Today, cities in Africa are rapidly urbanizing. The population is growing faster than infrastructure is being built, which causes a shortage of sewage and sanitation systems, especially in impoverished areas.
Over 2.6 billion people do not have access to sanitation. Every day, thousands of tons of feces are not disposed of properly, polluting water and spreading diseases among women and children.
Every year, 1.8 million people die from waterborne diarrheal diseases. Ninety percent of these deaths are children under five-years-old.
Clean Team Ghana has made it their mission to fix this sanitation crisis. The company has invented an inexpensive toilet service to help low-income citizens.
“People of all ages, regardless of circumstance, deserve the right to perform their necessary bodily functions in safety, without the risk of spreading or contracting disease. Our mission is to ensure as many people as possible can enjoy that right,” explains the company’s website.
Kumasi, where Clean Team Ghana has focused its efforts, is Ghana’s second-largest city; here, rapid urbanization and development issues are rampant. Unplanned slum areas do not have any type of sewer system. Half of the population of Kumasi uses public toilet blocks.
According to How We Made it in Africa, public toilet blocks are “often over-burdened, poorly maintained and unhygienic. Those that cannot brave the stench would prefer to do their business openly–or in packets that are then thrown into gutters, polluting water supplies and causing diseases such as cholera.”
Families without proper sewage can rent out Clean Team Ghana’s portable toilets, which the company installs and treats three times per week, exchanging the used canister for a fresh one. The dirty canister is treated at a processing site and reused.
One toilet provides service to five to seven people, and only costs $2.50 to install. The service costs a family $8.90 a month for one toilet. Clean Team Ghana offers weekly payment services, as very few customers earn monthly salaries.
“Most of our customers are traders and earn daily sums of money, maybe even weekly sums. So we have account managers who visit these customers at least once a week so they can pay in bits,” said Clean Team Ghana CEO Abigail Aruna.
The toilets are odorless: the company uses chemicals to mask the smell. They do not require water or pipes, only some space.
So far, Clean Team Ghana has installed over 1,000 toilets across Kumasi. The company aims to install 1,500 more by the end of 2015. Clean Team Ghana markets their toilets by going door-to-door in settlements and explaining how the toilet works.
Aruna believes that in the next few years, Clean Team Ghana can install 10,000 toilets in Kumasi. Once they reach 10,000, the company plans to expand to other cities in Ghana.
“Research is ongoing around that. There are regional differences and we will take them into consideration before we expand. The situation in Kumasi is quite different from the situation in Accra or in Tamale, or in other towns,” explained Aruna.
Clean Team Ghana began when the nonprofit Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor partnered with Unilever, a company that produces cleaning agents. IDEO.org designed the toilets, and at the beginning of 2012, the project was funded by the Stone Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Innovative ideas like ours are really necessary in Ghana and other African countries that cannot afford to put adequate sewage systems in place in their towns and cities. So I think the future of Clean Team Ghana and other sanitation companies is very bright–and is a way forward to solve the sanitation issues in Africa for now,” said Aruna.
– Margaret Anderson
Sources: How we made it in Africa, Clean Team Toilets
Photo: Core 77
The Heat Wave in Karachi
On June 20, 2015, a heatwave struck the city of Karachi. Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan and is home to about 20 million residents. The heatwave that struck had disastrous consequences for many of the residents of the city, killing about 1,300 people and sending scores to hospitals.
Daytime temperatures in Karachi climbed to about 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), the hottest that it has been in Pakistan since 2000. The effects of the heatwave were also compounded by the fact that it occurred during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when people fast until sunset and when eating and drinking during daylight is forbidden by Pakistani law.
What’s more, many residents of Karachi did not have power or access to water during the week of extremely high temperatures. Power cuts in Pakistan are common, but the federal government and the main private power company for Karachi, K-Electric, assured the citizens of Karachi that they would make sure that there was power during the heatwave for when Pakistanis broke their fast at sunset. However, they failed to deliver on their promises, and many died due to the lack of air conditioning, water and fans.
Hospitals filled up quickly, with over 65,000 people visiting them for help and to seek shelter. The hospitals had to rely on donations and volunteers for many of their supplies. Some patients were not able to be treated by doctors, and their families were forced to attempt to take care of them while waiting for assistance.
