Category: Impact Journalism Day

It was his fourth day of fasting. In 2010, Ezequiel Vedana was determined to start eating again only when he had a bright idea for a new business. Who would have thought that the toilet would provide his inspiration?

The fasting period was a way for the Brazilian to seek divine inspiration for a new stage in his life. Vedana, who once owned a graphic design business, wanted to change direction. His epiphany – not religious, but technological and environmentally friendly – would help to save billions of liters of water that literally go down the drain.

Until then, the most common way to reduce toilet water use was by using modern flushing mechanisms. “Ecological” toilets consume between three and six liters of water each time they are flushed. Older formats, such as toilets with water tanks mounted high and operated using a pull cord, consume anywhere between 10 and 15 liters per flush.

Vedana and his co-workers, including his wife, Ariane Pelicioli da Rosa, thought the so-called ecological toilets didn’t save that much water. The solution they sought would reduce water waste by nearly 100 percent. That’s when they came up with the idea for Piipee (pronounced peepeh).

They wanted to create a solution that, when it comes into contact with urine, neutralizes its smell and color, eliminating the need to flush it away.

Tests led the entrepreneurs to an essentially natural formula involving plant extracts and baking soda.

They also had to create a dispenser so that the solution would be activated every time someone went to the bathroom. For smaller rooms, a common spray would be enough, since the Piipee also freshens the air.

For a medium-size or large company, they recommend that the dispenser be installed in every toilet bowl and urinal, at a cost of 79.9 or 84.8 Brazilian reais (USD 22 or 24). The price might seem high, but the system’s strong suit is that refills are cheap (24.9 reais for a 500 milliliter charge, 49.9 reais for one liter, 249,9 reais for 5 liters).

Since each application consumes only one milliliter, the unit cost is a mere 0.05 reais for every flush that’s avoided. Compare that to the price of a flush, which varies from 0.06 to 0.35 reais, depending on region and infrastructure.

By installing the Piipee, a big company, whether industrial or retail, with 1,000 employees and an average flush rate of two times a day, could economize as much as 2,640 reais and 132,000 liters of water per month.

“Very few people know how much each flush costs. Few people know how many liters of water are used, or how much they pay for each liter of water used at home. And when people find out, they are stunned,” says Vedana.

 

One company that has already tested Piipee, a restaurant in Brasilia, reduced its water bill from 4,172 to 2,720 reais in four months.

Such impact has earned the company 12 important international awards. The World Intellectual Property Organization recognized the idea as a global climate innovation, and Brazil has presented the device at climate summits such as COP 21 in Paris in 2015.

Companies that have tested the system include Braskem (a partner in the project), Itaú bank, Whirlpool, retail chain Renner and magazine publisher Grupo Abril.

Production started through a system of pre-orders; the company sold the product and promised delivery within 60 days. Vedana was proud that the first lot of Piipee devices was manufactured and delivered in only 30 days. He estimates that the device has already saved 8 million liters of water.

Vedana won’t reveal sales numbers, but claims the company grew nearly fourfold from 2016 to 2017, and says that based on current trends, 2018 promises record sales. He is looking for international partners, and recently traveled to South Africa to that end.

He plans to sell Piipee soon using a model similar to that adopted by cosmetics companies, with self-employed representatives marketing the device door to door.

Working in a foreign country, often for weeks without a break, with no friends or knowledge of the local language – this was the situation for Yani, a young woman from Indonesia living in Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei. Until then, she had been pursuing her father’s dream for her: a chance at a better life through education. But her father’s sudden death left Yani with no choice but to join the workforce to support her family after graduating high school. Having heard that higher salaries could be found abroad, she left everything familiar behind and emigrated to Taiwan.

Yani’s story is not an unusual one. Many families in Southeast Asian (SEA) countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines send members abroad to find better job opportunities. Today, Taiwan hosts almost 600,000 migrant workers from these countries, or one in forty residents. Although jobs can be found –mainly in laborer positions such as domestic caretaking or fishing– a vicious cycle is perpetuated because these jobs usually offer limited transferable skills, restricting the workers to low salaries when they return home. Just as bad is the isolation endured by these migrant workers due to differences in language, religion and culture.

