Reflow, an Amsterdam-based startup, is using 3D printing technology to transform plastic waste into a valuable resource. According to its website, the company converts recyclable plastic into ethical, high-quality 3D print filament, which is the material needed for 3D printing.
Every day, millions of waste collectors in developing countries earn $2 a day sifting through endless masses of garbage. In the developing world, cities are experiencing rapid urbanization, brought about by fast population growth and high immigration rates.
Rapid urban expansion, combined with a lack of infrastructure, leads to the buildup of open waste in low-income neighborhoods, slums and squatter areas. The result is informal waste collection by members of those communities.
Reflow works directly with waste collectors to convert the plastic they pick up into high-quality print filament. The company increases the value of the recycled plastic by up to 20 times, increasing the waste collectors incomes so they earn the wage they deserve.
According to Kickstarter, the Reflow process begins by carefully selecting the plastic needed to make the print filament. The startup then works with local waste collectors to clean PET bottles and shred them into tiny, 6-millimeter plastic flakes.
PET stands for polyethylene terephthalate, which is used in common plastic packaging such as water bottles, soft drink packaging and cosmetics bottles. A report by The Planet Bottle states that PET is popular for its strength, thermo-stability and transparency, while being inexpensive, lightweight and recyclable.
Once the plastic has been shredded, Reflow uses a low-cost, open-source extruder to convert the plastic flakes into 3D print filament. The company partners with universities and their corporate partners to test the filament, before shipping it in recyclable packaging to individuals who use the product for 3D printing.
Of note, 25 percent of Reflow’s profits are invested in local manufacturing and $3 from each roll of filament contributes to waste collectors’ incomes.
According to the Huffington Post, 120 plastic bottles can produce one kilogram of filament. However, Reflow said that the process is not so much about the final product as it is about empowering individual waste collectors and improving their lives.
Typically, waste collectors have to deal with unfair pricing from middle men in the recycling process. Their working conditions are extremely poor, as they collect garbage in toxic areas and must wade through unhygienic environments to find the appropriate waste to recycle.
Reflow also aims to provide the waste collectors with necessary tools to pick up and carry the plastic, so their health is not at risk.
The company is launching their project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. According to a report by the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers, there are approximately 1,267 waste pickers in Dar es Salaam, who collect, move and trade 20 kilograms of recyclable waste per day. Most waste pickers that were interviewed for the report stated that the nature of their work was “exhausting”, “dangerous” and “unhealthy.”
“Of fifty waste pickers interviewed, forty-three reported that they had been ‘injured or admitted to a health facility’ in the past twelve months due to their recycling operations,” said the report.
So far, Reflow has raised €2,943 of their €25,000 goal (US$ 28,520). “We know this technology is going to transform our societies and lives,” said the company in a statement on their website. “We want to harness this innovation to create a better and more equal world. We want to ensure the revolution is shared.”
– Michelle Simon
Task Force for Global Health: Secretariat to Global Organization
Beginning in 1984 as the Task Force for Child Survival, the Task Force for Global Health started as a leading secretariat for various international health organizations such as UNICEF, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the World Bank. The Task Force worked alongside these global health organizations to design and improve effective child and family wellness, healthcare and survival strategies.
Thirty years later, the Task Force for Global Health has grown into a global nonprofit organization for public health. According to Forbes Magazine, the Task Force is the fourth largest nonprofit in the U.S. Headquartered in Decatur, Georgia, and under the leadership of public health expert Dr. Mark Rosenberg since 1999, the organization stands as the biggest nonprofit in Georgia since its expansion in 2013.
The Task Force focuses on three major areas: improving the efficiency of public health systems and field epidemiology, providing accessible treatment of immunizations and vaccines and eradicating neglected tropical diseases.
However, despite the Task Force’s incredible reputation and longstanding credentials, it remains largely unknown to a majority of the world. In an interview conducted by Georgia Center for Nonprofits’ (GCN) quarterly magazine, Georgia Nonprofit NOW, Rosenberg explains that keeping the Task Force under wraps was not only an intentional but effective strategy.
Rosenberg told GCN, “From the beginning, we have always tried to build coalitions, but it’s not always easy to get organizations to work together. If you want a partnership to work, our founder Bill Foege taught us, you’ve got to shine the light on your partners, and not on yourselves. We focus attention on our partners, and as a result, we are not well known in Georgia.”
