Technological advancements have improved the lives of millions of people worldwide, but production, transportation, marketing and storage costs can mean that the world’s poorest communities, and those who need technology the most, do not have access to innovations that could improve their lives. Many communities in need have had to get creative and use do-it-yourself (DIY) innovations to better access everyday necessities, such as water and electricity, at little to no cost.
As a result, inventors and organizations have created low-cost, energy-efficient and locally-sourced technologies that can be made and used by communities in the poorest regions of the world. While generally low-tech, these homemade innovations provide incalculable benefits and opportunities for poor populations. Below are some simple DIY innovations that are improving the lives of poor communities.
Biosand Filters
A biosand filter is an adaptation of a traditional sand filter that cleans and purifies dirty water of dirt, bacteria and pathogens. Biosand filter systems can be purchased, but because of their simple design, they can also be made locally using common materials and simple instructions available online. In its most basic set-up, the biosand filter requires only a container, clean gravel and sand. The sand layer in the filter traps and kills bacteria as the micro-organisms get stuck and feed on each other. More organisms die because of lack of food and light further down in the sand layer and into the gravel.
Childbirth Kits
Childbirth can be a dangerous and life-threatening process in the developing world. In remote areas, getting to a hospital may take hours and care may cost more than the mother can afford. For example, 60 percent of African women give birth without someone who can safely deliver the baby.
A birthing kit may help ease birth and ensure the survival of both mother and baby. While many organizations create high-end, comprehensive birthing kits, organizations such as Midwives for Haiti and the Birthing Kit Foundation Australia create simple, effective birthing kits for as little as two U.S. dollars. Expecting mothers may even create their own kits. These kits include soap, a clean blade to cut the umbilical cord, a clean cord to tie the umbilical cord and a clean sheet for the mother and baby to lie on after delivery. Along with clean childbirth practices, the World Health Organizations estimates that these kits could help avert 6 to 9 percent of the 1.16 million newborn deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.
Electrocardiography (ECG) Pads and Conductive Gel
By 2020, cardiovascular diseases are predicted to be the leading cause of death in most developing nations. Thus, machines that provide early detection and monitoring are extremely important. Since Electrocardiograph (ECG) machines are a basic technology found in most hospitals and clinics and because ECG tests are rapid, non-invasive and require minimal technical expertise to operate, they are an effective and cost-efficient technology, especially in impoverished areas.
ECG machine pads and conductive gel are disposable and highly useful in hospitals and clinics, but considering their high demand, replacing these supplies can be expensive, and more remote clinics may not receive regular shipments of supplies. Engineers of Engineering World Health have developed the idea for cheap, easily made ECG pads using brass snaps and the plastic lining of bottle caps. Their homemade conductive gel is just as simple to make from water, salt, flour and bleach. All the materials to make the pads and gel easily available and cheap, thus more easily accessible to poor communities in need of DIY innovations.
Rain Barrels
Nearly 844 million people worldwide lack access to clean water. Rain can be a precious alternative water source for poor regions. Although a simple concept, a good rain barrel or rain-fed pots and cisterns are simple and easy ways to collect drinking water. Rain barrels can be made using any sort of opaque bucket or large pot to prevent algae growth. Cutting a hole near the bottom of the container creates a spout for easy access to the water, and a simple screen placed over the top of the rain barrel keeps a majority of insects, particularly mosquitoes, out of the water. According to World Wildlife Fund, the average roof can collect around 600 gallons of water for every inch of rain. Capturing even a fraction of that water can help many poor households get enough water to survive.
Solar Water Bottle Light Bulbs
An estimated 14 percent of the world lives without electricity, with most of those without electricity living in rural, developing and poor regions. This lack of access to electricity means that many households do not have even simple technologies, like light bulbs. Luckily, the My Shelter Foundation found an inventive and simple way to bring accessible light to dark slums in Manila. Closely packed houses in slums get little light,.but a plastic water bottle filled with water and a drop of bleach solves this problem. By attaching the water bottles to holes in the roofs of these houses, light refracts from outdoors into the house, just like an electricity-dependent light bulb. The light bulb can last for five years before the water needs to be switched out.
These simple DIY innovations utilize materials readily available to poor residents, creating an accessible and usable innovation. Unfortunately, these light bulbs are only functional when the sun is out. So, the Liter of Light project, launched in 2012 by the My Shelter Foundation solved that problem as well. Adding a test tube with a small LED light into the water bottle and powering it with a small, inexpensive solar panel makes these water bottle light bulbs fully functional during cloudy days and at night. The organization’s simple light bulb can light a room up to 50 square meters for a minimum of 12 hours, powered by a 10 watt solar panel, and they have even been used outdoors as street lamps, creating safer communities.
Since 2012, these simple lightbulbs have lit 850,000 households across over a dozen countries such as the Philippines, Egypt, and Columbia.
Water Distillers
Water distillers are another DIY innovation that can be made easily with common household materials to make water safe to drink and free of.salt, heavy metals, bacteria, and other contaminants. Homemade and solar-powered distillers work by mimicking the natural water cycle; as the sun provides heat energy, pure water evaporates, leaving behind impurities. When the water condenses again, it can be collected and safely drunk.
