Information and stories on health topics.

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Improving Conditions for Children in India

Children in India
Conditions in India are constantly improving and the country has one of the highest rates of poverty reduction. Between the years 2005-06 and 2015-16, India transformed into a lower-middle-income economy by decreasing the number of poor people from 630 million to 360 million. By improving the standard of living, bettering nutrition and increasing public expenditure, India became home to the largest number of people coming out of poverty. While this improvement has greatly boosted India’s economy, children have also undergone positive changes that improved their lives in many aspects.

There are multiple issues children in India face, and although the challenges continue today, many children live a better life than they did 10 years ago. Here are some of the main problems children in India face and the ways in which the conditions have improved.

Education

Due to poverty, overcrowding and the lack of teachers, less than 50 percent of children receive a proper education. However, in the past two decades, the government has worked toward putting more children into schools. For example, India’s Education For All program has helped educate 200 million children, making it one of the biggest elementary education programs in the world. Additionally, this program has put around 20 million children into primary school since 2001. The government hopes to enroll all children in school regardless if they live in urban or rural areas. Ideally, students would complete school up until grade eight. Hundreds of millions of children would be uneducated and not have the opportunities they have now without the help of the government and the program.

Health Issues

Health has always been a serious issue in India, especially up until the 21st century. The gap between the rich and poor caused the poor to have little medical support which, in turn, increased the spreading of diseases. Private sectors, as well as the government, have set out to reduce the spreading of diseases and, so far, it has eliminated yaws, leprosy, Guinea worm and polio. Infant mortality rate, another serious health problem, has been steadily declining over the past decade. The National Family Health Survey taken in 2015-16 indicated that since the previous survey (2005-06), 57 children out of 1,000 died before reaching the age of one. Now, the number has decreased to 41 deaths out of 1,000. The improvements in underweight children younger than five years have also decreased from 42.5 percent in 2005-06 to 35.7 percent in 2015-16. These health improvements are continuing to help the lives of many children and families.

Violence

Inequality between males and females has caused violence to emerge toward women and girls alike. Violence, abuse and exploitation are all serious struggles faced by many, and UNICEF, along with many other programs and organizations, has been acting to prevent such brutality. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) has begun to standardize the response to sexual violence. The government has also recently launched the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) which protects all children in the country.

A lack of education, health issues and violence continue to threaten the wellbeing of children in India, but through government legislation and the work of NGOs, these conditions have been improving. If all goes well, they will continue to improve.

– Veronica Bodenstein
Photo: Flickr

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Kerala’s Innovative Health Policy

health policyKerala, a state within India, is renowned for its effective policies in education, literacy, and healthcare. Kerala has the second-lowest rate of poverty in India, and that figure has been steadily declining since 1994. Health policies that provide affordable and accessible healthcare to the state’s low-income populations have been critical in its success defeating poverty, but relatively high levels of inequality and emerging health challenges, including an aging population and lifestyle diseases like diabetes, remain policy challenges for Kerala moving forward.

Kerala’s Current Health Needs

One of Kerala’s most pressing healthcare challenges is caring for its rapidly aging population. Kerala’s population over the age of 60 is expected to double by 2050, and as a larger proportion of people are retired, the state needs a healthcare infrastructure designed to support the health needs of the elderly.

A trustee of an NGO focused on healthcare for the underprivileged in Kerala, who wished to remain anonymous, pointed out changing lifestyles as the cause of some of Kerala’s growing health issues. Non-communicable diseases are on the rise; cancer and diabetes have become the two largest causes of death in the state.

While infectious diseases remain under control compared to other parts of India, re-emergence of certain diseases have led to rather high morbidity in some areas. Additionally, despite significant efforts on the part of the state to place healthcare in the hands of local authorities, and what the NGO trustee says is the highest ratio of doctors to the public in rural areas of any state in India, rural parts of Kerala still do not receive the same quality of care as do urban areas. Likewise, although Kerala has the lowest infant mortality and maternal mortality rates of any Indian state, the government still aims to reduce these rates further.

Policy Solutions

Because healthcare in India is managed at the state level, Kerala’s state government is responsible for formulating its own comprehensive healthcare policy. The state has a history and culture of providing health services to the public; as early as 1879, vaccinations were made mandatory for specific subsets of the population. Since India’s independence in 1947, Kerala has worked to expand easy, community-based access to primary care, prevention services, and specialized treatments.

