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Many people, most of them in tropical countries of the Third World, die of preventable, curable diseases.... Malaria, tuberculosis, acute lower-respiratory infections -- in 1998, these claimed 6.1 million lives. People died because the drugs to treat those illnesses are nonexistent or are no longer effective. They died because it doesn't pay to keep them alive. -Ken Silverstein, Millions for Viagra. Pennies for Diseases of the Poor, The Nation, 19th July 1999 The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and does not consist only of the absence of disease or infirmity." One of the most serious issues regarding health today is HIV/AIDS. AIDS weakens our immune system until a point where our bodies cannot fight common diseases. HIV/AIDS is currently one of the most devastating diseases plaguing the world. Estimates from the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS) indicate that approximately 65 million people in the world have been infected with HIV.

The relationship between poverty and ill-health is well established. People from many poor developing countries do not have proper access to public health care systems. This makes many common diseases like the flu become fatal for potentially millions citizens. The deepening poverty across the developing world has created fertile ground for the spread of infectious diseases.. In Africa today, almost half of the population lacks access to safe water and adequate sanitation services. As immune systems have become weakened, the susceptibility of Africa's people to infectious diseases has greatly increased.

Another increasingly pressing health issue today is obesity, and at the other eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Although millions go hungry everyday; abundant food production, incorrect eating habits, and the rise in consumption of unhealthy foods have increased the incidence of obesity the world. Obesity leads to a variety of diseases including heart disease and diabetes. According to the World Watch Institute, while the world’s underfed population has declined slightly since 1980 to 1.1 billion, the number of overweight people has surged to 1.1 billion.

For positive change to happen, the proper education, awareness campaigns and social entrepreneurs can help people learn about the benefits of maintaining a healthy body both physically and spiritually.

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Dr. Govindappa Venkatasamy

Aravind Eye Centre,

India

Millions of people in India would be functionally blind if not for the efforts of Dr. Govindappa Venkatasamy otherwise known as ‘Dr. V’. In India the leading cause of blindness is due to cataracts which are almost always curable. However, for someone to undergo a cataract corrective operation, it would cost a fortune. Facing retirement at the age of 58 in 1978, Dr. V, mortgaged his house so he could open an 11-bed eye hospital in Madurai, India.

Today, the Aravind Eye Centre is one of the largest and most productive eye care facilities in the world. Taking its services to rural India, the Aravind Eye Care System has become self-sustaining, treating over 1.4 million patients each year and allowing two-thirds of the patients to undergo free, costless treatments. Over the years, Aravind has performed more than 2 million surgeries and handled over 16 million outpatients.

The centre links higher payments and better services to its wealthier patients and charges less or nothing for the poor. It is fully sustainable and has achieved no deficiency in the quality of care that the poor receive. As a result of the unique fee system and effective management, Aravind is able to provide free eye care to two-thirds of its patients.

To learn more about Dr. Venkatasamy and the Aravind Eye Care System, visit:

http://www.aravind.org http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Venkataswamy http://www.socialprofitnetwork.org/cs/drv.shtml Learn more about the Aravind partnership with David Green’s Aurolab, a low-cost medical products manufacturer: http://www.changemakers.net/journal/03january/herbst.cfm

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Dr. Victoria Hale

OneWorld Health USA OneWorld Health is the first ever non-profit pharmaceutical company in the world founded by a pharmaceutical scientitst, Dr. Victoria Hale. Dr. Hale wanted people in developing countries who were suffering from various tropical diseases to gain access to low cost, safe and effective medicines. Most of the new medicines for tropical diseases did not exist. �Utilising a unique business model, Dr. Hale has led an effort to build a pharmaceutical company that would cater towards global need instead of financial return. As a result various new therapies for tropical diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, and schistosomiasis are being developed. To learn more about Dr. Hale, visit:

Schwab Foundation

www.oneworldhealth.org

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Wellington Nogueira

Doutores da Alegria Sao Paulo, Brazil

Wellington founded “Doutores da Alegria” which means Doctors of Joy. Today it is a successful cultural non-profit organization with a cast of thirty five professional clowns who perform at 10 major hospitals in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Recife.

Wellington and his team of ‘clown doctors’ are devoted to bringing joy to the lives of hospitalized children, their parents and health care workers through the art of clowning. They constantly visit children in twelve major hospitals of Brazil to perform delightful parodies of medical routines on a one-on-one basis.

