A coastal environment in trouble, increasingly prone to flooding and littered with plastic debris. A community with limited resources to protect themselves in times of disaster. Not a healthy combination. Yet, within this sorry scenario, a group of innovators saw an opportunity: affordable personal flotation devices. Read more.
When Mohammad Arifur Rahaman’s uncle died after being mis-prescribed medicine for his joint pain, it was a trigger for the entrepreneur to do something to prevent other needless tragedies. Read his innovation story.
Twig is a job market platform that connects refugees with employment opportunities. Eighty-four per cent of Syrian refugees in Jordan live below the poverty line. Although there are labour market opportunities in the agricultural sector, there is limited access to information about available work and no established network for Syrians. Read more about Twig.
Half of the 671,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan have a family member with a chronic illness, such as diabetes or hypertension. And many are unable to access the medicine they need, because it is too expensive. Read how the Medicine Bank redirects close to end of shelf life medicines to pharmacies offering low-cost drugs to refugees in Jordan.
Mathenge Maisha is a unique start-up, which turns a common drought-resilient weed into nutritious low-cost flour. Currently, nearly one million Kenyans are at risk from starvation as a result of prolonged drought. The Garissa-based project plans to employ local people, particularly from vulnerable groups, to collect the pods produced by the weed to be ground down into flour.
Over the past few years, hundreds of people have perished in building fires in Dhaka, the most densely populated city in the world. Read how an architecture student sought to use her skills to improve the living conditions of people in the slum areas.
Drought Cure is a nutritious food brick that can be stored for long periods to sustain livestock during droughts, which recurrently plague the Horn of Africa. Devised by a farmers' cooperative from Marsabit in Northern Kenya, the brick is a lifeline for pastoralists in the region, who rely on livestock for their livelihood. Read more about Drought Cure.
The Mt. Marsabit Dairy is a women's cooperative diary in Marsabit County, northern Kenya that sources dairy products from individual suppliers and applies cutting-edge production techniques to offer longer life, affordable dairy products. The dairy supports the most vulnerable members of the community, especially pastoralist women, to earn a livelihood through a structured micro-milk collection system.
Betna is a housing solution for refugees and low-income workers in Jordan. This case study looks at the solution and how the innovation is intending to scale.
This paper looks at issues of ethics in humanitarian iunnovation in relation to the Mahali Lab in Amman, Jordan. This reflection piece by Kristin Bergtora Sandvik is the third in a three-part series that explore ethics questions faced by community-centred innovation labs. It is based on her experience as an ethics advisor to DEPP Innovation Labs, a two-year programme that manages labs in four disaster-prone countries.
