Change Agent

A man receives food at the Southeast Neighborhood House food bank in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/File)

'Food rescue' group teaches others how to do it

By Nora Leccese, Shareable.net / 06.20.13

A group of three impassioned friends, all under the age of 30, started Boulder Food Rescue in August of 2011 with the goal of introducing the problems of waste and want to one another, and with the help of a little logistical muddling on our part, letting them solve each other.

It’s a shocking fact that 40% of all food produced in the US goes to waste at some point in production. The EPA estimates that every grocery store in the country generates about 1 ton of waste per day, which doesn’t even touch waste in the field or in transport. This (almost inconceivably) occurs at the same time at 1 in 6 Americans are considered “food insecure” and do not have access to adequate and reliable nutrition.

We set about addressing this lunacy in our own community of Boulder, Colo., by starting an organization that picks up food, primarily fresh fruits and veggies, from local grocers and transports it by bike to 50 agencies that serve hungry, homeless, and low-income folks in Boulder. We use 90% bicycle transportation because our food system is incredibly energy intensive, and it makes no sense to put more fossil fuels into trying to rescue food that slips though the cracks.

Over the past 20 months, Boulder Food Rescue has amassed a volunteer base of 150, saved nearly 325,000 lbs. of fresh, healthy food, and is in the process of becoming a national nonprofit. This last point has been our focus over the past several months as we began to export our bike-powered food rescue model to 5 different cities. Due to some national press coverage, we had people from 25 different cities around the globe from Dublin to San Francisco contact us to ask for support in rescuing food.

In March, with the help of a Shareable seed grant, we decided to focus our work to replicate the program on an inspiring group of people in Fort Collins, Colo. An already close-knit group of friends and community members came to us and asked for some help establishing a food rescue organization with bikes in Fort Collins, which is just an hour and a half by car from Boulder. This initial ask was followed by meetings and long email chains and countless hours of community-based research. We became a primary resource for them, and in our weekly correspondence answered questions about how to best approach community partners, access nonprofit status, and recruit volunteers.

We also wrote and produced bound copies of the “BFR Package Deal,” a step-by-step guide to starting a food rescue, which proved to be invaluable to them as they could refer to it for local and national resources, and feel a greater degree of independence. We encouraged lots of inquiry and communication with organizations that were already working with food in Fort Collins. This led to many conversations with the local food bank, gleaning project, food coop, and network of community gardens about the role a potential food rescue would fill in their operations.

Once the organizers were confident that a bike-powered food rescue was timely and appropriate for Fort Collins, we together set about creating the beginnings of an organization: bylaws, a board of directors, and a mission statement. One Fort Collins organizer said of this initial stage, “It is a genuinely beautiful act of strength to get something like this going, and I can’t wait to be a part of this beginning.”

The Fort Collins Food Rescue crew was filled with enthusiasm and energy, but had the same problem we did at our inception: the issue of how to become a nonprofit, since the project relies on tax deductible donations. We at Boulder Food Rescue were working hard to become nationally tax exempt so that we might extend out 501c3 status to Fort Collins and several other cities, but had run into frustrating road blocks internally and with the IRS.

In a display of resourcefulness, one of the Fort Collins organizers, Dana Guber, suggested that food rescue in Fort Collins be housed under the nonprofit status of the Growing Project, a local organization that promotes the value of a strong, diverse, and just local food system for all residents of northern Colorado through direct agricultural experiences, education, and advocacy.

The group carefully weighed their options, and decided that the best way to serve their community and rescue food was to become a project of the Growing Project. They adopted the name Food Finders and completed their first pickup by bicycle last week, which was a whole bunch of fresh, healthy greens!

The past few months have been an intense learning process for both Boulder Food Rescue and the newly christened Food Finders. We learned to be an incubator for a fledgling organization and help it create a vision for the future. We have gained a greater understanding that federal paperwork doesn’t happen on our schedule and learned how we can balance sharing our model and providing support with granting full autonomy to the people who use it.

The folks in Fort Collins have learned a great deal about patience and persistence in starting a new project, and have experienced sweet success as a result of their work. A Fort Collins organizer reflected: “We are capable of preventing food waste and, more universally, spreading knowledge to strengthen the community. Being a part of Fort Collins Food Rescue has given me an empowerment that I don’t feel is leaving any time soon.”

Learn more about Boulder Food Rescue and how to start your own city food rescue program.

• This article was originally published by Shareable, a nonprofit online magazine that tells the story of how sharing can promote the common good.

In August, the Millennial Trains Project will send 40 young Americans by train from the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington, D.C.. Each rider will have a specific, crowdfunded project to help build a better nation. (Courtesy of the Millennial Trains Project)

Historic US railroads inspire 21st-century solutions: the Millennial Trains Project

By Brittany Koteles, Dowser.org / 06.19.13

As the Millennial Trains Project (MTP) enters the two-week countdown for applications, the nation is responding to its provocative idea: Let’s use 150-year-old railways to inspire 21^st  century change.

