Environment

Bogota, Colombia is a capital city filled with commerce and tourism. But, just outside the city center exists a noticeable contrast in housing and economic development where the poorest families reside. Many of the city’s poorest families live on the outskirts in the mountains, and they have very difficult commutes into the city center for work. Without daycare, many of the young parents would not be able to earn an income to support their families. Fe y Alegria, a Jesuit network of organizations helping the disadvantaged and poor since 1955, has preschools within this community offering free services to children up to 5 years of age. These services include: monitoring and evaluating the child’s development, nutritional supplementation and home interventions when needed. The administrator of the preschool feeds the children three nutritious meals per day. Although it doesn’t sound like a huge accomplishment, she does this on just $1 (one…

Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…

*A happy girl at the playground of her school made out of recycled plastic bricks, in Toumodi-Sakassou, in the center of Côte d’Ivoire. Due to COVID-19, the schools were closed for several weeks. Classes started, and children are happy to see their friends…UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire has partnered with Columbian social business Conceptos Plasticos to turn plastic waste into construction materials for new schools. Research suggests that over the next 30 years, the world may produce four times more plastic than we ever have before. Finding innovative uses for plastic will become imperative to public health. Without plastic waste management, groundwater pollution may leave many communities without access to clean water. Plastic-clogged drains could continue to cause flooding and damage infrastructure. And air pollution from burning trash will pose major environmental and health risks. Because of their cost-effectiveness, durability, and ease-of-assembly, bricks made from 100% plastic waste have the potential to…

Bibi Irshad Irshad Bibi has long had dreams of building a better life for herself, her children, and the rest of her family. “I come from a humble family,” Bibi explains, “where [money] was always an issue. My father used to run a small livestock business that barely helped us to run our household expenses. It was difficult for my father to support our family due to his meager income.” During her childhood, Bibi didn’t have a clear vision of her future, but one thing she was passionate about was raising animals like her father. But like most girls in Pakistan, getting married and having children was all she had to look forward to. Bibi wanted the feeling of accomplishment that comes from being an entrepreneur. But as she said “It is unfortunate that Pakistan has a male-dominant society, here, it is very difficult for women to start their businesses…

The rainy season has ended in southern Ethiopia and the long period of thirst has begun. People in the remote villages of Borena region, and in particular, women make day-long journeys for water. “I used to travel all the way to the top of the mountain and then all the way down to fetch water. I left at 6 AM and came back around 6 PM. I walked all this time just to fetch one jerrycan of water,” remembers Loko, a single mother of five children. “[And the] water was contaminated. The water was not enough for my children, not enough for our drinking, not enough for our daily living. We suffered a lot in the past.” All on her own, even months pregnant, she walked 12 hours daily carrying heavy containers of water that barely lasted through the day. “I didn’t have a donkey to carry the water, so…

On a hot October afternoon in Ouallam district, in Niger’s western Tillabery region, the air is still as the sun’s rays hit the hard, crusty, red earth. Contrasting with this almost lunar surface is a field of green. “This site’s changed everything for us,” says Biba, a woman in her fifties, pointing to where a few men and women are using sickles to harvest grass. With a laugh, she adds: “It’s helped us to work together and it keeps the peace.” Biba and other residents of the three villages in this commune started working on this community-resilience project after identifying the rehabilitation of barren land as their most pressing need — it would enable them to grow the hay they need to be able to keep livestock. Here in the Sahel — the vast strip of Africa that runs south of the Sahara Desert between the Atlantic Ocean and the…