The One-Forty Foundation, a Taiwanese non-profit, aids migrant workers in cultivating personal goals and bridging the gap with the locals. By doing so, it attempts to improve the structural economic problems in Southeast Asia as a whole. The organization holds a variety of intercultural activities providing a platform for residents and locals to create mutual understanding.

The founders of the One-Forty Foundation, Kevin Chen and Sophia Wu, started it in 2015, after Chen took a three-month trip to the Philippines. He made many local friends and discovered that most of their families had worked in Taiwan. Even as a Taiwan native he had not realized the impact of these migrant workers on his home country.

The One-Forty School holds classes teaching SEA migrant workers skills that they need for a steady career in either Taiwan or their home country, including Chinese lessons and business courses. The Chinese classes start with listening and speaking, then move on to reading and writing. One-Forty also encourages migrant workers to take the TOCFL (Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language) to show concrete proof of their skills to future employers.

In the business courses, migrant workers learn to manage their personal finances and to run a business with marketing and cost calculation tools. Recently, One-Forty also created classes in subjects such as computers and cosmetics. Having started with just 15 students in the first semester, the school received more than 100 applicants this year. Since 2016, the organization has broadcast lectures on its YouTube channel, catering to workers with little spare time or living in different cities. Today there are over 100 videos on the channel, and more than 13,000 people have subscribed to it.

Through continuous fundraising, the One-Forty Foundation hopes to establish a brick-and-mortar school for migrant workers in Taiwan. At the same time, the organization is promoting its online classes overseas.

In addition to classes, One-Forty holds an Open Sunday event once a month. Open Sunday not only allows migrant workers to enjoy some leisure time, but also creates a forum for them to socialize with locals. This cultural gathering is often based around a cooking party theme, where migrant workers teach participants to cook the traditional delicacies of their hometown. Sometimes the group takes day trips around Taiwan.

Chen and Wu believe in the importance of making issues real for an audience, and their foundation’s website features a “Migrant Life” channel, giving voice to migrant stories. These activities and stories help locals to recognize the inaccuracy of stereotypes and to overcome feelings of discrimination against migrant workers, seeing them as more than just factory workers or caretakers.

Yani, the Indonesian dreamer, was one of the fifteen students who attended the first semester of One-Forty School. Now she has returned to Indonesia and is employed as a Chinese translator at a Taiwanese cooperation, earning a monthly salary of $20,000 New Taiwanese dollars (about USD 660), three times the local average. Thanks to the One-Forty Foundation, co-founder Sophia Wu and Yani became close friends; Wu was even Yani’s bridesmaid when she got married in Indonesia. “What’s really impressive is that you really join someone’s life, become a part of their life journey. Yani said she is grateful to me, but I appreciate her so much too,” Wu noted.

https://one-forty.org/

An interface called Hope is saving lives by offering a solution to blood shortages in Senegal. “Hope is a web-based and mobile digital platform that allows blood banks and other healthcare facilities to manage blood stocks and to communicate interactively at anytime with blood donors all while raising awareness of the importance of giving blood,” explained Cameroonian engineer Evelyne Inès Ntonga.

She co-founded Diambars Mobiles, the startup that launched Hope, with Jean Luc Sémédo of Senegal. Both are alumni of the Multinational Telecommunications School of Dakar.

Families and healthcare facilities often race against time when transfusing a patient with a rare blood type. “When an urgent situation arises, the platform sends emergency SMS messages to all compatible donors in the same geographical area,” Ntonga said.

Hope is well-adapted to large healthcare facilities such as the National Center for Blood Transfusion of Senegal, which hosted the pilot phase of the project for seven months in 2016. “During this period, we reached nearly 30,000 people across all our platforms. What’s more, thanks to our solution, the number of blood donations in this center more than tripled,” said the engineer.

The startup won the 2015 Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award from mobile network operator Tigo and Swedish NGO Reach For Change. The innovation also received the Global South eHealth Observatory Award from the Pierre Fabre Foundation.

The economic development of postwar Japan has been supported by people working long hours, submitting to job relocations and rarely refusing to travel for business.

