December — Social Edge

Mohammed Abba - Nigeria

Filed Under:

GSBI 2007

Mohammed Abba runs Mobah Rural Horizons, which provides an electricity-free refrigeration system easy to operate by African villagers.

He tells Global X why his simple technology, which better preserves local crops, is breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

The results: farmers sell their crops when demand is high, and more girls can go to school.

Caroline Nyami-Kisia - South Africa

Filed Under:

GSBI 2007

Caroline Nyami-Kisia tells Global X how AfriAfya uses modern information communication technologies to help communities in rural areas and urban informal settlements in Kenya (and a little bit in Somalia).

Modern technologies in rural settings? Yes, despite the lack of electricity and many other complex challenges, AfriAfya is having a positive impact on HIV-AIDS prevention: "The members of our community are changing their behavior. There is hope!"

Joachim Ezeji - Nigeria

Filed Under:

GSBI 2007

Global X interviews Joachim Ezeji (GSBI 2007), founder of the Rural Africa Water Development Project in Nigeria, a social venture that improves access to safe drinking water through household water treatment technologies.

"Africa wants to change, but the problem is leadership," says the geologist-turned-social-entrepreneur to Global X. The other issue: "Resources. Money is king!"

His hope for 20017: "There will be more interest from the first world to help the third world."

Angelique Smit - Cambodia

Filed Under:

GSBI 2007

Global X interviews Angelique Smit at the Global Social Benefit Incubator. Originally from the Netherlands, Angelique Smit is now based in Cambodia with Ideas at Work, where she helps market the Rope-Pump to low-income Cambodian villagers. The water pump is designed to improve the quality of lives of village women by lightening the burden of household water collection.

Watch this three-minute interview in which Angelique Smit tells Global X why she is an optimist: "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. I want to stay awake!"

Mossad Mohamed Ali - Darfur

Filed Under:

Mossad Mohamed Ali, a lawyer and human rights defender based in South Darfur, works for an organization that provides legal aid and medical and psycho-social assistance to victims of torture and sexual violence and those at risk of the death penalty and amputations.

In this short interview (two minutes), he tells Global X the story of a 16-year-old girl who was traveling by bus in the Sudan when she was taken by armed militia to a remote place, beaten up, and raped.

The accused were acquitted, because the law, based on the sharia, requires four independent, neutral witnesses for this type of crime. "She is now married to a relative," concludes Mossad Mohamed Ali.

Global X found out later that the relative was actually a much older uncle.

Bernice Celeyta - Colombia

Filed Under:

Bernice Celeyta is president of La Asociación para la Investigación y Acción Social - NOMADESC (Association for Social Research and Action), where she works primarily with women, trade unionists, campesinos, the Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples.

Berenice and her team work with affected communities to raise social awareness and promote empowerment. They use civic and legal tools to non-violently defend themselves and assert their human rights.

In this interview with Global X (in Spanish), she talks about forensic anthropology, exhumations related to criminal acts and concludes: "It's better to die for something than live for nothing!"

¡Es mejor morir por algo que vivir por nada!