-
Turning Poop into Profits: Waste Enterprisers Drive to Turn Waste Outputs into Fuel Inputs
If Ashley Murray has something to say about it, the economics of poop are in for a shake-up. “85 percent of human waste generated on the planet is dumped directly into the environment without any treatment at all,” she said. Murray, founder and CEO of Waste Enterprisers and a Fellow at this year’s Unreasonable Institute, believes that waste can be transformed into fuel.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Tags
- waste
-
The Art of ‘Nice,’ Putting ‘Care’ In African Healthcare
What’s the secret to attracting 300 patients a month to a brand new, three-room health clinic in a sprawling industrial area? It might be the free manicure/pedicure women receiver after paying for a full “head-to-toe” checkup, but more likely, it’s the value of Penda. In Swahili, Penda means love, and that’s the key to Penda Health Clinics, a new chain of low-cost health facilities in Kenya that puts “care” at the center of their business model.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
-
Weekly Roundup: Flushed – Is This Any Way to Crowdsource a Social Enterprise?
On Tuesday, founder and CEO of Good Goods, took a seat on the throne and didn’t get off until 50 hours later - all while under the watchful eye of a webcam. By then Simmon Griffiths and company had raised more than $50,000 in pre-orders to fund the first bulk production run of Good Goods’ new line of toilet paper: ‘Who Gives A Crap’. Working with WaterAid, the company plans to dedicate 50 percent of the paper’s profits to build toilets and improve sanitation in developing countries.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
-
From the Slums in Delhi to the Villages in Takeo: How Operation ASHA Scaled Up Across the Borders
In December 2010, Operation ASHA (OpASHA) opened its first DOTS center in the capital city of Phnom Penh. After encouraging results in India, Cambodia was the first foreign country to test the model of providing DOTS to tuberculosis patients in urban slums and rural communities. The organization arrived in Cambodia with the aim to replicate its model used in India, but it struggled to replicate the success.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- public health
-
Mobile Money: How Cell Phones Can Fight Hunger in the Sahel
Some five billion people worldwide were using mobile phones in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union, with the strongest growth taking place in developing countries. Africa is the fastest growing mobile market. In the past six years, the industry estimates that the number of subscribers has grown nearly 20 percent each year. At this rate, we can expect to see some 735 million cell phone users in Africa by the end of 2012.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- nutrition
-
Disruptive Sanitation: Can 3-Wheeled Carts and Better Septic Tanks Add Value to the Supply Chain AND Clean Up Jakarta?
A Mercy Corps project titled PUSH (Program of Urban Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion) undertook a market analysis of Jakarta’s sanitation industry. Funded by the Suez Environment Foundation, the project found a massive untapped market of potential customers in urban Indonesia. Around 94 million Indonesians live without access to sanitation services and 22 million people—more than two and a half times the population of New York City.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
-
The Microinsurance Revolution
Six years ago David Patient felt his immune system slipping. He had been H.I.V.-positive for a long time, but now he made two decisions: He started on antiretroviral medicines to protect himself, and he began trying to buy life insurance to provide for his partner.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
Remote Control: Three Innovative Solutions to Healthcare Distribution in Rural Areas
To ensure health products retain their quality means the entire supply chain – from storage conditions to distribution channels – must be considered. But distribution costs of health products and their associated service provisions in particular are one component of healthcare supply chains that’s often under-considered and therefore ineffectively budgeted. However, this is a new area of focus for many social enterprises that are looking to bridge the logistical gap.
- Categories
- Health Care