Skillful Giving

Is giving soap to villagers in India a thoughtless act? But is it okay to hand out money to adult beggars? By leaving sweets am I actually helping create more cavities in a child’s teeth? Instead of candy, how about giving meat? Eating meat is usually considered a luxury in villages and deprived communities. But villagers don’t really need anything physical from us. It is sometimes more of an insult to assume that they need things like soap which we normally see as useful and desirable. On the other hand, it seems right to leave warm woolen socks to your trekking guide, with whom you spent time and got to know. So what is right and what is wrong?

Image 2 : School kids near Luang Prabang, Laos. At this encounter, I had taught them all how to make paper airplanes. I always look back at that moment, wishing I could’ve done something more substantial with them.

It is virtually always irresponsible to give gifts to the unaccompanied children of strangers - whether you’re in a remote Cambodian village or even in the streets of New York. We have no way of verifying that the parents or guardians of these kids approve of the gifts or of the begging, and we have no right to interfere with their discipline just to create a feel-good moment. It seems like a good compromise to give pens and pencils, but it makes more sense to donate these supplies to schools rather than kids on the street.

As a guest, however, giving gifts is important. It helps offset the host’s cost of putting you up. Costs are considerable, especially when thinking about food. Giving to the owner of a house you are staying in seems appropriate, even if you are paying, especially if your gift is food. Local handicrafts are also a good way to spread your largess, and invest in a sustainable cause when visiting a foreign community.
It is the arbitrary flinging coins that bothers me, although even the non-arbitrary charity methods can also cause many problems. The outpouring of donations after the 2004 tsunami resulted in an immense amount of clothing donations, much in excess of what locals could ever use, in addition to other fabrics inappropriate for any local season. So what? Well, locals were concerned that accumulation of water in the heaps of clothing, especially in the rainy season, could lead to breeding of mosquitoes and the growth of mold. If this happened, malaria and other health concerns, on top of the problems already caused by the tsunami, would add to the already existing multitude of worries.

The emphasis for volunteer work in developing countries is to empower and hire local people, when possible, to address local issues, build their own capacities and provide them with employment opportunities. The priority should be to fill gaps in local knowledge and skills and not to give the foreign volunteer an outlet for a seemingly special excursion in the third world. It is much more beneficial for them to hire local people to paint walls, dig ditches and build houses, when compared to bringing a foreign volunteer.

“That said, the days of international volunteers are not numbered. There will always be a need for international volunteers, either to fill gaps in knowledge and service in a local situation, or because a more neutral observer/contributor is required. So, to volunteer overseas, you need to have skills and experience that are critically needed in a particular region, and that can be utilized by local institutions and local people quickly.”[5]

Xenophilia and Responsible Travel

Ethan Zuckerman[6] writes on Global Souls and xenophilia, which is defined as the attraction to foreign peoples, cultures, or customs. He argues that isolationist nationalism holds grave economically suicidal circumstances in this increasingly globalized world. Global Souls, as he describes, are best placed to create solutions to global problems, to invent new products for global markets and to build bridges and understanding between different nations.

I strongly believe in the promise that these so called Global Souls, or world-travelers, hold for the better future of our society. Travel is a way to extend beyond cultural boundaries and gaps, by creating person to person relationships, which are strong and long-lasting. More and more people engage in the act of travel, specifically to developing and third world locations. However, with travel also comes responsibility.
Pico Iyer, a well know travel writer, once said: “travel for me is an act of discovery and of responsibility as well as a grand adventure and a constant liberation.” A major reason to engage in travel is to get out from behind our desks and into the world; to learn about the things we wish to understand, change, or somehow influence. Regardless of how far we physically travel, the inevitable base of these journeys incorporates cross-cultural communication.

As tourists we may visit a certain community only once in our lifetimes, but our experiences and memories stay with us forever. Responsible travel is a term I’ve seen frequently in the past few months. By traveling responsibly, one aims to be sensitive and aware about local culture and ecology. Tourism is the largest economic sector in terms of earnings worldwide,[7] certainly playing a large role in third world economies. But the masses of visitors are harming and changing these exotic, once untouched parts of the world, taking away the very essence of what draws tourists there initially. However, it is often forgotten that tourism and this very process of cross-cultural communication can actually be an incentive for creation. In places like Bali, the influx of tourists has generated new dances, new musical forms, and breathed new forms of life into a culture that they took for granted.