Gaza resident Fayez al-Hindi created and built his own homemade, solar-powered water distiller. His concrete tank holds the water and the elevated glass collects the clean, evaporated water. An even simpler version of al-Hindi’s distiller can be made from two plastic water bottles attached together. Leaving the bottles in the sun at an angle allows the rising evaporated water to condense in the clean empty bottle, away from the dirty water. While these solar-powered distillers provide clean, safe-to-drink water, the evaporation and condensation process takes a long time. Al-Hindi’s distiller can make 2.6 gallons of water a day, but, because of their simple design, homemade water distillers may be an important innovation that is most accessible to the poorest communities.
These DIY innovations not only physically improve the lives of people in poverty, but they encourage independence, creativity, and self-empowerment in poor regions of the world. High-tech inventions like water distillers and light bulbs can be made from cheap and local materials, and show that life improvement need not always rely on aid from foreign countries, but on creative innovations.
– Maya Watanabe
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Education in Venezuela: Childhood Learning
The Council of Foreign Relations refers to Venezuela as a failed petrostate, or as a nation struggling economically—and, as a result, socially—due to extensive reliance on a once successful, now-fractured petroleum trade. In 2015, global prices plummeted to less than $49 per barrel of oil. Just a year earlier, the average was $93 dollars per barrel. Since then, the Venezuelan economy has experienced inflation at record high rates—the highest at 2,688,670 percent in January 2019. This led to food and vital medicine shortages across the country. Almost 90 percent of the country’s population now lives in poverty, and education in Venezuela has experienced a major decline.
The economic situation this country has experienced since 1990 is almost entirely responsible for the lack of funding and resources that the country allocates to social welfare programs—particularly those supporting electricity, running water and food security in education. Despite worldwide support for leadership change in Venezuela while it is desperately in need of humanitarian assistance and guidance, people are doing very little to address the needs of individual citizens and the currently under-covered establishment of education in Venezuela.
Why Venezuelans Cannot Stay in School
Under the current system, basic education in Venezuela is compulsory and free–in recent years, however, the Venezuelan government has failed to follow through in ensuring these elementary level schools are in stable condition to foster a learning environment. As the disadvantages of remaining in Venezuela continue to increase, a growing number of Venezuelans have begun immigrating to countries like Colombia and Brazil in search of a better life. The conditions for learning in Venezuela are so dire. UNICEF reported on May 31, 2019, that up to 3,000 Venezuelan children in one region of the country cross daily into neighboring Colombia to get to and return from their school in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. Seven thousand more students with their families have already left Venezuela behind and migrated to Colombia to live and learn there full time.
The quality of consistent and scheduled education in Venezuela has declined drastically in recent years. Country-wide power outages that lead to the cancellation of classes for days and weeks on end discourage many people in Venezuela from trusting the educational system of their country. While the Ministry of Education in Venezuela has yet to report on the frequency of power outages in Venezuelan schools, a Reuters article found that two major blackouts in March 2019 led to the government canceling classes for a week at the beginning and end of that month. Though classes would normally end at the start of July, Venezuelan Education Minister Aristibulo Isturiz said the school would be open until the end of July to account for missed educational days.
UNESCO has found Venezuelan youth are not remaining in school as they did in years past. In 2009, the gross enrollment ratio for primary students in Venezuela was 101 percent. In 2017, that ratio became 93.37 percent. This is alarming due to the fact that nine years of education (ages 7-14) are legally compulsory by decree of 1880 Venezuelan President Antonio Guzman and solidified through the creation of the Ministry of Public Instruction and the Bolivarian social program Mission Robinson. Though there should be no obstacles keeping children of this age in school, on average 7 percent do not attend. Secondary education adolescent gross enrollment dropped from 92 percent in 2013 to 83 percent in 2017. Between 2013 and 2017, the number of out-of-school children grew by 200,000 and the number of adolescents no longer in Venezuelan schools increased by 150,000.
No Food, No School
This overall decrease in quality also has to do with the fact that children who made sure to attend for the sake of receiving at least one meal per day are no longer receiving a meal at school. At the Santo Anglo School an hour outside Caracas, the nation’s capital, schools have adjusted their protocol so that they are not responsible for feeding students anymore. They ask parents to feed children breakfast before they go to school and end school around 11:45 a.m., which is just before lunch so they do not have an obligation to provide it.
These issues persist in all parts of this country. Francy Rodriguez, a teacher in Venezuela’s capital, told an Al-Jazeera reporter that, “The children have no food at home and they come here to at least get one meal. But we haven’t had food for a year because the kitchen is broken. The children faint during physical education class because their stomachs are empty.” A Venezuelan regional president to a chapter of the National Federation of Educational workers stated that “Hungry people aren’t able to teach or learn. We’re going to end up with a nation of illiterates.”
Efforts to Fix the Crisis
In a joint effort led by the International Organization for Migration and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 95 worldwide organizations that strive to end migrant crises will be working to solve the Venezuelan migrant crisis by following the Refugee and Migrant Response Plan of 2019. This plan provided “a total of USD 738 million … for the period January – December 2019, including USD 315.5 million for Colombia, USD 117.3 million for Ecuador, USD 106.4 million for Peru, USD 56.6 million for Brazil, USD 35.7 million for the Southern Cone, USD 34.8 million for the Caribbean, USD 21.7 million for Central America/Mexico and USD 49.7 million for regional (Venezuela).”
