Eckocenter

Location: International

Website: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/a-pilot-the-first-ekocenter-in-action#TCCC

Today, more than 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and approximately 2.5 billion don’t have adequate sanitation, making billions of people around the world vulnerable to disease and other development challenges.

To help provide communities in need with access to safe drinking water and other basic necessities, The Coca-Cola Company, together with DEKA, and other critical partners including development banks, NGOs and companies, launched EKOCENTER™ - a downtown in a box - with the Slingshot™ water purification system housed within the community center. The EKOCENTER project aims to improve the holistic well-being of developing communities around the world, focusing on those within the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), the largest, poorest socio-economic group. Globally, this represents nearly 4 billion people who live on less than US$2 per day.

Coca-Cola Company has been committed to making a positive, lasting difference in the local communities in which we operate. Through EKOCENTER, we are striving to continue this commitment. The project, which began as a pilot in South Africa in August 2013, will not only help deliver safe water and other necessities to some of the most remote and distressed areas of the world but also empower community members, especially women, through entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.

EKOCENTER is a modularly designed kiosk with Slingshot at its core, transformed from  a 20-foot shipping container into a hub of community activity, offering clean, safe drinking water, alongside other services, such as access to wireless communication, electricity, vaccination storage, and more tailored to address community needs. EKOCENTER strives to help communities thrive— each and every community member—from the people using EKOCENTER to the local entrepreneur operating it.

By 2015, we will place between 1,500 and 2,000 units in the form of EKOCENTERs, “downtowns in a box,” or Slingshot water purification systems to deliver further services beyond clean water, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America. Through this commitment, we aim to deliver 500 million liters of safe drinking water, while promoting greater local development in communities that need it most.

What is Slingshot technology? Each EKOCENTER is equipped with Slingshot technology. The Slingshot water purification system—developed in partnership with DEKA R&D—uses vapor compression distillation (VCD) technology to turn any source of dirty water—river water, ocean water and even raw sewage—into safe, clean drinking water. The technology, invented by inventor and DEKA R&D President Dean Kamen, delivers approximately 800 liters of clean water daily at the hourly electricity cost of less than a standard handheld hair dryer (1kWh).

In 2012, our Company announced a partnership with DEKA at the Clinton Global Initiative to deliver stand-alone Slingshot water purification systems to schools, community centers and health clinics in rural communities in countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America, and as an expansion of this partnership, Slingshot will be a key component of the EKOCENTER project.

In 2013, we are deploying units in Africa and Latin America. Building on current pilot work initiated in Paraguay, Mexico and South Africa by The Coca-Cola Company and DEKA, the project will expand in early 2014 to additional markets.

Community participation and support are essential to the success of EKOCENTER, which is why we envision EKOCENTER being operated by local female entrepreneurs, complementing our initiative, and with support from technology, development, and financial partners.

We recognize that partnership with other companies, NGOs and government partners is key to leverage collective thinking, experience, innovation, products and financial support to execute EKOCENTER in a thoughtful manner with long-term viability in mind. Working with business, government and civil society – what we call the “Golden Triangle” – is key to making a positive difference on global challenges.

With help from DEKA, we have developed a partnership to support the EKOCENTER project. Their expertise enables us to do far more than we could alone.

EKOCENTER represents an investment in the future prosperity and progress of some of the most fragile and at-risk communities we serve,” said Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company. “Through EKOCENTER we have the ability to change lives by offering access to safe drinking water and other needed resources, all while empowering local entrepreneurs. What started as an aspiration is now becoming a reality as we welcome our partners across the golden triangle of business, government and civil society to scale and improve this innovation.

Located on the ground of Coca-Cola’s Valpre natural spring water bottling plant, the EKOCENTER pilot elevates our Slingshot initiative by introducing a training facility for bottling partners, women and young entrepreneurs as we test this program for future expansion. The project supports our global commitment to replenish the water used in our beverages and their production, and to empower people and communities through employment. 