Zaid Hassan[8] claims that “ the invitation ” is probably the most indispensable tool we have when we visit indigenous populations around the world. When no invitation exists from local entities, inter-cultural encounters can potentially deepen the gap between locals and foreigners, especially when ignorant travelers disrespect important customs. Many communities value their privacy and prefer not to engage with uninvited strangers. When interested in a specific community, it might be a good idea to invite its members into one’s own community - maybe for a cup of coffee. Developing sensitivity toward the invitation is critical in building healthy relationships across traditional cultures.

Tourism and Travel

Every person travels for a different purpose. While some just long for an exotic vacation on a white sand beach, many long for a more culturally exciting learning experience. Pico Iyer writes about reasons for travel:

“I think the main reason I travel, if I were to sum it up in one word, is for ambiguity . The reason I love travel is not just because it transports you in every sense, but because it confronts you with emotional and moral challenges that you would never have to confront at home. So I like going out in search of moral and emotional adventure which throws me back upon myself and forces me to reconsider my assumptions and the things I took for granted. It sends me back a different person.”

International tourism is an important potential growth sector for many countries. In a research done by the World Bank, it is stated that there are over 300 million foreign arrivals per year in developing countries. Extracting the expatriates and those who travel for business purposes from this figure, it is possible to assume that the actual number of tourists is still in the high tens of millions.

There are a number of common problems that have been linked to Third World tourism, which call into question its usefulness as a component of development strategies. These include foreign domination and dependency and loss of identity among host communities.

With increasing frequency, international tourism is being grouped together in the development literature with other major new “growth sectors” that are believed to show much promise for stimulating rapid growth based on the comparative advantages of Third World countries.

In his study[9], John Brohman claims that market forces by themselves, especially within highly polarized communities, are incapable of resolving issues related to either long-term sustainability or the distribution of costs and benefits generated by tourism. However, he suggests that an emphasis should be placed on the design of alternative tourism strategies that call for increased community participation.

Over the past two decades, the concept of alternative tourism has emerged as one of the most widely used and abused phrases in the tourism literature, representing any form of travel different from conventional mass tourism.

However, many believe that tourism bears a nearly direct lineage to the first manifestation of the first/third world dynamic globalization: colonialism. This is most obvious in the fact that nearly all tourists come from the first world, notably Europe and the United States, and are also the primary owners of the tourist infrastructure. Tourism, like colonialism, involves an occupation and domination of space, in this instance by the tourist structure and tourists themselves. It is also an industry that, like colonialism, is enabled by expansions of power. Third world tourism can be seen as a continuation and a perpetuation of the colonial legacy, providing enjoyable exploration for tourists along with exploitation for locals.

Sustainable (eco) Tourism

Sustainable tourism is a practice which attempts to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate income, employment, and the conservation of local ecosystems. It is responsible tourism, both ecologically and culturally sensitive. Internationally, tourism is the largest economic sector in terms of earnings, and in terms of number of people employed.[10]

Ecotourism aims to conserve the environment and to improve the well-being of communities, by sponsoring responsible travel to natural areas. This type of travel minimizes the impact on a community’s environment by practicing cultural awareness and respect, while contributing financially to conservation and to local people.

Eco-tourism is a method for preserving and sustaining the diversity of the world’s natural and cultural environments. It accommodates and entertains visitors in a way that is minimally intrusive or destructive to the environment and supports the native cultures in the locations it operates in. A responsible traveler is the genuine outcome of eco-tourism. Its basic rule is to seek out and support locally owned businesses, and to ensure maximum community and conservation benefits from tourist spending.

The term Geotourism is closely related, but is concerned instead with preserving a destination’s geographic character—the entire combination of natural and human attributes that make one place distinct from another. Geotourism encompasses both cultural and environmental concerns regarding travel, as well as the local impact tourism has upon communities and their individual economies and lifestyles.

