Well, this question can better be answered when you consider that charity knows no copyright, especially when it involves a fashion icon like Louis Vuitton and one of the French fashion house’s creations.

For 26 year old Danish art student, Nadia Plesner, being slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit demanding “$7,500 for each day she keeps selling the product, $7,500 for each day she displays Louis Vuitton’s cease-and-desist letter and $ 7,500 for each day she mentions the name ‘Louis Vuitton’ on her website” has never overridden a good cause and she is as defiant as ever.

Those sums and more - legal costs for the suit and another $15,000 for related “other expenses”. But what would Louis Vuitton do with the money if their lawsuit succeeds? Of two guesses, only one can suffice; either to fund further research for a hyped luxury product or give away to victims of the war in Darfur.

To raise funds (she has raised more than US$ 30,000 so far) for the charity, Divest for Darfur, Nadia created a motif on a t-shirt with an image of an emaciated Darfurian clutching a bag and her chihuahua. She intended to portray that the Western media was too pre-occupied with celebrity trivia while events of more concern were happening elsewhere in the world.

According to suit papers and a letter sent to the young artist, Louis Vuitton claims the bag in the motif resembles one of their creations: “Although we applaud your efforts to raise awareness and funds to help Darfur, a most worthy cause, we cannot help noticing that the design of the Simple Living Products includes the reproduction of a bag infringing on Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights, in particular the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore Trademark to which it is confusingly similar. We are surprised of such a promotion of a counterfeit bag”.

Why a motif on an emaciated Darfurian clutching a designer bag? Nadia explained: “My Simple Living illustration is an idea inspired by the media’s constant cover of completely meaningless things. My thought was, since doing nothing but wearing designer bags and small ugly dogs apparently is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserve and need attention.”

She says on her website: I stand up for my artistic freedom to express my view of the world as I see it without restrictions from anybody. I (have) informed Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Director that I intend to continue my campaign to support the victims of Darfur.”

But the artistic directors at Louis Vuitton are not seeing charity or ethics in Nadia’s creation, or any infatuation with celebrities like Paris Hilton or Pamela Anderson clutching one of their products with a dog in tow.

One simple rule for doing good that must never be forgotten - forget the hype, fashion and charity sometimes do clash, know where the demarcation begins.

Image courtesy: Nadia Plesner

Recent extensive medical research and studies on the prevalence of HIV/Aids in Africa indicate that male circumcision could help reduce the spread of the disease on the continent and elsewhere. A massive roll out of free male circumcision programs in Swaziland, Rwanda, Zambia and Kenya is underway and experts hope results will reflect the 60% reduction in new infection rates documented in the studies.

Circumcision is the surgical removal of part or the entire foreskin that covers the tip of the penis. Male circumcisions are traditionally carried out for a number of reasons - social, cultural, religious (mainly for Muslims and Jewish communities). Medical reasons may now compel most males worldwide to go for the knife.

In the US, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) found that between 1999 and 2004, 79% of men reported being circumcised, including 88% of non-Hispanic white men, 73% of non-Hispanic black men, 42% of Mexican American men, and 50% of men of other races/ ethnicities. These figures showed a remarkable reduction on the rate of circumcision in recent years, from about 85% of all newborn males in the 1970s.

Reports indicate that a study in Kenya prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to include circumcision in its prevention policies a year ago, and which compelled the Kenyan government to form a task force to promote voluntary, medically safe operations.

The trial in Kisumu, Kenya, of 2,784 HIV-negative men showed a 53 percent reduction of HIV acquisition in circumcised men relative to uncircumcised men, while a trial of 4,996 HIV-negative men in Rakai, Uganda, showed that HIV acquisition was reduced by 48 percent in circumcised men.

“Many studies have suggested that male circumcision plays a role in protecting against HIV acquisition, we now have confirmation—from large, carefully controlled, randomized clinical trials—showing definitively that medically performed circumcision can significantly lower the risk of adult males contracting HIV through heterosexual intercourse. While the initial benefit will be fewer HIV infections in men, ultimately adult male circumcision could lead to fewer infections in women in those areas of the world where HIV is spread primarily through heterosexual intercourse,” noted US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

Male Circumcision Considerations for the United States
A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) document, Male Circumcision and Risk for HIV Transmission: Implications for the United States, says: A number of important differences from sub-Saharan African settings where the three male circumcision trials were conducted must be considered in determining the possible role for male circumcision in HIV prevention in the United States. Notably, the overall risk of HIV infection is considerably lower in the United States, changing risk-benefit and cost-effectiveness considerations.