In addition, UNICEF advocates are appealing to allocate around $70 million to the Venezuelan cause, with a focus on assisting local and national governments within that region to improve the quality of “drinking water and sanitation, protection, education and health services for uprooted children and those in vulnerable communities.” Also, the World Food Programme plans to expand its initiative supplying food in schools that are not meeting healthy standards to Venezuela. In doing so, it provides food security so that children do not feel obligated to enter the labor force at an age they should be learning and growing their intellectual capabilities.
– Fatemeh-Zahra Yarali
Photo: Flickr
Telemedicine: Improving Health Care in Rural Nepal
In the shadow of the Himalayas, the infrastructure of health care in rural Nepal is often at the mercy of inadequate roads that extreme weather can make inaccessible. Despite these struggles, Nepal has lowered its maternal mortality rate from 539 women in every 100,000 live births in 1996 to 239 in 2016 thanks in part to telemedicine.
It was not until 1950 that Nepal began investing in road systems. While still poor, its road infrastructure is most central to development since the country has a declining railway network and air travel is expensive. Corruption and inadequate quality control measures have stymied infrastructure growth.
Natural Disasters and Nepal’s Health Care Facilities
While infrastructure development has improved, the two 2015 earthquakes, both with magnitudes over seven, destroyed 90 percent of health facilities in the immediate area because people did not build the facilities with disaster preparedness in mind. This disaster killed over 9,000 people and displaced 2,000,000.
Such dramatic geography and inadequate infrastructure development have made health care unaffordable and inaccessible for the majority of people. For example, 90 percent of women in the wealthiest quintile delivered their babies in health facilities compared with only 34 percent in the lowest quintile.
Effective Broadband for Health Program
The Internet Society Nepal Chapter and Center for Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) have implemented the Effective Broadband for Health program. This is a pilot program in rural Dullu, a hard to reach community in mid-western Nepal and has become possible with support from the Beyond the Net Funding Programme. The expansion of broadband is improving health care in rural Nepal.
To get to Dullu, visitors must fly from Kathmandu to Surkhet and then take a dirt four-wheel-drive road 80 kilometers. Dullu’s hospital often does not have enough people and supplies. Lack of funding coupled with harsh winters and poor road infrastructure have made medical supply and staff deliveries very challenging. These problems endanger the lives of Dullu’s 45,000 residents. Many residents are a two to three-day walk from the nearest hospital on trails which people cannot access in the rainy season.
Before video conferencing or the implementation of other internet-based modalities, those behind Effective Broadband for Health first had to amplify the signal from Surkhet to reach Dullu. Pavan Singh Shakya, Executive Director of ICT4D and project manager asserts that “A community healthcare system underpinned by a robust, high-speed Internet access for these communities is the only lifeline.”
After ensuring proper internet connectivity, Effective Broadband for Health stocked Dullu’s community health center with two multiservice portable health kits. These kits store medical records and allow personnel to remotely track diagnoses. The kit has basic diagnostic tools that capture and transfer data via Bluetooth to Dhulikhel Hospital about 700 kilometers away. With this technology, care providers on the ground in Dullu can have real-time consults with medical specialists thus improving health care in rural Nepal.
Telehealth for Women and Girls
One study suggests that telehealth has particular benefits for the wellness of women and girls since it reduces the amount of time it takes to consult with a doctor. Ossified gender norms have confined Nepali women to certain activities and largely restricted their movements to their local community. For example, women must fetch all fuel and water for their family’s needs and enterprises. This labor takes a great deal of time and energy; as such, if medical care is the three-day walk away, they are unlikely to seek it out even if it is necessary.
Societal expectations in Nepal dictate that women must be married in order to seek reproductive or sexual advice from a physician. Since women can be anonymous over mobile phones, more have begun to discuss their sexual and reproductive health with medical providers. These discussions are reducing maternal mortality and improving health care in rural Nepal.
The Chaupadi Practice
Even though access has improved, women in rural Nepal are still dying from practices such as chaupadi. Chaupadi derives from two Hindu words chau meaning menstruation and padi meaning women; it operates under the assumption that menstruating women are impure. During menstruation, women in some areas must sleep separately in a tiny hut called a goth with little food and few blankets for warmth. They cannot interact with others or use a water source.
Even though the Nepali Supreme Court banned chaupadi in 2005, enforcement does not reach rural areas where gender norms are often stronger. A 2011 U.N. survey in the Accham District of Nepal suggested that 95 percent of women still participated in chaupadi. Women participating in chaupadi experience particular health concerns from exposure and malnutrition to increased vulnerability to wild animals such as poisonous snakes. The U.N. does not have statistics on the number of women whose deaths are due to the practice of chaupadi, but the anonymity that telemedicine offers has increased the number of women asking for medical help.
Telemedicine is remaking the face of health care in rural Nepal. One study of women and telemedicine in Nepal found that women reported “increased comfort in seeking consultation through telemedicine for sexual and reproductive health matters” with access to mobile phones and video conferencing. As technology steers health care, the intersection of development, health and gender dynamics must remain of paramount importance and study not only in Nepal but all over the world. Telemedicine is improving health care in rural Nepal.
– Sarah Boyer
Photo: Flickr
DIY Innovations in the Developing World
As a result, inventors and organizations have created low-cost, energy-efficient and locally-sourced technologies that can be made and used by communities in the poorest regions of the world. While generally low-tech, these homemade innovations provide incalculable benefits and opportunities for poor populations. Below are some simple DIY innovations that are improving the lives of poor communities.