Over the span of 10 days, 40 Millennials will cross the country by train, each rider with a specific, crowdfunded project to help build a better nation. Riders won’t be alone: They will count on the dialogue and involvement of onboard mentors and station-side cities.

We Millennials [Editor's note: Millennials, roughly speaking, are teens and adults under 30 years of age] don’t have an easy future up ahead of us, and it seems that we’ve been dubbed with some tough-to-swallow labels, like narcissism and laziness.  25-year-old Patrick Dowd, MTP’s founder and CEO, insists that the jury is still out on our generation – and that maybe Millennials are ready to step up to the plate.

In our conversation, Dowd shares the challenges that Millennials face, the inspiration behind the project, and the stories MTP is uncovering through its applicants and stakeholders.

Your Huffington Post article suggested that Millennials may not be such a “Me Me Me Generation,” as TIME recently suggested.

I thought that the TIME article was, like many others, not that impressive or accurate. It takes a slice of data and makes sweeping generalizations about what this generation is or isn’t.

I’m not saying that Millennials are one thing or another. I’m just creating a platform that will help people to explore their passions. Applications are proving that there’s a lot of talent in our generation. That’s a big asset.

MTP says that Millennials are living in a United States that is more divided that at any time since the Civil War. 

It’s true. Just look at the exit maps from the last election – look at the red and blue states. There are a lot of disagreements, and a lot of polarizations. With the way the media has evolved, people can now build silos around themselves, surrounding themselves with information sources that reaffirm only their beliefs.

But there is no political litmus test to get on this train, and we are bringing really diverse people together. This is building new relationships based on shared aspirations for a better future – that aren’t constrained by existing political fault lines.

You’ve said that MTP was inspired by your similar experience in India with Jagriti Yatra. 

Yes. I studied Hindi and read and learned about India for three years, and I lived in India for five months – but traveling across the breadth of the country gave me so much more than what I could gleam from academic study or living in one place.

It also helped me to imagine what it’s like to do something on a big scale; to think of what the opportunities could be. You feel the diversity – the geographical diversity, the human diversity, and even the spiritual diversity as well. There’s something about feeling the bumps of the country as you go across it – highways and airplanes can’t offer that.

When I came back from India, I was working with JP Morgan when the Occupy Wall Street movement began to gain traction. I thought there was a better way to channel the frustration that my generation has with the challenges we face.

How does MTP’s compare to Jagriti Yatra?

They are both built on the concept that journeys build leaders, and they share the mission of building trans-regional perspectives and experiential learning.

The biggest difference is that MTP is very user-generated. Riders are designing their own projects, and doing their own crowdfunding. In India, we didn’t have the opportunity to develop our own projects.

An India-inspired idea, taking root in the United States. Any hopes it will continue to spread?

Expansion could happen. Maybe people will want to copy it – and that’s fine! We can help with capacity building if other people wanted to do this somewhere else. I think the most important component is that the location needs to have a geographically diverse innovation ecosystem.

You’re making a big bet on Millennials. Have you seen any adversity from that?

We had some surprising responses to my piece in GOOD. Some people from older generations were complaining about the project being only for Millennials, saying that older people shouldn’t be left out of the project. I certainly understand, but I think we need to create a safe space for our generation to create ideas of our own.

I was joking with my team that for every seat in Congress – which is making decisions that will affect our future – that’s occupied by a Millennial, we’ll offer a seat for older people on the train!

Ha! I bet the comment wouldn’t sit well with a lot of non-Millennials. 

I don’t know about that. For every one snide comment I’ve gotten, there have been 100 people saying, “This is great,” “I want my daughter or son to get involved,” or “How can I support you….”

Older people are generally very supportive of MTP. People want to rebuild a sense of America, and that’s cross-generational.

What other stakeholders have been in dialog with MTP?

On the one hand, we’re working with the entrepreneurial, design-thinking community – but it’s been fascinating to connect with the old-school train community. The train guys are like land sailors. They have this amazing oral history about seeing cities being built across the country, but it’s not very well-documented or accessible online – you have to talk to them to discover their stories.

We also hosted a delegation of native Americans that had gone on a walk from Kansas to DC. We both connected with the idea that journeys build leaders. We had a very long discussion about the history of their people, their beliefs, and what it’s like to be a native American. The meeting was three hours long, and for the first 90 minutes, I just listened to the storytelling of their history and culture.

They reminded us that in popular culture, the idea of trains represents adventure and the pioneering spirit that we want to revive. But for them, it represents an instrument of extreme terror that was used as a vessel to desolate their populations. It was good to be made aware of that. They also recognized that we are using the train for a different purpose, and both sides hoped to see participation from their tribes.

Are you learning anything new about Millennials through this process?

Very diverse groups of people are gravitating toward the opportunity. It’s just this kaleidoscopic look at where the generation might be headed.  There are projects about alternative education, wearable technologies, music, poetry, computer science, health, local governance….

