All People Making a Difference
- The Learning Tea brightens the future for poor or orphaned girls in India
Katrell Christie, owner of a tea shop in Atlanta, helps educate girls in India, giving them choices beyond lives of hard labor.
- Difference MakerKatherine Connor founded a sanctuary for abused elephants
Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary, a 540-acre reserve in Thailand, is home to elephants saved from a life of misery in the logging and tourism trades.
- Waterless dyeing could clean up the clothing industry
Textile-dyeing is one of the world’s most-polluting industries. China and other Asian nations releases trillions of liters of chemically tainted wastewater. New waterless dyeing technologies could sharply cut pollution.
- Tenacious gardeners put down roots in 'America's most desperate town'
They're committed to the future of Camden, N.J., and they've created one of the nation's fastest-growing networks of urban farms.
- Difference MakerShukla Bose left a highflying career to educate India's poorest children
Her foundation wants to break the cycle of poverty by educating – from kindergarten through college – at least one child in each family.
- How satellite maps can halt Amazon deforestation
Imazon, a nonprofit group, is collaborating with a Brazilian state to use real-time satellite imagery and advanced mapping techniques to protect the rainforest.
- Goodbye, Pacific garbage patch: a teenager’s invention may clean it up
A new report shows that a gigantic cleanup machine proposed by 19-year-old Boyan Slat really could pick up much of the North Pacific's trash.
- Bush's tandem skydiver focuses on helping US vets
The All Veteran Group, mostly combat veterans, works with veterans with injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder by conducting 'leap of faith' weekends for those who have lost loved ones during war.
- Debbi Weinberg has a GEM of a way to help girls
Girls’ Empowerment Mission assists high school girls from underserved communities through educational and growth experiences.
- Difference MakerDarden Smith listens, strums a bit, then helps soldiers write their song
SongwritingWith:Soldiers provides a healthy emotional outlet. The songs help others facing similar challenges and build a bridge between military service and civilian life.
- How weeds could help feed billions
Scientists in the US and elsewhere are conducting intensive experiments to cross hardy weeds with food crops such as rice and wheat – making them more resilient as drought, higher temperatures, and elevated CO2 levels pose new threats to food supplies.
- In Kenya, solar lights are a homework helper
Solar panels installed at schools in remote areas off the electric grid allow students to stay past dark and hit the books.
- A different way to enjoy the World Cup: stay in a slum
Travelers arriving in Rio de Janeiro for soccer's World Cup (June 12-July 13) can rent a room or apartment in the city's safe and vibrant favela (slum) communities.
- New ways to make dirty water clean
Traditional desalination has meant turning seawater into drinking water. But new technologies not only improve desalination but open up ways to use agricultural water and industrial effluent too.
- Difference MakerAmy Laura Cahn helps gardens blossom from weed-choked lots in Philadelphia
She advises residents on how to obtain title to a vacant property and defends grass-roots garden projects threatened by development.
- These rock climbers prove a disability doesn’t define them
The Adaptive Climbing Group, rock climbers with physical or other issues, visits the Brooklyn Boulders gym in New York to train and overcome limitations.
- Pakistan's 'Burka Avenger' uses books, pens to right wrongs
A children's cartoon TV series, in which a female superhero dons a burka to fight injustice, has won a prestigious Peabody Award.
- Difference MakerUrsula Cats puts the concept 'educate one, empower thousands' to work
The We Women Foundation provides women in Myanmar (formerly Burma) with access to higher education. The goal: become leaders in their communities.
- Globetops gives old laptops a new home – and a new purpose
Becky Morrison founded Globetops to send donated laptops to worthwhile applicants throughout the world. The computers change lives – and reduce the E-waste in landfills.
- Elderly find a haven from abuse – and a sense of belonging
A shelter in New York takes in the elderly who've experienced financial, psychological, or physical harm and provides medical care, counseling, and legal assistance.