Worldchanging: Bright Green

Attention Philanthropy 2009

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T10:10:00-08:00

At Worldchanging, one of our three main missions is to practice attention philanthropy.

Attention philanthropy is a gift of notice. In a noisy world, deluged in advertising, overrun with PR flacks and crowded with the superficial, one of the biggest barriers to success for a small, good idea or noble enterprise can simply be getting noticed in the first place.

Attention philanthropy is all about shining a light on good work that's worth supporting. It is grantmaking that deals in access, rather than cash (though because many funders, journalists and changemakers read Worldchanging, the pattern is that notice on Worldchanging often leads to more media coverage, funding and networking opportunities for the people and groups we note).

Over the past few weeks, we have reached out to our network of friends and allies around the world, inviting them to become guest grantmakers. Many of them responded by giving the gift of attention to a person, cause or resource they think deserves more attention than it gets*.

This week, we are presenting their "grants" – pithy spotlights of people and projects around the world -- in five days of concentrated attention philanthropy. We're pleased that the result reads like a globally sourced catalog of some of the sharpest innovators and cutting-edge institutions that you may not yet have heard of.

Here's your chance to do a simple, good thing. If the work you find on these pages inspires you, learn more. Visit their websites, contribute to their projects and, above all, help us spread the word far and wide.

And if you'd like to contribute an attention grant of your own, please click here.

Check back each day from July 6-10 as we add to the collection!

These are the grants we have published so far:

Company: Preserving Local Industry through Innovative Design

Aron Chang: A New Plan for Suburbia

InSTEDD: Bringing Life Saving Tools and Technology to All

Baba Wamé: Award-Winning Work to End Human Trafficking

A Catalogue of Extinct Experience: Renewing Our Disappearing Connections to Nature

Growfood.org: Networking a 21st Century Food System

Gwynne Dyer's Climate Wars: Now a Radio Series

Ji Lee: Creating Mind-Bending Design for New York's Urban Landscape

Cause & Affect: Magnifying Impact for Social Action

Ashley Murray: Wastewater is a Resource

Bright Neighbor: New Tool Helps Neighbors Build Better Communities

Youth Networks: Climate Action Networks Expand Globally

People's Grocery: Building Food Security From Within

KickStart: Solving Poverty with Business Opportunity

PDOT, Alta Planning and Design and Bike Portland: Growing a Bikeable U.S. City

Village Bike Project: Distributing Bikes and Education Across Africa

Crossroads Cafe: Providing Job Training and Darn Tasty Sandwiches

Engineers Without Borders: Improving Communities With Technology Solutions

The Research Channel: Offering In-Depth Access to Leading Institutions

Geoff Lawton: Developing a Permaculture Master Plan

Electric Bicycle World Tour: One Person Can Send a Loud Message

Urban Echo: Art Project Displays Thoughts and Imaginings

The Inkanyiso Sustainable Systems Team: Providing Access to Renewable Energy

"Why New Coal?": Film Questions India's Dependence on Fossil Fuels

Inclusive Planet: Planning Internet Access for the Differently-abled

Software Carpentry: Open Source Site Offers Courses on Basic Development Skills

The Uptake: Collaborative Online Citizen Journalism

Ashoka: Continuing to Connect Social Entrepreneurs Globally

Shamo Thar: Creating an Action-Based Model for Teaching

Off the Mat, Into the World: Linking Personal Development with Social Change

Living Cultural Storybases: Using Technology to Preserve Cultural Diversity

Photo credit: Flickr/HeideHo, Creative Commons License.