It is difficult to combine such a work culture with family life, namely providing child-rearing and nursing care.

Karoshi (death from overwork) and companies that overwork their employees have become real problems in Japanese society. And yet, according to a 2017 OECD report, Japan’s productivity ranks the lowest among G7 nations, well below the average.

With a working population decreasing due to a decline in births and an increase in the number of elderly, there is a widespread labor shortage in the country that has affected even the service industry. Many enterprises have been forced to shorten business hours due to lack of staff.

One might think that working less leads to fewer profits. But in Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture, one ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn) managed to double its profits despite closing its doors three days a week. The average annual salary of its staff grew by 40 percent.

A few simple yet highly effective changes to the way the business was run made all the difference.

The Jinya inn’s watershed moment came after the sudden death of its owner in 2009. His eldest son, Tomio Miyazaki, now 40, left his job as an engineer for a major automaker to take over the business. Miyazaki’s wife, Tomoko, also 40, became its manager just two months after giving birth, even though she had never worked in a ryokan before.

The couple found that the inn had debts of one billion Japanese yen (USD 9.1 million) due to mismanagement and excessive waste. When they attempted a management analysis, they found only paper ledgers to provide data.

Viewing information technology as the solution to the business’s problems, they developed software to manage and standardize a range of tasks, from reservations to accounting.

They distributed tablets to all staff members so that employees could share information, such as customer preferences, to improve customer service. The new system also gave the staff a more positive approach to their work.

The owners installed sensors on the communal bath, notifying employees when the number of customers who had used it exceeded a certain cut-off. The sensors meant that staff no longer had to visit the bath repeatedly to check whether it needed cleaning.

With the introduction of IT, the couple reduced wasteful working practices, and channeled their employees’ energies toward creating better meals and other selling points. They gradually raised room rates, and created an extra revenue stream by selling the management system to other inns.

The business’s performance improved, but at the same time, a new problem emerged – Tomoko was exhausted from working nonstop without any days off.

“Even if customer satisfaction rises, it is meaningless if the workers’ quality of life does not improve too,” she said.

In 2014, the couple made the radical move to close the inn every Tuesday and Wednesday, a decision that drew complaints from customers expressing disbelief that a ryokan would close on certain days.

They went further in 2016, deciding to close after lunch on Mondays and to stop taking overnight guests on Mondays.

In spite of the changes, total annual sales for the inn and its group companies increased from 290 million yen in 2010 to 726 million yen today. Part of this growth was due to the improved quality and reputation of the food being served.

Before the changes, the inn had 20 regular employees. But under the new system, the team has been reconfigured to include 25 full-time staff and fewer part-timers.

The staff is also sharing in the benefits of the business’s growth. Annual average incomes have increased from 2.88 million yen to 3.98 million yen, while employee turnover has dropped from 33 percent to 4 percent. This is an industry where incomes are generally low, even if people work hard. “The service industry has taken for granted workers’ dedication to customer satisfaction,” said Tomoko.

The Jinya ryokan marked its hundredth anniversary in 2018. “I want to promote a way of working that can accommodate different stages of life, such as child-rearing and nursing care, for the entire [service] industry,” Tomoko said. “I’m aiming to make inns an industry in which people long to work.”

When asked why he resigned from an engineering career to start anew as a farmer, Pasawut “Jack” Roongrasmi, 33, simply replied, “Because I wasn’t happy.”
Like him, dozens of young men and women in Thailand are turning away from the modern comforts of big cities, determined to make a self-sufficient life for themselves through agriculture. To help them, a grassroots network of experienced farmers has developed a “smart” agricultural community called “Dare to Return,” assisting the youngsters in setting up their farms with modern and sustainable methods.

“I went through all kinds of training but I wasn’t able to build upon what I had,” Roongrasmi said. “The training I got from the Dare To Return initiative opened a whole new dimension for me. I was able to learn from those who had experience working and living a better life, and little by little I was able to transform myself.”

The Dare To Return initiative is a collaborative effort to empower a new generation of self-sufficient farmers in Thailand, at a time when rural populations are aging. According to the Thai National Economic and Social Development Board, the number of people over 60 living in the countryside rose to more than 11 million in 2017 – or 17 percent of the total population.