A human body’s normal core temperature is around 38 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit). When our body temperatures rise to 39-40 degrees Celsius, fatigue begins to impact the body and the brain starts to slow the muscles down in order to cool the body. Above 41 degrees Celsius, our body cells deteriorate, chemical processes are affected and the body’s organs start to fail. This heatwave in Karachi affected the homeless the most, and also had a larger impact on poor families, many of whom did not have access to the air conditioning they desperately needed. Older people also suffered disproportionately.
The largest morgue in Karachi, the Edhi Morgue, normally has the capacity to hold about 200 people. It was soon overflowing due to the number of people killed by the heat and received over 900 bodies in the eight days of the heatwave. Many families who visited hoping that the morgue would help them to bury their dead had to be turned away, and cemeteries in Karachi ran out of room in which to bury the dead, leading to mass graves and burials.
Pakistan has suffered from heatwaves before, but this heatwave has led to an abnormally large number of casualties. Some attribute that to the fact that the heatwave occurred during Ramadan, while others blame pollution and climate change for extreme temperatures. These, combined with power outages and water shortages, most likely led to the massive casualties that occurred during the heatwave.
Temperatures have begun to normalize once again, but the residents of Karachi are still suffering from the consequences of the heatwave. In order to help those in Karachi, people have been donating to the Edhi Foundation (https://edhi.org/), which runs an ambulance service and the Edhi Morgue and is working to ensure that those who have died due to the heatwave receive a proper burial.
– Ashrita Rau
Sources: BBC, New York Times, CNN, International Business Times, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Edhi Foundation
Photo: Today Online
Life Saving Dot: Iodine Coated Bindis
In India, 350 million people are at risk for iodine deficiency. Iodine deficiency leads to a variety of harmful conditions in adults, including hypothyroidism, goiter, an increased risk for breast cancer, and brain damage. In the unborn children of mothers with a deficiency, the condition results in a condition known as fetal hypothyroidism, improper conditioning of the gland in unborn children which can result in cognitive birth defects and even stillbirth.
So when Grey for Good, a charitable branch of the Singapore-based Grey Group, offered a solution to the problem, it needed to be innovative in combatting this very real public health risk. What they noticed is this: many Indian women wear a bindi, or a small red dot in the center of the forehead, for cultural or religious reasons. With this came an idea: is there a way to use the cultural trend to combat the condition?
Grey for Good teamed up with Indian NGO Neelvasant Medical Foundation and Research Center to begin distributing affordable bindis which double as iodine supplements. Called Life Saving Dot, or Jeevan Bindi, the back of each bindi is coated in iodine, creating a “patch” which can deliver up to 150 micrograms of iodine through the skin over the course of eight hours, which is the recommended amount of iodine for women.
Life Saving Dot is also affordable. A pack of 30 bindis is sold for 10 rupees, or just 16 cents. Perhaps this is why the bindis have reached over 300,000 women in 100 villages that the Indian government has deemed at risk for iodine deficiency.
In distributing Life Saving Dot, Grey for Good has taken an innovative approach to solve a problem, uniting medicine, technology, business and culture as a force for good. By bringing these things together, they have created a truly modern solution to the problem of iodine deficiency.
– Andrew Michaels
Sources: Take Part, NPR, UpWorthy, Global Healing Center
Photo: Life Saving Dot/Facebook
Global Nonprofit Focuses on Prize Model in India
The XPrize is a highly sought-after award that is given when seemingly unsolvable goals are incentivized to change the world for the better. Associations of nearly every kind make several of the same mistakes that lead to market failure, and one of those mistakes is not addressing an issue when it’s thought to be impossible.
According to XPrize’s mission statement, “We believe that challenges must be audacious, but achievable, tied to objective, measurable goals. And understandable by all. We believe that solutions can come from anyone, anywhere and that some of the greatest minds of our time remain untapped, ready to be engaged by a world that is in desperate need of help.” Anyone, no matter the background or training, can participate in helping to make achieving the goals of XPrize a reality.
India is the second most heavily populated nation in the entire world as well as a leader in innovation, so it’s no surprise that there are already two confirmed donors. Gregory S. Thomas of the Deccan Herald reports, “Besides Coca-Cola, the Motwani-Jadeja Foundation is another [donor]. But the latter is at a much [more] preliminary stage, with Asha Jadeja, wife of late Professor Rajeev Motwani, a mentor to Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, merely expressing her intent to fund another Grand Challenge on the theme of women and girls.”
