Grocery Audits and Change Clubs

Here's something worth knowing about. Women out there are actually conducting grocery audits, walking down store aisles scrutinizing the ingredients in food products and translating their findings into actions that provide communities with suggestions on how to be healthier.  One idea to help parents in grocery stores identify healthy snacks for children quickly is adding labels next to those items on the shelves.

Groups of women in the United States in "Change Clubs" have been leading campaigns to do such things as analyze the food on shelves, wander through neighborhoods to make out what prevents the locals from walking and exercising more, and discover ways to help people become healthier.

Dr. Miriam Nelson, professor of Nutrition at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, is the one who actually started the Change Clubs. Her idea is to use the power of women working together to increase health in communities. With 8 initial Change Club sites in the US, click here to form a Change Club, helping women support change and healthiness in your area. 

Thanks to a Deceptively Simple Product

What company's products have been used in 140 countries? What company has had an effect on millions upon millions of children? What company's CEO has said he reaches more youngsters in the world "than Coca-Cola or Pepsi could ever hope to reach up to the age of ten"?  Give up?

It's Serum Institute of India.

Serum Institute of India is a leader in the production of vaccines. The Insitute was founded in 1966, "with the aim of manufacturing life-saving immuno-biologicals, which were in shortage in the country and imported at high prices." It manufactures vaccines against Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis, as well as Measles, Mumps and Rubella.  The company's reputation and reach is such that agencies like the World Health Organization, the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), and the US National Institutes of Health are working with it to develop vaccines against Meningococcal A, H1N1 Influenza, Rotavirus and other diseases.

Serum Institute's mission is "to develop quality vaccines and offer them at inexpensive prices." Learn more about Serum Institute's high quality standards and modern production means on the company website. 

KaBOOM!

Many of you in the US will no doubt have heard about KaBOOM!  Elsewhere, though, little is known about this non-profit organization, "dedicated to saving play for America’s children." What is KaBOOM!? In their own words, "We are peppy, purple-adorned people who passionately promote the power of play!"

It's clear that children are more sendentary than in the past, back when there were fewer TVs, video games and computers. According to KaBOOM!, "Our children are playing less than any previous generation, and this lack of play is causing them profound physical, intellectual, social, and emotional harm. The Play Deficit is an important problem, and it is imperative that we solve it to ensure our children have long, healthy, and happy lives."

Created officially in April 1996 by Darell Hammond, according to their website, so far "KaBOOM! has built over 2,000 playgrounds, saving play for over 5.5 million children." You can help them build one too: click here for KaBOOM!'s detailed Project Planner that provides all the information you will need to build a playground in just one day! 

Or click here to find out how to make your community more playful. One simple idea: sit on a bench near a park - it will make the play area safer, especially if you sit there regularly and take friends with you. Or take a picture of a playground near you and then upload that photo on the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder to help parents find nearby playspaces.

There are many ways to help this cause, which will help put smiles on children's faces and make them healthier at the same time! To find out more go to http://kaboom.org/ or read about the movement in Hammond's book.

Aiding the Delivery of Health Care in Africa

Riders for Health is "working to make sure all health workers in Africa have access to reliable transportation so they can reach the most isolated people with regular and predictable health care." In its own words, the social enterprise's vision is "of a world in which the poor do not suffer and die for lack of access to health care and other vital services simply because they are isolated by distance or terrain."

Founded in the UK in 1988 by Andrea and Barry Coleman, current estimates reckon that 11 million Africans have access to health care due to Riders' programs. The organization manages over 1,000 vehicles to deliver health care services in Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia. According to Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs 2011, "Riders for Health’s innovative transport systems incorporate driving skills training, daily maintenance procedures, fuelling supply-chain logistics for replacement parts, and interval preventative maintenance. By using a motorcycle, for example, health workers have increased their number of visits to remote communities by at least 300%."

Just one example: in Zimbabwe, health workers driving motocycles were able to deliver mosquito nets and drugs against malaria to secluded areas, decreasing the death rate from the disease there by 20%.

Since one of the main obstacles to health care provision in Africa is poor access and distribution of health products to rural areas, Riders for Health's initiative has proved fundamental to aiding people even in the most out-of-the-way places.

"A Lie of the Mind"

Quite a bit has been written about this young lady in the past few weeks, but she's definitely worth mentioning again, for her positive attitude. Samantha Kittle has a brain tumor and she has decided to tell the world about the experience in her blog, www.alieofthemind.com/
As described in the Guardian on 26 April, "Moving, graphic, darkly funny, Samantha Kittle's blog is the story, not of an illness, but of a woman who refuses to be defined by one." Check it out; there's nothing like a sense of humor and a positive attitude to remind us of how precious life is.

One Woman against the Odds in Somalia

Although gunmen raided her hospital in Somalia destroying equipment and records, Dr. Hawa Abdi's compound continues to offer a refuge to thousands. The clinic, school and feeding program she built on her property over three decades help an estimated 100,000 people find relative safety from the fighting and poverty in Somalia, not far from Mogadishu. Today Dr. Adbi's persistence and humanitarianism has resulted in a two-story 400-bed hospital with free medical care, 3 operating theaters, 6 doctors, 43 nurses, a school with 800 students and a center for women where they learn nutrition and sewing. What's more, Dr. Abdi's work will continue despite her 63 years of age and an operation to remove a tumor in her brain; her two daughters will ensure the haven of healing she built continues. Read more about this amazing woman in an IHT article.

Microbes that Might Cure Us

A huge number of microbes live in and on us. They're in our lungs, mouths and intestines, and on our skin. Scientists know they help us digest, breaking down what we eat, but they are discovering that each individual's microbiome, the collection of microbes in their body, helps protect them. For example, bacteria in the nose produce antibiotics that attack viruses we breathe in. They have also been found to cure infections in the digestive tract and elsewhere and to help the immune system. Yet researchers still don't know exactly how microbes operate on our health, or why studies disclose that diseases are often associated with major changes in our bacterial ecosystems. For example, people who suffer from asthma have a different set of microbes from people without the condition. And obese people have species not found in normal-weight people. So scientists are investigating the huge number of microbes in our bodies and their DNA to find out more about how they help keep us healthy. That knowledge will help discover how the microbiome can be used to fight disease. Read Carl Zimmer's article How Microbes Defend and Define Us for more details.

Health and Happiness in 2011

May you be blessed with good health in 2011, and not take all that is positive in life for granted. There is much in the world to be happy about, there is much goodness that must be recognized. So share your achievements and positive stories with us all! Happy New Year.