ST-EP Initiative (United Nations)

For many developing countries, tourism is a primary source of income and helps a major part of the population make a living. The United Nation's World Tourism Organization launched the ST-EP initiative back in 2002, aimed at creatively developing sustainable tourism as a force for poverty elimination.

Pro-Poor Tourism

Poverty tourism, also sometimes known as poorism, is defined as travel that includes tours of or accommodations in slums or dangerous urban neighborhoods. One of the starting venues to hold these types of tours was Rio de Janeiro, where tour operators have been escorting foreign visitors throughout the city’s infamous favelas.

Reality Tours & Travel[11], a company situated in Mumbai, India, takes visitors on walking tours of Mumbai’s largest slum, Dharavi. They pledge that once the company starts to make a profit, it will donate 80 percent of its earnings to a charitable group that works in Dharavi. The company has a no-photography policy, to keep the tours from becoming too intrusive. For the same reason they keep each group limited to five people. They claim that they show a “positive side of the slum”. Salam Balak Trust works with street children in New Delhi, charging visitors $4.50 for a 2-hour tour of the Delhi slums and railway station.

There is still a substantial public argument regarding this new sort of tourism. Critics call it “exploration by voyeuristic travelers” while defenders say they are only trying to educate western tourists to the plight of the poor. Some claim that it is disrespectful to “cash in on poverty”, or that it treats human beings like animals. Reality Tours & Travel have yet to prove their worth. As they are becoming more popular, they are very careful with regards to reporting all their monthly expenses and profits.

Voluntourism

Voluntourism allows foreign visitors to pay for the opportunity to physically work for a local cause in developing nations. A proliferating number of companies and organizations are sending travelers to do volunteer work abroad. Cross Cultural Solutions sends volunteers to countries like China and Guatemala, where they work for orphanages, schools and hospitals.

Ina survey on travelers within the ITP community, over 90% of the participants stated that they carried some sort of guilt from traveling, as well as a wished to have been able to give back something to their hosting communities while traveling. Many travelers do want to make a difference and help out, if they can. A big problem lies in the fact that volunteering while traveling is not easy to organize. The sheer logistics of finding the right information can be time consuming. It is usually necessary to pay a large sum of money to the organization in charge, and it can take you far out of your way, losing valuable travel time.

volunteeradventures.com state that their mission is to create and promote volunteer opportunities that improve local lives and the environment by connection between worthy local projects with volunteers around the world. Using their website, it is possible to order a “meaningful spring break” in Guatemala for the price of 995$ per week. It includes lodging and meals, but still extremely expensive, when compared to the cost of living in Guatemala.

Earthwatch and Habitat for Humanity are also a popular voluntourism option.

stepuptravel.org

This is an existing “craigslist”-style service for the responsible traveler. The website highlights posts from different services worldwide, concentrating on helping make the smaller, private businesses seen, and help them make a better profit by advertising their service within the traveler community. Most existing posts describe hotels, guest houses and other places to stay while traveling. The “collaborative projects” part of the site describes possible volunteering opportunities, and provides the following categories: Democracy, Economic Dev, Education, Environment, Gender, Equality, Health, Human Rights and Technology.

Alternative Tourism

Alternative tourism is thought to consist of smaller-scale, dispersed, low-density developments. Often, these developments are located in and organized by villages or communities, where it is hoped they will foster more meaningful interaction between tourists and local residents, as well as be less socially and culturally disruptive than resorts. By placing an emphasis on smaller-scale, local ownership, it is hoped that this type of tourism can spread its effects within the host community, and avoid problems of excessive foreign exchange leakages.

Another aspect of alternative tourism is encouraging community participation in local/regional planning. By allowing for local participation in decision making, it is expected that more appropriate forms of tourism development will be established that will be viewed positively by local residents. Alternative tourism emphasized sustainability in both an environmental and cultural sense. This type of tourism encourages sensitivity and respect for cultural traditions by creating opportunities for education and cultural exchange through interpersonal dialogue and organized encounters.