Also, studies to date have demonstrated efficacy only for penile-vaginal sex, the predominant mode of HIV transmission in Africa, whereas the predominant mode of sexual HIV transmission in the United States is by penile-anal sex among MSM. There are as yet no convincing data to help determine whether male circumcision will have any effect on HIV risk for men who engage in anal sex with either a female or male partner, as either the insertive or receptive partner. Receptive anal sex is associated with a substantially greater risk of HIV acquisition than is insertive anal sex.

But the African roll out programs may face cultural and traditional setbacks as acceptability of male circumcision will be an important factor that cannot be ignored. The Meru tribe in Kenya for instance differentiates between circumcisions in a modern hospital environment with the traditional communal knife by special “cut surgeons”.

The traditional one is of course more painful as it is done under no local anesthesia and also less hygienic as the knife is always shared among the candidates in a pompous, beer fest cutting ceremony. A “real” Meru man is one who has undergone the traditional cut.

Image Credit: Babasteve at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Expert findings, personal research and a discreet fact-finding visit to the Dominion Farms project in Siaya, a rural agricultural district, also homeland of Democratic presidential contender, Barack Obama’s father, is all it took to conclude that the letter-writing group partly funded by the New Earth Foundation may have made the goof of the decade.

This may be a classic case of ecocolonialism, one of many of foreign NGOs’ attempts to meddle in economic development in the third world as seen in wildlife management poilitics, which is a bit unfair. A Columbia Earthscape documented case in point was the antagonism between the villagers in Samoa and a foreign conservation organization that captured the attention of international media years ago.

If the project was somewhere in the US, it would not have raised a feather. Why is it that Americans have been able to exploit their resources to build an economy in ecologically sustainable ways without much ado?

The story goes that Dominion Group, a venture fronted by Calvin Burgess, a businessman from Guthrie, Oklahoma, saw an opportunity to reclaim part of a 17,000 acre swamp and in the year 2003, Dominion Farms (its affiliate) secured approval from the local authorities to lease 30% of the contiguous lowlands in the Nyanza Province of western Kenya for a term of 45 years to develop an irrigation rice project and related crops.

Before then, 85 per cent of the local population of Siaya and Bondo districts were living below the poverty level. Infrastructure was very poor with no proper roads, handicapping any small commercial enterprises and the poor drinking water supply. Due to the desperate poverty in the area, there existed a chronic sense of insecurity which in turn led to suspicion and poor relations between communities. Now the population living below the poverty line has dropped to under 65%.

Burgess estimates his firm has spent $5 million a year since 2001 building dikes and hydroelectric dams, creating roads where none existed and establishing what he hopes will be a new start for thousands of the country’s poorest residents.

However, he has recently scaled back the project due to blatant interference from local politicians who demand bribes for “protection”, incitement of local communities by a myriad of environmental activists and a host of sabotage activities around the project.

Despite support from the Kenya government, which ministry of regional development and the national environmental management authority, have okayed the project, and from church leaders, he still feels the project is generating too much heat.

There exists tons of reports that conflict on the ecological viability of the project with so called environmental and community experts disagreeing on certain issues.

Global Response did not check its facts right before embarking on a massive letter writing campaign on the plate of environmental protection and human rights that, fortunately, has failed to make sense of this debacle.

The truth is, while the swamp provides critical habitat for many endangered fish, bird and mammal species, its abundant resources have also provided food security and livelihood for thousands of families over many generations.

Dominion Farms has ensured community involvement by way of out-grower contracting and the support of schools, clinics and emerging community initiatives. Burgess has demonstrated use of sustainbale technologies to this agricultural community where 95% of all cropland is dependent on rain-fed production. Farmers are under-invested in agricultural technologies and equipment.

Elaborate environmental sustainability measures are in place, and approved by independent environmental experts. Assertions that Dominion Farms has not taken these into consideration are all but lies. There exists a valid environmental impact assessment report by NEMA, a government agency, as well as a ecological license by the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service.

I am not an apologist for any American who wants to invest in Africa but this highlights what goes on in projects in the developing world, such as the Dominion Farms in Kenya. This is why Global Response should rewrite their script to justify their relevance to the third world.

For to claim that the clearing of swamp papyrus will have negative side economic effects on locals since they have always used these plants to make mats and stand in the way of an ecologically and economically sustainable project with enormous benefits to a whole community is but preposterous.