The network aims to encourage young people who emigrated to the cities to return and develop their rural hometowns with innovative farming technologies.

They believe agriculture is a vector of sustainability and resilience that can provide a long-term foundation for a society ready to adopt technological change.

Through mutual assistance, community learning and self-transformation, they hope to bridge the gap between old and new generations and build the basis for a more collaborative society, improving the quality of life for all.

“Once I internalized the fact that I am a farmer, I found that it’s a much better life than that of a salaried worker. I’ve gone further than I ever thought I would. Agriculture works beautifully when it becomes a state of mind, focused on doing what is actually feasible,” Roongrasmi said.

He now claims to be happy with his 1,600-sq. meter farm in Chiang Mai’s Mae Rim rural district, where he uses automatic irrigation and electrical supply systems to grow bromeliad plants for export. He is also taking classes at Mae Jo University, studying the optimization of light for plants.

Purich Singkharaj, also 33, has a horticulture degree from Chiang Mai University. Born into a family of farmers, he chose his career path as a journey of self-discovery, among other reasons.

“After graduating, I used to work six days a week, doing overtime every day, until the company sent me to Nigeria for three years,” he said, noting that the trip gave him the chance to think about what he really wanted from life. “I realized that I was wasting my time, and that I should start my own farming operation while I still had the strength.”

Two years after returning to Thailand, he decided to open a homestay guesthouse. Visitors could use the land surrounding the house to grow onions, rice and organic strawberries.

“My return to Thailand coincided with an economic recession. I had zero capital apart from my chickens and my plants,” he remembered. “My income came from day-to-day product sales. But I had time to pursue my interests in art and music, unlike when I was working at the company. I like this version of me better.”

Aside from owning and running the Innkham Homestay and producing organic chrysanthemums and strawberries, Singkharaj organizes one of the Dare to Return networks of new-generation farmers. He also helps care for orange and lychee orchards on several hectares of family-owned land in Chiang Mai.

Duangjai Sirijai holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and lives in her family home in Chiang Mai’s Doi Tao rural district. The 38-year-old woman worked in Chiang Mai for seven years before transferring to Bangkok. But her life changed when her parents fell ill, forcing her to return to her hometown.

She started preparing her move three years ahead of time – saving money, renovating the family home, making investments, and learning about agriculture, particularly longan fruit.
Because the sandy soil of her land is particularly suitable for growing roots and tubers, Sirijai turned to permaculture farming methods. She prepped the soil for four months, growing groundnuts, then cultivating Japanese mountain yams and onions. Her agricultural activity is small-scale and focuses on quality, she said.
Today, Sirijai owns two longan orchards, which she harvests in and out of season. The first has 130 trees on 1.1 hectares, while the second has 60 trees on one-half hectare.
Her farming activities not only provide for her family of six, but also help others in the community learn how to develop their own operations. She makes some of her land available to the Doi Tao Agricultural Learning Center, where she teaches agriculture.
Sirijai’s determination has inspired a whole network of Dare to Return farmers who are now fully integrated into local communities and organizations.

http://www.konglakuentin.com/about

Rapid urbanization has forced millions of Nigerians to live in slums and squatter settlements, as the country’s population is growing faster than its ability to build new housing. Today, more than 80 percent of Nigerians live in substandard housing conditions, and many lack access to electricity.

However, for some, relief is on the way thanks to a company called Comprehensive Design Services (CDS).

The company caters to people who would not otherwise have access to home ownership.

It seeks to improve the living standard of Nigerians by providing affordable houses, reliable renewable energy, clean water and recycling strategies.

CDS was launched by architect and social entrepreneur Chinwe Ohajuruka, who was the Sub-Saharan African Laureate of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards in 2015. “Comprehensive Design Services aims to turn challenges in the Nigerian built environment into opportunities,” she said.

In 2012 CDS was one of 17 winners (out of 495 entries) in the African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM II) Business Plan Competition in the United States.

