Simple Technologies Can Improve The Lives Of Millions In Developing World, Say Global Health Leaders: Delivering babies in the dark, breathing toxic smoke in the kitchen and walking miles to fetch water -- not to mention boiling every drop before its potable. These are the daily realities for many people in developing nations, particularly the poorest of the poor in rural communities.
But a handful of non-profits are launching innovative approaches to deliver simple, life-changing technologies to this "last mile." Kopernik, an online technology marketplace co-founded by Toshi Nakamura, was among the efforts spotlighted at last week's annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.
The Kopernik website offers a menu of around 50 solutions -- from solar-powered lamps and biomass cooking stoves to rolling water drums and drip irrigation systems -- that are manufactured by companies from around the world and then sold at minimal cost to end-users. The product list is connected to on-the-ground organizations, which can choose those items most appropriate to their community's specific needs. Projects are crowd-funded through the website, and once necessary funds are collected, the merchandise is delivered directly to the local groups, which are typically run by women. The women distribute the items within their village network and often sell the subsidized goods to neighboring communities as well -- in a fashion similar to American Tupperware or Avon parties.
"There's big money getting pumped in, but it is not always reaching the people," Nakamura told The Huffington Post. "The aid industry is made up of a bunch of diplomats and bureaucrats that tend to recycle the same ideas over and over again without taking risks."
"We're trying to counterbalance that," he said.
On a panel last Thursday at CGI, Nakamura, formerly of the United Nations and who now runs his non-profit out of Bali, told the story of an Indonesian woman who sold 50 water purifiers in two weeks. The woman, who previously lived on less than a dollar a day, took home $60 in commission. And in the process, she saved the time and health of many more women and their families.
"In our culture, women believe that boiling water is the best way of purifying it," Betty Kyazike, a branch manager for Living Goods, said during another CGI panel discussion. "But they don't always boil it up to boiling point, so it's not safe for drinking."
Even if they properly cook off the cholera and other pathogens, the water rarely tastes good, said Kyazike, who proudly declared that she currently leads the the top-performing branch of an Avon-like network of health promoters. In addition to distributing products, Living Goods also provides education -- from the proper use of water filters to the importance of hand-washing in disease prevention.
Women's water troubles don't stop with pathogens, however. Lugging the water from the well can be a major drain of time and energy, added Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer for Unilever, a multinational consumer goods company.
"I actually did this walk in the heat with a lady in South Africa," said Weed, also on Kyazike's panel. "With the weight of the vessel on the way back, I was a complete wimp and had a backache by the end of it."
Kopernik's menu supplies another answer: a 13-gallon donut-shaped plastic container that can be easily rolled with a rope to and from the well.
Water conservation can also limit such trips, said Weed. Teaching women to recycle the three or four buckets of water typically used for a load of laundry onto their vegetable garden, for example, could further improve their quality of life.
Indoor air is yet another source of significant concern. Millions of women in the developing world still cook with firewood. This practice, which involves gathering and chopping the increasingly scarce resource, is another time and energy sink that keeps women and girls from more productive activities, like going to school. And cooking over an open flame or with a traditional cook stove means inhaling thick, toxic black smoke, noted Neil Bellefeuille, chief executive officer of The Paradigm Project, which aims to leverage carbon markets on behalf of the poor.
Associated respiratory illnesses are a pandemic in the developing world: Every year, an estimated two million people die from breathing smoke created by cooking fires, which is more than die from malaria, noted Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations in a HuffPost blog.
"This is a large issue, and it remains mostly under the radar," said Bellefeuille, a member of Nakamura's CGI panel and whose company sells clean cook stoves. "It's literally like having a campfire in the living room."
A biomass stove sold through Kopernik is 80 percent more efficient than one that burns firewood, while producing minimal smoke and carbon dioxide. Since the charcoal fuel can be created with everything from corn husks to coconut shells, it also reduces the burden on trees and therefore the pace of deforestation.
Also contributing to toxic indoor air pollution is kerosene. Without access to electricity, many populations in the developing world rely on costly and dirty kerosene lamps. Solar lights, offered through Kopernik, provide a cheaper, cleaner light source. In many rural villages, these now allow families to be more productive and babies to be delivered safely at night.
"The quality of light is good, so we can see the condition of the mother, and if there's any bleeding, we're able to see it," says a midwife in Oecusse, East Timor, in a video created by Kopernik.
What's more, with the solar devices, a family's monthly lighting costs drop from an average of $14 to less than a dollar.
"This is really simple stuff," said Nakamura.
This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Monday, 29 August 2011
Photo of the Day: Responding to Irene's Impact
MY PHOTO OF THE DAY SHOWING PRESIDENT OBAMA`S RECOVERY DIARY.