Kerala’s decentralized healthcare model is a key component of its success in providing affordable and accessible care. After a statewide movement towards expensive private healthcare in the 1980s due to a lack of resources in the public health sector, in 1996, Kerala’s state government decentralized public healthcare through the People’s Campaign for Decentralized Planning. Decentralization shifted approximately 40 percent of state healthcare funding to local governments, prioritizing creating community-based services that are accessible to all regardless of income or caste, as a private-dominated system was consistently barring the poor from accessing care across Kerala.

Looking to the Future

Another key element of Kerala’s healthcare successes has been its willingness to generate policies anticipating future healthcare needs. As the state’s population ages rapidly, policy is already being generated to combat this coming issue. Senior care facilities are already being constructed across the state, existing facilities are being made more equipped for geriatric care, and the Pain and Palliative Care Policy of 2008 has increased the amount of home-based care at the local level.

Likewise, to combat the re-emergence of infectious diseases like diarrhea, typhoid, and Dengue fever, Kerala has invested in information-gathering at the household level in order to observe the spread of such illnesses. As diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease came to account for more than half of all deaths in Kerala, the National Programme for Prevention of CVD, Diabetes, Cancer and Stroke (NPCDCS) was introduced in Pathanamthitta district in 2010 and has since been expanded statewide.

This year, Kerala’s government passed a policy for comprehensive healthcare reform. This new policy seeks to reshape the state’s health services to better account for an aging population, re-emerging infectious diseases and non-communicable lifestyle diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and to expand mental healthcare. It will increase public spending on healthcare more than eightfold in order to further lower the price of public health services as well as providing treatment guidelines to ensure a more even quality of treatment across the state. This comes at the same time as the state is expanding its public health insurance coverage.

Impact on Poverty

Despite the government’s continued efforts to decrease the cost of healthcare and the fact that privatized healthcare services are still largely inaccessible to the poor, Kerala has accomplished several significant victories in providing affordable and accessible healthcare. According to the NGO trustee, no one needs to travel more than 10 kilometers to a primary health centre (PHC), and medicines are provided for free at PHCs across Kerala. Decentralization of healthcare has cut costs significantly, and the state’s new health policy seeks to encourage subsidized public healthcare even further while increasing insurance coverage.

Certainly, Kerala’s innovative health policy is a critical component of its low and steadily decreasing poverty rate. However, underprivileged individuals–including the poor, those in rural areas, women, and the elderly–continue to receive lower quality care and less of it. That is why NGOs and nonprofits like the trustee’s organization must continue to exist, and why the government continues its fight for constant improvement of Kerala’s health policy.

– Macklyn Hutchison
Photo: Flickr

 

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Why Families Need the Reach Every Mother and Child Act

Every day, 830 mothers die during childbirth or during their pregnancy while 15,000 children die of preventable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria. Yearly, 2.7 million newborns die and 1 million babies die the minute they are born. With these frightening statistics in mind, families need the Reach Every Mother and Child Act because it is a solution to these issues that gives mothers and children a chance to live safe and healthy lives.

Background

The Reach Every Mother and Child Act (S.1766) is a bipartisan bill led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-WY), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). At the time of writing, the bill has 49 other co-sponsors in addition to the aforementioned original sponsors.

A previous version of the bill (H.R.4022 / S.1730) gained strong bipartisan support in the 115th Congress, with 212 co-sponsors of the House of Representatives version and 49 co-sponsors of the Senate version.

The bill was reintroduced in the 116th Congress and outlines a five-year plan to eliminate preventable maternal and child deaths in countries across the world. S.1766 would also work to establish a plan that would allow children to live healthy and happy lifestyles by 2030. This Act is especially necessary for places in Central Africa where maternal and child death rates remain at an all-time high.

Benefits

One of these countries is Sierra Leone which has the highest maternal and child mortality rate in the world with 1,360 deaths per every 100,000 births. Sierra Leone remains one of the world’s poorest nations, which means that many expectant mothers do not get the care they need to deliver a child safely. Limited access to basic health care needs also leaves young children at risk during the first 1,000 days of their lives.

