Lucy Auwor lives in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya—the largest in Africa. At age six, Lucy was forced to engage in prostitution to survive. At a young age, Lucy knew that as a poor, uneducated woman her life prospects were bleak. Lucy is just one of nearly half a million young women in Kibera denied education and made to suffer daily indignities. But in August of 2009, Lucy’s life and place in her community drastically changed—she became a student at The Kibera School for Girls. 

We have developed an innovative, two-step community-driven model to combat gender inequality. We link free schools for girls to holistic community centers that provide residents with essential services unavailable elsewhere. In August 2009, we founded The Kibera School for Girls, the first entirely free school in Kibera. However, simply providing accessible education is not enough to change the value society places on women.

The 2^nd step of our model provides the community-at-large with tangible benefits through a community center adjacent to the school. The Shining Hope Community Center addresses severe local deficits in health care, education, sanitation, nutrition, and computer/literacy training. In our model, girls’ schools become portals through which attitudes toward women change as community members associate needed services with an institution dedicated to girls’ education. By investing in health and economic success through a school for girls, we demonstrate that benefitting women benefits the whole community, cultivating a community ethos that makes women respected members of society.

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Imagine yourself at the hospital bed of a loved one. The doctors and nurses have just rushed in to resuscitate them. Their life hangs in the balance, not because of a device malfunction or health complication, but a power outage.
 
The World Bank has named energy poverty in developing countries as one of the world’s most widespread and debilitating crises. Due to energy shortages and inefficiencies, electricity blackouts due to load shedding and mismanagement can blanket communities for hours every week, sometimes every day. In 2007 a study of hospitals in 10 developing world nations revealed that the most common cause of failure in medical devices is an inadequate power supply. Energy poverty not only plagues hospitals, but small businesses and households, who would never be able to afford the luxury of $200 generators or even a $70 UPS.
 
To improve the quality of life and economic productivity in developing communities around the world, Waste to Watts has designed a low-cost, modular back-up power supply that will run devices ranging from EKGs and patient monitors to computers and household lights for several hours when the power goes out. How are we cutting costs?  The most expensive components of the device are made of… trash. We are repurposing electronic waste, one of the fastest growing pollution problems in the world, to build our device. We currently have a working prototype and a business model to accept donations and bring our device to the developing world.  All we need is your help. j.molini230.0

Ag 4 Africa is a rural development model for Sub-Saharan Africa. Through social entrepreneurship and native African crops, Ag 4 Africa will challenge issues such as food security, malnutrition and economic development through sustainable agriculture and self-sufficiency.

With the cultivation of indigenous Africa crops, farmers can break the cycle of poverty and ensure a stable food source. Beginning with the Bambara groundnut, a substitute product to the soy bean; Ag 4 Africa believes that through its strategic partnerships it can effectively create a global demand for Bambara.



Fostering relationships with private and public sector institutions as well as multinational corporations; processing at Nestle in Ghana, the milk product sold through Starbucks, A4A will be able to reach lucrative international markets. Through A4A’s mission to cycle revenues back into the communities they are operating in, A4A will improve the quality of life through investments in infrastructure, education and health care.

The mission of Ag 4 Africa, supporting the United Nations Millennium Development goals, is as follows:

• To form an effective coalition empowering the African farmers to modernize their agricultural farming practices and reach new markets.
• To protect biodiversity through social responsible, sustainable and eco-friendly farming practices.
• To strengthen the agribusiness industry of Sub-Saharan Africa by implementing an export-oriented industrialization model, with the belief that exports are the axis of wise industrial policy.

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