All People Making a Difference
- Teenage advocate of native education in Canada becomes comics superhero
Shannen Koostachin, a teenage activist in Canada who died before ever seeing the results of her work, has inspired a new hero in the DC Universe.
- Krochet Kids knits together sustainable jobs
Krochet Kids teaches textile skills like crochet or knitting to women in Uganda and Peru, helping the women create a livelihood and escape poverty.
- Mariano Rivera's latest 'save' is a church
Retired New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera was instrumental in restoring a 107-year-old church for Refugio de Esperanza, or Refuge of Hope, the Pentecostal Christian congregation led by his wife, Clara.
- Impassioned evangelist David Burstein urges millennials to get involved
Activist, speaker, and filmmaker David Burstein says being fearless about learning new things is the place to start.
- Difference MakerHajime Shiraishi's tiny but influential OurPlanet-TV keeps focus on Japan's nuclear disaster
The web-based journalist is one of the few in Japan who continue to visit the region around Fukushima and give a voice to those who have been affected.
- The Malala Fund spotlights need to educate child refugees
The Malala Fund, co-founded by Malala Yousafzai, the teenage girl from Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban for promoting the education of girls, is working to put refuge children from Syria back into school.
- Discipline with dignity: Oakland schools try talk circles
As executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, Fania Davis sees programs like hers helping to shut down the school-to-prison pipeline.
- Small sources could yield an energy windfall
'Energy scavenging' draws on a wide array of untapped energy sources – radio waves, vibrations created by moving objects, waste heat from computers or car exhaust systems — to generate electricity.
- Jacob Lief uses an 'old recipe' to help South Africa's poor
His Ubuntu Education Fund provides intensive, long-term help to 2,000 impoverished children and their families in South Africa.
- Audrey Forshey gives the gift of education in Kenya
The Gift of Education event supports the St. Monica's Children's Home outside Nairobi, Kenya, and covers most of the education costs for the 44 girls who live there.
- Difference MakerBarbara Harrell-Bond gives refugees what they say they need most – legal aid
The tiny Fahamu Refugee Programme has an ambitious goal: provide lawyers and advocates around the world with the legal resources they need to win a refugee's case.
- Tiny houses for the homeless: an affordable solution catches on
Governments and nonprofits are working together on a practical solution to homelessness through the construction of tiny-house villages.
- Who'll fund journalism? Meet the new Medicis
With newspaper revenues falling billionaires are stepping in to fund reporting, either by buying existing media outlets or starting new ones.
- A credit card that steers consumers out of debt
The Trust Card, or 'un-credit card,' helps low-income borrowers shed unhealthy debt and stay out of debt while accessing affordable credit.
- MacArthur recepients show 'what's working best'
The MacArthur Foundation has given a financial boost to seven 'highly creative' nonprofit groups that have 'outsized impact in bringing about social change.'
- Money pools: a centuries-old savings tool reinvented
eMoneyPool updates and improves on the 1,000-year-old practice of poor people pooling their savings as an informal banking system.
- Difference MakerDenise Dunning unlocks girl power through Let Girls Lead
Let Girls Lead has provided training and services to more than 40,000 adolescent girls to foster a movement of global girl power.
- Darfur cookstove project brings economic, health benefits
Ten thousand efficient cookstoves are being delivered to communities in Darfur, saving more than 300,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions over 10 years and bringing other benefits, such as a lower cost for fuel and less smoky homes.
- 'The Sockman' Tom McNamara is all about feet and greet
Retired teacher Tom McNamara travels the US handing out socks to the homeless while listening to their stories.