I’m learning about things I didn’t even know existed. There is one project about citizen science. They are using technology to connect outdoor athletes, conservation scientists, and policymakers. For example, a rock climber sees an eagle’s nest, takes a picture with her cell phone, tags it, and sends the data to an eagle conservatory.

Another project works with community wireless networks. They use free open-source software to build community mesh intranets. One applicant, Stephanie, is using Google Glass to identify opportunities for wearable technology.

So are you seeing a tech-heavy balance of projects?

There are a lot of projects that are only possible because of new technologies – but it’s not really about technology. It’s about passion, principles, and ideas.

Cameron wants to digitally share her street installations of poetry, but for her, [MTP] is about the magic and beauty of poetry. Stephanie is working with “techy” Google Glass, but it’s also about honoring and connecting with her immigrant parent’s pioneering journey to the United States. Lindsea from Hawaii is integrating technologies into local governance, but I think it’s also about being part of a country even when you’re from an outlying part of it. I imagine her connecting with inspiring friends from the mainland as a result of this.

At a time when we have so much ability to connect through technological innovations, we have physical connections that can be much more powerful. It’s worth the time and effort of people to unplug and connect in that way.

This will be MTP’s first trip. What are MTP’s expectations? 

This first journey is an experiment, and we’ll learn from it. Some stops and forms of engagement will be more successful than others, and everybody getting onboard knows that. It’s the start of something great and a learning experience for everybody involved. We’ll reinvest that knowledge.

Does that mean we can count on more trips in the future?

(Laughs) Let’s just see how this goes. I think it’ll be great – and if that’s the case, there are more places to go.

• This article originally appeared at Dowser.org.

A Muslim girl, her hands painted with henna, offers prayers on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. (Jagadeesh Nv/Reuters/File)

From a caged teen in a basement in India to literary fame

By Maria Caspani, Thomson Reuters Foundation / 06.18.13

Salma's fate wasn’t meant to be any different to that of millions of girls in rural India: You’re born to the huge disappointment of your parents who were desperate for a boy; you're sent to school for a few years; you're married off in your teens and have children of your own. Eventually, you die. 

The prospect of such a life haunted Salma when she was a young girl growing up in an ultra-conservative Muslim village in southern India. The thought of puberty filled her with dread, for that was when young girls got locked up inside their homes, forbidden to study, play, or do any of the things children do.

This was and still is the destiny of so many girls in her community – until they get married, sometimes only to be imprisoned inside four walls again, but this time in their husband’s home.

Salma's life, however, took another turn and quite an extraordinary one. So extraordinary that it was a story that had to be told, says British director Kim Longinotto.

Ms. Longinotto turned Salma’s life story into a film that was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, at the Berlin International Film Festival, and at this year's Sheffield Doc/Fest. [Editor's note: Click here for the "Salma" film's website.]

Salma is now the most famous female poet in southern India. She is also a politician.   

After she was born, Salma’s family gave her away.

"I guess I was too young to care," her mother says in the film, recounting how her husband had told her she must give birth to a boy or she would be sterilized. 

When she was returned to her parents years later, Salma attended school until she reached puberty, when she was locked in a small room in the basement of her family home. She was 13.

In the documentary, she recalls how she and her sister would fight over who was going to sit at the tiny barred window, the only point of contact with the outside world. 

"I had no dreams anymore, no desires," Salma says in the film. "All you have is time but no life. It's crazy."

She used to write poems as a way of letting her thoughts out into a world where she couldn't go. 

When she was finally allowed outside her basement, it was to be forced into marriage as a teenager to a much older man.

In Muslim communities in southern India, so-called minority laws make it impossible for authorities to intervene and stop child marriages, Salma told Thomson Reuters Foundation in Sheffield.

"I have stopped many [child] marriages – Hindu's only," she said. "I couldn't intervene in Muslim communities' child marriages."

Salma's husband beat her up and once again she was forbidden to leave home. 

He didn't want her to write and he threw her notebooks away so Salma began to scribble her poems on tiny pieces of paper she ripped off a calendar, while hiding inside a filthy toilet.

Eventually, her mother started smuggling out her poems under piles of laundry and her father mailed them.

Despite previous disagreements and hard feelings, her mother wanted to help her. "Secretly I wanted her to write poetry," she says in the film. 

After 20 years inside her husband's house, Salma's poems were published, to the outrage of fellow villagers. She had exposed their life and their sacred traditions to the world. Her poetry candidly speaks of sex, fierce fights with her husband, and it gives a voice to women who are expected to remain silent.

"Her writing calls for social awakening in the Muslim world. Woman deserves a better treatment, she says, but says it without offending the religion and establishment," a local reporter wrote about her poetry. 

Salma now lives in Chennai – the capital of Tamil Nadu state – with her two sons. She moved there after she was elected chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Social Welfare Board.

Her husband and their sons, who were raised in a deeply Muslim conservative environment, still disapprove of her writing, of the fact that she doesn't wear a burqa, and of her fiercely egalitarian spirit that trumped culture and tradition. 

