The Nation Newspaper

Tag: sparknews

  • It’s time to reshape the way we think about health issues

    Imagine a world where Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin 90 years ago remained unknown to most of the planet. Millions of lives would have been needlessly lost.

    Sharing knowledge of the many different and innovative ways to solve major health issues can have immeasurable benefit.

    Over the next three weeks, Sparknews is proud to invite five leading newspapers from five different countries (Der Spiegel, El Pais, The Sunday Times, The Nation & The Hindu) to explore stories of solutions that are having an impact on today’s most pressing healthcare challenges.

    These challenges have evolved since Fleming’s time. We have made important progress against infectious diseases, but studies reveal that our way of life has become an even greater threat to our health.

    Stress, junk food, substance abuse, pollution and endocrine disrupting chemicals have paved the way for the growth of noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and diabetes.

    Noncommunicable diseases are now responsible for more than 70 percent of deaths globally, mostly among lower income communities.

    The same way of life that’s impoverishing our physical condition is prompting a decline in our state of mind.

    According to the World Health Organization, suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year olds, and death due to dementia more than doubled between 2000 and 2016.

    The stigma surrounding mental illness and treatment renders this issue even more complex.

    Considerations such as age, gender, sexual orientation and migration status tend to exclude certain populations from the healthcare system, leaving them vulnerable to various types of disease and psychological distress.

    As the articles published in The Nation show, there is reason for hope. Even if medical research has traditionally focused more on curing disease than preventing it, we’re at the dawn of a more open-minded approach to medicine and health.

    Researchers, scientists, individuals and organizations all over the world are working on new ways to prevent noncommunicable diseases, to provide universal access to healthcare, and to address and destigmatize mental illness.

    The medical community and the general public are increasingly embracing alternative approaches to prevent what’s preventable and live our fullest possible lives with what’s not.

    For example, telemedicine services can address overcrowded hospitals, while providing healthcare access to people in remote locations. Affordable nasal filters could prevent pulmonary disease linked to air pollution.

    Training refugees to provide psychological counseling to their peers might help the latter to overcome traumatic events.

    Solutions such as these have the potential to save lives and reshape the way we think about healthcare. They can offer us better, longer, healthier lives, no matter our differences or socio-economic status.

    You can be a part of the solution – reading and sharing these stories so that they reach every corner of the globe.

    Let’s rethink health together.

  • Impact Journalism Day: Stories that change the world

    Impact Journalism Day: Stories that change the world

    Today, for Impact Journalism Day, 50 newspapers join forces to highlight stories that change the world.

    Beyond the constant stream of negative news, there are many stories of hope and concrete solutions. Stories of changemakers tackling some of the world’s most pressing issues with innovative ideas, in order to change the lives of millions for the better. Stories worth reading and spreading, not only to rebalance our view of the world, but to help these existing solutions be replicated worldwide.

    The media can play a crucial role in telling the individual stories behind this global movement. That’s why for the last five years Sparknews has invited newspapers to take part in Impact Journalism Day, harnessing the power of collaborative journalism to bring stories of change to the surface. Every year these newspapers explore and publish an array of groundbreaking solutions in special supplements on the same day, reaching 120 million people worldwide in print and digital media. Many publications have come to realize the impact of these articles, and now incorporate more solutions-driven stories into their day-to-day coverage of the world.

    For the fifth edition of Impact Journalism Day, the media are joined by organizations that believe spreading these stories is a first step toward change. These include the United Nations as well as One Young World, which annually gathers together 1,500 young leaders from social and corporate sectors who are involved in positive innovations. A large community of well-known personalities and ordinary citizens have also joined the chorus in signing a manifesto to show that everyone – governments, the private sector, civil society, NGOs and everyday people – can take action for a better future. You, too, can be part of this transformational movement.

    Discover those who have successfully brought answers to challenges such as good health, access to water, quality education, decent employment and clean energy. Each serves as a concrete example of the power of individual or group initiatives to help reach the UN New Sustainable Development Goals, to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity and good health for all.

    We hope you enjoy the read…and that you become part of the solution. Sign the manifesto (sharestoriesofchange.org) and share the stories that impress you most on Facebook and Twitter (#ImpactJournalism, #StoryOfChange, @Sparknews, @thenationnews ).

