All People Making a Difference
Helping schoolchildren find the Vision To LearnThrough Vision To Learn, Austin Beutner brings eye exams and glasses to low-income students, helping them see their way to a better education.
How to talk guns: First, get to know each otherA public dialogue on gun control, begun at a 2013 Monitor forum, continues in Montana.
Difference MakerChad Houser cooked up a café to give young offenders a second chanceAt Café Momentum in Dallas former juvenile offenders learn valuable life skills.
8 Main Street job creators rebooting the economyFrom the Deep South to the West Coast, these entrepreneurs are making sure jobs and dollars grow – and stay – in places hardest hit by hurricanes, poverty, and gentrification.
Rickshaw drivers take a 'respect women' message to New Delhi streetsSome 40,000 auto-rickshaw drivers in Delhi have attended classes on respecting women and are spreading the word across the city, known as India's' rape capital.'
Community radio teaches homebound students in LiberiaUsing radio the Advancing Youth Project provides reading and math instruction, and job training, to students stuck at home during the Ebola outbreak.
Ghana's success in fight against hunger holds lessons for othersIt started with a simple move to change the tax code so that farmers could keep more of the value of their cocoa crop.
Jessica O. Matthews has a ball generating energyHer company, Uncharted Play, produces the SOCCKET, a power-generating soccer ball that literally turns kids' play into usable electricity.
Difference MakerAndrew White, ‘the Vicar of Baghdad,’ aids Iraqis of all faithsThe Baghdad church run by the Anglican priest provides food, education, and medical services to nearly 5,000 Iraqis in need.
Simple steps could cut world's food wasteEnough food to feed the world's 800 million hungry is wasted every year. A new interactive platform will try to reduce the losses.
Chris Marvin sees US veterans as assets, not victimsThe group Got Your 6 wants to refocus the story of post 9/11 US military veterans. Instead of being damaged and fragile, most of today's generation of vets are committed to lives of serving others.
Marine veteran Tina Thomas: her mission continuesTina Thomas spent her childhood moving between 13 foster homes and five group homes. But when she began mentoring other abused girls, her life gained a focus and purpose.
A chocolate factory with a higher purposeShawn Askinosie works directly with developing-world growers to sweeten their lives, too.
Difference MakerKrithi Karanth's quest: help people and wildlife to coexist in IndiaKrithi Karanth has witnessed threats, poachers, and forest fires as she tries to learn how people and wildlife can live in harmony in a crowded India.
Hector Manley: paddling for a purposeA young double amputee paddles down the 2,500 miles of the Mississippi River to bring wheelchairs to his native El Salvador.
One woman's battle to help Kenyan girls who trade sex for foodBrittanie Richardson is one of a growing number of activists running grass-roots campaigns to stop children in the slums from entering the sex trade.
Two US veterans walked thousands of miles to heal – and raise moneyTwo Iraq veterans trekked across America to leave behind the trauma of war and raise funds to help fellow vets. Now they want to offer the same healing experience to others.
Innovations in storage boost renewable energyBecause utilities can't control when the sun shines or the wind blows, it has been hard to incorporate solar and wind power into the electricity grid. But new storage technologies could soon change that.
Difference MakerChelsea and Rob McFarland lure people into a sweet science: urban beekeepingHoneybee populations are under attack but the founders of nonprofit HoneyLove believe bees' best future is in cities.
How to best help refugees: Hand 'em cashHanding out goods such as tents and blankets may not be the most effective way to help those displaced by war or disasters. Refugees may know their own needs best.
