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Kristen Bell announces This Saves Lives new partnership with Upworthy.

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Every day, Upworthy shares stories that spotlight the very best of humanity. But if there’s one cause that unites us all, it’s solving child hunger.

In a recent poll of our followers, we found that child hunger is the issue they care about most. So today, we’re doing something about it. We’ve joined forces with humanitarian snack brand This Saves Lives to end child hunger.

This Saves Lives co-founder, actress Kristen Bell.

This Saves Lives was founded in 2013 with the goal of ending early childhood severe acute malnutrition. Its solution is simple, for every snack you purchase, they give life-saving food to a child in need. This Saves Lives has already donated over 30 million packets of lifesaving food in Haiti, Guatemala, Kenya and beyond. We hope our new partnership works to feed millions more.

“Will you join us? It’s easy and delicious.” — Kristen Bell.

Join us and explore delicious snacks that give back at thissaveslives.com/doinggoodtogether.

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Green Mountain Energy

Leroy Mwasaru was a high school student at Kenya's prestigious Maseno School when a dorm room renovation created an unfortunate situation.

The school's outdoor latrines overflowed into the local water supply.

Understandably, this made some people quite upset. But Mwasaru saw this as an opportunity to turn something revolting into a revolution.


[rebelmouse-image 19469680 dam="1" original_size="500x274" caption="All GIFs from Makeshift/YouTube." expand=1]All GIFs from Makeshift/YouTube.

If he could redirect the overflowing human waste, it could give them cleaner water and help the school save money on fire and electricity.

See, at that same time, his school was spending a lot of money on firewood, which, like many Kenyan buildings, it used to fuel its kitchens, heat, and lights. It can be labor intensive to gather all that wood — and it's even more expensive to buy it.  Plus, all the soot and ash it creates is not good for the staff to consume on such a regular and large-scale basis.

[rebelmouse-image 19469681 dam="1" original_size="1200x624" caption="Mwasaru and his friends speak with school staff about the wood-burning furnace. Image from MakeShift/YouTube." expand=1]Mwasaru and his friends speak with school staff about the wood-burning furnace. Image from MakeShift/YouTube.

So Mwasaru thought — why not use a biogas digester instead?

In his sophomore year biology class, he had learned how these digesters can harvest natural bacterial byproducts, such as human waste and turn it into natural gas energy through a process called anaerobic digestion.

"I initially researched renewable energy and biogas [digesters] just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity," Mwasaru explains over email. "After a while, it became so much more than biology — there was chemistry too. It got to solving problems my local community faced, such as lack of access to affordable renewable energy."

[rebelmouse-image 19469682 dam="1" original_size="1189x574" caption="Students on the Maseno School campus. Image from MakeShift/YouTube." expand=1]Students on the Maseno School campus. Image from MakeShift/YouTube.

Mwasaru recruited a group of friends, and over the next year, they built a working prototype biogas digester for the school.

His initial proposal was met with some level of resistance from the community. "I want to burn our poop to fuel the kitchen" isn't exactly the kind of thing anyone wants to hear from a high school student.

"That's what pushed me to make sure it came to pass, and made sure it benefited them. Sometimes it's the bad energy you get that pushes you to do stuff," Mwasaru says.

Their earliest tests began by collecting raw "fuel" in the form of cow dung, food waste, fresh cut grass, and eventually, water.

These components were then mixed together into a paste...

... that they poured into a plastic vessel — the digester itself.

The natural bacteria contained in all these ingredients was more than enough to spark the anaerobic process as it broke down the organic waste materials.

Over time, the dense physical waste drops down to the bottom of the container, separating from the bacteria's combustible gas byproduct, which can then be collected and used for energy.

Lighting a burner with harvested biogas.

Granted, there were a few hiccups along the way. "I have to credit the failures we have had," Mwasaru says. "Our very first bio-digester prototype had too much gas and exploded, so we had to re-learn and re-invent the model until it was stable."

After a little trial and error, Mwasaru and friends completed their first working prototype — and it was good enough to earn them a coveted spot at the Innovate Kenya startup camp.

See this video here of how his small-scale prototype worked here:

It demonstrated the basic way that the anaerobic process could be contained within a single plastic vessel with pipes to move the gas along, while directing all the other organic waste into the ground. It wasn't enough to power the entire school on its own, but it was a start.

Then, at the startup camp, the teens had the opportunity to work alongside student engineers from MIT to hone and refine their project.

[rebelmouse-image 19469688 dam="1" original_size="1212x683" caption="Mwasaru, left, with his friends Amos Dede and Charles, who also worked on the biogas project. Image from MakeShift/YouTube." expand=1]Mwasaru, left, with his friends Amos Dede and Charles, who also worked on the biogas project. Image from MakeShift/YouTube.

In fact, the product that this high schooler devised was so impressive that it earned them funding from Global Minimum — a charitable organization that encourages young innovators and leaders in Africa — to build a second,  improved prototype.

