goals is a daunting task. PG spends 3.4 percent of revenue on innovation, which is more than twice the industry average of 1.6 percent. Its research and development teams consist of 8,000 scientists spread across 30 sites globally. Though the company has an 80 percent â€Å"hit† rate on ideas that lead to products, making truly innovative and groundbreaking new products is very difficult in an extremely competitive field like consumer products. What’s more, the creativity of bigger companies like PG has been on the decline, with the top consumer goods companies accounting for only 5 percent of patents filed on home care products in the early 2000s. Finding better ways to innovate and develop new ideas is critical in a marketplace like consumer goods, and for any company as large as PG, finding methods of collaboration that are effective across the enterprise can be difficult. That’s why PG has been active in implementing information systems that foster effective collaboration and innovation. The social networking and collaborative tools popularized by Web 2.0 have been especially attractive to PG management, starting at the top with former CEO A.G. Lafley. Lafley was succeeded by Robert McDonald in 2010, but has been a major force in revitalizing the company. When Lafley became PG’s CEO in 2000, he immediately asserted that by the end of the decade, the company would generate half of its new product ideas using sources from outside the company, both as a way to develop groundbreaking innovations more quickly and to reduce research and development costs. At the time, Lafley’s proclamation was considered to be visionary, but in the past 10 years, PG has made good on his promise. The first order of business for PG was to develop alternatives to business practices that were not sufficiently collaborative. The biggest culprit, says Joe Schueller, Innovation Manager for PG’s Global Business Services division, was perhaps an unlikely one: e-mail. Though it’s ostensibly a tool for communication, e-mail is not a sufficiently collaborative way to share information; senders control the flow of information, but may fail to send mail to colleagues who most need to see it, and colleagues that don’t need to see certain e-mails will receive mailings long after they’ve lost interest. Blogs and other collaborative tools, on the other hand, are open to anyone interested in their content, and attract comments from interested users. However, getting PG employees to actually use these newer products in place of e-mail has been a struggle for Schueller. Employees have resisted the changes, insisting that newer collaborative tools represent more work on top of e-mail, as opposed to a better alternative. People are accustomed to e-mail, and there’s significant organizational inertia against switching to a new way of doing things. Some PG processes for sharing knowledge were notoriously inefficient. For instance, some researchers used to write up their experiments using Microsoft Office applications, then print them out and glue them page by page into notebooks. PG was determined to implement more efficient and collaborative methods of communication to supplant some of these outdated processes. To that end, PG launched a total overhaul of its collaboration systems, led by a suite of Microsoft products. The services provided include unified communications (which integrates services for voice transmission, data transmission, instant messaging, e-mail, and electronic conferencing), Microsoft Live Communications Server functionality, Web conferencing with Live Meeting, and content management with SharePoint. According to PG, over 80,000 employees use instant messaging, and 20,000 use Microsoft Outlook, which provides tools for e-mail, calendaring, task management, contact management, note taking, and Web browsing. Outlook works with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to support multiple users with shared mailboxes and calendars, SharePoint lists, and meeting schedules. The presence of these tools suggests more collaborative approaches are taking hold. Researchers use the tools to share the data they’ve collected on various brands; marketers can more effectively access the data they need to create more highly targeted ad campaigns; and managers are more easily able to find the people and data they need to make critical business decisions. Companies like PG are finding that one vendor simply isn’t enough to satisfy their diverse needs. That introduces a new challenges: managing information and applications across multiple platforms. For example, PG found that Google search was inadequate because it doesn’t always link information from within the company, and its reliance on keywords for its searches isn’t ideal for all of the topics for which employees might search. PG decided to implement a new search product from start-up Connectbeam, which allows employees to share bookmarks and tag content with descriptive words that appear in future searches, and facilitates social networks of coworkers to help them find and share information more effectively. The results of the initiative have been immediate. For example, when PG executives traveled to meet with regional managers, there was no way to integrate all the reports and discussions into a single document. One executive glued the results of experiments into Word documents and passed them out at a conference. Another executive manually entered his data and speech into PowerPoint slides, and then e-mailed the file to his colleagues. One result was that the same file ended up in countless individual mailboxes. Now, PG’s IT department can create a Microsoft SharePoint page where that executive can post all of his presentations. Using SharePoint, the presentations are stored in a single location, but are still accessible to employees and colleagues in other parts of the company. Another collaborative tool, InnovationNet, contains over 5 million researchrelated documents in digital format accessible via a browser-based portal. That’s a far cry from experiments glued in no tebooks. One concern PG had when implementing these collaborative tools was that if enough employees didn’t use them, the tools would be much less useful for those that did use them. Collaboration tools are like business and social networks–the more people connect to the network, the greater the value to all participants. Collaborative tools grow in usefulness as more and more workers contribute their information and insights. They also allow employees quicker access to the experts within the company that have needed information and knowledge. But these benefits are contingent on the lion’s share of company employees using the tools. Another major innovation for PG was its largescale adoption of Cisco TelePresence conference rooms at many locations across the globe. For a company as large as PG, telepresence is an excellent way to foster collaboration between employees across not just countries, but continents. In the past, telepresence technologies were prohibitively expensive and overly prone to malfunction. Today, the technology makes it possible to hold high-definition meetings over long distances. PG boasts the world’s largest rollout of Cisco TelePresence technology. PG’s biggest challenge in adopting the technology was to ensure that the studios were built to particular specifications in each of the geographically diverse locations where they were installed. Cisco accomplished this, and now PG’s estimates that 35 percent of its employees use telepresence regularly. In some locations, usage is as high as 70 percent. Benefits of telepresence include significant travel savings, more efficient flow of ideas, and quicker decision making. Decisions that once took days now take minutes. Laurie Heltsley, PG’s director of global business services, noted that the company has saved $4 for every $1 invested in the 70 high-end telepresence systems it has installed over the past few years These high-definition systems are used four times as often as the company’s earlier versions of videoconferencing systems. Sources: Joe Sharkey, â€Å"Setbacks in the Air Add to Lure of Virtual Meetings,† The New York Times, April 26, 2010; Matt Hamblen, â€Å"Firms Use Collaboration Tools to Tap the Ultimate IP-Worker Ideas,† Computerworld, September 2, 2009; â€Å"Computerworld Honors Program: PG†, 2008; www.pg.com, accessed May 18, 2010; â€Å"Procter Gamble Revolutionizes Collaboration with Cisco TelePresence,† www.cisco.com, accessed May 18, 2010; â€Å"IT’s Role in Collaboration at Procter Gamble,† Information Week, February 1, 2007.