Informal City Dialogues

Location: International

Website: www.nextcity.org/informalcity

The Informal City Dialogues is a year-long project supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and conducted by Forum for the Future. It homes in on six cities - Accra, Bangkok, Chennai, Lima, Manila and Nairobi,

In each of these cities, it aims to foster a conversation about the informal urban realm, and how it can be cultivated and harnessed for the benefit of all.

These informal realms, from single-chair barbershops to nine-passenger vans to sprawling settlements, are propelling the explosive growth of the urban Global South. They are the neighborhoods, economies and systems that exist beyond the reach of government: the slums, black-market industries and undocumented businesses that fuel these cities’ growth. They’re split off from the formal city, and often neglected or harassed by local authorities, and yet the informal aspects of these places are also intricately intertwined with the formal. Indeed, many residents have one foot in both worlds: the slum dweller who commutes to her job at a major hospital, the unlicensed microbus driver who lives in a condominium highrise.

They are the neighborhoods, economies and systems that exist beyond the reach of government: the slums, black-market industries and undocumented businesses that fuel these cities’ growth. They’re split off from the formal city, and often neglected or harassed by local authorities. And yet the informal aspects of these places are also intricately intertwined with the formal. Indeed, many residents have one foot in both worlds: the slum dweller who commutes to her job at a major hospital, the unlicensed microbus driver who lives in a condominium highrise.

The Informal City Dialogues will begin a local and international conversation on these issues, in which stakeholders will imagine and create narratives for their urban future. A series of workshops will bring together such stakeholders in each of the six cities, who will participate in a wider dialogue around these narratives with the goal of inspiring positive change in their communities and institutions.

These writers will chronicle not only the project’s workshops, but also report from the street and talk to the people who participate in this remarkable urban dynamic on a daily basis. Their everyday lives tell the story of the informal city, and are the primary sources for what this project hopes to achieve: a more inclusive conversation around urban informality.

Informal City Dialogues will begin a local and international conversation on these issues, in which stakeholders will imagine and create narratives for their urban future.

A series of workshops will bring together such stakeholders in each of the six cities, who will participate in a wider dialogue around these narratives with the goal of inspiring positive change in their communities and institutions.

Over the course of this project, Next City will tell these people’s stories.

We have embedded a writer in each of the six cities who will blog about the intersection of formal and informal for the duration of the project. These writers will chronicle not only the project’s workshops, but also report from the street and talk to the people who participate in this remarkable urban dynamic on a daily basis.

Their everyday lives tell the story of the informal city, and are the primary sources for what this project hopes to achieve: a more inclusive conversation around urban informality.

Avaaz

Location: International

Website: www.avaaz.org/en/

Avaaz is a global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.

A transnational community that is more democratic, and could be more effective, than the United Nations.
— Suddeutsche Zeitung Avaaz—meaning "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.

Avaaz empowers millions of people from all walks of life to take action on pressing global, regional and national issues, from corruption and poverty to conflict and climate change. Our model of internet organising allows thousands of individual efforts, however small, to be rapidly combined into a powerful collective force.

The Avaaz community campaigns in 15 languages, served by a core team on 6 continents and thousands of volunteers. We take action -- signing petitions, funding media campaigns and direct actions, emailing, calling and lobbying governments, and organizing "offline" protests and events -- to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform the decisions that affect us all.

Previous international citizens' groups and social movements have had to build a constituency for each separate issue, year by year and country by country, in order to reach a scale that could make a difference.

Today, thanks to new technology and a rising ethic of global interdependence, that constraint no longer applies. Where other global civil society groups are composed of issue-specific networks of national chapters, each with its own staff, budget, and decision-making structure,

Avaaz has a single, global team with a mandate to work on any issue of public concern--allowing campaigns of extraordinary nimbleness, flexibility, focus, and scale.

Avaaz's online community can act like a megaphone to call attention to new issues; a lightning rod to channel broad public concern into a specific, targeted campaign; a fire truck to rush an effective response to a sudden, urgent emergency; and a stem cell that grows into whatever form of advocacy or work is best suited to meet an urgent need.

