Vote in World Challenge

Now in its fifth year, World Challenge 09 is a global competition run by BBC World News and Newsweek and supported by Shell, seeking to reward projects and businesses which bring economic, social and environmental benefits to local communities through grassroots solutions. The winner will receive a US$ 20,000 grant from Shell to invest in their project, and the two runners-up will each receive US$ 10,000.

Voting ends 13 November, so do go and vote. I have! I copied a brief description for each of the 12 finalists here below, but the videos and photos are even more interesting – check them out at the official website.

If I were to nominate a project from Malaysia (and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t), I’d nominate Yayasan Pembangunan Nur Hikmah. They use creative entrepreneurship ideas like Mangkuk Tingkat (they now have menu for ibu berpantang) and Tudung Myza (a collaboration with Myza Worldwide) and act as the link between the group in need of income (single mothers etc) and consumers to create win-win situations.

SOLAR SISTERS - INDIA
Barefoot Women Solar Engineers of Africa
These Barefoot Solar Engineers are bringing solar power to Africa’s countryside, lighting up the bush.
“They come as women, and they go back as tigers – they are so confident – oozing with confidence” Bunker Roy, Barefoot College

It’s hard to imagine that in parts of Africa south of the Sahara as little as 2% of the villages have access to electricity – that means no TVs, no microwaves, no fridges, and no electric light at night. Now the Barefoot College in India is training a small cadre of women to install solar panels in areas far away from any electricity grid. And Bunker Roy, the man behind the project, sees the engineers he has trained spreading the know-how across the continent. Roy is not satisfied with just brining light to Africa - he now wants to bring women from Latin America to his college for training.

EMISSION CONTROL - UNITED KINGDOM
Mootral
Our global addiction to meat is now influencing the climate, yet in Wales a new feed technology could help lead to a more sustainable meat industry.
“It’s simple, it’s scalable, it’s sustainable – so that’s why we believe Mootral is is a winner.” Michael Mathres, Mootral

The escalating world demand for meat and livestock products is contributing to potentially catastrophic climate change, especially in the fast-growing beef industry. The figures are not exact, depending on car usage, but it seems that a cow produces roughly the same amount of harmful greenhouse gases as an average car user – surprising when one considers there are twice as many cows in the world as cars. Now researchers in Cardiff have turned to nature, and the magical health properties of the humble garlic bulb, to develop a new feed additive that cuts the methane gas produced by the animals in half.

FUEL CELL - KENYA
Biogas as an alternative source of energy
A prison in Kenya is using inmate’s waste to power the kitchens and heating, reducing energy costs and improving the health of the prisoners.
“Since we got Biogasthere’s been a difference – there’s plenty of heat, but there’s no the smoke that there was before” Prisoner, Meru Prison

Meru prison in Kenya holds 9 times more prisoners than it was designed for. It is cramped, dirty and full of smoke from cooking fires. According to The World Health Organisation smoke from stoves and fires in homes causes around 1.6 million deaths per year worldwide. But a new biogas project, which uses the prisoners waste to power cooking and heating, has helped fix this problem – and it’s not just the prison inmates who are benefitting from this technology. Wherever there is a dense population of humans such as in, say a school or a hospital, biogas becomes economic. Skylink Innovators is a Kenyan company with big ambitions to stop the resource going to waste and saving, in the bargain, Kenya’s remaining woodland.

JIKO RESCUE - the Democratic Republic of Congo
Stoves for Survival
The endangered Mountain Gorilla population is getting a helping hand from a fuel-efficient ‘Jiko’ stove.
“Charcoal is a commodity that everybody needs, especially poor households, because there’s nothing else, and unfortunately 90% of Charcoal being used in Goma and Rwanda comes from Virunga National Park” Emmanuel de Merode, Virunga National Park

There are only 380 the Mountain Gorillas left in Central Africa, and their habitat is shrinking fast: one of their last refuges is Virunga National Park, but the Park and surrounding areas are rapidly losing their forest cover. The wood is used to supply towns like Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- swelled by a refugee population -- with charcoal for cooking. To lessen the demand for charcoal, fuel efficient stoves are being manufactured locally and given to the people. It’s all part of a new approach to conservation which aims to show that conservation can benefit the poor as much as wildlife.

NO BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH - NAMIBIA
Cheetah Conservation Fund Bush Project
Namibian farmers, once the main threat to the Cheetah population, are now becoming their main protectors
“We’ve taken a problem and turned it around into a multitude of solutions” Laurie Marker, Cheetah Conservation Fund

Namibia is one of the last refuges of the remaining world Cheetah population. A quarter of all the remaining cats are found in Nambia. It is estimated their numbers globally have declined by over 90% in the last 100 years. A local thorn bush species is invading the savannah in the country, causing over US$90 million each year in lost revenue to Namibian farmers, whilst also destroying the native habitat of the fastest of the cats. Now the Cheetah Conservation Fund has pioneered a scheme to clear the thorn bush and turn it into cheap fuel briquettes. The project is creating jobs at the same time as helping to restore the hunting ground of the endangered cheetah.