Image Credit: WRI Staff at Flickr under Creative Commons

A Canadian of Dutch descent, he has since passed on the skill to local farmers in Mali, where he first presented his model, and elsewhere on the continent where he trains them for free and still refuses to patent the cheap gadget which has impressed even infamous peanut farmers like Jimmy Carter. A Gift to the World, he calls it.

Mama, I promise to look this Brandis guy up for you and bring him to our village. My mama, in her 55 years, still finds time from her teaching job in the village school to employ farm hands to shell peanuts for her. And she reaps an impressive twenty 50 kg sacks a year. Not bad for her agrarian moonlighting, hmm…

Feted as a CNN Hero for his innovation, Brandis has worked with communities in 17 countries across four continents through his Full Belly Project to make hundreds of machines locally at minimal cost resulting in health benefits and increased family incomes.

In Africa alone, women spend four billion hours annually hand shelling peanuts, figures quoted on the project website estimate. The Full Belly project works to relieve hunger and create economic opportunities in developing countries through the design and distribution of labor saving, locally replicable agricultural devices.

From Haiti to the Philippines, from Malawi to Southern Sudan, from Mali to Guatemala, entire communities have been transformed by the UNS. In Haiti, the Full Belly project turned a pedal powered agricultural center into an electric powered one capable of running all day long, creating an inexpensive way to process peanuts for a kids charity there.

Now the project aims to focus on their research efforts on developing easily replicable, inexpensive devices that will allow for organizations to process their foods cheaply.

And what’s more, the UNS can easily be modified to shell coffee beans, shea (a lucrative crop for shea butter and oil) or jatropha, a biodiesel seed now being grown in many arid and semi arid parts of Africa and Asia.

The inventor says the gadget makes shelling work less tedious and increases productivity up to 50 times. He looks at a single machine working for an entire village, so 100 machines may as well do shelling work for 100 villages.

A Gift to the World captures the vision of the Full Belly Project - that rural communities in developing countries live lives of abundance, that they awake each morning to days of economic possibility and go to sleep each night with bellies that are full. Indeed!

Image used with permission of the Full Belly Project.

The problem has been that access to modern electricity is but a privilege for the few who can afford it, and the majority are burning kerosene for lighting, a practice known to be expensive, dangerous and harmful to health.

An initiative run by Solar Aid, in partnership with the UK non-profit, TRAID, the project is geared toward protecting the environment and reducing poverty by introducing simple, locally assembled, affordable LED solar lanterns to the poorest communities, providing residents with a cheap alternative to kerosene while also generating employment opportunities for the underprivileged and ill.

A total of 120 young people, orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS in northern Malawi are being trained to build these solar lanterns and act as campaigners and educational collaborators for the project.

Locals in the dusty Mzuzu town are leading other communities in replacing around 1 and a half million kerosene lamps in Malawi with solar lanterns where only 2 percent of the rural population are connected to the electricity grid.

For the rest, there was no other option than to rely on less viable sources such as kerosene for lighting. For their radios, they would use batteries, a very expensive affair. Now, one revolutionary micro solar panel powers all these - all for the Power of the Sun or Mphamvu Ya Dzuma in the local dialect.

Photo Credit: Solar Aid.

I have always marveled at the wonders of the sea; beautiful marine creatures that are awe-inspiring to watch. But one trip on a glass-bottom tourist boat a few months ago made me promise to go back for more, and I hadn’t found the time until now. I wanted to see the coral bed under the cool waters off the Indian Ocean coast again.

Coral reefs are among Earth’s most diverse, productive, and beautiful ecosystems, and have become exciting spots for tourist who admire water life and sports. Its now not uncommon to see tourists in glass bottomed boats being ferried to coral gardens for viewing.

Coral gardens have also been popular spots for water sports tourism especially diving. I joined this custom safari with a group of friends on this fine May morning that combined a variety of both marine and terrestrial research together with community development projects within the tropical environment of East Africa.

The safari was also a learning experience that examined how the local communities affect and utilize the region’s natural resources, and aims to assist these communities to profit from their resources in a sustainable manner. As such it focussed on fun as well as three main elements, marine life, research and the impact of development upon it.

Famous for its vast stretches of casuarina-fringed white sandy beaches, the coastal resort of Malindi, a pristine town in Kenya, is easily accessible by both road and air, and has great beauty and diversity of marine life.