"Children, mother-in-law, father: It's all ties and knots, you can't undo them or everything will unravel," reads one of her poems. 

• This article originally appeared at Thomson Reuters Foundation, a source of news, information, and connections for action. The foundation provides programs that trigger change, empower people, and offer concrete solutions.

New Jersey native Scott Zabelski responded to last fall's hurricane Sandy by selling 'Restore the Shore' T-shirts that netted a half-million dollars for hurricane relief. (David Karas)

Scott Zabelski found T-shirts were a perfect fit for hurricane Sandy relief

By David Karas, Contributor / 06.17.13

News reports showed audiences around the United States and the world how hurricane Sandy had caused unprecedented devastation along New Jersey’s coastline.

But when New Jersey native Scott Zabelski saw it for his own eyes, the destruction became more real, and more personal.

He "looked around and saw things I would never have expected to see,” he says. “That’s when it was the most heartbreaking and devastating.”

Mr. Zabelski is a resident of Toms River, N.J., just a short drive from a portion of the coast that received significant damage in the October 2012 hurricane. During his visit to a nearby barrier island, where he had spent time growing up and visiting friends, he couldn’t help but think that most of the places he remembers would be forever changed.

In the hours following the storm, Zabelski wanted to find a way to help.

The owner of Blue Wave Printing, a screen-printing company, Zabelski was tossing around ideas when his father suggested creating a T-shirt. Scott dreamed up the motto “Restore the Shore,” and quickly printed a handful to share with friends and family.

“Once I saw people’s reactions, then it kind of hit me,” he says.

Zabelski decided to create and sell T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts with "Restore the Shore" and donate part of the proceeds to hurricane recovery and relief.

The first day of sales was a much greater success than he had ever imagined. By the end of the day, he was able to spend $1,200 in donations to buy gift cards for those impacted by the storm.

He printed more shirts through the night, and sales boomed the next day as well – allowing him to raise $5,000 in donations.

“The biggest thing that we did differently from anyone else,” he says, “is that we really gave a significant portion of the [money away].” Zabelski set his prices so that they would cover his expenses, with the rest going to charity.

The idea rapidly blossomed and demand grew, he says, enough so that he decided to shut down his screen-printing business for six months to handle the T-shirt orders and continue to raise as much for hurricane recovery as possible.

His business went from a staff of three to 21 – a number that included family members and friends, as well as some victims of the storm who had lost their homes.

“I hired my mom, I hired my brother, I hired friends from my beach area,” he says. “These are all, like, my buddies.

As the sales piled up, Zabelski researched what help was needed where and then helped fill that need – whether it was for chopped wood, portable restroom facilities, equipment for first responders and law enforcement officials, or gift cards for displaced families.

The recovery process was personal for Zabelski, whose parents’ home sustained a great deal of damage. While his own home was relatively untouched, he saw the rigors of the recovery process through his parents' eyes – and turned that knowledge into finding ways to help.

“I could see all the challenges the people on the island and in Toms River were going to face through what my parents were facing,” he says.

Whether it was selling shirts and hoodies from his storefront, or at makeshift stands in parking lots that he announced on Facebook, Zabelski spent months producing more T-shirts and selling them throughout the region.

And the donations continued to climb – in the end surpassing $517,000.

“It was totally overwhelming,” he says. “It took over my whole life.”

Zabelski has since returned to his normal printing business, but the adventure is one he will never forget.

“It was just totally mind-blowing,” he says. “I feel lucky that I was able to make a little bit of a difference, the way I knew was needed. I feel lucky that I could be the one to see what was missing and provide that need.”

Zabelski attributes some of the movement’s success to his fundraising and distribution model, which took into consideration the skepticism some people have about donating to causes. He wanted to make sure people knew exactly how much of the sale price would be donated and where that donation would go – and that the funds would be put to use immediately.

“We showed people where the money was going,” he says. “We used Facebook to post every time we purchased something and gave it away. People could literally see, that moment, where the money went and who it was given to.”

A farmer uses a foot pump to irrigate his crops in Mwingi, Kenya. Foot pumps are useful in areas where electricity is unavailable but still have a limited capacity. Solar-powered irrigation pumps, such as one being developed by SunWater, could greatly increase crop yields. (Ken Oloo/International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies/Reuters/File)

Solar pumps could boost farm yields in poor countries

By Kyla Yeoman, Global Envision / 06.07.13

A guest post by Paul Polak, author, “Out of Poverty,” and founder of International Development Enterprises:

What if we could harness the limitless power of the sun to carry water to the crops of millions of small poor farmers around the world?

If I want to water my petunias, I turn on the tap outside my house, hold my thumb over the end of a battered green hose, and water away.

If a small farmer in Ghana or China wants to water a small patch of vegetables he’s growing to sell in the local market, he breaks his back hauling water in two buckets or sprinkling cans from a nearby stream. It takes six hours a day every other day for three months to water a tenth of an acre of vegetables which might sell for $100 at the most.