Their work takes them to help especially children suffering from trauma in special units such as bone-marrow transplant, intensive care, burn and other areas. Wellington strives to improve the condition of children receiving treatment Brazilian hospitals.

To learn more about Wellington, visit:

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Jamie Oliver

Fifteen Foundation & Feed Me Better London, England Jamie Oliver is the acclaimed young chef who got more people interested in watching cooking shows than ever before. Recently, Jamie was selected as one of the finalists for the Young Social Entrepreneur Award in England. Fifteen Foundation, a charity that Jamie set up, provides opportunities to disadvantaged young people – homeless, unemployed, overcoming drug or alcohol problems - to create for themselves great careers in the restaurant industry. Although still being a new initiative, 22 young people have graduated and many of them are now working in some of the world's best restaurants. His other campaign, Feed Me Better, aims to help children eat more balanced diets at schools. According to Jamie, increasing numbers of children are eating an unbalanced diet. Junk food dominates the school meal and the children are not getting the right nutrients to help them grow, concentrate at school, and stay healthy. He realised that the food in most schools do not meet standard nutritional guidelines and therefore decided to develop a whole new range of healthier school meals made out of fresh ingredients.

To learn more about Jamie and his work, visit:

www.jamieoliver.com www.fifteenrestaurant.com www.feedmebetter.com

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Jeroo Billimoria

Childline India

Millions of children in India roam the streets in search of shelter and are extremely vulnerable to illness and abuse. Childline, which was founded by Jeroo Billimoria, is a 24-hour hotline for children in distress that operates in 53 Indian cities and has assisted over three million vulnerable children in need of medical assistance, protection from abuse, education, repatriation, counselling, long-term shelter and other emergency services. Using the toll-free number 1098, Childline is linked to an extensive network of child-service organizations, which makes it possible for citizens across India to help children in danger at any time. ��When a distress call comes into Childline, it is routed to a child service agency, where volunteer street children themselves often respond to calls. Childline works with police departments, hospitals, railway officials, and organizations that provide shelter, repatriation, education, vocational services and disability assistance. The advertising and consulting firms Ogilvy & Mather and Tata Consultancy Services have helped Childline develop its brand and franchise model.

To learn more about Jeroo Bilimoria and Childline, visit:

http://www.schwabfound.org/schwabentrepreneurs.htm?schwabid=341 http://www.indianngos.com/people/schwab/jeroo.htm http://www.ashoka.org/fellows/viewprofile3.cfm?reid=122023 http://www.changemakers.net/journal/00july/billimoria.cfm http://www.childhelplineinternational.org/index.php

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Vera Cordeiro

Associação Saúde Criança Renascer� Rio de Janeiro, Brazil She was troubled by the high incidence of repeat admissions for children whose poor living conditions made them chronically ill. In response, she founded Associação Saúde Criança Renascer (Renascer Children’s Health Association), which helps mothers in the slums of Rio de Janeiro to prevent recurring sickness in their children. Renascer provides food, medicine, counselling, housing repair, job training and other assistance to impoverished families. Today, the Renascer project has helped more than 7000 children.

To learn more about Vera Cordeiro, visit:

http://www.changemakers.net/journal/04april/fallender.cfm

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Environment

The state of the environment that we live in is in shambles. Environmental degradation refers to the diminishment of a local ecosystem or the biosphere as a whole due to human activity. Environmental degradation occurs when nature's resources (such as trees, habitat, earth, water, air) are being consumed faster than nature can replenish them. An unsustainable situation occurs when natural capital (the sum total of nature's resources), is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity, at a minimum, only uses nature's resources to the point where they can be replenished naturally. Commonly, sustainable development is known to us as ‘to meet the needs of today without compromising those of tomorrow. The earth that we live in has scarce and limited resources. This scarcity is made worse by the ever increasing population of the world and the demands of this insatiable population. Most of the economic progress that surrounds us today comes at a cost. Frequently we do not factor in the environmental cost of purchasing products and services. The energy that we consume pollutes our environment, causing serious health risks and damage to the habitat of millions of organisms. Simple products like paper that we use in schools and offices are attainable at low prices although every tree that we cut to make the paper reduces the amount of fresh air needed for survival. This typically means reducing consumption of resources to lmaintainable levels and protecting the environment from the damaging effects of pollution.��http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/EnvIssues.asp

World Watch Institute - www.worldwatch.org

http://takingitglobal.org/understanding/environment

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Simon Boone

Generation Solar

Ontario, Canada

Simon founded Generation Solar at the age 25, a for-profit company working towards introducing sustainable energy technology. Generation Solar’s triple-bottom line business model is directed towards simultaneously meeting: social, environmental and economic goals. Generation Solar is attempting to meet growing demand for sustainable environmental technologies.

