When a group of imaginative students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) first designed an experiment to make light emanate from plastic water bottles, they never imagined that their minimalistic idea would literally and metaphorically light up the lives of over 15,000 people. The idea seems deceivingly simple: take an empty one liter plastic bottle, […]
The average teenager worries about hanging out with friends, getting good grades, and fitting in with a group of people—not marrying a stranger and creating a home. However, child marriage is a reality in the world’s 51 least-developed countries. Half of all girls living in these countries are married before the age of 18, according […]
Instead of using the traditional nitrogen-rich fertilizer typically used to encourage crop growth, researchers in Nepal are experimenting with an unlikely candidate for fertilizer: human urine. Urea, which is typically used as fertilizer, was found by researchers in Nepal’s capital to be inferior to human urine in fertilizing crops. As part of their research, compost […]
Coming to a theater near you… or perhaps just your computer screen. Talented Borgen Project volunteers were at the office pitching the cause on Monday.
An acoustic version of the Coldplay song “In My Place” has been donated to Oxfam to create a new unique campaign video that will be used to bring awareness to the problem of land grabs all over the world. Land grabs occur when people have pushed off a tract of land without consultation or compensation […]
There are many ways to go about reducing and eventually ending world poverty. The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) has implemented several strategies that have proven to be effective at boosting economic independence in African villages. This is the “one village at a time” method. The pith of this method is agriculture reform. The MVP works […]
The Garifuna people of Honduras have an HIV infection rate of 4.5 percent – higher than any nation in the Western hemisphere, and five times higher than Honduras as a whole. Those affected by the virus are finding new and creative ways to fight HIV/AIDS in Honduras. According to an NPR report funded by the […]
When it comes to Global Poverty, there are more than a few questions that are consistently asked. How many people are living in poverty? What kind of progress has been made? How much does it cost to eliminate world Hunger? Is global hunger a solvable problem? While these questions seem difficult, their answers are relatively […]
Hans Rosling, a professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which he points out is no longer worlds away from the West. In fact, most of the Third World is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice […]
As Bill Gates discussed in his 2013 letter, data collection and maintenance is an important aspect in running nonprofit organizations in developing countries. This is especially important when it comes to using that data to help make better decisions and analyze trends and successes. Gates encourages a focus on training staff members, clinicians, and volunteers on how […]