*Although we gave our grantmakers free reign to select almost any project that inspired them, we did require that they limit their submissions to projects in which they do not have a financial stake.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 10:10 AM)

Living Cultural Storybases: Using Technology to Preserve Cultural Diversity

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T09:57:00-08:00

Nominated by Howard Rheingold

Paul Rankin's quest to use digital technologies for cultural preservation, literally from Timbuktu to the Himalayas, makes him of a kind of do-gooder Indiana Jones for the Web age. As Rankin describes his mission:

Indigenous peoples are 4 percent of the world’s population, but half of humanity’s cultures. Yet they are the poorest and most disenfranchised. One language dies every 10 days; within 50 years over half the world’s languages will be gone. Cultural diversity is disappearing much faster than plant or animal diversity. We face a cataclysmic loss of millennia of wisdom and knowledge whilst threatened by megacity monocultures, economies of scale, environmental destruction and greed. We all need their understanding of fragile environments, custodianship of biodiversity, sustainable models of cooperative living, alternative approaches to education, health and well being, skills, artistry and ancient wisdom.

Storytelling transmits the essence of any culture, encapsulating deeper beliefs, values and identity, inspiring ways of behaving and believing. ‘Living Cultural Storybases’ helps minority communities build evolving digital repositories in their own language of their cultural narratives and knowledge, i.e. ‘Storybases’.Ppilots in Peru and Mali prove that training young agents to record their elder’s stories, using novel appropriate technologies and the resulting community digital resource, empower the community, strengthen cultural identity, pride and social cohesion, reconnect the generations, include their urban Diaspora in an Internet dialogue and create new economic opportunities.

This piece is part of Worldchanging's Attention Philanthropy campaign. All week long, the Worldchanging Network will be delivering "attention grants" to worthy projects, individuals, resources and more. You can learn more about these gifts of notice and find other entries by clicking here.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Community at 9:57 AM)

Off the Mat, Into the World: Linking Personal Development with Social Change

Britt Bravo — 2009-07-09T09:50:01-08:00

My attention grant goes to Off the Mat Into the World.

Off the Mat, Into the World™ (OTM) is a program that aims to inspire and guide you to find and define your purpose and become active in your local or global community in an effective, sustainable and joyful way. OTM is an educational, experiential and motivational process for those interested in conscious activism and service. We combine yoga asanas, meditation in-depth self-exploration which culminates in the formation of a group project that is real and in service to the community.

Although I've never completed one of their programs, I think their emphasis on the connection between social change and personal development is crucial.

How many social changemakers do you know who are doing incredible work out in the world, but don't take care of their own bodies, minds and spirits? Who give time, energy and love to the issues they want to change, but not to themselves, or their friends and family?

On the other hand, there are lots of people who are completely focused on their own well-being and pursuit of personal wellness and happiness, but who are unaware of the positive impact they could have on their communities, and the happiness and well-being that comes from being of service.

Programs like Off the Mat, Into the World that balance inner work and outer work are so important, and I think they are the next important evolution of the social change movement.

In my April interview with Seane Corn, one of Off the Mat Into the World's co-founders, she described it best when she said,

We want to support anyone who is interested in engagement, but we want to help them do it in a way that is healthy for them, creates community, and creates longevity, so that everyone wins, and no one gets burnt out or sick. That is not what service should be about. It should be about joy, on every level.

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(Posted by Britt Bravo in Resource - Community at 9:50 AM)

Shamo Thar: Creating an Action-Based Model for Teaching

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T09:44:00-08:00

Nominated by Catlin Powers and Scot Frank

Shamo Thar is one of the driving forces of sustainable change and female empowerment in western China. She established the development studies program at Qinghai Normal University. As a teacher there, she has nurtured many young people — especially women — to become social, environmental, and educational leaders in their communities.

Yet, her lessons go far beyond the classroom. Each year, Shamo Thar spends her free time writing grants for her Community Development Fund for Students, a fund enabling students to engage in hands-on teaching and sustainable development internships.

Shamo Thar’s students come from agricultural and nomadic families in Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan Provinces in China. By creating a new, action-based model for teaching about the environment and sustainable development, Shamo Thar is shaping a new generation of rural youth capable of raising living standards in their communities in a locally appropriate manner. She is calling this endeavor the Pentok Institute (the institute of selfless giving).