The 1 billion of the world’s rural poor want out of poverty.

But to escape poverty they need to grow more cash crops to increase their income. The only way to grow more cash crops is to pump water. The current ways of doing it don’t work very well.

Foot pumps, diesel pumps, and solar pumps

A foot-operated pump that costs $25 will irrigate as much as half an acre with about four hours a day of work to earn a transformative $100 or more in profit. But it’s hard work, and anybody in his right mind would prefer to use a mechanized pump if he were able to afford it.

A five-horsepower diesel pump irrigates two-and-a-half acres of vegetables, but costs $350. And $450 a year for diesel [fuel], plus another $150 a year for repairs means $2,100 over the course of three years, not counting the cost of crop damage when the diesel pump requires repair.

It’s just too expensive for poor farmers.

But what if the same farmer could use a 2-kilowatt electric pump powered by solar photovoltaic panels instead? The fuel costs and operating costs would be close to zero, but there’s a big catch. It would cost about $7,000.

Most small farmers in Asia and Africa could never afford to buy an electric pump either.

What if we could find a way to cut the cost of a 2-kilowatt solar pump system from$7,000 to $2,500? And what if we added a $1,400, 2.5-acre low-cost drip system and used the solar pump/drip system to grow 2.5 acres of diversified off-season fruits, vegetables, and spices? If done correctly, farmers could clear at least $4,500.

That’s enough to make payments on a three-year loan or lease and make a profit.

SunWater

The SunWater project aims to achieve breakthrough affordability for photovoltaic pumping and irrigation, enabling small farmers all over the world to move out of poverty. Farmers using these pumps will also provide jobs for their neighbors to plant, weed, harvest, and market the crops they grow.

Today, 19 million diesel engines are being used to pump irrigation water from shallow wells in India alone, spewing millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. If marketplace forces could replace a quarter of them with radically affordable photovoltaic-powered pump systems, we could transform small farmer livelihoods and radically reduce rural carbon emissions.

The team is developing a two-kilowatt solar-powered pumping system that can do the same job as a five-horsepower diesel pump, the most commonly used size. We’re taking a whole-systems approach, for example, using mirrors to concentrate the sun and bring down the cost of the solar cell.

The pumped water cools the solar cells, which increases their efficiency. An inverter is hooked up so it can use AC pump motors, which are widely available and cheap. Then we tune the mirrors, solar cells, cooling system, and pump so that it gives the right output for the right cost.

These pumps only pump during the day, but they don’t use diesel fuel, and they rarely break down. The SunWater system also has very low operating costs compared to a diesel pump.

The system will cost $2,500 instead of $7,000, and when paired with a low-cost, efficient drip-irrigation system, a farmer can pay it off in two years. The quick payback time makes all the difference for those living in poverty. What’s more, once the system is paid off, there is no fuel to buy.

At this price, the solar pumping systems should fly off the shelves.

In India, the government has a 20 percent subsidy on these systems, so the cost for farmers is actually closer to $2,000.

SunWater will transform water pumping for farmers in developing nations by bringing electricity to a billion people who will never connect to the grid.

To learn more about SunWater technology, visit the team's Indiegogo SunWater site.

• This article originally appeared at Global Envision, a blog published by Mercy Corps.

Women in Niger beat stems of millet in Salewa village, about 250 miles from the capital Niamey. Aid groups have begun women-run cereal banks to help ensure steady grain supplies year round in the drought-prone Sahel region of Africa. (Samuel de Jaegere/Reuters/File)

Cereal banks empower women and fight famine in Africa's Sahel region

By Caitlin Aylward, Nourishing the Planet / 06.06.13

Drought and high food prices in 2012 threatened the food security of more than 18 million people in the Sahel region of Africa, which includes parts of Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Gambia, Cameroon, and northern Nigeria.

The Sahel is prone to drought, and is becoming increasingly so with climate change. Consequently the people in this region are experiencing more frequent bouts of food insecurity and malnutrition.

Fortunately, organizations such as the World Food Program (WFP) and Care are joining forces to create all-women-managed cereal banks in villages throughout the Sahel that not only help protect against seasonal famine, but also empower women as agents of food security in their communities.

Cereal banks are community-led grain distribution projects that store grain after harvests and then loan grain when food is scarce during what is known as the "lean season."

In 2009, WFP and Care established exclusively women-operated cereal banks to help ensure the availability of grain supplies year round. These community cereal banks loan grain below market price, helping protect against market speculation and enabling even the poorest women to purchase food for their families during times of scarcity. The women are expected to repay the loans, but at very low interest rates and only after they have harvested their own crops.

WFP and Care also fund educational enrichment programs that give lessons to women in arithmetic, reading, and writing, which give women the skills needed to manage the village granaries, including bookkeeping, monitoring stocks, and administering loans.