"Leroy seeks to understand everything he doesn't know by asking probing questions, taking notes and experimenting to learn," said David Moinina Sengeh, an MIT Researcher who also serves as Global Minimum's board president, in an interview with CNN. "His curiosity to explore and learn from doing within a motivation to bring broader social change is something that we hope to see in all our youth and frankly everyone."

Mwasaru speaking at the One Young World summit in Arizona. Photo provided by Leroy Mwasaru.

As work began on the next, larger prototype, Mwasaru had the opportunity to travel to America to speak at prestigious conferences, such as Techonomy and One Young World.

He also returned home to the small village where his father still lives and helped to install a biogas digester there too, using the dung from his father's six cows. It generates enough gas for him to share with the other 30 houses in the village. Plus, it made things easier for the women in the village — another cause that Mwasaru is passionate about — who were sometimes spending up to 24 hours a week collecting firewood.

"When I deployed the Biogas pilot in my rural home, I mainly envisioned it as a way of leveraging sustainable renewable energy to make the world a better place through my community," Mwasaru says. "Now I believe through our activities that other sectors [such as women empowerment] could benefit immensely from the approach."

[rebelmouse-image 19469690 dam="1" original_size="1200x624" caption="The dining hall at Maseno School. Image from MakeShift/YouTube." expand=1]The dining hall at Maseno School. Image from MakeShift/YouTube.

The biogas digester project has since grown into a full-fledged startup/social enterprise called Greenpact — with Mwasaru serving as its CEO.

Since graduating from Maseno School, Mwasaru has taken a gap year to focus on the company's mission to address the lack of affordable renewable energy and proper sanitation that affects some 9 million Kenyan households.

He hopes to steer the company into an impactful organization that offers a wide range of products and services, including biogas digesters. He does have plans to go to college — but for now, Greenpact is his priority.

"I didn't see myself focusing on renewable energy but after doing some work in the field I figured out that I am actually more into renewable energy than I had imagined," Mwasaru says.

Now he's determined to show the world how to turn energy into opportunity and vice versa. The only way to do that is to stop seeing things as waste and start seeing them as resources instead.

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Gates Foundation: The Story of Food

It feels like any question is answerable online. But for small-scale farmers around the world, it's not that simple.

Take the story of Kenyan chicken farmer, Kepha. "There was a disease that was ripping through his flock," says Kenny Ewan, CEO of agricultural startup WeFarm. "He had something like 52 chickens that he kept and half of them had died within the space of a few days."

Kepha's entire livelihood depended on those chickens. And if he couldn't figure out a fix quickly, they were all going to die. "That paid for his kids to go to school," adds Ewan. "To put food on his table."


Image via Pixabay.

In the past, farmers like Kepha had to rely on visits to the local market to ask fellow farmers for answers to tricky farming problems. If that didn't work, they could ask local extension officers, agricultural experts funded privately or by the government. But these officers work with up to 20,000 farmers, so farmers getting face time with them is extremely rare.

Luckily, Kepha didn't have to use any of those routes. In fact, he didn't even have to step outside his own farm.

WeFarm provides a simple question-and-answer platform for farmers in developing nations.

"What we do is crowdsourcing of vital information for small-scale farmers, primarily that don't have access to the internet," says Ewan. "They can ask a question on anything that’s happening on their farm, and we get them the right answer from somewhere else in the world without them having to leave their farm, spend any money, or have any access to the internet."

A WeFarm ambassador showing a local farmer the ropes. Image via WeFarm, used with permission.

All any farmer has to do is text their question to a local WeFarm number, which is free. From there, WeFarm's tech automatically analyzes the message based on location, keywords, and theme to find and notify the best farmers in their network that can answer the question. Once those helpful farmers reply with an answer, it goes straight back to the farmer in need.

"It's a really great service," said Kepha on the WeFarm website. "You ask a question and in less than 10 minutes you have an answer. It has also motivated me in farming knowing that other farmers are out there doing similar things."

To date, over 147,000 registered farmers have shared over 19 million messages. And the effects have been life-changing.

Just look at how WeFarm helped Kepha. "He got advice back really quickly from another farmer that had the same disease, recommending things he could do and medicine he could use," says Ewan. "He managed to save just under half of his chickens and keep his flock going."

Image via WeFarm, used with permission.

Granted, Kepha is just one farmer with a small batch of chickens. But when you focus on the grander scheme of things, what WeFarm is doing has the potential to affect agriculture worldwide.

"Statistics suggest that up to70% of all the food we eat on Earth is grown by small-scale farmers," adds Ewan. "With our hugely expanding population, that’s only going to get tougher."

Plus, with roughly 500 million small-scale farm families around the world living on less than $1 a day, providing them with meaningful solutions that cost nothing is crucial.

Image via iStock.

WeFarm's next big step? Reach a network of 1 million farmers and become the world's go-to agricultural guide.

Currently, WeFarm is only available in Kenya, Uganda, and Peru. But they have their sights set on Tanzania, India, and Brazil next. In time, WeFarm hopes to be available in every country.

But more than just a Q&A platform, WeFarm is also aiming to build stronger and more personal relationships. "If a farmer asked us about planting a specific crop," adds Ewan, "we can automatically compare their location to a weather report to tell them, 'Actually, don't do that tomorrow. Do it next week.'"