In addition, Shamo Thar’s extensive experience in the sustainable development sectors in China and the USA has made her adept at designing effective, efficient, and long-term development projects. She is using her experience to bring renewable energies, libraries, and running water to rural areas of western China through innovative approaches to education.

Photo credit: Catlin Powers

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Empowering Women at 9:44 AM)

Ashoka: Continuing to Connect Social Entrepreneurs Globally

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T09:43:00-08:00

Nominated by Pamela Hawley

Ashoka is a non-profit organization supporting social entrepreneurs to help them achieve the maximum impact in their work. Ashoka believes in the ability of individuals to make a difference, in the high impact of non-violent and ethical actions, and the power of the entrepreneur to change society. Bill Drayton founded Ashoka in 1980, inspired by the social and economic gap he observed while traveling through Asia. Working in 60 countries across the globe, Ashoka finds and invests in social entrepreneurs, engages communities and helps entrepreneurs to network with each other, and provides needed infrastructure for the network. Ashoka has identified entrepreneurs as a leading and growing force for social change, and is helping that force to effect change.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Social Entrepreneurship at 9:43 AM)

The Uptake: Collaborative Online Citizen Journalism

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T09:30:46-08:00

Nominated by Sarah Kuck

As newspaper giants continue to go under, many news readers and creators continue to speculate on what will take their place. One answer: citizen journalism. A conglomeration of bloggers and freelancers has emerged to fill the void by writing, recording and producing their own news.

Some are even organizing. One such group is collaborative news site The Uptake, which wants you to think about whether the news "will be done to you or by you?" Creator Chuck Olsen has made the site a space where video-focused, citizen journalists can gather to post the latest news stories and commentary. So far, the site has journalists in California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas and Washington, D.C.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Media at 9:30 AM)

The Inkanyiso Sustainable Systems Team: Providing Access to Renewable Energy

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T08:55:22-08:00

Nominated by Alex Aylett

South Africa is in the midst of a crippling electricity crisis. It is also a major GHG emitter, thanks to its total dependence on coal-fired power plants. Lack of access to affordable and reliable energy is a key component of the conditions that keep millions of South Africans in poverty. Richard Pocock and the team he is part of at Inkanyiso Sustainable Systems provide crucial support to municipalities, companies and communities to help them deal with these challenges.

Their projects range from solar hot water heaters, bio-digester and solar cookers, to local renewable energy, grey water and community agricultural systems. Their approach is geared toward creating appropriate combinations of these technologies to provide integrated solutions to a community's energy and water needs. At the same time, they build local technical and installation capacity by working with contractors and community members previously marginalized by Apartheid.

South Africa is a country with the potential to be a model for the ways in which environmental sustainability can also help improve economic success and quality of life. Inkanyiso Sustainable Systems is a fantastic example of a local organization helping to provide the expertise, information and dedication that it will take to make that happen.

Inkanyiso Sustainable Systems
1st Floor, Morningside Chambers
510 Windermere Road, Morningside
Durban, 4001, kwaZulu Natal, South Africa
Tel : 031 312 3044 Fax : 031 312 3077
info@sustainablesystems.co.za

Nominator Alex Aylett is a PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of British Columbia and a Senior Research Associate at the International Centre for Sustainable Cities.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 8:55 AM)

"Why New Coal?": Film Questions India's Dependence on Fossil Fuels

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T08:50:00-08:00

Nominated by Edward C. Wolf

Indian renewable energy activist Vinay Jaju and his Dutch compatriot Huub Dekkers cycled 1800 kilometers from Kolkota to New Delhi in early 2009, crossing the coalfields of Jharkhand to ask their countrymen and the world “Why New Coal?” Their 80-minute film tells the story of their human-powered effort “to question India’s dangerous over-reliance on fossil fuels and to highlight alternatives.”