The Task Force’s decision to maintain a low-key profile has resulted in high effectivity, not only as a major collaborator to some of the world’s most well-known nonprofit organizations but also as a large scale mobilizer towards peace and health care reform.
The Task Force for Global Health has managed to cover an incredible amount of ground in improving healthcare and offering accessible vaccinations and treatments to approximately 495 million people in 149 countries. The organization provides support and professional level healthcare training programs in 43 countries around the world, which results in widespread, efficient and accessible health care globally. Having formed strong partnerships with private and public healthcare providers and programs worldwide, the Task Force for Global Health has and continues to succeed in bringing about incredible reform and is changing the lives of millions of people every day.
– Jenna Salisbury
Tablet Computers: Enhancing Global Literacy Rates
Researchers from MIT, Tufts and Georgia State University are conducted a study to determine whether tablet computers that have with literacy applications can improve global literacy rates among children living in extremely poor communities.
As part of the first phase of the study, tablets were sent to a pair of Ethiopian villages with no schools or written culture, a suburban South African school with a student-to-teacher teacher ratio of 60 to 1 and a rural school in the U.S. with mostly low-income students.
The tablets contained specially designed apps to help illiterate children ages four to 11 learn letters, sounds and reading fundamentals. The children in Ethiopia had never seen electricity or paper before this study.
Maryanne Wolf, founder and director of Tuft’s Center for Reading and Language Research, visited Ethiopia in 2013 and saw how excited the children were to use the tablets.
“The children learned to be facile so quickly—it was breathtaking,” Wolf said, according to a Tufts Now article.
In the African deployments, students who used the tablets scored much higher than those who did not. The American students also improved their scores dramatically after using the tablets for just four months.
“The whole premise of our project is to harness the best science and innovation to bring education to the world’s most under-resourced children,” associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT Cynthia Breazeal said, reports an MIT News article.
The main theme of this project is that it is self-starting. The research team purposely did not tell the children what to do with the tablets because if the project expands, they will not be able to bring in coaches to teach the children how to use the apps.
Within minutes of receiving the tablet, one Ethiopian boy figured out how to turn it on. Within a week, the Ethiopian children had the apps up and running.
The research team is currently analyzing the data collected from the trials. They have also created a nonprofit organization called Curious Learning, which is now looking for partners to help launch larger pilot programs in an effort to improve global literacy rates.
– Kerri Whelan
Photo: Flickr
World Bank: Investing in Education for Adolescent Girls
One of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals is achieving gender equality, not only because it is right, but because it is proven to help alleviate extreme poverty.
According to the World Bank, “No society can develop sustainably without transforming the distribution of opportunities, resources and choices for males and females so that they have equal power to shape their own lives and contribute to their families, communities,and countries.”
On April 13, 2016, the World Bank announced a $2.5 billion investment to be distributed over the next five years for education projects directly benefiting adolescent girls, ages 12 to 17. The announcement was followed by a statement from First Lady of the Unites States Michelle Obama, urging key policymakers and influencers around the world to support more initiatives geared toward education for adolescent girls.
Empowering and educating women can transform future generations and impact entire countries. The funding will focus on areas in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which have the highest number of out-of-school girls, equipping them to reach their full potential by having access to quality education.
“The evidence is very clear: when we invest in girls’ education, and we embrace women in our workforce, that doesn’t just benefit them, it benefits all of us,” said Michelle Obama at the Let Girls Learn event during the World Bank Group’s Spring Meetings.
Factors that make women vulnerable to extreme poverty include being subjected to unpaid work, having fewer assets and resources than men, being exposed to gender-based violence and being forced into early marriage.
According to the USAID, although some level of gender inequality exists in all areas of the world, the disparity is especially pronounced in developing countries. Countries with above-average gender inequality correlate with higher extreme poverty rates. Because of this, female empowerment is a core development objective recognized universally.
“When women’s productivity in areas such as agriculture increases, the benefits are amplified across families and generations,” said the USAID in their discussion series about gender and extreme poverty. “Evidence from a range of countries shows that relative to men, women spend more of the income they control in ways that benefit their children, improving nutrition, health and educational opportunities.”
The World Bank’s investment will fund programs that provide adolescent girls with quality education at the secondary level. The investment also includes the provision of scholarships, conditional cash transfers and access to clean drinking water and toilets.