The coral reefs are home to more than 140 species of hard and soft corals. The reef plays a diverse role. As well as bio-diversity strongholds, they are breeding grounds for fish and other marine life, a vital barrier against the force of the sea, protecting marine organisms and tourist recreation, they keep out dangerous sharks common to the deeper waters, and their color and the exotic coral fish they support provides a major attraction for tourists.

Gambi, our guide, had told us that the Malindi Marine Reserve was Kenya’s first having been opened in 1967 and has been designated World Biosphere Reserve since 1979. The coral reefs fringing Kenya’s coastline harbor has an abundance of colorful marine life.

“Please do not damage or remove coral. It is a living organism which takes many years to form and is host to rare and endangered species”,Gambi reminded us as we boarded the glass-bottom boat.

Coral reef eco-tourism is successful in many developing countries, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, although it is just picking up in East Africa and only a handful of operators run coral reef expeditions and safaris.

On this occasion, we did not want a diving safari which we had done previously; just time out there unraveling the mysteries of the coral reefs from the comfort of our glass-bottom boat. The weather was good, proving us with a generous rendezvous.

During the brief lecture at sea under the penetrating African sun,Gambi told us that there were more than 200 coral types and 1500 fish species in the east Africa marine eco-region, that extends for about 4,600km of coastline from southern Somalia, through Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique to the north-eastern shores of South Africa.

The reefs in the region were heavily damaged by the El Niño Southern Oscillation coral bleaching event in 1998. Since then, there has been significant recovery, although this has been patchy and influenced by many other local to regional threats. Coral reef monitoring has been conducted by many national agencies, and local and international NGOs.

The coastline supports some 22 million people who depend on the rich marine life for their livelihoods. But the resources along the entire length of east Africa are extensively used, creating problems of over-harvesting, which can destroy habitats and species alike.

Several community conservation programs, including that of the Worldwide Fund for Nature and a local monitoring body, Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean (CORDIO East Africa), are working with local people and partners to rebuild and secure a healthy environment for the future of the east Africa marine eco-region, ensuring that both marine resources and the livelihoods of coastal communities are protected.

On return to our hotel, I thought it was a worthwhile experience to learn about coral reefs in east Africa again. But it was not entirely a fun safari as is available from several operators here - we had to write some hard stuff too. Perhaps, I’ll go back someday - as a real tourist.

Photo Credit: World Resources Institute via Flickr

Malaria, the dreaded and life-threatening disease continues to kill between 1 million and 3 million people each year, many of them pregnant women in Africa.

A two-month long 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) expedition on the Zambezi, one of Africa’s longest rivers, that begun on 29 March 2008 led by two adventurers, Helge Bendl, a journalist, and Andy Leemann, a boating enthusiast, partnering with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, covering six nations in southern Africa aims to put a spotlight on the plight of malaria-stricken communities on the continent which contributes 90 percent of the global annual death toll.

The rough terrain in Africa means that the delivery of mosquito nets and medications to remote villages ravaged by the disease could sometimes be a matter between life and death. But with inflatable boats through Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the Zambezi Expedition will attempt to get even deeper to reach to many potential victims as possible.

Sponsored by Sumitomo Chemical, the expedition includes medical teams carrying ecologically safe mosquito nets and medicine. The organizers hope it will also raise more local and global awareness to scale up malaria control and prevention and provide renewed life for malaria prevention in Africa as well as educate families with the knowledge and resources to combat the disease. Nearly 40% of the world’s population lives in malaria-endemic areas.

Previously marked as Africa Malaria Day since 2001, World Malaria Day is an attempt to raise greater awareness and global commitment to rolling back malaria and meeting the United Nations malaria-related Millennium Development Goals.

Caused by a parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes that typically bite their victims at night, malaria can kill very quickly if untreated and remains the leading cause of death in many developing countries, particularly among children.

Unlike many parts of the world where it has been eliminated, malaria infections have, over the last three decades, increased in Africa, compounded with very efficient mosquito vectors, increasing drug resistance and struggling health systems.

Approaches like providing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying the inside walls of houses with insecticides, providing access to diagnosis and antimalarial drugs, and providing a packet of interventions through strengthened antenatal care services for pregnant women have been known to be effective against the disease.

Long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLINs), that have no adverse effects on the environment such as those distributed during the expedition, work by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes. These can accommodate more than one person - a mother and an infant or a few siblings - for up to three to five years.

A net treated with special insecticides offers about twice the protection of an untreated net, and through its repellency, can even protect other people in the room outside the net.