The country with the second-highest death rate in the world is the Central African Republic where out of every 100,000 births, 882 result in death. Access to proper health care for women as well as for their children is severely lacking, considering that it is the third poorest nation in Africa. Of note, 45 percent of children are born at home due to a lack of women’s clinics or difficulty access same. There are also only eight OBGYNs in the entire country. Other countries that have incredibly high maternal and child death rates are Chad, Burundi, Liberia, Somalia and South Sudan.

On the brighter side, the majority of these statistics have decreased significantly; child mortality rates have been cut in half since 1990. Families need the Reach Every Mother and Child Act because it would allow for mothers and children in these impoverished nations to receive the care they so desperately need while also providing a foundation for them grow and continue to live healthy lifestyles. Because the U.S. already has the expertise in ending preventable maternal and child deaths, we must play a larger role in this global fight to help mothers and their children.

 

Send an email to your Senators today asking them to support the Reach Every Mother and Child Act.

 

– Sydney Toy
Photo: Flickr

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10 Pieces of Good News About Sub-Saharan Africa

good news about sub-saharan africaFor many Americans, the face of global poverty is sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa consists of 48 countries in southern, central and eastern Africa. Four years ago, the majority of people living in poverty were in sub-Saharan Africa, but a great deal of progress has been made in the fight against global poverty in recent decades. The effects of that progress can be seen as clearly in sub-Saharan Africa. Twenty years ago, much of sub-Saharan Africa was gripped by extreme poverty and nearly non-existent economic growth. However, there has been significant poverty reduction and economic growth recently, thanks in part to poverty reduction initiatives throughout the region. These ten facts describe the good news about sub-Saharan Africa.

10 Pieces of Good News About Sub-Saharan Africa

  1. In 2013, 42.6 percent of sub-Saharan Africans were affected by severe poverty. By 2016, this percentage dropped to 35.2 percent. This represents a decrease in poverty rates of over 5 percent in three years.
  2. Since the 1990s, quality of life in sub-Saharan Africa has improved. Infant mortality is lower and chronic malnutrition is 6 percent less likely. Adult literacy rates have increased by 4 percent as well.
  3. African children are more likely to survive common diseases. In addition, more treatment options are available for HIV and life expectancy has increased by almost twenty years.
  4. Throughout the 1990s, sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP growth remained below 3 percent. The region’s economic growth was above 2.5 percent in 2017 and remained above 3 percent for most of the past decade. Even 2016, sub-Saharan Africa’s lowest year of GDP growth during the 21st century, was better than 1993, its lowest year of GDP growth during the 1990s.
  5. The sub-Saharan African economy was predicted to grow at a faster pace in 2019 than the economies of more affluent regions. For example, Kenya’s economy was predicted to grow by 5.8 percent. Overall regional growth was predicted to be higher than 3 percent.
  6. Economic growth is expected to continue rising after an economic downturn in 2015, with an expected average growth of 3.7  percent in 2020.
  7. In 1999, many sub-Saharan African countries adopted poverty reduction policies modeled on the 1999 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). PRSP programs include cash transfers, subsidies and public works programs. PRSP programs significantly increased economic growth where they were implemented.
  8. From 1990 to 2012, GDP in PRSP countries increased from 0.82 percent to 5.12 percent. GDP in sub-Saharan Africa (including both PRSP and non-PRSP countries) increased from 4.61 percent to 5.21 percent from 2000 to 2012. PRSP greatly stimulated economic growth.
  9. By 2013, 80 percent of primary school age children in Africa were enrolled in school. Secondary school enrollment rates also increased. This means that as education improves, poverty will decrease.
  10. In 1990, industry comprised about 21.9 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP. In 2012, industry comprised about 24.6 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP. In the west, the economic transition from a predominantly agricultural economy to a more industrial economy was an indicator of economic growth. A gradual shift away from an economy that relies solely on agriculture is good news for the people of sub-Saharan Africa.

Poverty is still present in sub-Saharan Africa, but the numbers show how much progress has been made. Further, they show that there is plenty of good news about sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa does not have to be the face of global poverty because of the region’s economic growth and poverty reduction.

– Emelie Fippin
Photo: Flickr

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10 Water Bottle Brands that Give Back

Water bottle companies that give backOne of the most valuable resources people struggle to obtain is safe drinking water. According to the CDC, more than 2.5 billion people lack access to fresh and clean water — that’s more than 35 percent of the world’s total population. Fortunately, many water bottle companies have committed to the cause by giving a percentage of sales to charities that help supply water to people in need. Here are 10 water bottle brands that give back to people in need across the globe.