The organization’s commitment to education for girls stems from the statistic that every year of secondary education correlates with an 18 percent increase in a girl’s future earning power.
Funding programs focused on education for adolescent girls is just one aspect of a broader effort by the World Bank to delay child marriage, improve access to reproductive health services as well as strengthen skills and job opportunities for women around the globe.
– Emily Ednoff
Photo: Flickr
WHO and PAHO Launch Worldwide Zika Virus Database
The World Health Organization (WHO) has teamed up with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to launch a Zika virus database to list and categorize all scientific studies on the Zika virus worldwide. The project is focused on helping global researchers understand and combat the virus.
The two agencies have identified and collected all investigations and research on Zika, including those that have been, or are in the process of being published and compiled them into a searchable database, according to a recent press release by the PAHO.
Experts creating the Zika virus database included the search mechanism in order to help researchers explore unknown factors about the possible relationship between Zika and congenital malformations.
The WHO declared a public emergency on Feb. 1, 2016, due to Zika’s suspected link to a range of serious health concerns, including birth defects in babies born to mothers who are infected with the virus and the development of neurological disorders in adults.
Researchers have been focused on identifying a correlation between Zika and microcephaly, a rare condition that causes infants to be born with abnormally small heads and brain damage.
Zika is a predominately mosquito-borne disease that arrived in Brazil last spring. Since then, it has spread to 34 countries and territories in the Americas. Between 3 to 4 million people could be infected with the virus by early next year, according to the WHO.
Communities affected by poverty face the most risk, as the virus is easily transmitted in crowded areas where access to sheltered air conditioned space is limited. A lack of running water and waste management combined with poor housing in urban areas also contributes to the continued spread of the virus.
The Zika virus database is part of the WHO’s wider plan to combat the disease globally through its Strategic Response Framework and Joint Operations Plan.
The strategy is currently focusing on mobilizing and coordinating partners, experts and resources to help countries provide medical care, communicate risks and proper protection measures to the affected communities. The initiative also involves fast-track research on vaccine development.
– Lauren Lewis
Photo: Flickr
Gates Foundation Invests $5 Million on Malaria Research
According to the Gates Foundation, malaria continues to be a major health concern in almost 100 countries, infecting 207 million people and killing 627,000 individuals in 2012 alone. Despite an increase in malaria funding over the past several years, challenges remain in completely eradicating this disease.
However, fighting malaria is one of the Foundation’s main missions and the organization has contributed $2 billion to the cause to date. Notably, the Gates Foundation launched a multi-year strategy known as Accelerate to Zero in 2013 that focuses on making new partnerships for more efficient, affordable drugs.
In addition, this past April, the organization offered the biotechnology innovations firm Amyris an additional $5 million, in the form of a stock buyback, for its malaria research project.
Amyris is a biotechnology innovation firm whose partnership with the Gates Foundation spans roughly ten years. Replacing the relatively expensive and time-consuming method of directly extracting artemisinin from the Chinese Sweet Wormwood plant, Amyris created a new strain of Baker’s yeast microbes that produce artemisinic acid. According to the firm, the result is a “precursor of artemisinin, an effective anti-malarial drug.”
With malaria research grants from the Gates Foundation and partnership with the Institute for OneWorld Health and the University of California, Berkley, the organization has since distributed the microbes to Sanofi for mass manufacture.
In 2015, the company was awarded the United Nations Global Citizen Award for this continued effort to meet the Millennium Development Goals.
Amyris is also expected to develop faster, cheaper methods of manufacturing pharmaceuticals that otherwise require elaborate processes for extraction.
This year’s renewed grant will ensure the application of this technology and the actual reduced cost of malaria medicine.
According to John Melo, the CEO of Amyris, the firm’s goal is the complete eradication of malaria through low-cost and sustainable cures. He further stressed the importance of future cooperation between private and public sectors in battling other epidemics.
– Haena Chu
Photo: Flickr
New App Helps Protect Girls from Trafficking
A new app, Girl Power, is helping to track girls in India and Bangladesh, where the rate of child marriage and trafficking have been especially high in the last few decades.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 200,000 to 250,000 women and children are trafficked annually to Southeast Asia alone, and more than 1 million children are affected globally every year. West Bengal is a state that accounts for a fifth of India’s 5,466 cases of human trafficking, reported in 2014.