Produced by Jaju and filmmaker Ekta Kothari (co-founders of the grassroots climate action project Switch ON), “Why New Coal?” will premiere in New Delhi at the Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change this July 18-23. Combining footage from their journey and interviews with government officials, coal industry representatives, NGO leaders including Vandana Shiva, and ordinary citizens, the film makes a compelling case that coal offers misery, not prosperity, to hundreds of millions of Indians still living beyond the reach of the country’s power grid.

More than 3.5 billion people – over half the world’s population – are younger than 30 years old. “Why New Coal?” asks the most important question their generation will confront. The possibility of a Bright Green Future hinges on the answer they demand.

Nominator Edward C. Wolf is a board member of Focus the Nation, a US-based organization working to empower young people to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

Photo credit: Flickr/√oхέƒx™, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 8:50 AM)

Inclusive Planet: Planning Internet Access for the Differently-abled

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-09T08:45:00-08:00

Nominated by Dina Mehta

I was in Bangalore last week and happened to meet the young guys who are running Inclusive Planet. I was quite impressed with what they're trying to do - creating innovative online services for the differently-abled with the vision of leveraging these services to building a community on the web. The common theme across their projects is 'access.'

The first of their services is a technology platform that enables the blind to share and access books and materials relevant to their study or leisure in formats totally accessible to them. In this they are collaborating with the Centre for Internet and Society and leading blind associations of the country and soon, school and college syllabi will be accessible, making this the world’s largest such library. The beta version of this service is at 'Readable'.

They're also developing several other offerings that include a community-driven (crowd-sourced) platform that will index and rate urban locations and routes according to the level of their 'accessibility'; and a social network designed to connect the differently-abled along issues relevant to their lives. These platforms will address three core ‘access’ issues – to people, to learning and to places. The network will allow users to share favourite books, places and people, creating a unique and powerful community in the process.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 8:45 AM)

Software Carpentry: Open Source Site Offers Courses on Basic Development Skills

Hassan Masum — 2009-07-09T08:38:00-08:00

Software Carpentry is a "how to program effectively" boot camp for scientists and self-starters. Course notes are all online, and are even available as one monster page of concise insights.

The focus is on "the 20 percent of ideas that account for 80 percent of real world use...about putting an extension on the house, rather than building the Channel Tunnel." Beyond programming itself, the authors imbue their lectures with insights on design, what not to do, and the spirit of elegance - the kind of experiential knowledge that differentiates dilettantes from pros.

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(Posted by Hassan Masum in Emerging Technologies at 8:38 AM)

PDOT, Alta Planning and Design and Bike Portland: Growing a Bikeable U.S. City

Jeremy Faludi — 2009-07-08T08:58:00-08:00

My grant goes to the City of Portland Department of Transportation, Alta Planning and Design, and Bike Portland.

One of the highest priorities for sustainable living is oil-free transportation, and one of the best solutions is the bicycle. The best bicycling city in the world is Copenhagen, but as the blog Copenhagenize says, "Forty years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 55 percent of the population choose the bicycle."

Advocacy and teamwork can make it happen anywhere. Portland is the new hotspot; will you make your city next?

As Bike Portland reports, cycling rates in the city "showed a double-digit increase for the fourth straight year and that overall bike use in Portland shot up 28 percent between 2007 and 2008." Census reports say 3.5 percent of the city commutes by bike now (as opposed to the US national average of 0.4 percent.) Such astounding growth has even sparked local industry: the New York Times reported last year that Portland's bicycling industry has tripled or quadrupled in the last decade, creating hundreds of jobs. Some people have even moved house by bike. In the rain (it is Portland, after all)!

Photo credits: Flickr/jesse.millan, ilovemypit, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by Jeremy Faludi in Features at 8:58 AM)

Village Bike Project: Distributing Bikes and Education Across Africa

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-08T08:57:00-08:00

Nominated by Adam Werbach

There are times when the problems of the world seem so overwhelming that you just want to do something simple, something clear, something that will help one person live a better life. Last month a friend who worked with me resigned to go to Sierra Leone and help girls learn how to ride and repair bikes. It was hard to see Brittany go, but I hope you’ll join me in supporting her as she begins a women's bicycle education program in the town of Lunsar. Brittany’s project is an extension of the work that the Village Bicycle Project has been doing for the last 10 years in Ghana. Since 1999, the Village Bicycle Project has provided 36,000 bicycles, included 5,500 people in bicycle maintenance workshops, and distributed 15,000 tools in 12 African countries. Since 2006, over 1000 women have participated in women-centric workshops.