10 Water Bottle Brands that Give Back

  1. Drinkfinity- Drinkfinity is a monthly subscription box that contains a “Vessel” and a variety of flavored “Pods”. The Pods are composed of dry and liquid ingredients, which fills up a 20oz bottle when the Pod is popped. Drinkfinity’s mission is to reduce plastic waste and create a product with the “smallest possible environmental footprint”.  They have partnered with Water.org, a nonprofit organization that supplies developing countries with safe water. Through this partnership, Drinkfinity vows to donate 1 percent of every purchase to help reduce the global water crisis.
  2. d.stil– Chef’n, a company based in Seattle, Washington founded d.stil as away to give its functional and fashionable designs a bigger purpose. The bottle can be found in Targets across the country. With every bottle sold, d.stil donates 1 percent of the proceeds to Water.org. Through this partnership, d.stil hopes to fulfill their mission- “hydration with a purpose”.
  3. memobottle- Jesse Leeworthy and Jonathan Byrt founded memobottle after witnessing the damaging effects plastic water bottles have on the oceans and the environment. Memobottle’s reusable and unique flat design makes it easy to store water in a bag beside valuables. With every memobottle sold, one person receives two months of clean drinking water. To date, memobottle has supplied nearly six million days of clean drinking water.
  4. Bota- Bota is a stylish backpack that contains a hydration pack, which has the storage capacity of up to three water bottles. The founders, Alexa and Katie, hope their product will help reduce the number of plastic water bottles sold. Bota has partnered with Water.org and pledged to supply over 3.5 years of safe water to a person in a developing country each time the hashtag #letsbota is used alongside a photo of their backpack.
  5. ÖKO- ÖKO applies NASA technology to a water bottle by utilizing a three-layer filtration system. With a replaceable filter, ÖKO guarantees that each sip is safe and clean. ÖKO is BPA-free and Phthalate-free. The company donates $.50 from each water bottle sale online.
  6. Copper H2O- Copper H2O is a lightweight, hammered copper water bottle. This water bottle is handcrafted to increase the surface area of copper that comes in contact with the water. The website claims that there are many health benefits to drinking copper infused water which is known as Tamra Jal in Ayurvedic medicine. Copper H2O donates 15 percent of its profits to several nonprofit organizations that strive to provide developing countries with clean drinking water.
  7. blk. Water- blk. is a company dedicated to personal health and fitness. Through its water bottle line, blk. Water, blk. has partnered up with Water.org to help communities in developing countries access to clean water. With each purchase, a percentage of the sale will go towards Water.org and their global initiative.
  8. Love Bottle- Love Bottle was founded by Minna Yoo, who has a strong passion for health and love. After all, its logo is a heart, embedded in each of the bottles to encourage others to spread the love. The Love Bottles are made in the U.S., but its purpose reaches far across the globe. With a passion for helping others, Love Bottle donates 5 percent of its gross profits to charity: water, a nonprofit organization that supplies drinking water to developing countries.
  9. Corkcicle- Corkcicle was founded in 2010 when the creators wondered how to keep a glass of wine cool. Though its products were originally intended for wine, Corkcicle drinkware is perfect for any beverage. Corkcicle has partnered up with charity: water and will donate 5 percent of each purchase.
  10. Lifestraw- Despite its name, Lifestraw sells more than just straws. Lifestraw started out with a groundbreaking and lifesaving filtration system that can filter out bacteria, chemicals and other harmful elements. Lifestraw has now developed an array of products that will benefit people around the world. With each purchase, a school child receives clean water for the whole school year. Through the company’s humanitarian efforts, Lifestraw also participates in aiding those affected by natural disasters.

As more people are made aware of water crises in developing countries, both small and large, the list of water bottle brands that give back continues to grow. While those who purchase from these water bottle companies receive a portable and reusable container, across the globe, families in need receive something much more precious.