Resources: World Health Organisation: Global Malaria Programme

Photo Credit: Lamerie via Flickr

But the question that has dogged Muslims for centuries has always been how to catch fish, using permissible methods that do not damage the environment.

“Lawful to you is the pursuit of water-game (fishing) and its use for food, for the benefit of yourselves and those who travel” (Surah Al-Maida, v. 96)

Dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing, and bottom trawling are all fishing techniques that may cause habitat destruction. A 2006 article in Science magazine said bottom trawling, the practice of pulling a fishing net along the sea bottom behind trawlers, removes around 5 to 25% of an area’s seabed life on a single run.

Ironically, communities in most South East Asian nations with large Muslim populations still practice blast or cyanide fishing with great environmental damage to coral reefs and many fishing and diving areas across the area, already severely damaged from the impact of dynamite fishing, have been ruined or totally lost through cyanide fishing using the chemical compound sodium cyanide despite both methods facing increasing use restrictions.

Back to “green fishing”. Islam speaks for sustainable ecology and seems to have scored big in “green fishing methods”, or ways that may also mean less or no damage to the ocean or river environments.

“He is the One (Allah) who established gardens, trellised and un-trellised, and palm trees, and crops with different tastes, and olives, and pomegranate - fruits that are similar, yet dissimilar. Eat from their fruits, and give the due alms on the day of harvest, and do not waste anything. He does not love the wasters.” (Surah Al-An’am v.141)

An initiative by the Africa Muslim Environment Network - AMEN, a network of Muslims and Muslim organisations in east and southern Africa launched in Lamu and Mombasa, Kenya that has re-introduced traditional, environmentally-friendly fishing gadgets is now bearing fruit.

“The Qur’an says that humanity’s role is to be Khalifa - the vice regent on earth for God. This does not mean we therefore have the right to do as we wish with God’s creation. Our role is to protect all life and to use it thoughtfully and carefully so that on the Day of Judgment we can report back to God that we have been true and faithful Khalifas.”

Local fishermen are using the traditional Swahili fish-trap which captures only mature fish, is handmade from renewable resources and could generate sufficient income to support many unemployed young people.

A similar initiative was launched earlier in Msali, an islet in Tanzania known for its large fish numbers. Misali Island Conservation Association - MICA, incorporates local fishermen as members to help protect the fish resources of this islet off Pemba, a larger island neighboring Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean.

Both projects in communities where fishing is the mainstay are experimental models for adopting Muslim education and environmental ethics as a way of innovative conservation and slowing the depletion of fish resources. Many fishermen admit using wrong gadgets in the past, including cyanide, blasting explosives, small mesh nets, and poles to break coral. They have exchanged these for the more sustainable ring nets to avoid mopping up vulnerable and endangered species like sea turtles.

The Misali project is linked to the Islamic Foundation For Ecology And Environmental Sciences - IFEES, a UK charity raising awareness among both Muslims and non-Muslims of the Islamic teachings on environmental issues.

They provide a fine example of Muslims rolling up their sleeves in their divine obligation to protect the environment and reverse trends toward ecological destruction based on the principles of the Quran.

Here, through a policy of sustainable fishing and environmental preservation, fishermen are heeding Qur’anic instruction but remain largely indifferent to measures by secular conservationists, thanks to ingenious eco-religious bodies that came in just in time and reminded them of Allah’s edicts on conservation of the ecology. It is green fishing, according to Islam.

Resources: Tropical Research and Conservation Center, Ecoreefs, Islamic Faith Statement on Ecology

Photo Credit: N Creatures via Flickr

It all started with the PlayPump, the water system that is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank that featured on Ecoworldly a while ago.

A see-saw that generates electricity when played on by children? Now there is this simple looking see-saw which when played on by children in Africa, generates electricity to help power up their school. It has no name yet but if this trend continues, it looks like Africa will be one very big playground for green play, literally.

You wanna play, somebody?

Daniel Sheridan, 23, a final year student of Consumer Product Design at Coventry University in the UK came from his volunteering stint in Kenya where he saw the suffering of poor students having to study under the moonlight or tiny kerosene lamps with a better lighted idea.

My thinking is that when he volunteered as a teacher, he probably saw the energy of these African children at play as something that could be put into good use, lighting up their schools easily and without any damage to the environment.

Sheridan recognizes that the current need for electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is staggering. Without power, development is extremely difficult. The potential market for this product is huge and the design could be of benefit to numerous communities in Africa and beyond.