Each year, Avaaz sets overall priorities through all-member polls (See 2013 poll results here), and campaign ideas are polled and tested weekly to 10,000-member random samples—and only initiatives that find a strong response are taken to scale. Campaigns that do reach the full membership are then super-charged by, often, hundreds of thousands of Avaaz members taking part within days or even hours.

Avaaz staff write email alerts to the Avaaz community the way that an aide briefs a president or prime minister: we have just a moment to convey the vital information the reader needs in order to decide whether to get involved, and the campaign hinges on that decision.

To make that moment of attention count, it's the job of staff to find ways that a few minutes, multiplied across huge numbers of people, can make a genuine difference on something that matters.

Staff work with partners and experts to develop effective, member-driven campaign strategies; summarize them through clear and compelling alerts; and, if the Avaaz membership chooses to proceed, makes sure that the campaign is carried through—delivering petitions and members' messages, arranging member-funded ad campaigns, or whatever else is required.

In other words, Avaaz staff don't set an agenda and try to convince members to go along with it. It's closer to the opposite: staff listen to members and suggest actions they can take in order to affect the broader world. Small wonder, then, that many of our most successful campaigns are suggested first by Avaaz members themselves. And leadership is a critical part of member service: it takes vision and skill to find and communicate a way to build a better world.

We focus on tipping-point moments of crisis and opportunity

In the life of an issue or a cause, a moment sometimes arises when a decision must be made, and a massive, public outcry can suddenly make all the difference. Getting to that point can take years of painstaking work, usually behind the scenes, by dedicated people focusing on nothing else. But when the moment does come, and the sunlight of public attention floods in, the most crucial decisions go one way or another depending on leaders' perceptions of the political consequences of each option. It is in these brief windows of tremendous crisis and opportunity that the Avaaz community often makes its mark.

In any country or on any issue, those moments might come only once or twice a year. But because Avaaz can work in all countries and on all issues, these moments can crop up several times in a week.

Our member-funded model keeps us independent and accountable. Because Avaaz is wholly member-funded, democratic accountability is in our DNA. No corporate sponsor or government backer can insist that Avaaz shift its priorities to suit some external agenda—we simply don't accept funds from governments or corporations.

Instead of fragmenting, we grow—united by values, movements, coalitions, and organizations often fracture over time into many smaller pieces—or spend more and more of their time trying to hold warring factions together. At Avaaz, we recognize that people of good will often disagree on specifics; instead of straining for consensus, each of us simply decides whether to participate in any particular campaign.

But underlying Avaaz campaigns is a set of values—the conviction that we are all human beings first, and privileged with responsibilities to each other, to future generations, and to the planet. The issues we work on are particular expressions of those commitments. And so, over and over, Avaaz finds the same thing: that people who join the community through a campaign on one issue go on to take action on another issue, and then another. This is a source of great hope: that our dreams rhyme, and that, together, we can build the bridge from the world we have to the world we all want.

Urban Times

Location: International

Website: www.urbantimes.org

Citizen journalism curated for the people by the people -

Welcome to the go to place for optimists and forward-thinkers.

We launched Urban Times to tackle the sensationalism and hearsay that permeates the news and media culture of today. Our content is entirely user-generated as citizen journalists and thought-leaders from across the globe submit their content to be edited for free. By mixing the scale and impact of a mega content generator with the positive values and culture of a small startup, we will rewire the global worldview towards solutions-oriented thinking.

Urban Times is the sustainable future of online publishing.

Our doors are open to all potential contributors, whether you’re a writer, editor, designer, developer or something else entirely: GET INVOLVED!

Visual Artillery

Location: International

Website: www.visualartillery.org

We're Visual Artillery, an international street art collective, and a certified nonprofit organization.

We function as a network for artists, and as an educational service to developing countries and struggling communities to provide them with art, training, and experience.

We're "against" the destruction of property, and we're "for" the empowerment of society through street art, graffiti art, and urban-inspired art.