– Emily Beaver
Photo: Flickr

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Telemedicine: Improving Health Care in Rural Nepal

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

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DIY Innovations in the Developing World

DIY innovationsTechnological 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

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UNICEF and UNFPA are Working to End Female Genital Mutilation

end female genital mutilationThe international agencies UNICEF and UNFPA are now in their second year of Phase III of their joint campaign to end female genital mutilation (FGM). While this human rights violation receives less coverage than many other plights affecting the world’s poor, the world’s leaders have come together in recent years to agree on the need to end female genital mutilation. Complete elimination of FGM is recognized as part of the Sustainable Development Goals the global community hopes to reach by 2030.

The Issue at a Glance

The UNFPA defines FGM as “any procedure involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genitals for non-medical reasons.” Affecting 200 million women and girls today in 30 countries, FGM can take the form of a clitoridectomy, infibulation—a way of surgically sealing the vaginal opening—excision, or other damage to the genital area.

While FGM is most prevalent in Africa, it is widely practiced in parts of Asia and the Middle East as well. Egypt and Somalia have among the highest rates in the world, where over 90 percent of girls undergo FGM. In Indonesia and some Asian countries, FGM is so standardized that hospitals expect to perform it on all newborn girls.

Why FGM Should Be Stopped

Part of what makes FGM a human rights violation is that this treatment is typically done to girls under 15 who are not old enough to offer informed consent. Many agree to FGM after hearing myths of what will happen if they forgo the treatment, and the youngest never agree at all—their parents decide.

Not only does FGM violate a women’s right to make informed decisions about what happens to her body, which has physical and psychological repercussions, but it has a negative impact medically 100 percent of the time. Even when done by medical professionals with sterile tools and cutting-edge technology, FGM is a dangerous medical procedure that has no health benefits and frequently leads to a multitude of health issues later in life, including urinary problems, painful copulation and complications during childbirth, as affirmed by the World Health Organization. In short, girls are put through a painful procedure that has negative side effects down the road because of a cultural bias that women can’t be trusted to manage their sexual decisions.

How UNICEF-UNFPA’s Program Works to End Female Genital Mutilation

The reason FGM exists in the first place and has been so difficult for aid organizations to combat is that it is ingrained as a cultural norm. Girls grow up knowing that they will undergo this procedure and that their daughters will too—breaking that cycle appears inconceivable. Unfortunately, the reasons girls are guided to FGM are entirely myth-based and built on a sexist desire to limit female’s use of their sexuality. Girls are told that unless they undergo FGM, they will be dirty, impure or ineligible for marriage by either a religious sect or often by their community. This means that the work UNFPA and UNICEF does to fight involves looking for ways to change the social expectations around FGM.

Some of the specific ways UNFPA and UNICEF’s Joint Program is ending FGM include working with social groups and media to spread awareness of the health and human rights concerns associated with FGM and “to change perceptions of girls who remain uncut.” The agencies have also worked with government leaders to design policies that prohibit FGM to discourage the procedure for legal reasons and with religious leaders to “de-link FGM from religion.” As a result of their work, 31 million people have publicly declared abandonment of FGM. The focus has been on collective abandonment, since when only one or two individuals in a community give up the practice, they face being ostracized by their peers.

UNFPA and UNICEF, along with countless other international agencies, have worked to end FGM one girl at a time. Unfortunately, the procedure is still all too prevalent in large regions of the world. Removing taboos that FGM is too religious or too intimate of a topic to discuss will be necessary for the fight against FGM, and so women may be freed from this violation of their bodies.

– Olivia Heale
Photo: Flickr

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Water Quality and Access in Pakistan

water quality in pakistan

Of the many problems plaguing the country, one of the biggest issues is that of water quality in Pakistan. Many Pakistanis have poor access to safe water, and in many cases, they do not have access to any water at all.

Lack of Water

Despite having some of the most glaciers of any country in the world, Pakistan is considered both water-stressed and water-scarce. Pakistan has the highest water intensity rate- the amount of water used per unit of GDP- in the world and also has the fourth-highest rate of water usage in the world. Many of Pakistan’s communities are situated in arid or semi-arid areas, receive very little rainfall and commonly experience droughts. The agricultural economy relies on flood irrigation to care for water-intensive crops. Ghulam Murtaza, a senior research officer at Pakistan Water Council said that farmers use 10 times more water than is needed for their crops. Industrialization and rapid population growth have led to the country’s water being used at a rapid rate, forcing many to walk miles to collect water or drink from the same sources as animals.