He is now thinking big: to solve the energy problems in Africa by enlisting the help of children in the playground. His innovation is yet to attain commercial viability but it won Sheridan a Coventry University undergraduate a prize for enterprise, at the college’s Enterprise Festival, an ideas competition launched in 2002 to encourage students to develop commercially viable ideas.

It is expected that this inspiring and cost effective product would be supplied as a central unit to the local community who will have a hand in building part of it and installing it. Not only does it involve local people into the creation, but it also considerably reduces logistical costs.

All this without any expectation of profit. The unique selling point of this product is that it is not intended as a profit-making design. It has genuine potential to improve the quality of life for those studying or working at the school where it is installed. Noble indeed.

Photo credit:
Tyger Lyllie via Flickr

Powered by play, the PlayPump water system is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank. It provides easy access to clean drinking water, brings joy to children, and leads to improvements in health, education, gender equality, and economic development.

Hailed by the World Bank as “one of the world’s most innovative designs capable of providing self sustainable free clean water to poor communities, as well as being an effective delivery system for social messages”, the PlayPump system is a merry go round that pumps water from a ground source as children spin, and they like working hard at it. Talk of ingenuity! What’s more, it is a wonderful social media project: adverts are placed strategically on the equipment to warn on dangers of disease, including HIV/ Aids.

The clean water provided by the system is designed to save women and girls in the community the hardship of having to fetch and carry water from a stream or dam, which may be several hours’ walk away. Another purpose is to improve the health of the community by reducing or eliminating the threat of water-borne diseases such as cholera and bilharzia.

The system also enables the children in the community to spend more time at school by freeing up their time that would otherwise have been spent collecting water. Education officials claim that school attendance is also improved by reducing the number of sick days taken.

Sandra Hayes and Jill Rademacher, both working in PlayPump community projects in South Africa say the idea has been so successful that they had initiated entry into Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia. “Pilot projects will also be soon commenced in Lesotho, Malawi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda”, Hayes said.

US First Lady, Laura Bush, on her Africa trip last year, visited one such project in a school in Zambia and commented: “It runs on the energy of children at play. So it’s also a very fun piece of play equipment for children in the schoolyard.”

Peter Waldron, an engineer involved with the PlayPump, says children have developed additional social skills by playing on a simple device they normally would never see. The provision of potable water means the children are well hydrated, which is an essential ingredient to effective learning. At some schools, small fruit and vegetable gardens have been created with the obvious benefit of added nutrition for developing children.

The PlayPumps have been showcased in Chicago during the CoolGlobes art exhibition last September and in 2005, the innovation’s parent company, Roundabout Outdoor, won the Alcan Prize for Sustainability bursary to promote capacity building.

Innovations like the PlayPump are useful as water-related diseases are the leading cause of death in the world, particularly in Africa, and are responsible for over 6,000 deaths a day, and for 80 percent of all sickness in the world, according to UNICEF, tragedies that can easily be avoided.

It has been indicated that each PlayPump water pumping system installed directly benefits approximately 500 rural families, each consisting of (a conservative estimate of) 5 family members, costing an estimated $6 per head. This equates to about 2000 people whose lives may be improved by each PlayPump installation.

Invented and manufactured in South Africa, which is good because of the jobs created, the pumps already serve one million people and are poised to serve up to 10 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2010, Hayes said. As kids play on a PlayPump water system, water pumps in a capacity of up to 370 gallons per hour into a 660-gallon storage tank, easily accessible by the simple turn of a tap. This is almost effortless in comparison with other manually operated pumps available on the continent.

It is entirely sustainable and can reach into water well depths of 330 feet upwards and even recycle unused water. The system is particularly installed near communities and schools for optimum usage and improved sanitation and hygiene, which makes it even more interesting.

Hip hop artist and showbiz mogul, Jay Z, has made an MTV documentary “Diary of Jay-Z: Water for Life” to raise awareness of the water crisis in southern Africa and the world with part of the proceeds benefiting PlayPumps.

Photo credits: PlayPumps International / Frimmel Smith

Cited for its many unique green attributes, Burlington was noted for its advanced community compost facility and it's Eco Info Project.

Country Home examined 24 data metrics in five major categories to determine which of 379 metro areas are best for those wanting to live a green life. The study collected data on traits such as air and watershed quality, mass transit use, energy use, organic food producers, farmers markets, and number of green-certified buildings.