FUNGI TOWN - UNITED STATES
BTTR Ventures
This innovative business turns the waste from coffee grounds into the ideal medium for growing gourmet mushrooms
“All the hard work starts paying off – you can see the mushrooms literally popping out of the substrate of the coffee” Nikhil Arora, BTTR Ventures

Did you know that less than 1% of all the coffee harvested each year ends up in your cup? Most of the coffee grounds finish as landfill. Two business school graduates in California, Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, have spotted a money-making opportunity: instead of the grounds going direct to the tip, they collect the ‘waste’ and grow gourmet oyster mushrooms on pods in a humid warehouse. As Nikhil notes, “America is addicted to coffee” and around the world over seven million tonnes are produced every year – that’s a lot of waste. After the grounds are used up, they become compost for organic urban farms in the San Francisco area. Now the business looks set to expand as the health food superstore, 'Whole Foods' has begun to sell the gourmet mushrooms.

OLD SCHOOL THAI - THAILAND
Andaman Discoveries
The most genuine tourist experience possible in Thailand? Become a Thai villager for the week…
“I’ve been to Thailand many times and I’ve enjoyed their culture and their way of life and now it’s time I started giving back to them“ Jeannine Curd, Andaman Discoveries

The devastation of the December 2004 Tsunami killed nearly 300,000 people and caused $15 billion in damages. Over a million people were displaced from their homes. In Thailand, the tourist industry, which sees over 5 million visitors a year and over $7 billion come into the country is was badly affected. Andaman Discoveries has been working with local villages to bring tourists in to help with restoration. Some even take the option to do a ‘home stay’, living and eating with local families, to help with the reconstruction. It’s a new approach to tourism which places most emphasis on channelling goodwill and resources to protecting the local cultures, which so far have been unscathed by mass, package-holiday tourism.

LOVE 'N HAITI - HAITI
South-South Cooperation's Project
Could recycling waste and cleaning streets be the simple answer to Haiti’s massive social problems?
“We have moved from cutting down trees to transformation of waste into fuel briquettes“ Jean-Yves Jason, Mayor, Port-au-Prince

Haiti is an unfolding tragedy. The first independent country in the Caribbean is now the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Many decades of mismanagement and bad governance have left over seven million Haitians with little hope that things will improve. But from the most unlikely place -- the crime- ridden and poverty stricken area of Carrefour Feuilles in the capital, Port-au-Prince – is an initiative that is cleaning up the streets and giving hope to the embattled citizens. A local action force is turning the waste littering the countryside into cheap fuel, at a stroke it’s bringing a kind of normality to the slum as well as meeting local energy needs.

NOTHING WASTED - INDONESIA
Danamon Go Green, Danamon Peduli Foundation
The traditional markets of Indonesia are getting a face-lift, and the organic fertiliser they now produce is giving farming in the area huge boost.
“The programme is very simple and easy – it uses simple technology, the raw material is here, available in the market, so it’s very cost-effective” Risa Bhinekawati, Danamon Go Green

Indonesia’s traditional markets are bustling and dirty, just as full of raw waste and rats as they are of store-holders and food. But the thousands of tonnes of waste generated in the markets contains nearly 90% vegetable materials and now, thanks to Danamon ‘Go Green’, they are being cleaned up and the waste turned into an organic fertiliser that is boosting local yields by over 30%. Not only do the local farmers benefit, but the levels of disease from spoiled produce are down and, most importantly, the markets are getting a long-awaited facelift.

A BRIGHT IDEA - SRI LANKA
Safe Bottle Lamp Project
One man’s mission to stop the horrific, and totally avoidable, injuries caused by unsafe kerosene lamps in Sri Lanka.
“If I win the World Challenge I can make and distribute 40,000 of these lamps, protecting over 80,000 people from these horrific burn injuries” Dr Wijaya Godakumbura, Safe Bottle Lamp Project

Despite an electrification programme, over 6 million people in Sri Lanka, nearly one third of the population, don’t have power. Many families rely on improvised lamps made from bottles to light their homes at night, but these can often spill and cause horrific injuries – figures suggest 300,000 people around the world die from accidental kerosene burns every year. Dr Wijaya Godakumbura, a surgeon who witnessed the terrible results of these accidents has designed a safe Lamp that can't roll over and cause a fire. To date, his small foundation has handed out about 775 thousand of the safe lamps.

OFF GRID AID - ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Comet-ME
Two Israeli physicists are helping Palestinian villages in the West Bank generate their own cheap renewable energy.
“The need was obvious – every household you go into, every person you meet, the need cries out to you“ Elad Orian, Comet-ME

In the politically volatile area of the occupied territories in the West bank are communities of Palestinian shanty towns - communities that live in darkness because for them an electricity grid is an impossible dream. But renewable technology such as solar and wind power could change that. Israel is one of the world leaders in solar power and two Israeli physicists, Elad Orian and Noam Dotan, are hoping to bring power to the desert by installing wind and solar technologies to help run lights and fridges for these impoverished people. Through their work developing sustainable power sources on the West Bank they are giving a light of hope, quite literally, to these off-the-grid neighbourhoods.

PATTERNS OF CHANGE - AFGHANISTAN
Afghan Hands
How the American high-end fashion business is creating a design for a better life for the widows of the decades of conflict in Afghanistan.
“The first time I bought them in they were shocked by the sheerness of these things… and they were shaking their heads, saying ‘These Americans – I don’t know what they want!’”
The conflicts in Afghanistan over the last 30 years have caused up to 2 million deaths – creating a generation of widows and orphans in the country. But Matin Maulawizada, whose own family escaped to the USA during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, has returned to the country of his birth to help some of these widows. Arriving from the US bearing designs commissioned by a niche-market fashion house, his company, Afghan Hands, capitalizes on the skill of these women with a needle and thread and is now not only earning them an income, but teaching them literacy and numeracy as well.