Zenia Tata, representative for and Program Director of XPrize, announced the contest last month. It focuses on the theme of water; she says that it “will completely change perceptions on where water comes from and how you can use it.”
But the global nonprofit hopes to also take its incentivized prize model a step further and solve other challenges that India, along with other developing countries, has faced. These include improving energy consumption and sourcing, education, healthier lifestyles, shelters, social justice, waste and global connectivity.
With these goals in mind, XPrize hopes to expand and bring its methods to other developing countries across the globe to inspire others to help create a healthier and more sustainable world.
– Anna Brailow
Sources: Deccan Herald, XPrize 1, XPrize 2, XPrize 3
Photo: Indie Gogo
Jessica Watson Visits Syrian Refugees
Jessica Watson would like to see children around the world pursue their dreams. In order for that to happen, she must first tackle world hunger.
The 22-year-old is a Youth Ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Hailing from Queensland, Australia and awarded Young Australian of the Year in 2011, Watson is the youngest person to ever sail around the world solo and unassisted, having completed the global voyage when she was 16 years old.
Watson’s most recent expedition, however, brought her to Lebanon and Jordan, where she visited Syrian refugees. Her “Sail with WFP” initiative recognizes the intimidating journey made by young Syrians who have left their homes for Lebanon or Jordan. As WFP’s Youth Ambassador, Watson provided food and support for suffering families.
Founded in 1961, WFP is the largest hunger-fighting organization in the world, supplying food in times of emergency and working with communities to create sustainability. The goal of the organization is to end world hunger and eliminate global poverty. Funded by governments, companies and private individuals, WFP provides annual assistance to more than 80 million people in 75 countries.
In Lebanon, Watson sailed with five Syrian and Lebanese youths from Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, to a northern port. In Jordan, she spent time in the Azraq refugee camp. There, Watson met a single Syrian mother Manal and her eight children. She accompanied the family to the camp’s only grocery store, where refugees buy food with electronic food cards from WFP.
Earlier this year, however, WFP had to reduce refugee stipends due to a lack of funding. As a result, the refugee program is 81 percent underfunded and many Syrian families are struggling to stay alive. The organization requires $138 million to continue helping refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq through September.
Watson also visited a Save the Children International youth center in Amman, Jordan’s capital, and hopes her journey will bring attention to the hardships faced by the Syrian people. A WFP Youth Ambassador since her young global voyage, Watson sails towards a new, hunger-free future.
– Sarah Sheppard
Sources: WFP 1, WFP 2, WFP 3
Photo: News Pronto
E-Health Point Provides Access in Rural India
E-Health Point is a series of medical units owned by Healthpoint Services India that provide medical care, clean water and medicines to families living in rural regions in India. They specialize in unique concepts and models to improve wellness, productivity and quality of life. E-Health Point also follows a Social Business Enterprise Model that demonstrates democratizing healthcare, social impact, sustainability, growth potential and innovation.
The organization was launched in 2009 with the goal of providing preventative and curative healthcare to people in impoverished communities. E-Health Point operates based on Electronic Medical Records which provide doctors and patients knowledge of proper healthcare and real-time disease surveillance capability. Clinics are initially formed as water services and become clinics over time. As of 2011, there were eight clinics and 16 water stations in India.
E-Health Point works with multiple unique technologies and methods like Broadband and Telemedicine and Point of Care/Mobile diagnostics and combines models used by private and public organizations to pioneer the rural health industry. They have collaborated with organizations such as Bhati AirTel, Athenahealth USA and Procter and Gamble to provide funds and resources to ensure physicians and patients give and receive proper medical attention.
E-Health Point treats water for contaminants by using advanced reverse osmosis, a process that uses a semipermeable membrane to remove large particles from drinking water and applied pressure to eliminate chemicals. Reverse osmosis can also remove molecules, ions and bacteria to make water potable.
To democratize the healthcare system in India, E-Health Point provides healthcare to citizens regardless of their gender, caste, social or economic status. They create a social impact by helping residents living in rural regions and semi-urban communities receive access to healthcare especially when the majority of them do not have the funds or resources to obtain it.
