"La Mazateca" Video of our stove builders and users

Please check this out.  It is in Spanish, we are working on translating it and we will post an English version soon.

Testing a Social Business Model for Ecological Sanitation

SOIL Launches the Household Toilet Project in Shada, Cap-Haitien Haiti

by Leah Page on Oct 31, 2012

For those familiar with SOIL, the Household Toilet Project probably doesn’t sound all that new. For years we’ve dreamed about a social business model for providing household sanitation in Haiti, and today we are happy to report that our dream has started to become a reality! On October 30, 2012, SOIL and our partners at Re.Source installed the first 25 private household toilets in the Shada neighborhood of Cap-Haitien. The SOIL inauguration hosted yesterday was a combination of celebration and logistics: families signed a contract with SOIL, picked up their toilets, and participated in a SOIL training, but they also sang, danced, and rejoiced with Regional Director Theo Huitema. This dream has been a long time in the making!....(more)

PLU Talk "Suffering from water in Oaxaca"

From the talk Rick gave at PLU late last month.

"We all need water, said Rick McKenney, executive director of Water for Humans.

McKenney kicked off the second day of the Wang Center’s Water Symposium with a talk about the challenges and opportunities with water and sanitation in Oaxaca.

“Suffering from water – this is what Mexicans say when they are dealing with a lack of water,” McKenney said. “Mexico considers water a public right but there’s a juxtaposition and some tension there. How do you equitably charge people for this asset?”

By By Katie Scaff '13

The Thirsty planet PLU

Please join me Thursday evening and Friday for a conference at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma WA.

Maud Barlow is the Keynote speaker and will speak Thursday evening and the conference will go all day Friday. Rick Will speak about

“Oaxaca: Water and Sanitation: Challenges and Opportunities” at 9:15 Friday morning.

Seattle University Students in Free Enterprise join our efforts

I am pleased to announce that the student group from Seattle University Students in Free Enterprise have joined our team.  This student team will help us in a wide range of activities, including social venture enterprise business plan development, expanding our impact in Oaxaca by helping build more Family Ecosystems.  Over the next few months we will work together to develop a joint strategy to both maximize their learning opportunities and increase our delivery of services in Oaxaca.

Over the coming weeks we will introduce these fine dedicated students and outline their area of focus.

Another reason to attend the Global Washington Annual Conference: Dean Karlan, Yale University Economics Professor,

Global Washington

Conference 2010

November 15 & 16

Microsoft Campus, Redmond

 

Check out the conference agenda, submission and selection criteria for the Video Showcase, and register here!

 

CLICK HERE to access the social networking site connecting members of the development community! (If you'd like to join, but haven't received an invitation, email megan@glboalwa.org)

 

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We are pleased to welcome Yale Professor of Economics Dean Karlan as a guest speaker at our upcoming conference!  

In 2007, The New York Times listed Karlan as one of 13 young “Economists to Watch” for his work in microfinance.  Times blogger Steven D. Levitt described Karlan as an economist who “has been doing important and innovative work, often using field experiments to answer questions related to financial decisions in developing countries.”  Karlan is an expert in economic issues relating to charitable giving and global development methodologies—especially microfinance. He is President of Innovations for Poverty Action; serves on the Board of Directors of the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab; and is Founder and President of stickK.com. He also received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2007.

At the conference, Dr. Karlan will share his thoughts on the challenges and successes in evaluation and impact assessment for global development work. He will provide an economist’s perspective on these solutions, particularly:

1) Evaluation matters. Wins and losses are not always where you expect them.

2) Methodology matters: Studying impact means answering a simple but elusive question: how have lives changed compared to how lives would have changed had the program not existed?  

3) Design matters.  The way products and processes are offered can have big effects on decisions people make.  

 

4) The impact of mobile technology on development, highlighting examples and successful partnerships.

Sources:

Steven J. Levitt, “Congratulations to Dean Karlan”, December 5, 2007, http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/congratulations-to-dean-karlan/?pagemode=print

“Economists to Watch,” The New York Times, January 10, 2007, available from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/business/10leonhardt.html?_r=2&ex=1169096400&en=be93236a9e2a3a7f&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin

 

 

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Speaker Spotlight   Dean Karlan Professor of Economics Yale University   Dean Karlan is a Professor of Economics at Yale University.  Karlan is President of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization that creates and evaluates solutions to social and development problems, and works to scale-up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors.  Karlan is on the Board of Directors of the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab.  As a social entrepreneur, He is Founder and President of stickK.com, a website that uses lessons from behavioral economics to help people reach personal goals, such as weight loss and smoking cessation, through commitment contracts.  Karlan received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and was named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.  His research focuses on microeconomic issues of financial decision-making, specifically employing experimental methodologies to examine what works, what does not, and why in interventions in microfinance, health, behavioral economics and charitable giving.  In microfinance, he has studied credit impact, interest rate policy, savings product design, credit scoring policies, entrepreneurship training, and group versus individual liability.  Karlan received a Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T., an M.B.A. and an M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Co-founder Rick McKenney to speak at the upcoming Global WA Conference Nov 15-16

Global WA is hosting its second major conference here at the Microsoft Campus
Redmond, WA on November 15-16.

Rick McKenney has been invited to join a distinguished group of experts to discuss:

Ensuring Environmental Sustainability: Stories of Successful
partnerships  November 15, 2010

Other panelists for this session include:

• Kari Vigerstol (kvigerstol@tnc.org).  Kari can talk about the 'water funds' they've set up in Latin America to fund conservation of watershed lands - also an example of public/private partnership also. 
• Marla Smith-Nilson, Executive Director , Water 1st International sustainability issues, specifically as they relate to water and sanitation projects MarlaSmith@water1st.org

To register please see this link Global WA Conference

Weekly working update 8 June 2010

 Weekly working update 8 June 2010

Stan submitted our grant application for All People Be Happy Foundation.  They have responded with questions to clarify the proposal.  Rick and Stan are working hard on the next grant from Ashoka Change-makers.

The next step in this process is to send letters to the Governor and newly announced candidates in the Oaxaca State government to formally announce the project and design of the constructed wetland/treatment plant for Villa de Etla and Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo Etla.

We have a great opportunity right now we need to take advantage of.  We need to have a full bid proposal ready to submit by Jan 2011, and we need to move rather quickly to meet this deadline.  In support of this we have finally secured our second set of blackwater testing. The Instituto Tecnológico del Valle de Oaxaca (ITO) will be analyzing the samples, and Maria and folks from Santo Domingo will be collecting them along with our staff person Nelly. This test will entail taking 6 samples over a 24 hour period for 5 days in a row.  Along with the blackwater samples they will be measuring the flow rate. The flow rate and water analysis are critical steps to refine the design of the treatment system.

We are planning to launch a fund raising campaign to support the initial design effort.  Part of this fund-raising includes a broadening of the circle of folks and engaging other organizations in or efforts.  Last month, Rick was the panel monitor for the Spring Fulbright Conference held in Seattle.  Rick moderated a panel discussion about social entrepreneurship with three other social entrepreneurs from the Seattle area.  I was fortunate to share the stage with a fellow panelists from the PATH Foundation. PATH supports technology projects for the developing world.  From this event Stan and I have been invited to meet with PATH’s Water and Sanitation group later this week.