Between 2013 and 2015, CDS built 12 affordable green housing units in two locations in Port Harcourt, four of which belong to the government. Ohajuruka said, “People’s lives have been changed for the better because eight families [38 people] now live in decent homes with access to clean water, improved sanitation and renewable energy. More importantly, they now live with dignity.”

The group is currently preparing to build its next multi-housing development comprising approximately 40 small homes including studios, one-bedroom and two-bedrooms houses.

Last year, Nigeria’s Minister of Power Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said that factors working against home ownership in Nigeria include the high cost of land, lack of financing, high interest rates, high material and construction costs, and delays in obtaining titles to land and buildings.

Ohajuruka believes that few housing developers are interested in affordable housing, as the profit margins are not large. “We have seen a need, and have developed ways to build decent housing quickly, affordably and sustainably,” she said. “We are trying to lead by example, to improve the lives of Nigerians with simple, sustainable housing.

We are trying to tackle large, complex problems with simplified solutions, one home at a time. We design, engineer and build compact homes that are self-cooling, solar-powered and water-sufficient. They combat climate change in a natural and groundbreaking way.”

She explained that the technology is quite simple and is called Bio-Climatic Design. “It means designing and engineering the buildings to suit the climate by going back to first principles: keep out the sun, rain and insects; maximize natural ventilation and natural lighting; raise the building off the ground for flood prevention and control, and capture rainwater where possible.”

Water comes from underground boreholes, pumped using solar power.

“We have the best climate in the world, but our buildings have become hot, stuffy and dark, requiring fans and air conditioners,” said Ohajuruka. “We should work with the climate in the design of buildings and not against it.”

She explained that CDS did not invent the technology; the country’s traditional architecture was better suited to the climate than many modern buildings. “We simply revived and modernized traditional architecture principles. We are not the only ones doing it in Nigeria. There are many climate-conscious architects who are doing similar and better work.”

Initially funded with a grant from USAID and Western Union Foundation, CDS is now working to raise funds from the private sector. Ohajuruka said that CDS’s constructions typically cost 25-50 percent less to build than similar homes in similar regions, and consume 50-75 percent less energy. “That is why they are called affordable and green.

The cost varies according to the quantity: the more we build, the cheaper they become because of economies of scale.”
Nonetheless, she noted that it will take a major effort to curb the country’s housing crisis.

“I am of the opinion that that we have to do much more if we hope to close the 17 million housing unit deficit. Sustainable thinking will have to be deployed on a massive scale,” she said.

“Our greatest challenge to date has been that all we have done so far barely scratches the surface of what needs to be done. Scaling up our operations has not been easy.

It has often been said that if you want to understand a problem, try to solve it. We now understand firsthand why providing affordable housing is a global problem.

To the glory of God, we have started on a path to success, and there is no looking back, no matter how formidable the challenges are.”
Over the long term, Ohajuruka’s goal is to replicate the model across Sub-Saharan Africa. She remains optimistic: “Our progress is slow but sure.”

It all started when Edouard Claude Oussou witnessed an unsettling incident in Libreville, the capital of Gabon.

A child was dropped off at school, waited a few minutes until his parent was far enough away, then took off in the opposite direction from his class.

This fairly common scene illustrates the wider problem of Gabon’s educational system. The country’s grade repetition rate is the highest in the world – twice the African average – while the primary completion rate is low, at 37.2 percent, according to the World Bank.

After seeing this scene, which helped to explain the prevalence of academic failure in his country, Oussou began to ask himself a number of questions. How can parents be kept informed about their children’s movements in the school environment, so that learning that their child failed is less of a shock at the end of the trimester? How can success be guaranteed for the greatest possible number of students? The 35-year-old Gabonese entrepreneur was inspired to create Scientia (Latin for “knowledge”), a mobile app that aims to encourage better academic performance.

Scientia has three facets which work together to ensure its effectiveness. First, there’s an online platform available in a mobile version and a range of formats including SMS, allowing users to follow a pupil’s activity in real time and on a daily basis. Depending on whether the user is a parent, school principal, teacher or administrator, the application displays a different interface and has different settings.