     

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

     

     

     

  • Editorial: 100 Stories of change

    Editorial: 100 Stories of change

    Today is Impact Journalism Day, and 55 newspapers unite to celebrate changemakers everywhere

    Our world is changing —in many ways for the better. Poverty and child mortality rates are declining, increasing numbers of primary age children attend school, and world leaders are taking collective action to counter climate change.

    The media is uniquely placed to tell the individual stories behind trends like these. The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN IFRA) has also identified solutions journalism as a growing pillar for the media.

    In our challenging times, the public is eager to read news about hope and positive impact. So are we, at Sparknews.

    why we invited the world’s leading media to do something different: report on initiatives that are improving lives. When they first answered our call four years ago, inspired by Christian de Boisredon’s track record in the field of solutions journalism, Impact Journalism Day was born.

    This year, 55 international print and digital media have come together to share stories of innovation and success.

    You and 120 million other readers around the world will find that today’s news covers the same places and issues as usual, but in a different light. Meet those who have successfully brought answers in the fields of health, water, energy, finance, education, employment and more. Allow these stories to change your perspective on what citizens can accomplish. Be inspired.

    Together, our 55 media partners believe that they can be part of the change they want to see in the world.

    If you feel the same way, join the conversation. We want your feedback. That’s why we’ve developed new widgets, including one that many newspapers will incorporate at the bottom of articles in their web sections. Tell us if similar problems affect you, and if you want to see these solutions implemented in your country. Follow the changemakers featured in the articles.

    Write to us and to your newspapers and share your experiences.

    To keep up with all the activity taking place during Impact Journalism Day, follow our hashtags and

    accounts on Facebook and Twitter (#ImpactJournalism, #StoryOfChange, @Sparknews, @thenationnews} or write to us at contact@sparknews.com. To discover more inspiring stories, follow the AXA People Protectors Facebook page, where AXA, as founding partner of Impact Journalism Day since 2012, spreads innovative solutions to better protect people and the planet.

    If you know entrepreneurs, companies or projects that deserve to be featured in IJD next year, suggest them at tell sparknews.com.

    Anyone can become part of the story.

    Christian de Boisredon, Founder of Sparknews and Ashoka Fellow

    Marie -Elie Aboul-Nasr, Media Alliance Development Manager at Sparknews,

    Amy Serafin, Editor-in-Chief of Impact Journalism Day

  • Sister Power

    A social business in Africa brings solar light to remote communities while empowering women entrepreneurs

    At a small roadside trading center in rural Luweero, about 65 kilometers from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, Sarah Serunjogi gathers a group of women from four tiny shops selling flour, beans and soap. As they sit on a bench, she takes two small plastic lights from her bag and begins her sales pitch.

    Serunjogi, a spirited and cheerful mother of five, is a Solar Sister, one of more than 1,300 part-time entrepreneurs who travel door to door, demonstrating and selling portable solar-powered lamps across Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria.

    The people of Luweero live with no access to grid electricity, like 90 percent of Ugandans and an estimated 1.4 billion people worldwide. They rely on biomass such as wood or charcoal for cooking, and on kerosene for light. Kerosene lamps offer barely enough light for reading while exposing families to unhealthy fumes and the risk of fire and burns. The World Health Organization cites a growing body of evidence linking use of kerosene with a range of adverse health effects, including chronic pulmonary disease. One of Serunjogi’s customers, Brenda Kawuma, vividly remembers the day she thought her three-year-old daughter would die after drinking from a water bottle filled with paraffin for the kerosene lamp. “It was terrible,” she said. “I had no option but to run away from that.”

    But people living far from commercial centers cannot easily go to stores that sell solar lanterns. They might not even know such lanterns exist until somebody like Serunjogi shows up on their doorstep. Solar Sister follows the Avon lady model of direct sales and door-to-door distribution. The entrepreneurs, primarily women, sell within their communities, using their personal networks to build trust in their products, and also helping to recruit and train other Solar Sister entrepreneurs. They work as much or as little as they like, netting the difference between the wholesale and retail prices of what they sell.

    As Solar Sister’s best-selling entrepreneur in Uganda, Serunjogi has racked up over 25 million Ugandan shillings (about US$7,500) in sales in less than four years. After her husband died in 2009, her income from her part-time job with the local diocese wasn’t enough to cover her family’s needs. The extra income from Solar Sister means she can now contribute toward her grandchildren’s education.