E-Health Point was founded by Amit Jain, Dr. Allan Hammond and their team of health and business professionals. With a global and local team, the organization has successfully teamed up with multiple business partners to keep healthcare systems intact in multiple regions in India including Malout, Bathinda and Goniana. The organization hopes to increase its medical coverage to rural regions of Africa and South America.
– Julia Hettiger
Sources: Health Market Innovations, Changemakers, Forbes
Photo: NPR
Portable, Rentable Toilets: An Innovative Solution to Ghana’s Sanitation Crisis
Today, cities in Africa are rapidly urbanizing. The population is growing faster than infrastructure is being built, which causes a shortage of sewage and sanitation systems, especially in impoverished areas.
Over 2.6 billion people do not have access to sanitation. Every day, thousands of tons of feces are not disposed of properly, polluting water and spreading diseases among women and children.
Every year, 1.8 million people die from waterborne diarrheal diseases. Ninety percent of these deaths are children under five-years-old.
Clean Team Ghana has made it their mission to fix this sanitation crisis. The company has invented an inexpensive toilet service to help low-income citizens.
“People of all ages, regardless of circumstance, deserve the right to perform their necessary bodily functions in safety, without the risk of spreading or contracting disease. Our mission is to ensure as many people as possible can enjoy that right,” explains the company’s website.
Kumasi, where Clean Team Ghana has focused its efforts, is Ghana’s second-largest city; here, rapid urbanization and development issues are rampant. Unplanned slum areas do not have any type of sewer system. Half of the population of Kumasi uses public toilet blocks.
According to How We Made it in Africa, public toilet blocks are “often over-burdened, poorly maintained and unhygienic. Those that cannot brave the stench would prefer to do their business openly–or in packets that are then thrown into gutters, polluting water supplies and causing diseases such as cholera.”
Families without proper sewage can rent out Clean Team Ghana’s portable toilets, which the company installs and treats three times per week, exchanging the used canister for a fresh one. The dirty canister is treated at a processing site and reused.
One toilet provides service to five to seven people, and only costs $2.50 to install. The service costs a family $8.90 a month for one toilet. Clean Team Ghana offers weekly payment services, as very few customers earn monthly salaries.
“Most of our customers are traders and earn daily sums of money, maybe even weekly sums. So we have account managers who visit these customers at least once a week so they can pay in bits,” said Clean Team Ghana CEO Abigail Aruna.
The toilets are odorless: the company uses chemicals to mask the smell. They do not require water or pipes, only some space.
So far, Clean Team Ghana has installed over 1,000 toilets across Kumasi. The company aims to install 1,500 more by the end of 2015. Clean Team Ghana markets their toilets by going door-to-door in settlements and explaining how the toilet works.
Aruna believes that in the next few years, Clean Team Ghana can install 10,000 toilets in Kumasi. Once they reach 10,000, the company plans to expand to other cities in Ghana.
“Research is ongoing around that. There are regional differences and we will take them into consideration before we expand. The situation in Kumasi is quite different from the situation in Accra or in Tamale, or in other towns,” explained Aruna.
Clean Team Ghana began when the nonprofit Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor partnered with Unilever, a company that produces cleaning agents. IDEO.org designed the toilets, and at the beginning of 2012, the project was funded by the Stone Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Innovative ideas like ours are really necessary in Ghana and other African countries that cannot afford to put adequate sewage systems in place in their towns and cities. So I think the future of Clean Team Ghana and other sanitation companies is very bright–and is a way forward to solve the sanitation issues in Africa for now,” said Aruna.
– Margaret Anderson
Sources: How we made it in Africa, Clean Team Toilets
Photo: Core 77
Cocoa Workers in Ghana: Certification and Co-Operatives
In Ghana, the cocoa bean sector is the second-largest economic sector behind gold. Accordingly, the welfare of the workers takes on heightened importance because of their magnitude and the importance they play in the Ghanaian economy.
In 2010, cocoa accounted for 8.2% of Ghana’s GDP and 30% of total export earnings. Cocoa production in Ghana is based on smallholder farms, which grow 90% of the cocoa. In total, in a country of roughly 26 million, around 700,000 households grow cocoa, and the livelihood of about 6 million people depends on the cocoa sector.
Beginning in 1947, Ghana’s government stepped forward to tightly control the cocoa trade. In the 1990s, this control slightly loosened at the behest of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in order to provide loans for “structural adjustments.” This loosening led to the liberalization of internal marketing and privatization of the input market. Ultimately, relative to other cocoa producers in the world, Ghana still has a controlled marketing system.