In the short term, alternative tourism cannot realistically be expected to replace mass tourism in most Third World countries. Nevertheless, it can complement mass tourism in various ways, as well as provide ideas and methods by which mass tourism might be reformed to more resemble an alternative strategy. Alternative tourism strategies ought to be designed to provide more appropriate forms of development that reduce the negative impacts and increase the positive effects of tourism. These include a stress on small-scale, locally owned developments that spread effects, greater community participation in tourism planning, and more attention for the cultural and environmental sustainability of tourism projects.

Research Conclusions

I strongly believe that by taking advantage of technology, these opportunities can be made in a more inexpensive manner. There exists a cultural gap, and an intermediary is usually necessary to bridge between both sides. I have never taken part in these so called slum tours. While traveling, I visited many of the slum areas by myself. I think that ‘seeing is believing’, and that by seeing, one’s perspective is transformed. This is may have an impact later on, and that is the importance of travel.

[5] writes Jayne Cravens, on her site: http://www.coyotecommunications.com

[6]http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1371

[7] Statistics from studies completed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization

[8] His work can be seen at: http://www.worldchanging.com/bios/zaid.html

[9] Item #7 in the bibliography

[10] As claimed by the Global Development Research Center (GDRC) on their website: http://www.gdrc.org/

[11] Their website can be found here: http://realitytoursandtravel.com

Global Penetration of Mobile Phones

Mobile phones hold the potential to empower local communities in the developing world, lowering the entrance barrier and providing innovative services, especially when linked to the web. Indigi-Net uses the mobile phone network to its advantage, realizing two important points. The first acknowledges the fact that most tourists nowadays travel with their mobile phones. More than 80% of the world’s population is covered by the GSM cellular networks. It is an effective method of communications, even when visiting a foreign country, since roaming services are becoming cheaper worldwide. The second point emphasizes the fact that mobile phones support ad-hoc, grassroots local participation. In this case, when an SMS service is linked with a web application, participation does not require the user to have a computer. This way, one can obtain some of the many benefits of browsing the web, for instance posting and accessing data.

Image 3: Woman in Jokhang Square, Lhasa, holding a Tibetan prayer wheel.

Displayed above is a picture I took in Lhasa, Tibet, two years ago: an elderly Tibetan woman holding a prayer wheel, while a young Chinese lady talks on her mobile phone. It is a common sight, and most probably did not even occur to me as anything out of the ordinary when there. It is remarkable to see the pace at which cities such as Lhasa are developing. To stand on one of the balconies of the Dalai Lama’s Potala Palace, send out an SMS home and receive a reply within minutes.

Following is some basic research I conducted on mobile phone usage in the developing world:
There are currently 3.5 billion mobile phones worldwide[12]. In Africa alone, there is an excess of 60% growth over the past year. In many cases mobile telephony has become people’s only means of telecommunication. China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile network, has been adding subscribers at a rate of almost 5 million users a month this past year.[13] It is estimated that by the year 2015, mobile communications will deliver affordable voice, data and Internet services to more than 5 billion people.[14]
In many countries mobile phones are the easiest and least expensive way to get a phone line. They are far more pervasive in developing countries, when compared to the Internet. The growing infrastructure in even highly remote and rural locations makes the mobile phone network an accessible means of communication in the developing world, especially as prices of hardware and services continue to drop. In addition, there is a relatively low learning curve when using a phone, making it far more accessible than computers to a wider range of possible users. Prepaid services enable those who lack the funding or credit for monetary deposits to also own a phone. When using prepaid cards, one pays for a bulk of airtime, and does not need to pay for any monthly fee or deposit. A staggering 4.58 million of China Mobile’s new customers in February were prepaid subscribers while only 328,000 were contract customers.[15] Prepaid considerably lowers the entrance barrier and raises the potential participation level, especially for the developing world. Mobile phones are not as restrained by illiteracy as one would think. It is a much more substantial barrier for computer usage. Therefore, mobile phones provides millions new opportunities to exchange information and engage in entrepreneurial activities.
Renting out mobile phones is a common solution in many poor regions, where people can’t afford to own a private phone. An article on Forbes[16] describes Sukhriya Hassani’s work for a cell company called Roshan in Afghanistan, renting out cellular phone service by the call minute. Roshan has spread across 175 cities and villages and provides mobile phone service to 1.2 million customers - half the Afghan market. This model works for many of the African nations. Grameen phone in Bangladesh provides similar services for its rural and poor communities.