Biosand Filters
A biosand filter is an adaptation of a traditional sand filter that cleans and purifies dirty water of dirt, bacteria and pathogens. Biosand filter systems can be purchased, but because of their simple design, they can also be made locally using common materials and simple instructions available online. In its most basic set-up, the biosand filter requires only a container, clean gravel and sand. The sand layer in the filter traps and kills bacteria as the micro-organisms get stuck and feed on each other. More organisms die because of lack of food and light further down in the sand layer and into the gravel.
Childbirth Kits
Childbirth can be a dangerous and life-threatening process in the developing world. In remote areas, getting to a hospital may take hours and care may cost more than the mother can afford. For example, 60 percent of African women give birth without someone who can safely deliver the baby.
A birthing kit may help ease birth and ensure the survival of both mother and baby. While many organizations create high-end, comprehensive birthing kits, organizations such as Midwives for Haiti and the Birthing Kit Foundation Australia create simple, effective birthing kits for as little as two U.S. dollars. Expecting mothers may even create their own kits. These kits include soap, a clean blade to cut the umbilical cord, a clean cord to tie the umbilical cord and a clean sheet for the mother and baby to lie on after delivery. Along with clean childbirth practices, the World Health Organizations estimates that these kits could help avert 6 to 9 percent of the 1.16 million newborn deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.
Electrocardiography (ECG) Pads and Conductive Gel
By 2020, cardiovascular diseases are predicted to be the leading cause of death in most developing nations. Thus, machines that provide early detection and monitoring are extremely important. Since Electrocardiograph (ECG) machines are a basic technology found in most hospitals and clinics and because ECG tests are rapid, non-invasive and require minimal technical expertise to operate, they are an effective and cost-efficient technology, especially in impoverished areas.
ECG machine pads and conductive gel are disposable and highly useful in hospitals and clinics, but considering their high demand, replacing these supplies can be expensive, and more remote clinics may not receive regular shipments of supplies. Engineers of Engineering World Health have developed the idea for cheap, easily made ECG pads using brass snaps and the plastic lining of bottle caps. Their homemade conductive gel is just as simple to make from water, salt, flour and bleach. All the materials to make the pads and gel easily available and cheap, thus more easily accessible to poor communities in need of DIY innovations.
Rain Barrels
Nearly 844 million people worldwide lack access to clean water. Rain can be a precious alternative water source for poor regions. Although a simple concept, a good rain barrel or rain-fed pots and cisterns are simple and easy ways to collect drinking water. Rain barrels can be made using any sort of opaque bucket or large pot to prevent algae growth. Cutting a hole near the bottom of the container creates a spout for easy access to the water, and a simple screen placed over the top of the rain barrel keeps a majority of insects, particularly mosquitoes, out of the water. According to World Wildlife Fund, the average roof can collect around 600 gallons of water for every inch of rain. Capturing even a fraction of that water can help many poor households get enough water to survive.
Solar Water Bottle Light Bulbs
An estimated 14 percent of the world lives without electricity, with most of those without electricity living in rural, developing and poor regions. This lack of access to electricity means that many households do not have even simple technologies, like light bulbs. Luckily, the My Shelter Foundation found an inventive and simple way to bring accessible light to dark slums in Manila. Closely packed houses in slums get little light,.but a plastic water bottle filled with water and a drop of bleach solves this problem. By attaching the water bottles to holes in the roofs of these houses, light refracts from outdoors into the house, just like an electricity-dependent light bulb. The light bulb can last for five years before the water needs to be switched out.
These simple DIY innovations utilize materials readily available to poor residents, creating an accessible and usable innovation. Unfortunately, these light bulbs are only functional when the sun is out. So, the Liter of Light project, launched in 2012 by the My Shelter Foundation solved that problem as well. Adding a test tube with a small LED light into the water bottle and powering it with a small, inexpensive solar panel makes these water bottle light bulbs fully functional during cloudy days and at night. The organization’s simple light bulb can light a room up to 50 square meters for a minimum of 12 hours, powered by a 10 watt solar panel, and they have even been used outdoors as street lamps, creating safer communities.
Since 2012, these simple lightbulbs have lit 850,000 households across over a dozen countries such as the Philippines, Egypt, and Columbia.
Water Distillers
Water distillers are another DIY innovation that can be made easily with common household materials to make water safe to drink and free of.salt, heavy metals, bacteria, and other contaminants. Homemade and solar-powered distillers work by mimicking the natural water cycle; as the sun provides heat energy, pure water evaporates, leaving behind impurities. When the water condenses again, it can be collected and safely drunk.
Gaza resident Fayez al-Hindi created and built his own homemade, solar-powered water distiller. His concrete tank holds the water and the elevated glass collects the clean, evaporated water. An even simpler version of al-Hindi’s distiller can be made from two plastic water bottles attached together. Leaving the bottles in the sun at an angle allows the rising evaporated water to condense in the clean empty bottle, away from the dirty water. While these solar-powered distillers provide clean, safe-to-drink water, the evaporation and condensation process takes a long time. Al-Hindi’s distiller can make 2.6 gallons of water a day, but, because of their simple design, homemade water distillers may be an important innovation that is most accessible to the poorest communities.
