In Oaxaca, Mexico natural medicine doctors have been fighting with official associations of physicians for many years now. Most of them were women and had a hard time doing their work because of strict rules and regulations on distributing natural remedies to the public. Many of these homeopathic doctors have been getting together lately to share their experiences and collaborate with one another on ways to start a business and made a life style with their hobby.With support from the National…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 29, 2011 at 7:30pm —
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Flooding and landslides have proved to be huge
problems in our community. Many years ago the valley was closed off from other towns because flooding was so bad, no one could come in or out. To deal with this same problem in the future many things could be done, including creating a resilience plan for how to react. First, before the flooding season comes, people who live on hillsides could plant deep rooting shrubs and bushes to insure good holding soil, and prevent landslides.…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 23, 2011 at 4:02pm —
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Its 2020 and I am visiting India for the first time. I get to meet the students who got their education from School in a Box, which I have supported with my school for my wh*** high school career. Although these people did not grow up in the same environment as I did, or go to an actual school, they know so much about life and are very cultured. The girls here say they owe everything to School in a Box because their skills learned from it have helped them immensely in life.…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 16, 2011 at 5:36am —
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School in a Box is supported by my school, Oak Grove. It is a learning tool used in small villages in India to teach kids their basic arithmetic, environmental science, and language skills. Inside the actual box there are cards with pictures and words which students can learn from individually or in a group. The thing that is so unique about this program is the achievement ladder. Each student is able to track their work on a graph, which makes it easy to come back to after missing a few days.…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 16, 2011 at 5:27am —
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Fact: There is no country on this earth where
women have more political power over men.
"It's a Man's World", "Girls Belong in Marriage, Not School"
I’m sure only a man would say that, because he would never know how hard it must be to grow up in a third world country without rights. That’s how millions of women are raised. They think its ok for men to say derogatory things and have control over them. Women are just as strong, smart and capable as men, if not more.…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 16, 2011 at 5:16am —
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This week I created an account on NeoPets. It is a game site for children where you create a virtual pet and take care of them online. There are dozens of games to play, which you acquire points for later. With the coins you earned you can buy anything you think might be ‘useful’ to your pet. This includes food, clothing, shelter and entertainment. I bought a house, toys, clothes and many snacks for my neopet. This experience was a new way for me to use an
alternate… Continue
Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 15, 2011 at 11:16pm —
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I went to an exhibit in our local Ojai library about saving water in daily life. It had many tips on conservation, as well as fact about how much water it takes to make things we use every day. For example, it takes about 1800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce one pair of jeans. Surprisingly, it takes 1.85 gallons of water to produce one 16 ounce bottle of drinking water. So many things can be done to support the reduction of water waste, including only washing a full load of…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 15, 2011 at 11:00pm —
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Its 2020 and my family is enjoying themselves at the beach for the Fourth of July. The city has recently installed hydro powered mills in the ocean, which created energy for most of our town. They are renewable and eco-friendly. We rode our bikes to the beach and brought our solar oven to make an all locally grown and organic lunch in. The palm trees are a good source of shade, and we have a clothes line to dry out wet hemp towels. The sun screen we use is made from all natural…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 15, 2011 at 10:21pm —
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Taking a shower with water heated from the sun is an easy way to
power something you use everyday, and its done naturally. Just fill a water bladder and let it sit in the sun all day, or until its at a desired temperature. You only have a small amount of water to use compared to the shower in a bathroom, but its just as hot and lasts about fifteen minutes if you use the water conservatively. If this was the only water used for bathing, a family’s water bill would be lowered…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 15, 2011 at 10:17pm —
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A huge problem all over the world, including the United States, is food security. Not only are people dying everyday from malnutrition, but citizens in our own communities are struggling to put food on their tables. There are many things we can do to help. Simply going through the pantry and finding canned food to donate is helping someone tremendously. Volunteering to help make sandwiches for the homeless will make a person’s day unbelievably less stressful, and definitely more healthy. Having…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 10, 2011 at 5:16pm —