India has the highest number of child brides in the world, according to Girls Not Brides, a nonprofit committed to ending child marriage. It is estimated that 47 percent of girls in India are married before their 18th birthday.
Accenture and the NGO Child in Need Institute (CINI) launched “GPower” in 2015. According to Reuters, it has been used to track over 6,000 families in 20 villages in West Bengal.
“The technology helps us identify the most vulnerable of the girls in minutes,” said Indrani Bhattacharya in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Community workers or teachers within the village are trained to use the tablets provided, which already have the app installed. The app requires the user to answer a set of questions on health, nutrition, protection and education, which help to determine the vulnerability of the respondent.
The questionnaire takes approximately 30 minutes to complete, and analysis of the answers takes place in a matter of minutes. Using the information collected, community workers can decide whether or not girls are appropriate candidates for counseling, vocational training or government welfare schemes. The community workers register all details for each girl between the ages of 10 and 19 in a given village.
So far, GPower has helped save 200 girls from trafficking or becoming a victim of child marriage across 20 villages in Bangladesh and India. It is likely that the app will continue to a have a positive impact, as India is the world’s second-biggest market for mobile phones, with more than 1 billion users. Apps, from weather reports to health services, are gaining a lot of popularity among rural communities.
“The problem in India is one of scale – there is only so much that an NGO can do in terms of reach,” said Sanjay Podder, managing director at Accenture Labs in Bengaluru. “To address social problems, technology is not just nice to have, it is necessary.”
– Michelle Simon
Photo: Flickr
Startup Converts Plastic Waste into 3D Printing Material
Reflow, an Amsterdam-based startup, is using 3D printing technology to transform plastic waste into a valuable resource. According to its website, the company converts recyclable plastic into ethical, high-quality 3D print filament, which is the material needed for 3D printing.
Every day, millions of waste collectors in developing countries earn $2 a day sifting through endless masses of garbage. In the developing world, cities are experiencing rapid urbanization, brought about by fast population growth and high immigration rates.
Rapid urban expansion, combined with a lack of infrastructure, leads to the buildup of open waste in low-income neighborhoods, slums and squatter areas. The result is informal waste collection by members of those communities.
Reflow works directly with waste collectors to convert the plastic they pick up into high-quality print filament. The company increases the value of the recycled plastic by up to 20 times, increasing the waste collectors incomes so they earn the wage they deserve.
According to Kickstarter, the Reflow process begins by carefully selecting the plastic needed to make the print filament. The startup then works with local waste collectors to clean PET bottles and shred them into tiny, 6-millimeter plastic flakes.
PET stands for polyethylene terephthalate, which is used in common plastic packaging such as water bottles, soft drink packaging and cosmetics bottles. A report by The Planet Bottle states that PET is popular for its strength, thermo-stability and transparency, while being inexpensive, lightweight and recyclable.
Once the plastic has been shredded, Reflow uses a low-cost, open-source extruder to convert the plastic flakes into 3D print filament. The company partners with universities and their corporate partners to test the filament, before shipping it in recyclable packaging to individuals who use the product for 3D printing.
Of note, 25 percent of Reflow’s profits are invested in local manufacturing and $3 from each roll of filament contributes to waste collectors’ incomes.
According to the Huffington Post, 120 plastic bottles can produce one kilogram of filament. However, Reflow said that the process is not so much about the final product as it is about empowering individual waste collectors and improving their lives.
Typically, waste collectors have to deal with unfair pricing from middle men in the recycling process. Their working conditions are extremely poor, as they collect garbage in toxic areas and must wade through unhygienic environments to find the appropriate waste to recycle.
Reflow also aims to provide the waste collectors with necessary tools to pick up and carry the plastic, so their health is not at risk.
The company is launching their project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. According to a report by the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers, there are approximately 1,267 waste pickers in Dar es Salaam, who collect, move and trade 20 kilograms of recyclable waste per day. Most waste pickers that were interviewed for the report stated that the nature of their work was “exhausting”, “dangerous” and “unhealthy.”
“Of fifty waste pickers interviewed, forty-three reported that they had been ‘injured or admitted to a health facility’ in the past twelve months due to their recycling operations,” said the report.
So far, Reflow has raised €2,943 of their €25,000 goal (US$ 28,520). “We know this technology is going to transform our societies and lives,” said the company in a statement on their website. “We want to harness this innovation to create a better and more equal world. We want to ensure the revolution is shared.”