In Ghana, there are many steps in the supply chain to get the cocoa beans from the farm to the manufacturer. According to the Cocoa Initiative, there are 7 to 10 steps, but in essence, the farmers sell their cocoa to a private buying company, which sells it to the Ghanaian government cocoa marketing board, which sells it to international buyers.
These extra steps in the supply chain move the producer farther from the consumer, siphoning the profits that the farmer would make if he or she sold directly to international buyers, to other actors in the supply chain. Looking beyond Ghana, Oxfam America estimates that cocoa farmers around the world make about three percent of the price of a chocolate bar.
Some global chocolate companies such as Nestle, Hershey and Mars have recognized the unsustainable aspects of cocoa farming in places such as Ghana. These companies, along with nine others, have joined the World Cocoa Foundation’s “CocoaAction” sustainability strategy. The strategy, comprised of educational opportunities and teaching farmers productivity-increasing farming methods, will affect 100,000 farmers in Ghana by 2020.
Ghana’s cocoa farmers have not sat idly by, either. To combat their disempowerment at the bottom of the supply chain, some farmers have turned to certification. Certification is a model in which farmers are awarded a premium, in addition to the price they receive for their cocoa when they work with certified chocolate companies.
Other Ghana cocoa farmers have created co-operatives, most notable of which is Kuapa Kokoo, meaning “good cocoa farmer.” Founded in 1993 and Fair Trade certified in 1995, the co-operative is a democratically run organization that brings its farmers into direct relationships with Fair Trade buyers. The Kuapa Kokoo co-operative made a historic move by forming its own chocolate marketing company, Divine, in 1999. This addition to the organization removes another actor from the supply chain, further facilitating the flow of money from the international buyers to the farmers who grew the cocoa.
By 2013, the co-operative had grown to hold over 87,000 members, of which 32% are women. Beyond dealing with the private sector, the co-operative has enough clout on village levels to leverage much support from the government, such as scholarships, credit and development resources.
These supports will prove crucial in improving the bargaining position of cocoa farmers and also allow them to educate their children. These benefits are the goal of arrangements such as certification and co-operatives, which have proved themselves to be effective in empowering the disempowered in Ghana.
– Connor Bohannan
Sources: Cocoa Initiative, Divine Chocolate, Fairtrade, FAO, Ghana Cocoa Board, NBC, Papapaa, WIEGO
Photo: Flickr
Poverty in Mexico Violates the Country’s Own Constitution
Mexico’s rising poverty levels, which have been a growing crisis for years now, just reached a new benchmark—they violate Mexico’s constitution.
According to Mexico’s constitution, the minimum salary must guarantee citizens a “decent standard of living.” While individual Mexican employees chalked up 2,327 work-hours on average in 2014, workers only earned an average annual salary of $12,850.
In comparison, American workers logged around 1,800 hours in 2014 and earned an average annual salary of $57,139 in the same time frame.
“In Mexico poverty affects those who work. It’s not just the unemployed that fall into poverty, as happens in developed countries,” Mexican nongovernment organization Acción Cuidadana Frente a la Pobreza (Citizen Action Against Poverty) said in a statement. “In our country, income from labor is insufficient to be above the poverty line.”
Poverty in Mexico is increasing at such a rapid rate due to the increasing income disparity between the country’s upper and lower classes. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Mexico’s wealthiest 10% earn 30.5 times more than the country’s poorest 10%.
Those outside of Mexico’s wealthiest are finding it incredibly difficult to live off of the country’s present minimum wage regulations, which vary geographically. The highest in the country is 70.1 pesos a day, or around $4.30.
“These numbers are the result of a perfect storm of events,” Inter-American Development Bank economist David Kaplan told The Wall Street Journal. “This tendency regarding wages–adjusted for inflation and adjusted for the basic food basket–is part of a long-term trend that began with the crisis.”
Conveal, a Mexican social policy tracking organization, reported that the overall poverty rate in Mexico rose to 46.2% in 2014, or roughly 55 million people. This number is up from 45.5% in 2012.
Despite efforts to combat rising poverty in Mexico, the lack of a substantial living wage is making progress almost impossible. Still, Mexico’s Social Development Ministry is acknowledging the crisis.