Date: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:55 PM
Subject: Photo of the Day: Responding to Irene's Impact
Subject: Photo of the Day: Responding to Irene's Impact
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Sunday, 28 August 2011
Time to quit the gold party?
Time to quit the gold party?: A fall of $170 in two days has made investors nervous. Does it mark the end of the bull run or a buying opportunity?
All the posts are provided by me and any comments l provide are my own view of the markets and are not the views of the article writer and or news provider.
All the posts are provided by me and any comments l provide are my own view of the markets and are not the views of the article writer and or news provider.
Re: 'The most inefficient and disastrous bank I have ever dealt with’
Re: 'The most inefficient and disastrous bank I have ever dealt with’: Tesco Bank have just implemented a superb scam on their brand-new online banking system.
You first have to get past the most unbelievable online security system I've ever seen. Try it - you won't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry uncontrollably.
Now to the scan. My Tesco Clubcard account has been transferred over as a Clubcard with Overdraft account. I never asked for this so assume they're doing it for everyone. "Pretty irresponsible, almost encouraging people to fall into debt" I hear you all saying. But here's the genius part from Tesco. When they show you your account balance they INCLUDE the overdraft facility. So if say your actual balance is £153 and you have a permitted overdraft of £500, then your actual balance is shown as £653.
Cue thousands of Tesco customers going out and spending money they thought they had but didn't, only to then get hit with overdraft charges. As they say, "every little helps....."
All the posts are provided by me and any comments l provide are my own view of the markets and are not the views of the article writer and or news provider.
You first have to get past the most unbelievable online security system I've ever seen. Try it - you won't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry uncontrollably.
Now to the scan. My Tesco Clubcard account has been transferred over as a Clubcard with Overdraft account. I never asked for this so assume they're doing it for everyone. "Pretty irresponsible, almost encouraging people to fall into debt" I hear you all saying. But here's the genius part from Tesco. When they show you your account balance they INCLUDE the overdraft facility. So if say your actual balance is £153 and you have a permitted overdraft of £500, then your actual balance is shown as £653.
Cue thousands of Tesco customers going out and spending money they thought they had but didn't, only to then get hit with overdraft charges. As they say, "every little helps....."
All the posts are provided by me and any comments l provide are my own view of the markets and are not the views of the article writer and or news provider.
Re: 'The most inefficient and disastrous bank I have ever dealt with’
Re: 'The most inefficient and disastrous bank I have ever dealt with’: Having dealt with numerous banks and lenders for and on behalf of people for over 25 years, nothing surprises me today. These banks are just getting greedier by the day and as regards Santander not providing an adequate service does not surprise me at all, having dealt with banks in Spain, where the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing. You can see why they now are in debt and have no real structure for the repayment as such.
Maybe one day banks will learn it is the people that bank with them that should be put first and not their profits.
Maybe one day banks will learn it is the people that bank with them that should be put first and not their profits.
Re: Bachmann Softens on Farm Subsidies - Lindsey Boerma - Politics - The Atlantic
Re: Bachmann Softens on Farm Subsidies - Lindsey Boerma - Politics - The Atlantic: So the way forward in US politics is too support only the policies that provide the maximum amount of return for the person that has a farm or some other business or asset that can gain them more money and not to look after the people who you are supposed to represent. Is this not called lining your own pocket?
Re: Bachmann Softens on Farm Subsidies - Lindsey Boerma - Politics - The Atlantic
Re: Bachmann Softens on Farm Subsidies - Lindsey Boerma - Politics - The Atlantic: No Kool-Aid here nor any allegiance to party or personage above principle. The Republican Party doesn't even fully control the House... the Republican partly loyalists do not like the Tea Party... they tolerate them. Before the 2010 election the Democratic Party controlled the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. The Ratings for Obama were strong in the beginning, but Congress' ratings have been in the teens and twenties for years and years. Currently Obama's ratings are have reached new unprecedented lows. Obama has had 3 years in office, 2 of those with a Democratically controlled Congress, and look what we have.
Here are some stats from NBC's Meet the Press on 6/12/11...
Obama's Change
============
Unemployment:
January 2009 - 7.3% June 2011 - 9.1% Change: UP 25%
National Debt:
January 2009 - $10,600,000,000,000 $10.6 TRILLION > $32,000 per person
June 2010 - $14,300,000,000,000 $14.3 TRILLION > $43,000 per person
Change: UP 35%
Price of Gas:
January 2009 - $1.83 June 2011 - $3.74 Change: UP 104%
This is change we can do without regardless of the party affiliation. I would like to see EVERY sitting politician who is responsible for this economic disaster out and all those complicit of destroying the country (our economy) regardless of party or capacity brought to justice and made to repay everything they have stolen plus 20% tot he American people.
