Elena M's Blog – May 2012 Archive (7)

The internet article

http://www.unfpa.org/public/cache/offonce/home/news/pid/10804 of the UNFPA describes the reasons and possible solutions why still today more than 800 women and 20,000 children die every day caused by the lack of commodities in the situation of child birth. Also, cotraceptive methods to avoid unwanted pregnancy are treated in the article. Contraceptive methods like the condom are known but…

In my opinion, the system of "Mahila Milan" is a very good idea. Normally people in this social level would never save an even small amount of money daily. Without savings, people are never able to build up a capital stock which can keep them from poverty. They are not able to offer their children a perspective regarding their education because they do not have money for school or university, for example. Mahila Milan focuses on women which is another positive point, because women in poor…

While reading a friend's blog post on urgent evoke, I realised that already many german music festivals have sustainability programs. Almost every festival pays back a mortgage for collected waste, and some festivals have sustainability guidelines regarding their organisation. I found an interesting article in the german newspaper "Zeit": http://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2010-06/green-festivals. My favourite Festival, the…

I'd like to show you a project of the Organisation ESAF in cooperation with the website water.org. They made the "World Water Day" in Kashiram Nagar, India. This event was aimed to show people how to conserve water effectively. I think a main problem regarding lack of potable water in the world arises from the people dealing in a wrong way with water. One the one hand, in western european countries people waste a lot of water and use, for example, fresh water for purposes where it is not…

I chose the Business Idea of Gyanesh Pandey (like many others, probably) as an example for social entrepreneurship. His company probably is one of the biggest and therefore best-known examples for social entrepreneurship at the moment. Pandey developed a method how to make electricity out of rice husk, which is a usual waste in India. The company "Husk Power Systems" serves around 92,000 customers in their metropolitan Area in India at the moment. Husk Power Systems won a Business Plan…

My dinner in 2020 would consist of vegetables I have been growing on my own in the countryside of our village. The meat is from our local farmer, and I eat only as much meat as I need. We get fresh milk from our local farmer too, and fruits can be taken from our own trees in our garden. Practically, this imagination is not so far away from today's reality. When I was a child, we already got our milk from a local farmer, and my grandfather and me always went there by foot with our milk cans.…

Regarding the food security topic, I informed myself about agricultural issues in Germany. One in my opinion interesting topic are milk prices in germany. already, milk is not an expensive good, and it is to be questioned if the current prices for one liter of milk are fair (from 45 to 85 cents/liter). Furthermore, in 2015 Germany will leave the so-called "milk quota regulation" of the european union. until now, every european country was allowed to produce a certain amount of milk to avoid…