“Multidimensional poverty is fought with greater economic growth, job creation, democratization of productivity and better distribution of income,” the ministry said.
– Alexander Jones
Sources: El Daily Post, Harrup, Webber, Woody
Photo: Flickr
Cecil the Lion and the Effects of Poaching
According to reports from The Telegraph, Cecil the lion, the most famous creature in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, was killed—rather, poached—by an American hunter.
The Telegraph reveals that Mr. Walter James Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, reportedly paid an estimated $50,000 to shoot and kill the lion. The weapon in question that was used to kill the lion was a bow and arrow. According to reports, Palmer used the bow and arrow in order to hide his tracks.
Palmer allegedly has a hunting felony history, which includes bears, deer, cougars and other various animals, some of which were endangered. Palmer faces charges from both the United States and Zimbabwe. The latter is seeking to extradite the dentist over the killing.
So, along with this tragedy and many others, what can happen when men like Palmer ignore the sanctity of wildlife preserves and poach for profit or “sport”?
Excessive poaching can lead to the degradation of natural habitats and eventually lead to a widespread state of environmental chaos. However, research has shown that it can also influence the lives of people living in poverty-stricken areas where the majority of poaching takes place.
In the past several years, the World Bank has expanded its understanding of how organized crime, corruption, illegal trade and money laundering affect development outcomes. In response, it has stepped up its work on issues such as stolen asset recovery, governance and anti-corruption work.
It has found that because of the lack of economic alternatives for people in the area, the poaching trade seems like the only alternative to provide a means to an end. Yet, what might seem like a lucrative venture can instead be the opposite. Many of these individuals are taken advantage of by the poachers, and they also do it at a heavy risk of prison time. All of these factors can lead to the degradation of their lives.
While fighting poaching by itself may only work to protect the endangered animals of the world, fighting the severe poverty in some of these areas may one day remove the incentive for poaching and the enabling of it, thus helping the impoverished communities, animals and habitats as well.
– Alysha Biemolt
Sources: World Bank, Borgen Project, IT News Africa, CNN 1, CNN 2, Telegraph, NBC News
Photo: Flickr
Iowa State Student Determined to Make a Difference
Ella Gehrke, a junior at Iowa State University, hopes to make a difference in global health. Gehrke is studying Global Resource Systems and plans to attend medical school after graduating from ISU.
She has visited several developing countries, including El Salvador and India. She describes her trip to El Salvador as her first experience with severe poverty. She spent last summer in India working with women in rural villages.
“It was a remarkable experience because we had the opportunity to work in a very rural village with a lot of women. We had to go in and figure out what some of the problems we’re seeing [were] and how we could teach the people how they [could] make lifestyle changes to better their community and their families,” she says of her experience in India.
Her travels fostered her desire to help improve the lives of others.
Gehrke and four other ISU students competed in the Thought For Food challenge, which is a competition for students to create solutions for minimizing and ending world hunger.
She says, “We competed against around 250 teams and we made it to the top 10, so we were able to present our idea at Syngenta conference and we got to travel to Lisbon, Portugal for around two weeks.”
The team’s solution was called KinoSol, which is an inexpensive tool used to dehydrate fruits and vegetables using solar energy. By dehydrating the foods, market accessibility is increased, as is the accessibility to nutritional foods that do not waste as quickly. The dehydrator is a mobile and easy-to-use unit.
“Dehydrating extends the shelf life of the fruit and allows the nutrients to be consumed year-round,” says Gehrke.
The team won $40,000 in awards and is working on the fifth prototype this summer. They hope to increase the KinoSol’s efficiency. Currently, they have two units in Uganda and plan to expand to South Sudan and El Salvador in several months.
Gehrke says, “We had some feedback from some of the women who are saying that they’re excited to use our product and that they want to incorporate them in their own households. That validation is warming to the soul.”
In addition to helping through innovation, Gehrke has been selected to attend Oxfam Change Initiative, a training that aims to equip students with valuable tools and skills to involve their community and school with ways to fight poverty, hunger, and other injustices. Gehrke was one of 40 students selected nationwide.
After returning from the training in August, Gehrke plans to host several events at the ISU campus to get students involved in world issues.
“We actually can make a change,” she declares.
– Kelsey Parrotte
Sources: Iowa State Daily, Iowa State University 1, Iowa State University 2
Photo: KinoSol