Education is of critical importance for the advancement of women in the developing world. As the Girl Effect reports, an extra year of primary school results in an increase in women’s eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent, while an extra year of secondary school increases potential wages by 15 to 25 percent.

Given women’s traditional role as primary caregivers who invest 90 percent of their incomes into their families (as compared to the 30 to 40 percent invested by men), it makes sense to employ them as managers of community cereal banks.

“Women traditionally feed the village; we know when our children and neighbors are hungry,” says cereal bank treasurer Sakina Hassan, “Our intimate knowledge of hunger drives our management of the cereal bank.”

Cereal banks decrease communities’ dependence on unpredictable weather and provide villages with a much needed safety net during times of drought and famine. In addition to emergency food relief programs, these cereal banks helped save thousands of families throughout the region from hunger and malnutrition during the most recent food crisis in the Sahel. 

These community granaries have also led to improved educational opportunities for women, empowering them to better provide for their families and their communities.

• Caitlin Aylward is a former research intern with the Worldwatch Institute’s Food and Agriculture Program.

• This article first appeared at Nourishing the Planet, a blog published by the Worldwatch Institute.

Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, arrives at the Clinton Global Initiative Reception in New York in September 2011. In trying to improve technology – or societies – 'if we imagine it, it will happen,' he says. (Allison Joyce/Reuters/File)

If sci-fi spurs technology, can 'social fiction' spark change?

By Laurie Goering, Thomson Reuters Foundation / 06.05.13

Ever notice how the gadgets of science fiction – the personal communications devices, the 3-D copy machines, the killer drones – become reality in time? Putting an idea out in the public imagination is the first step to making it real, says Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning founder of the microcredit movement.

“Every day, we see what used to be impossible become possible, and routine,” he says.

So why is social change harder to achieve than technological change? In part because there are fewer visions available of what a better future would look like, he argues.

“Science follow science fiction, but we don’t have social fiction, so society doesn’t move as much,” he noted while receiving an award for his life’s achievements at the Skoll World Forum gathering in Oxford, England, this week [April 10]. If more movies, television series, and other media could be created to help people envision better future societies, “I bet we’ll create the societies,” he said.

He urged people trying to improve society to follow their instincts, to notice small chanced-upon things that spur ideas, and not to be afraid to move forward with half-baked ideas.

His microcredit revolution – providing tiny loans at market interest rates to the world’s poorest, helping them escape what he termed a “slavery” relationship with loan sharks – came about by accident when he discovered, while talking to a bamboo weaver in a village in his native Bangladesh, that he could pay off the debts that were crushing her and limiting her income to 2 cents a day with the change in his pocket.

That day he paid the debts of 43 village women – a total of $27 – and his idea was born.

Many great social enterprises come from such moments, not from careful business plans, he said.

“You persuade yourself along the way that what you do is right,” he said.

He pointed to the example of another honoree, Salman Amid Khan, who spent two years in a closet in California creating video lectures for students on math topics, science, and history, then putting them all online, free, under the name Khan Academy.

Today his lectures, translated into dozens of languages, are used by everyone from Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates’ children to orphans in Mongolia, giving everyone in the world with Internet access the possibility of having the same high-quality education.

Now “we need only one global university – the best,” Yunus said.

In trying to improve technology – or societies – “if we imagine it, it will happen,” he promised.

• This article originally appeared at Thomson Reuters Foundation, a source of news, information, and connections for action. The foundation provides programs that trigger change, empower people, and offer concrete solutions.

Members of VietUnity in Oakland, Calif., hold a planning session. The group brings Vietnamese-identified people together to work on issues that members have identified as most important to their daily lives, including affordable housing, education, employment, and gang and domestic violence. (Courtesty of VietUnity)

2013 Torchlight Prize honors grass-roots US community groups

By Gregory M. Lamb, Staff writer / 06.04.13

When people are in extreme need, their ability to help themselves may be severely limited. Finding food and shelter alone may be an overwhelming task. In these cases, outside aid groups must take the lead and offer a vital helping hand.

But most poor people in the United States aren't in crisis; they're struggling, but they have a capacity and desire to help themselves. The Torchlight Prize, a project of the Family Independence Initiative now in its second year, recognizes homegrown groups that are finding their own unique ways of solving community problems.

“Too often in this country, low-income families are stereotyped as shiftless swindlers or helpless victims,” says Mia Birdsong, vice president of the Family Independence Initiative (FII), in announcing this year's winners. “The Torchlight Prize is changing this narrative. It showcases the knowledge, skills, and initiative that exists in under-resourced communities, and the tremendous contributions they make to our country as innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders.” 

Four grass-roots community groups around the US will each receive a no-strings-attached prize of $10,000 over the next two years.

"The Torchlight Prize really shows us that there are solutions being developed and tested in communities," Ms. Birdsong said in a Monitor interview last week. The idea, she says, is to inspire other communities to act by showing, "Hey, look what's possible if we work together."

For a dozen years the nonprofit FII has emphasized this grass-roots, family-led approach to improving the lives of low-income families.