These DIY innovations not only physically improve the lives of people in poverty, but they encourage independence, creativity, and self-empowerment in poor regions of the world. High-tech inventions like water distillers and light bulbs can be made from cheap and local materials, and show that life improvement need not always rely on aid from foreign countries, but on creative innovations.
– Maya Watanabe
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Going to School Nonprofit Empowers Indian Girls
According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), 62.1 million children in India do not attend school. Of children between the ages of 6 and 14, only half attend school. Within that age group, 53 percent of girls are illiterate. In India, the persistent drop in attendance of girls in school perplexes many, but also encourages a few. Going to School is a creative nonprofit trust that empowers Indian girls and children through the creation of digital games and books to educate them and help them establish new skills. These abilities will help the children navigate the world around them.
Going to School emerged in 2003 when Lisa Heydlauff traveled India with Nitin Upadhye. During their travels, Lisa recorded their experience with children who went to school in a tent in the middle of the desert. Lisa turned her experience into a children’s book, which later became the inspiration behind the Going to School nonprofit.
Graphic novels, apps, movies, television shows and digital games are just a few things Going to School creates with its “design-driven stories.” Working with government school systems, Going to School provides teachers with the skills necessary to spread their stories. Aside from being teachers, the Going to School nonprofit is a diverse team of writers, designers, artists, educationists and economists. Going to School also has printed over one million children’s books and games, ensuring that over 300,000 children have access to entrepreneurial skills.
Unique Stories and Projects
This creative nonprofit empowers Indian girls through a variety of projects such as Luna’s Stories, Girl Star and The Children’s Scrappy News Service. Luna’s Stories is a series of 10 stories that follow Luna, a young, curious and creative girl who attends school in India. Using small animated movies to introduce the adventurous explorer, Luna inspires over 100,000 girls who live in Bihar and Jharkhand, India. In addition to Luna’s Stories, girls receive a skill challenge project and a game that demonstrates Luna’s skills and traits.
Girl Star, composed of 15 children’s stories, movies and radio shows, focuses on extraordinary girls. These stories encourage girls to attend school by teaching them about unconventional careers, such as beekeeping. Seen by over 100 million people, Girl Stars continues to empower girls today. Kids run the Children’s Scrappy News Service for kids. The platform provides children with a voice as they take on and solve problems in the world. The children learn a variety of skills, such as writing, communicating, editing and filming. Government schools show the Children’s Scrappy News Service fueled by scrapbooks made of recycled material.
Helping Children Develop Lifelong Skills
Going to School empowers Indian girls and children by not only providing them with the skillset needed to succeed in school but also the knowledge and drive to put those skills to the test later in life. In April 2018, Going to School launched its Girl’s Guide to 21st Century India project, upon the American Jewish World Service’s request. Tasked with creating a “feminist-economics toolkit,” the questions revolve around 10,000 girls’ submissions. The toolkit provides girls and young women with answers ranging from everything they need to stay in school, including voting and mental health.
There is also hope for the young entrepreneurs who live in poverty through the Be!Fund. The Be!Fund is India’s first nonprofit risk capital fund for 18-29 year-olds who live in poverty. The Be!Fund asks these young people to submit business ideas that could solve an issue where they live. Through the Be!Fund’s partnership with Going to School, more children have better access to education, a brighter future and a chance to change the world.
In 2016, Going to School won the HCL Grant, which will go towards introducing 300 Be! Schools to government schools. The HCL Grant, created by the HCL Foundation, supports and strengthens NGOs. From classes eight and nine, 30,000 students will learn valuable life skills through Going to School’s interactive storytelling lessons. The grant will also train 600 government school teachers to teach interactive storytelling classes.
The creative nonprofit plans to release new material and stories during the summer of 2020. It is evident, however, that its unique take on learning will continue to empower Indian school girls for many years after graduating.
– Emily Beaver
Photo: Flickr
What You Need to Know about Mental Health in India
Although India is working to improve the mental health of its citizens, initiatives have been slow going. Some roadblocks to improving mental health are the social stigma, its low priority in the healthcare budget and a shortage of mental health professionals.
Stigma
One major barrier to improving mental health in India is the social stigma around mental illness. According to a survey by the Live Laugh Love Foundation, of the 3,556 respondents, 47 percent could be considered judgmental of people with mental illnesses while 26 percent were categorized as being afraid of the mentally ill. This study looked at people between the ages of 18 and 45 from different socio-economic backgrounds. Surprisingly, most of the respondents in those categories were well educated and from higher social classes. When asked to describe the mentally ill, many used derogatory terms or harmful stereotypes.
However, 26 percent of the respondents were categorized as supportive of people with mental illnesses. These respondents tended to be younger—between the ages of 18 and 24—and from a relatively lower educational and socio-economic background.
Advocates and activists are also working to destigmatize mental health in India. Recently, India passed the Mental Health Care Act of 2017, which protects the rights of people with mental illnesses so that they are treated without discrimination.
Low Priority
According to a 2015-16 survey by the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience, 150 million Indians are in need of mental health care, but only 30 million have access to the care they need. Although India began implementing its National Mental Health Program in 1982 with the goal of integrating mental health care with general care, the rollout has been slow. As of 2015, only 27 percent of the 630 districts intended to have a mental health program had created one. The District Mental Health programs have also struggled with inaccessible funding and administrative issues like an inability to fulfill the required number of professionals for each district.