For example, a school principal has access to a platform that offers a global view of the lesson programs of all the teachers working at the institution and enables him or her to track and manage students, teachers, assessments and even grades. It allows the principal to communicate with teachers and administrators about a range of topics.

Teachers are able to manage and input data on the classes they teach, notably relating to assessments, grades and behavior. SMS alerts can be sent out to parents to warn them that their child is absent from a lesson, that there is an exam coming up, homework to be done, or that their child has been disciplined.

The data recorded and processed by the platform help indicate the quality of the teaching and pinpoint areas for improvement. Additionally, the data show each student’s weak points by tracking academic progress over a sustained period.

Finally, the app helps pupils to stay motivated at school and develop new learning techniques and concepts. Other student-tracking programs don’t take a child’s personal development into account, but Scientia is different in that it includes modules on personal development, leadership and self-confidence. Indeed, the aim of the startup behind the app is to help every pupil start thinking about his or her choices for the future, and to offer support in preparing for life as an adult. It’s an innovative approach that gained recognition at the EU-Africa Business Forum (EABF), organized ahead of the African Union-European Union Summit held in November 2017 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

To prevent personal data leaks, the Scientia system is hosted on a secure server, with a certificate that is visible each time a user logs in. There is an account password for security, and during each session the system safeguards the pupil’s information. A user can only see the information for which he or she has authorized access.

Oussou explained that one of the major challenges he faced when developing Scientia was the question of how to make the application accessible to all, while finding a way to pay for it. “We ask partner institutions to increase monthly school fees by 3,000 CFA francs (USD 5) per student. This charge is then shared between the institution and the Scientia project,” he said.

Although the Scientia system is already being implemented in five schools in Libreville (of which three are state schools), the app has not yet gained widespread popularity among Gabon’s education workers. “It’s new technology and that means a new way of doing things. It often takes time to adjust,” Scientia’s creator said. He is still waiting for official authorization from the Ministry of Education for the system to be used in state schools.

Scientia has already sparked interest outside of Gabon, notably in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and even Guinea-Conakry. But first and foremost, Oussou would like to see his project benefit his local education system, which has been weakened by a series of strikes and is struggling to cope with high numbers of students. In the words of George Jacques Danton, “After bread, education is the first need of the people.”

Adho mukha. Chaturanga. Uttanasana. These words are becoming part of the prison lingo in Argentina, thanks to a group of young yoga instructors who created the “Moksha – yoga in jail” project.

On a sunny day, you can hear phrases such as “hands to the center of the heart,” “open up your chests,” “now, cobra” and “exhale as you transition to crescent lunge” in the yard of the 48th Penitentiary Unit of the San Martín state prison in Buenos Aires.

Following these instructions, 30 barefoot inmates with their eyes shut quietly try to imitate the poses that a female instructor, Milagros Colombo, gently demonstrates. Behind them, there is a multicolored mural, painted by the inmates with specific objectives in mind. Gratitude, willpower, patience, resilience, responsibility, freedom and peace are some of the words they have painted.

“During the two hours of class, you forget about your problems. We do plank, downward-facing dog, chaturanga and end up feeling relieved, relaxed. You feel free doing yoga; you leave the world for two hours. You’re so focused that you don’t want the class to end,” says Lucas Roldán, a 33-year-old inmate who has been in prison for the last eight years.

Like him, 250 inmates participate in the yoga lessons that Moksha has organized since 2015 in two units of the San Martín prison, with the goal of transforming lives now and in the future. The idea was born out of the instructors’ desire to share the benefits of yoga with the most vulnerable.

“All of us instructors live and breathe yoga, and it’s a treasure so valuable to us that we asked ourselves where we could share it,” says 29-year-old Colombo. “The prison sector is neglected in many aspects. So if these men can make the most out of their time here, they’ll have more opportunities once they leave, and we will all have better neighbors.”

This penitentiary is a study in contrasts. Locks, bars, spiked fences and uniformed guards characterize the enclosure, while the neatness of the place, with its large, well-kept gardens, creates an unexpected sense of peace. The inmates behind bars greet the Moksha volunteers as they walk through the halls, but they can’t even shake hands.