– Michelle Simon
6 Ways to Help Refugees Survive the Crisis
According to the International Rescue Committee, Syrian refugees account for between a quarter and a third of Lebanon’s population. Jordan has about 630,000 Syrian refugees—proportionally, that is the same as the United States taking in all 64 million residents of the United Kingdom.
Those who would like to extend a helpful hand are often unsure of where to begin. Here are six ways to help refugees:
This list is a good starting point for those interesting in aiding refugees to overcome global crises.
– Emily Milakovic
Photo: Flickr
Cricket Without Boundaries Raises Awareness
Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) is a U.K. based charity, founded in 2005. The organization is dedicated to raising awareness about the HIV/AIDs epidemic occurring in various impoverished communities.
CWB does this through integrating lessons about HIV and AIDs with cricket instruction. These cricket programs are designed to, “break down the barriers of discrimination, empower individuals and educate about HIV/AIDs prevention and testing.”
This charity is currently involved in five African countries: Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Within these countries, CWB offers cricket coaching programs as well as comprehensive sexual education.
The organization aims to go beyond the traditional approach to understanding sexual education as a method for fighting transmitting STIs. This traditional method involves abstinence, being faithful to a single partner, condom use and testing (ABC and T). CWB includes this approach in its lessons but also understands that HIV spreads despite abstinence and faithfulness.
The charity wants to provide accurate sexual education to both genders to further protect women and girls (among the most vulnerable) from HIV. By eliminating the gender gap in sexual education, CWB has a stronger impact in these communities.
By focusing on prevention and healthy sexual relationships, the organization has successfully educated thousands of adults and children. CWB trains various coaches within these countries to create a sustainable community-level program.
The charity states that it has, “coached over 65,000 children, who will be the next generation of cricketers, passing on skills and knowledge in cricket grounds, schools and communities, both about cricket and about the disease.”
By utilizing sport to build a supportive community that educates both adults and children about HIV/AIDS, Cricket Without Boundaries provides a model of disease prevention that can be applied globally.
CWB has gained traction over the years in major news sources such as BBC and CNN. In 2014, CNN conducted interviews within one of the charity’s projects in Rwanda.
Eric Hirwa, a member of Rwanda’s national cricket team, is among the individuals interviewed who train and educate hundreds of Rwandan children each week. The most recent UNAIDS data estimated 210,000 people living with HIV in the country.
This same report estimated 85,000 children to be orphaned as a result of AIDS and 3,000 deaths due to the virus. Rwanda is just one example of the vulnerable communities CWB targets.
Funding Cricket Without Boundaries and other similar organizations can significantly improve the current state of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the developing world.
– Saroja Koneru
Photo: Flickr
UN: Helping Impoverished Women in Nepal
On April 25, 2015, an earthquake in Nepal pushed an estimated 1 million people below the poverty line. Before the disaster, the poverty prevalence in Nepal was already at 23.8 percent. The World Bank also predicted that by this year, up to 982,000 more people would be pushed into poverty, including many women in Nepal.
The U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson recently visited the women in Nepal affected by the earthquakes at the Chautara U.N. multipurpose women’s center. The center provides counseling and trauma assistance, information dissemination and recovery-related activities.
“This is a very different experience for me,” Eliasson said during the visit, according to a U.N. Women article. “I met with women and young girls who despite all odds are getting on with their lives. This is a sign of resilience. It is important for them to be able to clear the rubble and rebuild their lives.”
The earthquake that hit Nepal affected agriculture, education, water and sanitation and health—crucial aspects of development. People were pushed into poverty because they lost their homes, income opportunities, personal items and livestock.
Worse, up to 70 percent of the people pushed into poverty from the earthquake live in rural hills and mountains that are already developmentally vulnerable.
During the visit, a young woman named Sita Shrestha shared her experience of a leadership training program offered by the women’s center. She told the Secretary-General that the program allowed her to fundraise, organize villagers and supply water to individual houses.
“The training and this project have changed my life,” Shrestha said at the visit, reports U.N. Women. “I want to join a humanitarian organization like the U.N. in the future.”
The U.N. multipurpose women’s center is focused on delivering sustainable services to women in Nepal. The center also now focuses on enhancing the capacity of local women’s groups to ensure equality with regard to disaster recovery, reconstruction and preparedness initiatives.
– Kerri Whelan
Photo: Flickr