Brittany’s focus for the next 7 months will be on educating young girls about how to ride a bike and basic bike maintenance skills so that they too can have greater freedom to get to and from their farms, markets, schools and surrounding villages. You can see Brittany talking about the effort in this video:

(More video coverage from Current TV here.)

How can you help?

Give a little bit! In appreciation for WorldChanging’s attention grant, I’ll match everyone’s donation dollar for dollar up to $400.00 (which is the cost of getting 20 people half-price bikes.) Make a donation. Then send me a note on Facebook when you donate, and I’ll make the matching gift.

And if you can quit your job (or if the recession offers you the opportunity) and travel for at least six months, click here for information on how to volunteer like Brittany.

Photo credit: Flickr/Jenny Downing, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 8:57 AM)

Crossroads Cafe: Providing Job Training and Darn Tasty Sandwiches

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-08T08:56:00-08:00

Nominated by Emily Pilloton

The Crossroads Cafe, on top of having the best $4.95 BLT in San Francisco, is an amazing enterprise (cafe and self-help bookstore) that provides job training to "people who have hit bottom to completely rebuild their lives." Its clients include former substance abusers, ex-convicts, homeless and others. What makes Crossroads world changing is its alignment with the Delancey Foundation's other enterprises -- the system works to support individuals at every stage, from counseling to employment to entrepreneurship.

In coordination with other enterprises that include moving and trucking, catering, artisan craft guilds, landscaping, digital printing, and more, Crossroads Cafe is successful because of its link to other enterprises (providing a stepping stone rather than a one-off model of work-based empowerment). The food is amazing, the staff inspiring and friendly, and the training program rigorous and effective.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 8:56 AM)

Make Your Own Attention Grant Here!

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-08T08:55:00-08:00

You're invited to join the Worldchanging network in Attention Philanthropy 2009 by giving the gift of attention to a person, cause or resource you think deserves more attention than it gets. Please post your "grant" in the comments below.

It couldn't be easier. Here are the guidelines:

1. Your grant may be to a person, organization, event, website, book, database -- really anything, as long as you have no financial stake in its success.

2. Your grant must either be for a solution (or person/organization working on or exploring solutions) or for a resource for understanding a given problem that is so new and insightful that it is in itself a step towards solving the problem.

3. Your grant should come with a citation of 200 words (or fewer), simply explaining what the awardee does and why that's worldchanging. Pithy works. Including links is most welcome.

Caveats: Please be aware of the comment thread and avoid multiple pieces granting attention to the same grantee. We won't publish hate speech, climate denialism or other ideas that we think are dumb and spiteful. Otherwise, anything's fair game.

We look forward to reading a crowd-sourced catalog of worldwide best work!

Thank you,
The Worldchanging Team

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Features at 8:55 AM)

Engineers Without Borders: Improving Communities With Technology Solutions

WorldChanging Team — 2009-07-08T08:22:00-08:00

Nominated by the TerraPass team

Engineers Without Borders is a chapter-based organization devoted to bringing technical expertise to the developing world to assist with fundamental needs like clean water and reliable power. Through innovative initiatives like the Appropriate Technology Design Team, the group strives to find solutions tailored to the social and technological contexts in which they'll be used, such as a $100 wind turbine that can be manufactured using local materials, or a water carrier that can be shipped cheaply to the remote areas that need it.

Photo: Paul Okrutny, host of The Fulcrum, Engineers Without Borders' podcast. Credit: Flickr/rabbleradio, Creative Commons License.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Stuff at 8:22 AM)