In India, what is truly wonderful about what is recognized as the “mobile miracle'’, is that it has accomplished something India’s old socialist policies talked about but did little to achieve: It has empowered the less fortunate. Beneficiaries of mobile phones are not just the affluent, but those who in the old days would not even have dreamt of joining the 20-year-long waiting lists.”

Text messaging has allowed people to exchange information and communicate efficiently at both national and international levels. Patients can now receive reminders to take their medicine, saving time and money traveling to local clinics. As farmers in India receive market demand and pricing data for their products, young teens from the slums of Nairobi receive messages alerting them regarding job opportunities in the city. It has become clear that SMS use has great potential in campaigning, public awareness, disaster alerts and for NGO work in developing nations. /however, most ICT-inspired organizations concentrate on designing and developing ‘top-end’ systems for SMS-based services, while the door is often shut to the grassroots possibilities.

“Texting works where wires can’t reach, and often functions even when regular cell phone service fails. Because mobile telephony is leapfrogging the constraints of fixed telco infrastructure, the mobile phone is now the key technology platform to focus on for service delivery and development. The stats speak volumes: growth of mobile phone usage in Africa alone was 140% in the last 12 months. ”[17]

Below is a list of some existing mobile phone initiatives, specifically developed as solutions for existing problems in the developing world:

FrontlineSMS[18] is a communications solution for NGOs working in the developing world. Their system encorporates a mobile phone hub, connected to a PC or laptop computer. This hub receives, saves and replies to incoming SMS messages. They explain that certain logics can be applied to this system, such as programming so that it serves as a way to access information remotely. For example, it is possible to send an SMS message with a bus number, and get a reply with the times and location of that bus.

CAM[19] is a mobile application framework for the rural developing world, being developed in the computer science department at the University of Washington. They use semacodes with mobile phones, aiding the process of filling out forms for local entities in the third world.

MobileActive[20] - a global network of people, tools, projects and resources focused on the use of mobile phones for activism, campaigns, and civic engagement. This is a great source of information regarding different mobile phone initiatives, looking at this technology as an emerging tool for use in social change campaigns.

Textually.org[21] is another fantastic portal which provides information regarding mobile phone usage in the developing world.

 

Technology and the Developing world: Making sense locally

Even though many villages in the developing world lack basic amenities, where people live through a vicious cycle, suspended in between life and death on a daily basis, technology can still have unexpectedly useful applications. Especially in locations which lack land-line telecommunications, you see more and more people carrying and sharing cell-phones.
“A few years ago, no one had heard of the Internet. But now, Mayan priests travel on busses loaded with livestock so they can get to towns where they can check their e-mails.” (source: Guatemala Reports:NPR[22])

It is extremely important to make use of new technology in the developing world in a way that makes sense locally. There are so many possible uses which can’t even make sense to foreigners. It is necessary for foreigners to provide resources or training, while local people develop solutions on their own, not becoming dependent on foreigners, but self-sustaining. In an interview about her Guatemala travels, Xeni Tech, co-editor of boing boing, states that there is still substantial discrimination facing many Mayan people. The law limits usage of their native tongue, giving way to the possibility of them forgetting their cultural roots. By using online teaching tools and documentation methods, it is possible to save the language and other cultural relics for the younger generation.

Image 4: A typical scene in China: a mash-up of electrical wires, clothes and computer advertisements hiding the wooden facade of a typical Chinese styled building.

Xela Teco, a workshop in the town of Quetzaltenango, is a place where tech-minded Guatemalans build eco-friendly devices. The workshop is a small business supported by the U.S.-based nonprofit Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group. Xela Teco builds environmentally friendly technology that can be used to provide survival basics to poverty-stricken villages in the Mayan highlands: clean water, electricity and fuel. While American foreigners are currently part of the Xela Teco initiative, their goal is to eventually step aside. They hope that by arming rural communities with certain skill sets, they can help break a cycle of poverty, disease and malnutrition. (Their Indigi-Net entry: link)

Google Earth and the Holocaust Museum have a unique partnership, based on their assumption that technology can be a catalyst for education and action. “Crisis in Darfur” enables Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur and join the museum’s efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe.