    Solar Sister was founded in Washington, DC in 2009, by Katherine Lucey, a former investment banker in the energy sector who left Wall Street to devote more time to her family and philanthropy. At first she got involved with a small foundation that provided rural electrification, traveling to Uganda and confirming what she had seen in the energy business: “that no country can move into the modern era without sustainable access to energy…that productivity, that well-being, all of that is affected, if you don’t have access to energy. It just puts the brakes on development at every level.”

    Lucey also quickly realized that women are disproportionately affected by energy poverty, especially in rural areas, where they spend a great deal of time gathering firewood and doing chores inside the home. Studies indicate that rural electrification releases women from domestic duties and motivates them to work outside the home. And when women earn more, their families benefit most. Reports from the OECD and the World Bank show that higher earnings for women translate into greater investment in children’s education, health and nutrition, leading to long-term economic growth.

    So Lucey created Solar Sister with two aims: eradicating energy poverty and creating economic opportunities for women. She says it’s this dual approach that makes the company unique. Solar Sister entrepreneurs have sold more than 80,000 lamps across the three countries where they operate, and also sell clean cook stoves. But as solar technology falls in price and improves in quality, there’s competition on the market. While Solar Sister asks for a one-time payment, some competitors allow customers to pay in installments—an attractive option in a market where few have the ability to save, even if Solar Sister’s price is cheaper in the long run and its products come with a two-year warranty.

    And though Solar Sister’s goal is to be commercially sustainable, the company is still 70 percent financed through philanthropy. Lucey said this is partially due to the tough balance between profitability and reaching into the “last mile” of rural areas where the technology is needed most.

    In the end, she said, giving women a role in the future of energy will have dividends far beyond the bottom line: “It’s not going to show up on our balance sheet or our income statement, but it shows up in our ultimate mission, which is to make sure that everyone has access to energy. And when you’re talking about everyone, you mean women also.”

    For more information

    Website: https://www.solarsister.org/

    Video: http://www.sparknews.com/en/video/solar-sister-eradicates-energy-poverty-and-empowers-women

     

     

  • A prescription for access to medicine

    A prescription for access to medicine

    In Egypt, a pharmacist’s matchmaking system links thousands of needy patients with excess drugs

     When Waleed Shawky came across a large cache of donated medicine in a Cairo mosque in 2010, he was awestruck.

    Knowing how difficult it was for his low-income customers to pay for drugs they needed, the pharmacist had long wondered where unused medicine ends up. He says corporate waste of medicine in Egypt equals roughly E£1 billion (US$112 million) per year.

    “I asked where the medication goes, and the people at the mosque said: ‘A pharmacist may come or he may not come,’ ” Shawky recalled, seated in his modest pharmacy.

    Subsequently, Shawky launched Medicine For All, an NGO that collects surplus medicine and matches it with needy patients. First, he partnered with pharmacy students to open charity pharmacies for college staff. Then he scaled up the program, reaching 60,000 Egyptians last year.

    Medication represents the largest expenditure in the Egyptian health system, and is out of reach for a significant number of Egypt’s nearly 90 million people. According to the World Bank, while more than half of Egyptians have access to some sort of health insurance, 72 percent of healthcare costs are still covered out of pocket. With more than a quarter of the population living below the poverty line, and 17 percent having trouble even purchasing food, many go without medicine.

    Medicine For All works by redistribution, linking excess supply—unused or partially used medicine—with demand. The majority of donations come from pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies, since they are not allowed to sell medicine three to six months before expiration, even if the medicine is still good.

    Donations also come in from private individuals who, by law, must buy full packages of medicine, whether or not smaller quantities suffice. In certain cases, people switch medications or die before finishing their prescription. Affluent people might donate unused medicine out of altruism, or because the donations are tax deductible and can count as tithing to one’s church or mosque.

    Shawky’s idea has won him recognition, from being a finalist at the MIT Arab Forum to being named an Ashoka Fellow in 2013.

    In Medicine For All’s headquarters, in the eastern Cairo neighborhood of Nasr City, a large donation from a pharmaceutical company is spread across a dozen plastic weave bags, waiting to be sorted. Shawky trains volunteer pharmacy students to screen and filter the donated medicine, giving them invaluable hands-on experience working with actual drugs.

    His team discards expired or compromised medicine, cataloguing the rest into a database. Then the organization distributes the medicine via partner NGOs, which select recipients based on their medical need and economic means, following up to ensure patients complete their course of medication. Each month, medical caravans also deliver medicine to patients in remote areas. Last year, Medicine For All distributed E£1.6 million worth of donated medicine, up from E£300,000 in 2013, when the NGO was officially created.