The idea? The movers and shakers should be those in need themselves, with the FII acting only as a resource. If a charitable group such as the FII announces that it will "invite the community to the table," that sounds like the community members are still only guests at the party, Birdsong says. "They really should be the hosts. It's not about including them, or asking them. It's about the leadership that exists in families and communities, and us following them."

In the dance with FII, the community group takes the lead. "Over and over again, what we find is that if you stop directing people, and you create space for their own leadership to emerge, they move forward," she says. "We've demonstrated this in four cities across the country with probably a thousand families … thousands of folks."

This year's Torchlight Prize winners, announced today, are Camp Congo Square in New Orleans; Freedom Inc., in Madison, Wis., Somos Tuskaloosa, in Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and VietUnity, in Oakland, Calif.

Shaka Zulu cofounded Camp Congo Square with his wife, Naimah Zulu. The summer camp program opened in 2006 after hurricane Katrina had devastated the city. The camp meets in New Orleans' historic Congo Square, a place where centuries ago native Americans and African-American slaves would gather on Sundays.

The campers learn about their heritage and the city's history, as well. They study art, reading, writing, and math, and learn respect for the city's many cultural and ethnic traditions.

“One of our students … has really used the camp experience to make a very positive impact on his life…," Shaka Zulu writes in an email. "Ngozi McCormick has now become an example of what can come from the positive experience of the Camp … he has purchased land for a business and a home, and he also teaches what he learned at Camp Congo Square to his nephews and started his own performance group. (And he’s only in his early 20s!) He has become a role model in his community among young people and we are proud to say that we at Camp Congo Square along with his parents played a role in giving him the confidence and information to be an impressive young adult.”

The FII's founder, Mauricio Lim Miller, was honored in 2012 with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's "genius award" for his work in helping low-income working families – who often struggle in isolation  – join together to build self-sufficiency.

The Torchlight Prize received its name from the Freedman’s Torchlight, an early African-American newspaper published in New York before slavery was abolished.

Of this year's four winners, only Freedom Inc. has registered itself as an official nonprofit organization. The others are still operating as small informal groups. Some of their minuscule budgets can be measured in the hundreds of dollars, Birdsong says.

That's one reason the $10,000 prize is given over a two-year period, she says. "We don't want to mess them up" with too much money all at once, she says. The groups want to keep close to their roots "of, for, and by the community."

• For more on the Family Independence Initiative, visit http://www.fiinet.org.

Yasmene Mumby co-chairs the Baltimore Education Coalition, a partnership of more than 25 schools, organizations, and religious institutions that helped to pass an unprecedented $1.1 billion financing plan to rebuild and renovate Baltimore's schools. ( Matthew Stern)

Law student Yasmene Mumby already is a veteran education reformer

By Rich Polt, Talking GOOD / 06.03.13

Just a few weeks ago, Baltimore residents celebrated the passage of an unprecedented $1.1 billion financing plan to rebuild and renovate city schools. Leading the charge to make this happen was the Baltimore Education Coalition (BEC), a partnership of more than 25 schools, organizations, and religious institutions comprised of 3,000 parents, students, teachers, administrators, and community leaders.

It was a feat of organizing tenacity worthy of a veteran education advocate. So you might be surprised to learn that a primary player behind this coup was a 26-year-old educator and law student, Yasmene Mumby. I say “might be surprised” because if you already know Yasmene, then you know that she gets the job done!

Yasmene, along with her BEC co-Chair, Jimmy Stuart, were able to galvanize the collective passion and commitment of this community and affect meaningful change. That ain’t easy to do.

My challenge with this intro is that I need to keep it succinct, yet I could go on and on about Yasmene and all of her accomplishments. So in the interest of brevity, I now present Yasmene’s prolific résumé in the length of a single tweet: Cochair @becforourkids, Dir. Cmty-Engagement @KIPPBaltimore, founder Team ORGANIZE, co-founder @theintersection, student @UMDLaw #driven

Who said tweeting can’t be an expressive form of prose?

Yasmene is a Baltimore girl through and through. A graduate of The McDonogh School, The Johns Hopkins University, and now a student at The University of Maryland's Francis King Carey School of Law, she is using her excellent education to ensure that “all children in Baltimore City receive an excellent education.”

Keep up the amazing work Yasmene, and thanks a ton for answering our Talking GOOD questions.

1. IN JUST ONE SENTENCE, WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE? My purpose in life is to live presently and to travel the world honoring the light in every human being.

2. WHAT DO YOU GET FROM GIVING?  I get a sense of calm and existence. I feel as if I am contributing to the world, and valuing the time I have living.