Water Contamination

Poor access to water makes it difficult for many to avoid drinking polluted water. Only 20 percent of the population has access to clean drinking water. The other 80 percent are forced to drink water that has been contaminated by sewage and poor chemical disposal practices. Most of the water in Pakistan is obtained from groundwater which is easily contaminated by improperly disposed of waste. Waste contamination in water can transmit many human diseases. About 50 percent of all diseases people suffer from in the country are caused by poor water quality in Pakistan. Many diarrheal diseases are endemic in Pakistan and cause up to 100,000 deaths each year and account for 33 percent deaths. The lack of safe water has led to a rise in the bottled water industry, but this is just as unsafe. A recent study found that 100 out of 111 bottled water companies were selling unsafe water to consumers.

What is being done

Fortunately, the Pakistani government is taking the water situation seriously. Set up of higher quality water filtration plants is underway in the Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. Additionally, the government is also sponsoring dam-creation programs to lessen the strain on water requirement. The country also plans to improve sanitation conditions to reduce the amount of groundwater contamination.

Water quality in Pakistan is a long way from perfect. The many people of the country have limited access to any kind of water at all, and those who do likely are not drinking clean water. Poor management on many fronts has led to these shortages and issues. However, recognition of these issues is the first step to solve the water quality issues in Pakistan. The Pakistani government and other outside groups have taken notice and the country is taking its first steps to change the unsafe conditions surrounding drinking water.

– Owen Zinkweg
Photo: Unsplash

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The Shoe That Grows is Helping Kids Across the Globe

The Shoe That GrowsThey say that kids grow up in the blink of an eye, and they are not wrong. Kids grow quicker than any parent can keep up with, especially those who cannot afford to properly accommodate these rapid changes. Children between the ages of one and six will grow out of their shoes every three to four months. This means that a child could go through 18 pairs of shoes within the first six years of his or her life.

Families living in extreme poverty cannot afford to pay for this many pairs of shoes for their children. While donated shoes may provide a temporary fix, kids will continue to grow and these shoes will soon be rendered unusable. The only true solution to this problem would be a magical pair of shoes that grows at the same rate as a child. The Shoe That Grows has turned this seemingly impossible product into a reality, and in turn, has positively impacted the lives of thousands of children around the world.

Why The World Needs Shoes

With hunger, life-threatening infectious diseases, and a slew of other issues to worry about, one wouldn’t assume that shoes would fall at the top of the list of things that impoverished families need. However, shoes are far more important than they seem. Over 1.5 billion people around the globe are affected by soil-transmitted diseases. Some of the most dangerous threats lurking in the soil are parasites such as hookworm and ringworm that affect more than 880 million children worldwide.

Children without shoes or with shoes that do not fit correctly live at a much higher risk of contracting these diseases and parasites, not to mention cuts, bruises, blisters and other injuries. When children are sick they are prevented from attending school, which could have a long-term effect.

From Concept to Reality

Kenton Lee was traveling in Nairobi, Kenya in 2007 when he noticed the troublesome state of many children’s feet. All around him, children ran barefoot. One little girl, in particular, stuck out to him: she wore a white dress and shoes that were several sizes too small for her.

It was this experience that eventually led Lee to start a nonprofit in 2009 called Because International. The organization is focused on finding innovative solutions to the problems caused by global poverty. Soon after its inception, Because International launched its first project, The Shoe That Grows. Since then, the organization has distributed over 225,000 ‘growing’ shoes across the world.

If The Shoe Fits…

The Shoe That Grows expands in three places: at the front, sides and back of the foot. This allows the shoe to grow five sizes larger than its smallest setting. The shoes are also highly durable: with a strong rubber sole and a tough leather body, they are designed to withstand years of use. Through its partnership with various organizations around the globe, Because International has been able to deliver The Shoe That Grows to the areas that need them most.

The organization also offers individuals an annual opportunity to ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ with their Wear-A-Pair fundraising event. After signing up for the event, participants receive fundraising kits along with a pair of The Shoe That Grows. Fundraisers are encouraged to wear the shoes from May 6-19 in order to raise awareness about global poverty and the innovative solutions that continue to work towards ending it.

This innovation highlights a daily struggle for many living in poverty, something that most people in developed countries are unaware of. With this initial project, Because International may be ready to launch many more innovations to help alleviate global poverty.

– Ryley Bright
Photo: Flickr