To learn more about Simon Boone and Generation Solar, visit:

www.generationsolar.com

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Education

April 2000 marked the tenth anniversary of the World Conference on Education for All. This coincided with a promise that was made in 1990 by the developed nations and the development community that ensures all children would have the opportunity to receive a good quality basic education by the end of the decade. Today, there are now more children out of school than there were in 1990, the gender gap between girls and boys remains, and the majority of children in school receive a very low standard of education. According the Oxfam, “if current trends continue, there will be 57 million African children of primary school age out of school in 2015. In an information society, education is recognized as form of ‘human capital’ which can generate high returns for economic growth.

By the early 1990s the idea of education being a solution itself for poverty became part of mainstream thinking about development issues. It was the Nobel-prize winning Indian economist Amartya Sen, who first changed the general economic view of education. He wrote that low income was one aspect of poverty, but deprivation was about something more than material wealth: it was also about the absence of what Sen called ‘fundamental freedoms’, which included good health and education. Sen notes that education is as important as income, because it is needed to realise human potential in a broader sense.

The poor in many developing countries do not have access infrastructure such as schools and universities that many of us take for granted. Therefore illiteracy is a pressing educational issue that is so widespread that it is nearly impossible to envision a solution. According to the UN, nearly 50% of all female children in the developing world are illiterate. It is now commonly recognized that appropriate education is the most effective weapon for the eradication of poverty and ensuring sustainable development as well as achieving gender equity.

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Bunker Roy

Barefoot College

India

Barefoot College challenges the notion of formal education that many of us require to perform tasks and the fact that it can be quite costly for the rural poor. Barefoot College identifies poor rural jobless youth who have not been able to finish their formal education and provides them with an alternative form of education, one that requires a hands-on approach. These young people are trained to be "barefoot" doctors, teachers, engineers, architects, designers, metal workers, IT specialists and communicators. �Over the years, Barefoot professionals have successfully introduced solar electricity in several thousand houses in 8 Indian states and installed hand pumps in the Himalayas, a task which urban engineers had declared technically impossible. Barefoot water engineers have planned and installed piped drinking water and barefoot educators have been trained as pre-primary and night schools teachers. Nearly 3,000 boys and girls that have to perform household chores during the day attend over 150 Barefoot-run night schools.

To learn more about Barefoot College, visit:

http://www.unesco.org/most/bpik16.htm http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/lwf/doc/portfolio/opinion9.htm http://www.indianngos.com/people/schwab/bunker.htm http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_03/uk/dossier/txt02.htm

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Sriram Ayer

NalandaWay, India NalandaWay tries to identify the hidden value inside the child that remains unidentified; this is important in terms of the child’s life-long growth as an individual. Sriram Ayer, the founder of Nalandaway believes the education system in India has created a capable workforce but has failed to create a framework that builds skills, capabilities and attitudes for people to co-exist peacefully. NalandaWay's model is based on the principle that a child provided with the right environment, infrastructure, tools for learning and discovery, and hand-holding by a mentor, would make him or her creative with a strong urge to compete, collaborate and co-exist. The child develops a ‘rounded personality’ with increasing independence, capabilities for creating plans towards achieving goals, tackling problems, and making important decisions. The current focus is on children in the age group of 6 to 17 coming from low-income families. NalandaWay currently serves 223 childrens in 7 villages in Chennai.

To learn more about Sriram, visit:

www.nalandaway.org

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Mark Teh

The Taman Medan Community Arts Project Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia The Taman Medan Community Arts Project was initiated by Mark Teh, one of Malaysia’s most talented young directors. This project was launched with aim of taking arts into local communities. The young people in this particular community were introduced to the theatre, movement, visual arts and film. Using these skills and art forms the young people expressed their thoughts, ideas and feelings and told the stories of their lives. The project culminated in the making of 4 short films which were written, directed, performed and shot by the children. The films dealt with themes ranging from truancy, sexual abuse and the story of a missing girl.

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Health

Dr. Govindappa Venkatasamy

Dr. Victoria Hale

Wellington Nogueira

Jamie Oliver

Jeroo Billimoria

Vera Cordeiro

Environment

Simon Boone

Education

Bunker Roy

Sriram Ayer

Mark Teh

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