    In Zeitoun, an eastern Cairo neighborhood, Helmy Torky’s organization, Al-Nour Al-Mohamedy, distributes medicine to about 30 patients each month.

    “I can’t even buy half a pill,” said Saber Mostafa Mohamed, a 64-year-old former plumber. Mohamed receives E£360 a month in social insurance, but his medicine would cost him nearly twice that.

    Even before he had to stop working due to his heart condition, he would have had trouble choosing between supporting his family and his medicine. “I would’ve had to put my fate in the hands of God,” he said.

    With about E£100k in annual expenses, Medicine For All is self-sustaining for now, in part due to the stipend Shawky receives from his Ashoka fellowship. Shawky hopes to scale up operations, and is seeking more funding and partnerships.

    He has launched a sponsorship program for chronically ill patients with diseases such as hepatitis C and schistosomiasis, which are endemic in Egypt and require expensive medicine. In Zeitoun, Karima Bakry Ahmed, a 54-year-old building attendant, held her latest lab results, which showed she has been clear of the hepatitis C virus since receiving medication through Medicine For All.

    Wasted medicine and high drug costs plague countries around the world, and have led to similar programs elsewhere. In the United States, the organization Sirum uses an online system for peer-to-peer redistribution.

    “Wherever there is the problem of the misuse of medicine, the project could work there,” Shawky said. “I know it is replicable for the Middle East and the Gulf region. My friends in those countries tell me they have the same problem as Egypt.”

    Beyond the medical and developmental benefits, Medicine For All has caused changes in mentality, encouraging even the neediest to share.

    “The organization taught me how to live,” said the plumber Mohamed. “If I have any leftover medicine, I bring it back to Mr. Helmy.”

    For more information

     Website: https://www.ashoka.org/fellow/waleed-shawky

    Dr. Waleed Shawky, 36, founder of Medicine for All, at his pharmacy in Cairo. March 2016.

     

  • Impact-driven journalism

    Impact-driven journalism

    The first ever Impact Journalism Day- a unique project involving 20 leading newspapers across the world publishing dedicated sections packed with creative solutions to global issues on the same day- was marked on Saturday.

    The project, initiated by Sparknews in collaboration with media partners, seeks to kick start change in the way we think of news and newspapers. It promotes reporting of the best, smartest initiatives, with the hope of inspiring others to replicate, innovate and communicate the ideas to others.

    The Nation is proud to be one of the media partners for the project, which I consider very thoughtful considering the need for the media to more than ever before seek to make more impact in the lives of their audience.

    With the global economic crisis, many are in search of solutions to the various challenges they have to cope with. Living has become tougher in not only underdeveloped nations but also in developing and developed nations. Unemployment is on the rise, poverty is growing, more diseases are emerging, environmental degradation is worsening and terrorism is spreading worldwide among others problems.

    In the midst of the bleak situation, readers as Christian de Boisredon, founder of Sparknews rightly puts it, are hungry for stories with a difference. He says they want “stories that bring hope and concrete solutions, at both local and global level. They are looking for signs of change they can identify with. Change that will make them think…and act”.

    The media undoubtedly has immense capacity to influence their audience and have been doing so through fulfilling its educating, informing and entertaining functions. It’s difficult to imagine life without the mass media, which beyond the traditional print and electronic medium now include the online platforms.

    We really live in troubled times in which the media should be interested in helping to provide solutions. We have to move from just telling stories and highlighting problems to providing concrete solutions. Journalism for journalism sake cannot serve the present generation of readers who have found themselves in desperate situations requiring urgent ideas about how to survive.

    With the media not been immune from the economic crisis, the temptation for the media will be to be more ‘business like’ and focus on issues that could sell their papers and not salient issues their readers want to read about. While media owners should be concerned about their survival they must now fail in their social responsibility to the readers.

    Journalism must impact on the lives of the people or else it will become irrelevant. Journalists must make a conscious effort to identify the challenges in their community and contribute to solving them.

    Journalists should be concerned about the positive impact of their work through feedbacks from their audience.

    Readers need hope to believe that tomorrow will come. They need to be inspired to know that they can overcome whatever challenges they are going through presently. They need to be encouraged to maximize their potentials.

    With the world now being truly a global village, thanks to the Internet, there is the opportunity to seek and share solutions to global issues. The Impact Journalism Day should serve as a reminder for journalists to make the world a better place through their publications.