YouTourist.net is an Internet-based Trusted Social Network for the tourism industry with the objective of promoting and encouraging sustainable tourism based on the UNWTO’s Global Code of Ethics for Tourism. The website is not active yet, but seems like secure participation will be a key element of this future service. Their take at poverty alleviation is through providing special communication opportunities for local communities and travel companies.

Existing Philanthropic Initiatives

Low Cost Eyeglasses: is a social enterprise working towards the one billion people in the developing world who need eyeglasses, yet currently do not have them. Their product makes it inexpensive and easy to purchase eyeglasses. Through their strategy they rely on local outlets such as micro-entrepreneurs, in order to achieve low cost and availability of eyeglasses.

The organization claims that “in order for eyeglasses to be available, they should be easily purchased from a convenient local location, be low cost and should cost a few days' wage. The majority of the people who need them have the means and desire to buy them if they were available to them at a reasonable cost. In fact, over 80% of the world's families earn more than $1/day, making inexpensive, important products such as low cost eyeglasses within.”[23]

They claim that micro-entrepreneurs are the dominant retail channel to poor areas around the world. They argue that micro-entrepreneurs are more likely to charge for their service a price that is more consistent with the local incomes of the people they are trying to serve. They are looking at several approaches to reducing the complexity of the distribution system and enabling a new channel. They are primarily working with Saul Griffith, a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab, to develop on-site lens production equipment. Another viable form of simplifying the supply chain includes a reduced selection or pre-cut lenses.

One Laptop per Child : “An education project, not a laptop project” – Nicholas Negroponte

One Laptop Per Child claims not to be a technology program at heart. Their philosophy falls in line with constructionist learning; the idea that people learn effectively through making things. Implementing the open source XO laptop is their means of getting there. They argue that many children, especially those in rural parts of developing countries, have so little access to school that building schools and training teachers is probably the slowest way to alleviate the situation. They offer an additional method to leverage the children themselves, by engaging them more directly in their own learning. Their goal is to equip the poorest children with affordable, connected laptops, as a grassroots learning initiative.

Geekcorps : Through their motto, ‘promoting stability and prosperity in the developing world through information and communication technology’, Geekcorps use ICT to promote “digital independence”, creating private enterprises, and supporting skills transfer. They strive t o increase the capacity of small and medium-sized business, local government, and supporting organizations to be more profitable and efficient using technology. Geekcorps deploys over 3,500 technical experts, all willing to share their talents and experience in developing nations. Their main focus is ICT in what is called the “last mile”, the telecommunications infrastructure from the main network links to and from the residential homes.

Interplast: is an organization which provides free reconstructive surgery for people in developing nations, aiming to help improve health care worldwide. Interplast maintains an active partnership with volunteers and overseas medical colleagues with the shared goal of educating and empowering local communities to provide competent, safe and available reconstructive healing services year-round. Their ultimate goal is that every child receives the reconstructive plastic surgery they need, regardless of nation or class. Interplast claims they make a profound difference in the lives of 3,000 children who suffer physically or emotionally from a congenital deformity or injury each year.[24]

Interplast makes use of the web in order for its doctors to share and have discussions on various medical issues regarding operations that are or need to be done in their different locations worldwide. What they call ‘Interplast Grand Rounds’, essentially a web forum, is an interesting and effective method which allows outreach cases to be discussed for quality and safety assurances with experienced volunteer surgeons in the United States. It also allows for surgery training to continue after visiting medical instructors return home, and for doctors in all of their partner sites to confer and share relevant information, experience and advice.

