(Organization name pending)

Clovis, CA, United States

  • Health, Information and Communications

  • Global Programs

  • Children and youth, Women and girls, Economically disadvantaged people

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Executive Summary

Human overpopulation is a global catastrophe. Current population growth will doom our planet. Approximately 80 100 million children are born every year and unfortunately, 40% of those births are unintended. Our solutions: 1) production/distribution of a movie focused on the crisis, 2) educating/empowering women, 3) unrestricted access to birth control measures worldwide, 4) massive social media coverage. Motion picture will dramatize in a thoughtful and entertaining narrative with scientific data to visualize this threat. Education of women and their empowerment has been a proven solution when coupled with accessible health care and birth control. Additionally, with aggressive social media use and public awareness of this planetary threat, political, religious, and cultural leaders will, by public pressure, be forced to acknowledge the extreme danger and take meaningful action. The data is irrefutable we are exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth, and all life on it is in peril.

The Problem

From 8000 BC to the 1802 the world population slowly grew to the first billion people. The second billion people was reached in the 1930's and since then, we have exploded exponentially. Since 1970 (3.4 billion) the world has roughly doubled in size, in less than 45 years, to 7.5 billion. With this type of continued exponential population growth, the Earth cannot sustain and survive for generations to come. We are already seeing clear signs of the stress toll on our planet from depleted resources, climate change, droughts, starvation, deforestation, mass species extinction, and the continuation of wars. If our beautiful planet is going to survive, the world's population growth rate has to be managed and controlled as technology will not be able to solve the problem and war is an inhumane suggestion that should never be considered. World population control is obviously a very sensitive and taboo subject that, by it's very nature, creates huge challenges to work and implement on a global scale. The goal here is to wake up the world by educating all countries in their respective language about how world population growth rates have grown exponentially and that sustainability requires education and action by everyone if our children and generations to come are going to be able to continue to survive on this planet with its finite resources. Solving this crisis is the mission of Global Education Organization.

Proposed Solution

We have brought together a think tank of diverse people from all walks of life to confront this extreme and growing crisis. Our plan is to produce a movie dramatizing the problem to gain audience awareness, promote a sense of urgency, and describe actions to be taken. The movie will clearly depict health and economic benefits of having and raising fewer children and the audience will feel compelled to take action. This unreported global crisis is the issue and must be persistently brought to the forefront of discussion. As social history has proven, political, religious and cultural leaders will be incentivized to take action through public pressure reinforced by public and social media pressures. In concert with a movie is awareness and implementation of worldwide efforts to bring education and health care to mostly young women and men in 3rd world countries where the threat is greatest. Healthcare education must encompass complete access to birth control measures. It is through the act of educating mostly women and empowering them that our global threat of overpopulation can be confronted first and foremost but without implementation of birth control measures, awareness of threat, both locally and globally, we will fail. Worldwide, it has been shown that educated women do not have large families; this fact is crucial in 3rd world communities. Lastly, there will be massive social media exposure in all avenues of communication in bringing worldwide awareness to this growing threat.

Evidence of Effectiveness

GEO proposals have gone through the rigors of trial and error all over the world. The most important solutions to overpopulation is to focus on education mainly with women, birth control measures, and open social media coverage explaining the threat of overpopulation. Research from India and Brazil has shown that educated women are more likely to have only one child. Women's empowerment, and specifically women's education and provision of reproductive health care must be at the forefront (National Geographic 2011).Healthcare and awareness of the cause and effect of overpopulation locally as well as nationally will, and must, be the cornerstone of all activities. In the United States, the Supreme Court legalized women's control of reproductive rights for all citizens and since then the population growth rate in the US has decreased significantly (US Census Bureau June 2011). China realized in the early 1960s that they were facing a population explosion and did something about it only after an estimated 20 to 30,000,000 Chinese lost their lives in the late 1950s due to famine. China started the one child policy in 1979 and although the policy was marred by problems and concerns they did see a substantial decrease in their population growth, but the policy was rescinded in 2013. When we bring knowledge, our expertise, healthcare and access to education we will slow the rate of population growth, but these solutions and implementation must begin now, our planet is running out of resources and, most importantly, time.

Previous Performance

Our organization at this time does not have a previous track record on this specific issue but through our research, we've discovered other organizations don't seem to have a credible record and lack measured results. That is not to say that there are not many fine individuals and organizations that are promoting women's education, but there are substantial opportunities to improve and current efforts are proving insufficient. In many cases, there's no sense of urgency or basic understanding in the world that this is a crisis. There hasn't been an alarm set off to instill a sense of urgency that we have to act now; it is no longer and never has been appropriate to continue to keep our heads buried in the sand.Our group of dedicated, educated, and compassionate individuals have the capacity to see this through. We also have the realization that we may not have all the answers, but we have the fortitude and the persistence to look for the answers to questions and problems that need resolutions. Each member of the steering committee has demonstrated these qualities on different scales for a variety of other causes, whether environmentalism, conservation, disease inocculations in third world countries, or simple community outreach, everyone has demonstrated they have what it takes to solve problems. Our team has come together to address the biggest problem facing the world and with the tools we need at our disposal, we will certainly be able to accomplish our goals.

The Team

Team Purpose

We're doing this because we want the world to save our world. Although we're over populated now, at 7 billion people, picture 11 billion in 40 years, then in 80 years, 15 billion. Visualize your children and grandchildren living on our depleted planet struggling for resources. It's time to do something now. It's time to wake up. There have been other organizations who have attempted to tackle this problem alone and through methods that have only proven to be ineffective. Our team is constructed of people with diverse talents and the desire to make a difference in what is likely the most significant issue that we have ever faced. We've spent our time trying to fix other issues through environmentalism, conservationism and others, but we've found ourselves, like other organizations have, treating the symptom and not the illness. That has to change, and that change starts with us.

Team Structure

The steering committee for GEO has generated the mission statement, To interdict the threat of global overpopulation by producing and distributing a movie dramatizing the threat; promoting the education and empowerment of women; providing safe access to birth control measure and a media campaign to expose this global threat. The responsibility of the steering committee is to organize a board of directors, adopt the mission and vision statements, develop functional roles of the various committees and adopt foundational documents. Additional duties of the steering committee include day to day monitoring including designing the organizational structure, organizing volunteers and planning for fundraising and financial accountability. As the steering committee establishes a Board of Directors and hires an Executive Director, they will become the Executive Committee and represent the organization in our multifaceted solution approach.