He started by blaming others and he is still blaming others. He has now added natural disasters. The Republicans, if you include the Tea Party, control the House. So much for your false assertion and blame game. The Tea Party as a group have been the only group touting fiscal responsibility.It seems plain that you have not thought out your criticism of the foster children... the Bachmann's are not on welfare and using the "subsidies" as you call them for their income... which is import of your attack. Your other tactic is to discount the writer of what you don't want to hear or have seen here. The tactic speaks for itself. Since you are so worried about my IQ, I will assure you that it is fine (well over 120 if I recall correctly from my college days). Another attack will be in the area of my education... I have several degrees including a graduate degree. Having a background in IT and programming and now being a mathematics instructor in have a proclivity for analysis. As for middle class qualifications I have never been rich and I have been poor as a child (on welfare and food stamps). Most of my life I have been middle class. Having taught students hundreds of students and supervised/managed not only students but people, I have an admiration for those who do so with positive results. Remember too that she is a mother of 5... being a good parent is harder than corporate or blue collar work or teaching.I say this only to illustrate the error in attacking people and not sticking to issues.
The Tea Party is not just a constituency of anger. Sure there are people who are angry and rightly so. However, my affiliation with the Tea Party, is that it is a call to reign in oppressive freedom threatening overreaching overbearing Federal and State and local gov't tyranny. We want fiscally responsible and socially responsible representatives whose first loyalties are to the principles that this nation was founded upon and made America truly a shining city on a hill. We harbor no delusions touting America's perfection, but we do believe that adherence to the principles on which it was founded will give man the best gov't to be had to date and the best possible with the exception of course of being lead by a perfect potentate.
Perhaps that will help you understand that Tea Partiers, at lest some of us, are not irrationale, not pro-rich, not pro-elitism, and not pro-party so much as pro-principles of the founding fathers. We are tired of politics as usual, we want people who can balance their own checkbooks and not encumber us with excessive debt... people who can manage their families well and standby their commitments.. enuf said...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT MY OVERVIEW - THIS WAS PROVIDED BY A COMMENTATOR FOR DISQUS ON THE ATLANTIC.
Here are some stats from NBC's Meet the Press on 6/12/11...
Obama's Change
============
Unemployment:
January 2009 - 7.3% June 2011 - 9.1% Change: UP 25%
National Debt:
January 2009 - $10,600,000,000,000 $10.6 TRILLION > $32,000 per person
June 2010 - $14,300,000,000,000 $14.3 TRILLION > $43,000 per person
Change: UP 35%
Price of Gas:
January 2009 - $1.83 June 2011 - $3.74 Change: UP 104%
This is change we can do without regardless of the party affiliation. I would like to see EVERY sitting politician who is responsible for this economic disaster out and all those complicit of destroying the country (our economy) regardless of party or capacity brought to justice and made to repay everything they have stolen plus 20% tot he American people.
He started by blaming others and he is still blaming others. He has now added natural disasters. The Republicans, if you include the Tea Party, control the House. So much for your false assertion and blame game. The Tea Party as a group have been the only group touting fiscal responsibility.It seems plain that you have not thought out your criticism of the foster children... the Bachmann's are not on welfare and using the "subsidies" as you call them for their income... which is import of your attack. Your other tactic is to discount the writer of what you don't want to hear or have seen here. The tactic speaks for itself. Since you are so worried about my IQ, I will assure you that it is fine (well over 120 if I recall correctly from my college days). Another attack will be in the area of my education... I have several degrees including a graduate degree. Having a background in IT and programming and now being a mathematics instructor in have a proclivity for analysis. As for middle class qualifications I have never been rich and I have been poor as a child (on welfare and food stamps). Most of my life I have been middle class. Having taught students hundreds of students and supervised/managed not only students but people, I have an admiration for those who do so with positive results. Remember too that she is a mother of 5... being a good parent is harder than corporate or blue collar work or teaching.I say this only to illustrate the error in attacking people and not sticking to issues.
The Tea Party is not just a constituency of anger. Sure there are people who are angry and rightly so. However, my affiliation with the Tea Party, is that it is a call to reign in oppressive freedom threatening overreaching overbearing Federal and State and local gov't tyranny. We want fiscally responsible and socially responsible representatives whose first loyalties are to the principles that this nation was founded upon and made America truly a shining city on a hill. We harbor no delusions touting America's perfection, but we do believe that adherence to the principles on which it was founded will give man the best gov't to be had to date and the best possible with the exception of course of being lead by a perfect potentate.
Perhaps that will help you understand that Tea Partiers, at lest some of us, are not irrationale, not pro-rich, not pro-elitism, and not pro-party so much as pro-principles of the founding fathers. We are tired of politics as usual, we want people who can balance their own checkbooks and not encumber us with excessive debt... people who can manage their families well and standby their commitments.. enuf said...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT MY OVERVIEW - THIS WAS PROVIDED BY A COMMENTATOR FOR DISQUS ON THE ATLANTIC.
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