Back Pack Health Worker Team: was established in 1998 by a group of doctors and health workers from the Karen, Karenni, and Mon states in current day Myanmar. Their aim is to provide primary health care in ethnic armed conflict areas and rural areas where access to healthcare is otherwise unavailable. They provide a range of medical care, community health education and prevention along with maternal and child healthcare services to internally displaced persons in Myanmar. Their main mission is to equip people with skills and knowledge necessary to manage and address their own health problems. A multi-ethnic organization of mobile medical teams, BPWHT serves a population of approximately 140,000 Internationally Displaced persons and war-affected residents living in “black zones” of Karen, Karenni, and Mon States, along the eastern frontiers of the country. Their method of operation is intriguing and unusual, a consequence of the complex political situation in which they operate. In the year 2005, they were operating 70 teams of 3-5 healthcare workers (“backpack medics”), traveling on foot and carrying medical supplies and educational materials, providing primary healthcare throughout eastern Myanmar. All their activities are implemented with the cooperation of community leaders, in areas where healthcare is otherwise unavailable. Teams deliver educational messages on a variety of public health topics including water and sanitation, family planning, malaria prevention and landmine awareness.[25]

Doctors without Borders: (Medicines Sans Frontiers) delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters, or excluded from healthcare in more than 70 countries worldwide. Each year, MSF doctors, nurses, logisticians, water-and-sanitation experts, administrators, and other medical and non-medical professionals depart on more than 3,800 field assignments. They work alongside more than 22,500 locally hired staff to provide medical care.

When needed, MSF also constructs wells and dispenses clean drinking water, and provides shelter materials like blankets and plastic sheeting. Through longer-term programs, MSF treats patients with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, sleeping sickness, and HIV/AIDS, and provides medical and psychological care to marginalized groups such as street children.

In their website, MSF reports information from the field, articles about their different activities and encounters around the world. In addition, they have photos, videos and podcasts supplementing their reports from the front line. [26]

 

Additional Sources of Inspiration

‘Change for Good’ – Cathay Pacific & UNICEF

In the past several years, Cathay Pacific Airways and UNICEF partnered for the "Change for Good" in-flight fund-raising program. The two partners announced a record HKD12m (equivalent to approximately 1.5m USD) collected this past year. Cathay Pacific said that this is the 15th year that the airline has supported the program that seeks passenger donations of spare and unwanted foreign currency, collected during flights by Cathay Pacific flight attendants. The idea of taking donations from flight passengers in the micro-format of small, left-over change is extremely effective in my eyes. Taking advantage of existing situations, like this, where most passengers don’t need the left-over change, but at the end of the day, adds up to a nice sum of money.

Microfinance: Grameen & Kiva

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Global Links

Global Links recovers unused medical supplies as well as equipment and furnishings from U.S. hospitals for distribution to hospitals and clinics that serve the poorest segments of the population in developing countries.

Their volunteers and staff sort and process donated materials in order to meet their recipients' needs. Hospital furnishings are cleaned and repaired, or refinished, to give these items a second life. Each year, Global Links undertakes a few Special Projects, one-time donations of medical aid (typically via 40-foot sea container) to targeted institutions in need of support.

[12] source: http://www.mobileactive.org/background

[13] http://www.mad4mobilephones.com/news/675/

[14] http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/universal_access_executive.pdf

[15] http://www.mad4mobilephones.com/news/675/

[16] http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0416/174.html?partner=yahoomag

[17] http://worldchanging.com/archives/003830.html

[18] http://www.frontlinesms.kiwanja.net/about.htm

[19] http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/tapan/projects/CAM/index.html

[20] http://mobileactive.org/

[21] http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/cat_mobile_phone_projects_third_world.htm

[22] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7128932

[23] Quoted from their website: http://lowcosteyeglasses.net/solution.htm

[24] Taken from the Interplast website: http://interplast.org/whoweare.php Their so called ‘innovative web-based solution’ can be seen at the following link: http://interplastgrandrounds.org/cgi-bin/discus/discus.pl This is basically a simple and ugly forum page, but the effectiveness of it is truly inspiring.

[25] Information taken from the report: Chronic Emergency, Health and Human Rights in Eastern Burma, 2006, published online by Dr. Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao Clinic, http://www.maetaoclinic.org/

[26] Information taken from their website:http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org