http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SMAR-8583JG?OpenDoc**ent&RSS20&RSS20=FS

Beyond access: Quality education for life - Special podcast for the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative

There are a couple of things I see in here that could help with education. Number one among them is lobbying for the development of a comprehensive, relatively small, single… Continue

---

INDIGENOUS WOMEN HEALERS FORMED GROUPS TO PRACTICE TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IN OAXACA

(MEXICO)

from http://www.kivu.com/wbbook/casestudies.html



So, the most important thing I get out of this is that not only can communities use natural herbs as perhaps a more trusted alternative to pills etc, but it's also cheaper and has more widespread effects- here, the creation… Continue

One of the big natural disasters we've been waiting to happen here is a major earthquake. Ushahidi could help with resource sharing post-quake. However, this would require some form of communication if cell towers were downed.

Info on water and food would be the most useful, as well as transportation or emergency/high occupancy building collapses that needed immediate attention.

Additionally, info shared on which areas to stay away from in the incidence of flooding or riots would be… Continue

Living in BC, this is a problem I've never had to deal with, so it might be outside my scope to try and recognize many of the problems inherent to this idea. However, I do have a friend who works in Mexico with the water wells. One of the big problems is water purity. If someone could invent a filter made, for example of some form of wood fibre that could be produced locally, it might help solve the problem without requiring distribution or donation of anything but a set of instructions of how… Continue

There's an excellent book called The Great Influenza that gets referenced a lot- it's a chronicle of the 1918 flu that killed millions of people. The primary reason that this happened was a lack of preparedness, and an attempt at covering up the outbreak in order to maintain "public calm." This worried the public more than simply admitting the problem would have. So there's a problem with not just uncertainty of disaster occurrence, but a metaproblem of how to respond to uncertainty about… Continue

• WHICH great challenges and social problems should the EVOKE Network tackle next?
• Digital media- a reflection on how to make virtual networks of users active in reality
• 
  
  
• WHERE in the world should the network try to build up new EVOKE communities?
• Asian markets- they have 48% of WoW users, indicating that a larger portion of the online gamer market who likes multiplayer gaming and communication can be accessed there.
  
  
• WHO would you…

Continue

I thought I'd add a post on something aimed at guys that I think makes a small- but noticeable- contribution to sustainability on a day-to-day basis: shaving practices.



You see, I gave up shaving with a disposable razor a few months ago, and entered the world of double-edge and straight razors. The kind barbershops use. Turns out, it costs a heck of a lot less over time and saves a lot more material from waste, yet paradoxically gives a far superior shave.



To compare the… Continue

I live in BC. We don't get much too much sun here, and not so much wind either. However, we've got more running freshwater, coastline, and forests than most places. So I figure by 2020, we'll have a few things being really sustainable. First, hydroelectric power that doesn't hurt fish stocks. This is a big problem right now since the river dams aren't animal friendly. Second, tidal power... although this needs further developing. Third, using sustainable growth wood to heat our houses… Continue

So, in response to Samiran's latest idea about guilds and inns on Evoke...



I'm going to provide some cautions to what I think is a good idea in theory. Two things.



First, virtual games need the players to be able to undergo a process called "flaming away" when they first join, which lets them acquire knowledge of how the system works, what its rules are, etc.



Second, the idea of guilds might be refined to another popular system: unlocks (e.g. after 100 points gained… Continue

So, I thought I'd write a little about what my grandparents do to add to food security, and hope that it inspires someone out there to give home farmin' a try.

My grandparents are both pretty darn active, considering they're over 80. Right now, they have about half an acre of vegetables growing in their backyard, as well as the odd fruit tree, patch of blackcurrants, and row of raspberry bushes. This space would be unused, except that they've turned it into a food-producing garden. To… Continue

Thanksgiving dinner, 2020? Well, the science community is confident that we'll be growing meat soon, and I'm fine with that so long as turkey is on the menu. This project started off by figuring out how to replicate muscle cells. That was all fine and dandy, until they tried to make food with them. Turns out, muscle needs conditioning so that it doesn't look like a jellied mess. So now the "next big thing" is artificially exercising clusters of these cells, in order to tone them up. I think… Continue

I'm currently going to school at UBC, which lies right at the western tip of the British Columbia mainland. There isn't much opportunity there to see the real problems affecting the city, especially the growing number of homeless individuals on our downtown's east side. Last year, this area was called the "fastest growing slum in North America." Since one of the goals of food security was to meet the food needs of everyone, especially people living in

poverty, I thought it would be a good… Continue

I've got a very neuroscience-y background from school, and one of the concepts we learned in a class on the basis of human motivation forever changed the way I look at money.



The theory of "primary motivators" for animals is this: that if someone wants we will work for something, we have to be motivated by being offered something tangible in return. Food. Sex. Water. Money is inedible. You can't cuddle with it. It doesn't really DO anything for people. However, what it IS is a… Continue

I'm always astounded by how far things can be made to go, if there's an impetus for making them go far. Take the armored barrow wheels showcased in one of Afrigadget's latest posts, for example. That's brilliant. I wish we had those here. So I've decided to shadow them on RSS Google- it's about the only newsfeed I use, and Afrigadget's going to make an awesome addition to the section of posts I consider truly thought provoking.

From Zuckerman: Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few

resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.)



As a guy with some Scottish heritage this really vibrates with me (if you don't know the stigma, Scots are notoriously stingy- and proud of it). The less you have, the cheaper you've got to be with what you've got.



One of my past research projects was developing an Age of Empires… Continue