All People Making a Difference
- How one West Africa town is fighting hunger
In a village of mud and straw huts in Mali a series of small improvements – capturing rainwater, a fish pond, vegetable gardens, efficient wood stoves – is lifting families.
- Difference MakerDale Anderson shows young offenders a path to a sweeter life
Confections With Convictions is more than a fancy chocolate shop. It's a fresh start for troubled teens.
- This short bike path could power a home for a year
Embedded with solar cells, the world’s first energy-producing bike path is humming along in the Netherlands.
- Marine biologist in Haiti creates a national park
Jean Wiener won a Goldman Environmental Foundation prize for helping establish Haiti’s first Marine Protected Areas and promoting sustainable fishing practices.
- Effective help for drought-hit Kenya: cash
A cash-transfer program aimed as food aid has had an unexpected effect: Most of the recipients use it to start small businesses or restock herds with drought-resistant cattle.
- Food stamps double their value at Michigan farmers markets, helping families and growers
A USDA program helps low-income families take home twice the veggies – and farmers make twice the money.
- Bystander Revolution stands up to bullying
Parent and author MacKenzie Bezos founded Bystander revolution to inspire simple acts of courage, kindness, and inclusion, and to counter bullying online or in person.
- Difference MakerVicki Houska raised 12 foster kids. Now she helps other families do it.
She lined her St. Louis-area basement with freezers and shelves and began distributing food, diapers, and toiletries free to local foster families.
- A couple in Rwanda defeats ethnic hatred with love
Viateur and his wife, Judith, have married across the divide between Hutus and Tutsis, becoming entrepreneurs and peace builders.
- Boys persuade girls to go back to school in India
Educate Girls trains young people to go into villages to find girls who are not in the classroom.
- Games for Change do more than just entertain
Video games with a purpose, from peacemaking to teaching empathy to treating social problems such as discrimination, are growing in number and sophistication.
- In a slum in Kenya, help is just a click away
In a Nairobi, Kenya, slum, residents used technology to map the area, a key first step in solving problems from waste removal to street lighting. Those with phones can now report problems more accurately.
- Difference MakerMichel Serfaty asks questions others dare not pose about Jews and Muslims
Rabbi Michel Serfaty takes his ‘friendship bus’ around France to spread a message of tolerance and understanding
- A New York City man left his waitress a $3,000 tip. Here's why.
An anonymous man inspired by a 'pay-it-forward' movement launched by his eighth-grade science teacher left the tip to a Times Square waitress who said she was facing eviction.
- Kenyan women make a healthy profit selling aloe to cosmetics firm
The aloe plants reduced erosion and improved the soil, enabling grass to grow in a dry climate. The leaves are exported to Britain as an ingredient in cosmetics.
- Some Adidas products to be made of plastic debris from oceans
The sportswear company wants to help save the oceans by recycling marine plastic trash into products.
- Engaged couples ask for charitable donations rather than gifts
A small but growing number of Americans are integrating donations to charity into weddings or other milestone celebrations.
- Tweets could create flood maps that help save lives
Messages on social media during a recent flood in Jakarta, Indonesia, gave information about locals conditions such as water depth, enough to create useful flood maps, researchers found.
- Superyachts sail to the aid of cyclone-hit Vanuatu
Cyclone Pam left behind devastation all along the string of some 80 islands that make up Vanuatu. Luxury yachts pitched in to help, bringing aid to remote locations.
- An app pushes factories in China to cut pollution
Environmentalist Ma Jun built a mobile phone app that lets users see whether a Chinese factory or power plant is violating pollution standards. His efforts won him a $1.25 million prize from the Skoll World Forum on Entrepreneurship.