Roldán knows that yoga changed his life. For this reason he anxiously awaits the weekly lesson each Thursday. Some mornings, he even meets with other inmates to practice poses. “It’s much more pleasant at that time of day because you can hear the birds. People often think the worst of us for being arrested for theft or for killing a police officer. And maybe they think we should be left in this place to rot. I’ve achieved profound change here,” he says.

Roldán is one of a group of inmates in maximum security who sometimes tag along with Moksha volunteers to teach yoga in medium-security wards. There, they encounter convicted sex offenders, who have a particularly bad reputation among fellow inmates. “It was another open door. This is reintegration, like Pope Francis said, we shouldn’t discriminate; we’re all humans. When they invited me, I didn’t hesitate. We’re all prisoners, they have their problems and we have ours. We were given an opportunity, we wanted to give one to them,” says Roldán.

The project has continued to grow as other wards ask for access to classes, including the women in Unit 47.

Gabriel Márquez Ramírez is passionate about yoga. “Two years ago, the instructors came to teach us the philosophy behind yoga and its positive impact. I practice every day because I like it; it centers you, it relaxes you, it takes away negative thoughts, it serves both body and mind. I love yoga,” says the 24-year-old inmate, adding that he hopes to become an instructor one day. “It cleanses body and mind, you learn to better nourish yourself and you become a better person. Here, the atmosphere has completely changed.”

Currently, 20 instructors volunteer for the Moksha project, which aims to acquire non-profit organization status. For now, it is wholly funded by private donations, with plans to grow.

“Yoga brings a huge amount of self-awareness, and the possibility to be present in body, breath and mind is liberating. [In Sanskrit] the word moksha means inner freedom through presence. Yoga liberates us from stress, creates peace of mind and helps us to experience a moment of presence so we can decide how to act, talk, think and react. That’s our goal,” says Colombo.

Her dream is to teach exclusively in prisons one day, to make it her full-time job. “This all stems from a sense of vocation, and we need more support to make the project grow,” she says. “We would also love to create a training program in the prison, so that inmates can become instructors and come work with us once they are released, as a form of social reintegration. With their experience, it would be easy for them to teach in new prisons, as living proof of what can be accomplished when you choose to live in a different way.”

As communication technology develops, people have access to more information than ever before, literally at their fingertips.

But how many of us can say that we are truly well informed?

Headlines tend to paint a bleak picture of our world: conflict, terrorism, hunger, climate change, social injustice – the list goes on. We are indeed facing complex and seemingly insurmountable challenges. Yet the full picture also offers solutions and reasons for hope.

In 2015, 193 countries agreed to work toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. An ambitious plan to guide global development until 2030, the goals are a call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, establish peace, and ensure prosperous, fulfilling lives for all. They can only be achieved if people everywhere – governments, the private sector, civil society – embrace them.

Around the world, there is a growing grassroots movement to support the Sustainable Development Goals. Brilliant, innovative women and men are finding local solutions to global problems, helping to build a better society and economy for all. These entrepreneurs inspire others to replicate their solutions to issues such as health care, quality education, decent employment, clean energy and access to water.

A drive for positive change is gaining momentum. More and more people are working to help social entrepreneurs have a larger echo by supporting positive impact finance or investing in them and accelerating their approaches (such as the Skoll Foundation, Ashoka, Impact Hub, the One Young World Summit etc). These growing initiatives also find a way to scale up by developing connections with traditional businesses. And in turn, their disruptive and impact oriented approach help transform big corporations by inspiring more virtuous business models and products.

The news media can play a vital role in highlighting and spreading stories about innovative changemakers across borders. For the past six years, Sparknews has invited media from all over the world to take part in Impact Journalism Day, joining forces to publish articles about positive initiatives in special supplements or online reports, reaching 120 million people on the same day. Many of these media have now started to include solutions-oriented stories in their day-to-day coverage.

You, too, can participate in helping these projects to scale up and have even more impact. Share the stories that impress you the most on Facebook and Twitter (#ImpactJournalism, #StoryOfChange, @Sparknews, @TheNationNews).

We can all take part in writing the future of our global story.

Christian de Boisredon, founder of Sparknews and Ashoka Fellow & the Sparknews Team