3. HOW HAS THIS WORK CHANGED YOU? This work has led me to my truer self. A giving self. I grew up in Baltimore and tied much of my identity to school work. What else was there to focus on from age 6 to 21? As soon as I graduated from college, I headed straight to West Baltimore to teach. Being a teacher, creating Team ORGANIZE, and now co-chairing the Baltimore Education Coalition have allowed me to focus my day around giving to others. I get that from my grandfather, Dr. Shirley (Rex) Clinton, my first best friend. He was a pediatrician in West Baltimore during the late 1960s to 1990s. My grandfather loved honoring West Baltimore’s growing families by bringing their new light into the world. He became a pediatrician because he’d rather bring new life into the world than risk losing one. I wanted to be like my grandfather, but I knew my weaknesses. So I decided to help bring new life into the world as a history teacher.

4. WHO IS A LIVING HERO AND WHAT WOULD YOU ASK THEM IF GIVEN THE CHANCE? I absolutely look up to California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris, her classic grace and intellect. Attorney General Harris inspires me as I continue to develop as a law student and young woman in leadership. All the while, Harris seems grounded and modest. Quiet power. I’d like to ask her, from where did she learn her strength and resolve? And can we meet for coffee?

5. WHAT EVERYDAY RESOURCES COULD HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR PHILANTHROPIC GOALS? The Baltimore Education Coalition works because everyone voluntarily pitches in. We have no paid staff. This is a labor of passion and commitment for all involved. [SEE BELOW FOR A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF BEC AND WHO IS INVOLVED.] It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort. We worked with 120+ parents, teachers, administrators, and community members to execute this 3,000 person rally for better school buildings in Baltimore City. We can use volunteer talent in many areas: oral historians, a website designer, bus transportation to and from events, printed materials, audio/visual stagers. You name it. Just email me: ymumby@kippbaltimore.org

6. WHAT IS A BURNING QUESTION THAT YOU HAVE FOR THIS COMMUNITY? What was the moment when you realized your purpose in life? Are you fulfilling your purpose or running from it?

7. WHAT WOULD THE TITLE OF YOUR BOOK BE? Don’t fight the universe! Life eventually falls into place. I am a person that NEEDS answers; I don’t really do well with uncertainty. So often I have to remind myself to stop searching and finding more to do. The path I am to walk is already laid out in front of me. I have to remind myself that I am where I am supposed to be. Remember, I have a problem with standing still!

8. TELL US SOMETHING YOU RARELY SHARE IN PUBLIC? If I’m not moving, involved in something worthwhile and uncharted, I feel wasteful … as if I am not maximizing life and its given experiences during the seconds, minutes, hours allotted. So I practice yoga  to help me stand still and reflect. Yoga is the only thing that surrenders me. 

9. WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR OTHERS WHO ASPIRE TO BE CITIZEN PHILANTHROPISTS? Be honest. Value other people. Share your appreciation for them. Recognize their collective work.

10. WHAT QUESTION DO YOU WISH I HAD ASKED, AND WHAT IS THE ANSWER? QUESTION: Why are you still in Baltimore? ANSWER: I am one of the very few kids that stuck around Baltimore. Many of my friends from high school and undergrad could not wait to leave this town. And they did. I can’t. Every time in my life I have tried to leave and build my life somewhere else, Baltimore never lets me go. There have been moments and experiences that ground my commitment to Baltimore. It makes it hard to leave. I have never lived anywhere else. Yet.

LINKS: Baltimore Education Coalition Main Page, BEC on Facebook, BEC on Twitter, KIPP:Baltimore’s Advocacy Page

More on the Baltimore Education Coalition (as written by Yasmene): The Baltimore Education Coalition is the broadest citywide linkage of 25 organizations working for Baltimore’s children. We have stopped over $100 million dollars in proposed cuts to city schools. We supported and won the bottle tax that will leverage $155 million for school construction. Most recently, we successfully advocated and won the passage of an unprecedented $1 billion financing plan  to improve school facilities with 3,000 parents, students, teachers, administrators, and community leaders for Baltimore City’s 85,000 students.

We are public schools, traditional, and charter. We are after-school programs and neighborhood associations. We are education policy organizations and religious institutions. We are: ACLU of Maryland, Advocates for Children and Youth, Afya Public Charter School, Baltimore Curriculum Project, BUILD, The Cathedral of the Incarnation, Child First Authority, City Neighbors Foundation Council, The Coalition of Baltimore Charter Schools, Community Law in Action, Comprehensive Housing Assistance, Inc. (CHAI), Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance, Elev8 Baltimore, Greater Homewood Community Corporation, KIPP Baltimore, League of Women Voters of Baltimore City, Maryland Education Coalition, Mt. Washington Elementary/Middle, PTA Council of Baltimore, Reservoir Hill Improvement Council, Roland  Park Elementary/Middle School Parents, School Social Workers in Maryland, Southwest Baltimore Charter School, and Supporting Public Schools of Choice.

• This article was originally posted at Talking GOOD, a series of interviews with “citizen philanthropists” who champion causes and lead by example. Talking GOOD was launched in 2012 by Rich Polt, principal of the Baltimore-based PR consultancy Communicate Good, LLC. To nominate someone for a Talking GOOD interview, please fill out this form, or email rich@communicategood.com.