While this program has struggled, the government has been working on other means of improving mental health in India. In 2014, it began implementing its first National Mental Health Policy, which aims to increase funding for training mental health professionals and universal access to mental healthcare.
A Need for Mental Health Professionals
Perhaps one of the biggest roadblocks to improving mental health, though, is the extreme shortage of mental health professionals. In 2014, the WHO found that there is on average only one mental health professional for every 100,000 citizens. These doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists tend to be overworked leading to misdiagnoses in too many cases.
One way the government of Karnataka in southwest India has been trying to fill in the gap is with community health workers called accredited social health activists or ASHA workers. Though they usually are women who council other women in their communities on pregnancy, breastfeeding and parenting, in 2016, they began training these workers to identify and deal with mental health issues. While ASHA workers can help fill some of the gaps, there remains a need for more specialized care. India’s National Mental Healthcare Policy and District Mental Healthcare Policy is a good start, but for it to be successful, the Indian Government has to be proactive in training mental health professionals.
While people with mental illnesses are still struggling, the topic of mental health in India is gaining traction. Activists are working to destigmatize and protect people with mental illness while the government is working to increase accessibility to mental health professionals.
– Katharine Hanifen
Photo: Flickr
Women in Tech: How Tech4Girls is Closing Gender Gap
In the corporate world, only 3 of the Fortune 500 tech companies are run by women. These companies are IBM, Xerox and Oracle. Barriers to the tech field for women include poverty, gender stereotypes and discrimination. It is important that these barriers be eradicated so that women can be included in the increasing digital economy. “Digital skills are indispensable for girls and young women to obtain safe employment in the formal labor market,” said the founder of Women’s Worldwide Web, a charity that provides digital literacy training for women in tech.
A Possible Solution: Tech4girls
In March 2018, GSMA, a company that represents the interests of mobile operators, started a program called Tech4Girls. Part of its programming is educational workshops for girls between the ages of 7-18. So far, it has reached more than 100 girls in North America, Latin America and the Carribean.
These workshops are designed for girls to have hands-on experience with technology, to come away with a sense of knowledge and accomplishment and to developing interpersonal skills. The goal of these workshops is to increase the confidence of girls in their technological abilities so that they may aspire to pursue technological careers.
Another objective of these workshops is to increase interest and involvement from other tech companies to involve girls in technology. They do this by building local and global awareness through “events, SDG tie-in, and external communications.” This is part of the effort to develop relationships with tech companies, groups and schools to create a sort of pipeline for girls in technology.
Implications for the Future
A 2017 study by the Brookings Institute found that since 2002, 517 of 545 occupations have increased their use of digital tools. With the future of the economy going digital, it is important that women have the opportunity to participate in order to prevent the impoverishment of women. According to U.N. Women, an estimated 90 percent of future jobs will require ICT skills. There is currently a shortage of 200 million ICT-skilled people in the job market. There is plenty of room for women in the economy; it’s just a matter of lowering their barriers to entry. An Intel study found that access to the internet for women could “contribute between $13-18 billion to annual GDP across 144 developing countries.” The implications for encouraging women to become more involved in technology go beyond helping women, but also improve the economy.
While there is a shortage of women in tech, companies like GSMA and their Tech4Girls programs are beginning to close the gap. Encouragement and resources for women and girls to gain digital literacy skills are vital in our ever-digitizing world. There is certainly more to be done, but these workshops that build confidence and improve skills are a great way to start.
– Sarah Faure
Photo: Flickr
The Key to Improving Gender Equality and Nutrition
Impact of Sociocultural Norms
Sociocultural norms have placed many women in secondary decision-making roles in their families. Women are less likely to receive any education on general health and nutrition, less empowered in financial decision-making within their families and less able to control what food they put on the table. Oftentimes, the main breadwinner in a family is male, while women are reduced to more supporting and complacent roles.
Additionally, many programs are male-centric, neglecting the specific nutritional needs of women. As a result, women in developing countries have more iron deficiencies and have higher rates of being an unhealthy weight (obese or underweight). When women suffer from more chronic illnesses, it further reduces their ability to contribute meaningfully, and they further relinquish control on financial decisions. Gender equality and nutrition both improve when women are the focus of food security initiatives.
Integrating Gender Equality and Nutrition
Antonelle D’Aprile, the country director for the World Food Programme in Nicaragua, is a leader in combining gender equality and nutrition into a cohesive program that truly empowers women farmers. The WFP Women Economic Empowerment Strategy was first implemented in 2016 and has helped 300 female farmers reach higher financial independence and economic development.
The strategy ensures that women are the decision-makers by providing them with proper agricultural training and access to agricultural equipment that optimizes their crop yields. There are courses for women to improve their financial education and business planning skills so that they can begin growing above the sustenance level and sell excess crops for income. This program to improve gender equality and nutrition also focuses on a man’s role in sharing domestic chores with women and supporting the economic development of their wives. It has been so successful, officials in El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru are replicating the program in their own countries.
The Role of the Private Sector in Gender Equality and Nutrition
While nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are the backbone of nutrition-improvement programs, private sector companies are also necessary if female farmers are to reach their true potential. CARE has partnered with the PepsiCo Foundation to implement one of the largest gender equality and nutrition programs in the world called “She Feeds the World.”