A WeFarm training session for local farmers in Uganda. Image via WeFarm, used with permission.

"That would be the ultimate vision. To be the ultimate source of agricultural information."

Unlocking this untapped wealth of grassroots knowledge could make a huge difference in improving global food access.

In fact, the world has already taken notice. WeFarm was one of the grand prize winners at the prestigious Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. They've also been tapped as one of the world's most innovative companies by Fast Company.

Image via iStock.

As amazing as these honors are, WeFarm's greatest achievement is still the work they do. "As we face new challenges like climate change and diseases and things that we've never seen before starting to affect crops all over the world," explains Ewan, "unlocking the knowledge that can deal with that on a practical grassroots level is fundamental in making sure that we can keep food sources available."

"That is going to be crucial in helping to feed the world."

Growing up in rural Kenya, Dianah had two choices for getting to school: She could walk three miles or hire a "boda boda" motorbike, if she had the money.

Neither option was particularly appealing.

The long walk was especially difficult in a culture that expects young girls like Dianah to handle their domestic duties in the morning before heading off to the classroom, while the boys are free to wake up and go.


And even when if her parents could afford to pay for a ride from the so-called "motorcycle men," there was still a risk of assault involved in the country's makeshift transportation service.

"These men who ride the motorcycles, they want to get the girls, they annoy them and then meet them here outside. They normally stop you when you’re on the way [to school]. They tell you that they want to offer you a ride, but when you go with them, they will take you and refuse to..." Dianah explains, trailing off.

Dianah. All photos provided by World Bicycle Relief, used with permission.

Even when the trek went well, the threat of rape and bodily harm followed Dianah and her friends into the classroom and hurt their education.

Teen pregnancy is known to have a damaging effect on education, and teen birth rates are high in Kenya. The looming menaces of child abuse, poverty, and other traumatic events can also have a lasting impact on the development of a young mind. This all compounds with stress and the exhaustion from waking up early to take care of chores, and, of course, walking several miles while avoiding assault.

The administration at Dianah's school does what they can. But it's not easy. "We have involved the parents in driving their children, but it is not always affordable," says Dianah's vice principal, Monicah Ndun'gu. "We also have guidance and counseling sessions in school where we talk about issues of pregnancy and how the girl can be able to protect herself."

But something changed during Dianah's junior year, and all it took was balance and a little legwork.

Dianah was one of 100 students at her school to receive a free Buffalo bicycle courtesy of World Bicycle Relief, a nonprofit that aims to mobilize and empower underprivileged communities across the world with the help of bicycles. 70 of the bicycles went to girls to help compensate for the gender inequalities in the country, with the other 30 going to the boys in the classroom.

For Dianah's part, she's able to arrive extra-early at school to prepare for the day, and she feels more energized and less tired than before. She even stays later after school to finish her homework or work on projects, and she doesn't have to worry anymore about walking home alone at night. "When you have the bicycle, you pass by motorcycle men very fast and they won’t ride after you," she says.

"Performance records have really improved in the last year, for both boys and girls, since they got the bicycles. It has also reduced absenteeism of both. And many of the girls are happier now that they are able to get to school on time, and to home on time, too," adds Vice Principal Ndun'gu, saying that she's observed a noticeable reduction in student pregnancies, too.

"When I have the bicycle, it’s like flying through the forest," Dianah says. "We can ride together with friends on the bicycles and we are stronger."

Before the bicycle, Dianah's life was mostly schoolwork, chores, and walking between them. Now, with faster commutes, Dianah and her friends are able to spend more time together. She has an easier time socializing with the boys in her classroom, many of whom she sees as brothers and who she also says have been challenged in exciting ways by the newly energized girls in the classroom.

Her family is just as excited about these new two-wheel opportunities. Dianah lives on a farm plot with her parents, a younger brother and sister, and three orphans. "At home, I normally help my parents. Now when they want to send me to the market, I use the bicycle and there are no more distractions on the way," Dianah says.

"They’ve seen me change, because I want to really use the bicycle for their help and also for my health."

Now a senior in high school, Dianah is anxiously awaiting the results of her exit exams.

"After my results, I would like to study as a lecturer in education," she says. She even wrote a powerful poem about her passion for schooling, called "Education for All":

"The right to education is for all, even for a girl
People may wish for sons, but I’m glad I was born, born a girl child
Challenges may be more, but the blessings will be bigger
You educate a girl
You’ve educated a nation
It’s only education that equalizes a rich man’s daughter
And a poor man’s daughter
As I cycle my Buffalo Bicycle to school every day
I know, my future will be great."







As Dianah says, education is a great equalizer for gender and poverty.

These are both complicated issues, of course, especially in rural African areas like the one where Dianah lives. When it comes to these socio-economic-cultural struggles, it can be hard to isolate and solve the root of the problem.

But sometimes something as simple as a bicycle, or even a washing machine, can treat enough of the symptoms to open up new opportunities and let these students shine. That's pretty amazing.