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I chose as someone who is inventing creative, sustainable ways to power our everyday lives. He is from the poorest state in India, where eighty five percent of people do not have access to electricity. Although, he grew up very underprivileged and in an unsafe environment, he found a way to save enough money to get to California and studied electrical engineering. Being in the United States, he quickly realized how much energy is wasted everyday and wanted to find a solution for that, along…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 10, 2011 at 5:00pm —
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The use of paper money has been eliminated from the world and is no longer accepted anywhere. Credit cards and online shopping are the best ways to pay for needed things. There are only 6 exchange rates, one for each major continent (Antarctica does not have one).This has made things a lot simpler for most of the people on the planet. Older people have a hard time adjusting to the new technology, and it will of course take time to get used to. For the most part, it is well…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 5, 2011 at 6:14am —
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A creative solution to how we use
money is to eliminate the paper currency completely. This has already been started, by online companies such as PayPal. It allows you to transfer money in a bank account, to somewhere else, with the click of a button. It has become a popular trend in the past 10 years to do so, which eliminated the middle man (bankers) and allowed people to handle money on their own. Eventually, as many other countries started to do so, paper money would not be…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 5, 2011 at 5:59am —
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It 2020 and I am planning the
World Water Awareness Day. Every country in the world has agreed to participate in this event to bring attention to the matter at hand, water. There will be many different activities and things to do concerning water, including the quickest shower, the most efficient washing machine, the biggest rain water catching device, sanitation stations, water pumps, and the most effective salt water converter which will be installed in every body of salt…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 5, 2011 at 5:44am —
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One in every 8 people do not have access to
clean water. The number of people who die daily from water born illnesses and lack of sanitation each day is incredible. In India and other third world countries it is very common to see open sewer lines, along with debris (trash, dead bodies, etc.) in most water sources such as rivers and lakes. Water is considered to be the source of all life, and our planet is slowly running out of it. Many things can be done to help the situation,…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 5, 2011 at 3:51am —
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Today in 2020, I am eating dinner with my lovely room mates. Together, everyday we make a meal and share it. We try very hard to only grow our own fresh food, but what we need to buy comes strictly from local farms. In the back yard we have several fruit trees and a small raised bed for our vegetables, which include tomatoes, squash, cabbage, carrots and beautiful flowers. The herbs we use are fresh and grow in the kitchen window sill. Chickens are raised in our yard for eggs,…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 3, 2011 at 5:22pm —
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Today my science class went to the school’s community garden and worked for an hour and a half. First we picked all the weeds out of a vegetable bed, shoveled the top two inches of “spent soil” out and dumped it into piles which will later be used for planting artichokes in another area. New, fresh mulch was then added to the bed and it was ready to have more plants grow in it. We spent the rest of the time pulling invasive and quickly spreading weeds from around the base of newly planted fruit…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 3, 2011 at 5:00pm —
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When I
imagine my future self nine years from now, I see a twenty five year old woman pursuing her hobbies and intertwining them in her work place. I hope to be a successful bakery and cafe owner by that time. I would love to own the coffee shop where everybody goes to hangout and relax. With help from my mother (I reluctantly say this but I know I will be in desperate need of her assistance), I will pursue my dreams and live happily. Maybe my current dreams will go down the…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 3, 2011 at 4:30pm —
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My
social innovator is Madonna Coffman, the founder and president of Locks of Love. I personally donated my hair to her organization almost one year ago and I think it is a brilliant idea. My reasoning for the donation was that there are people suffering from hair loss due to cancer all over the world, and someone else would probably be more thankful for my hair than I was. Giving my hair away was very a exciting and selfless thing and I felt that I was doing good for a…
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Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 3, 2011 at 4:30pm —
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If I were a social innovator I would try to always stay positive – don’t be distracted by what other people think (if there were a need for it, the market would have already created it). This is good advise because it could be discouraging trying to make a new product, start a business, or just help the community if others find the project to be useful or a waste of time. Not giving up on what you are fighting for is very important, because if you don’t believe in it, who will?
Added by Sophia Smith-Grunder on May 3, 2011 at 4:30pm —
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