With the help of the PepsiCo Foundation, CARE has initiated several projects throughout the world, such as one in Peru, which teaches women how to test soil quality to optimize crop yield. Other initiatives to improve gender equality and nutrition, focus on teaching women to more efficiently use natural resources like water, seeds and natural fertilizer. With this boosted production, these female farmers have enough extra income to send their children to school, feed their family nutritious meals, expand their business, employ others and make substantial savings.
Private sector companies are also very important in terms of collecting data and analyzing information to improve gender equality and nutrition. It is very difficult to measure an abstract concept like “decision-making power,” but private sector companies have the financing, personnel and expertise to collect adequate data so that resources are making the largest impact.
Empowered Female Farmers Feed Others
Empowering women is the key to improving nutrition for everyone. According to studies, the relationship between gender equality and nutrition is strong. Giving women equal access to basic resources and services could increase yields on female-owned farms by 20-30 percent. This would translate to an increased agricultural output of 2.5-4 percent in developing countries.
A 20-30 percent increase in agricultural output on female-owned farms would lift 150 million people out of poverty.
Women are the backbone of many developing countries. In Sierra Leone, an initiative has focused on empowering grandmothers to be the champions of improved nutrition practices in families. As very respected members of their families, they are teaching and cultivating healthy habits in infants and young children, an approach which has already seen success.
Female small farm holders are central to improving nutrition security in developing nations. World food initiatives are ensuring that women are not left behind – in fact, they are making sure that women lead the fight to improve gender equality and nutrition around the world.
– Julian Mok
Photo: Flickr
5 NGOs Aiming to End Poverty and Hunger
Hunger and poverty are problems millions of people face around the globe. According to The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 815 million people were chronically undernourished in 2016. However, in the past few decades, the world has made major progress in terms of alleviating hunger and poverty overall. Between 1990-92 and 2012-14, the global undernourished population reduced by 42 percent. There are several non-governmental and nonprofit organizations continuing on that trend to eradicate world hunger and poverty through several different methods. Below are five NGOs aiming to end poverty and hunger.
Akshaya Patra
Akshaya Patra is a nonprofit organization that began in Bengaluru, India. Since the year 2000, the organization has been providing poor children with fresh and nutritious meals at schools. The aim of the organization is to eliminate malnutrition in children, as well as support the right to education for children whose families cannot afford it. When the organization started out, it was a very small-scale project that focused on local schools in rural regions. Initially, the organization began with feeding 1,500 children locally. Today, Akshaya Patra partners with the Indian government and multiple state governments. Additionally, it feeds 1.7 million children across the country. This makes it the largest mid-day meal program in the world and one of the most successful nationwide NGOs aiming to end poverty.
Green Shoots Foundation
Green Shoots is an organization that emerged in 2010. The organization approaches poverty through microfinance, sustainable development and holistic programs. The main aim of the organization is to improve access to education and access to medical aid in developing Asian and African countries. There are multiple programs that the foundation has implemented based on the specific needs of each region. Some of these programs include Education Loans and Social Entrepreneurship (ELSE), Food Agriculture and Social Entrepreneurship (FASE) and Medical Assistance and Medical Education (MAME). Countries that the Green Shoots Foundation has worked in include Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan.
Action Against Hunger
Action Against Hunger is an organization that focuses on ending hunger around the globe. The organization focuses on families with young children. So far, Action Against Hunger has contributed to providing aid in over 45 countries to over 21 million people. Its main aim is to double the number of children it is aiding by 2020, due to the fact that millions of children around the globe still remain undernourished. The organization deals with problems that stem from or worsen hunger as well, including nutrition and health, water and sanitation, food security and livelihoods and emergency response.
BRAC
BRAC is a non-governmental organization from Bangladesh. The organization mainly aims to end poverty but also focuses on several other issues that people living in rural or poor communities face. Its main social development goals include eliminating extreme poverty, increasing financial opportunities and choices, developing skills for employment and investing in education. BRAC emerged in 1972, and has since positively impacted the lives of over 100 million people globally. The program focuses on developing and improving conditions in 11 major countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Liberia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Today, BRAC is the largest development organization in the world.
Water School
Water School is an organization with the aim to provide clean water and make it easily accessible to rural and poor communities in Uganda. It also educates such communities on sanitary practices involving water, health and education. Water school believes that health and education go hand in hand, and therefore focusses on improving conditions for both issues in poor communities.
Hunger and poverty are extremely large scale global issues that will take time, global effort and multiple solutions to solve. The examples of the non-governmental and nonprofit organizations above show that though progress is slow, it is steadily progressing.
These five NGOs aiming to end poverty have made significant progress on their own. Several similar organizations across the globe are working towards meeting multiple hunger and poverty goals as well.
– Nupur Vachharajani
Photo: Flickr
KOKO Networks’ Launch in Kenya
The KOKO Networks’ launch in Kenya will provide multi-purpose consumer access machines to areas in need. KOKO believes that this technology will allow consumers safe access to clean fuel. Additionally, it will offer them a connection to e-commerce and video content all within a short distance from their homes. KOKO Fuel has partnered with Vivo Energy Kenya, the local Shell-branded fuel owner and distributor, in order to decrease time and money in supplying fuel.
KOKO is a tech company that distributes its innovations throughout East Africa and India. Consumers can get “KOKOpoints” to be used at local stores for goods and services offered by KOKO. In Kenya, KOKO will provide services such as a fuel ATM, an e-commerce kiosk and an in-store digital media experience.
KOKO Fuel
This innovation offers safe and affordable bioethanol cooking fuel. Not only does the fuel benefit the environment but it also gives isolated communities a more reliable food-cooking source. The cooking fuel market in Africa is worth over $20 billion. However, it is still dominated by dirty and unsafe fuels like charcoal and kerosene. KOKO’s new technology could allow the bioethanol fuel industry to grow rapidly. Furthermore, it can compete with the more prominent dirty fuels.
The government in Kenya has already set a goal of 100% clean cooking fuel in Kenyan households because of both massive deforestation and indoor air pollution caused by other fuels. Deforestation in Kenya causes changes in rainfall and harmfully impacts the agriculture industry, one of the most important industries in the country. Additionally, indoor air pollution is responsible for more than 21,000 deaths a year with most victims under the age of five. With KOKO Networks’ launch in Kenya, these negative consequences can be significantly reduced.
Improving Living Conditions in Kenya
Greg Murray, KOKO CEO and co-founder, has previously commented that Kenyans are notable for embracing technological innovations and advancements that can greatly improve their living conditions. Those who decide to use the KOKO networks fuel will use KOKOpoints to fill their smart canisters at the KOKO machines.
After they fill the canisters, the fuel can be used at home with the KOKO cooker. The cooker is an affordable, high-power ethanol stove with two burners that produce less pollution. A partnership with an astounding 700 shops is assisting in KOKO Networks’ launch in Kenya in order to serve a wide range of people.
Impact in Kenya
If bioethanol fuel can replace charcoal, the forests and rain supply that support agricultural productivity can be restored and protected. Additionally, the production of the fuel takes place in Kenya through the sugar industry. As a result, local production would contribute to employment and economic growth.
Overall, KOKO Network’s launch in Kenya hopes to have a huge impact on both Kenya’s economy and environment. If the project is successful here, it is likely they will expand the infrastructure into other areas. This technology could also help Kenya in reaching the Paris 2030 carbon emissions reductions target by more than 10 percent with minimal government investment and risk.
– Jessica Haidet
Photo: Flickr
Reducing Nicaragua’s Poverty Rate
Although Nicaragua remains one of the poorest countries in Central America, the poverty rate has been cut in half in the last 10 years. Between 2005 and 2016, Nicaragua’s poverty rate fell from 48 percent to 25 percent. One reason for this dramatic reduction is industrialization. Over time, tourism and mining have become important to Nicaragua’s economic growth and stability.
According to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the key to reducing poverty is “to mobilize private and public investments […] around a long-term inclusive and sustainable industrialization plan for export-oriented and job-creating industrial capacity.” The following are three areas that both keep the U.N.’s policy recommendation in mind and hold promise in reducing Nicaragua’s poverty rate.
The Impact of Tourism
Tourism is the second largest industry in Nicaragua and has grown significantly since the Nicaraguan Revolution in the 1980s. For the first time in Nicaraguan history, there were more than one million visits to the country in 2010. This is an 8 percent increase from 2009. The tourism industry is currently thriving and provides revenue to small businesses. Additionally, it provides income to poor Nicaraguans in rural areas.
Tropical islands and volcanoes, such as the Mombacho volcano and the Corn Islands, are two popular destinations that attract tourists from the U.S., Europe and Central and South America. In 2010, gross income from foreign tourism was approximately $360 million. This is a $15 million increase in gross income from the previous year.
Mining Sparks Economic Growth
Alongside tourism, there has also been an increase in gold mining production. Between 2006 and 2016, production has gone from more than 109,000 ounces to 267,000. The results are even greater for silver mining, which increased from 94,000 ounces in 2005 to almost 682,000 in 2016. Mining is steadily growing to become one of Nicaragua’s driving economic forces.
Gold, beef and coffee are the country’s top three exports. Gold production has doubled and is emerging as an important source of income to the Nicaraguan government and their citizens. For each dollar earned from mining, $.66 cents go to taxes, remuneration and acquisition of goods and services. This revenue can aid in investing in better farming equipment for poor farmers and creating jobs through emerging industries like mining.
Agricultural Advances Combat Nicaragua’s Poverty Rate
Nicaragua still remains an agriculture-dependent economy. About 50 percent of its exports come from textiles and the agriculture industry. Bananas, cotton, sugarcane, rice and tobacco are some of Nicaragua’s other exports. However, Nicaragua’s poverty rate remains high, especially in rural areas where extreme poverty is heavily concentrated.
Many in the agriculture industry are migrants who harvest crops for half the year and search for other work during the other half. By investing in farm equipment and technology, farmers of smaller plots have a chance to increase their income beyond than $2 a day.
An example of increasing crop quality and yields is shown through conservation tillage, which is transgenic insect control. This system decreases erosion, increases organic matter in soil and conserves soil moisture. Additionally, marker-assisted breeding and biotechnology traits are new developments that have been shown to increase yields and improve traits, such as grain moisture in corn.
Other traits include providing resistance to corn rootworm and borers. Lastly, diversification is another way to help those in the agriculture industry. If crop prices are unfavorable, another crop’s production would offset the negative effect of those prices.
There are several ways to reduce Nicaragua’s poverty rate. A combination of improvements in quality and quantity alongside the diversification of crops can help increase income to those in poverty.
– Lucas Schmidt
Photo: Flickr