June 7,2007
by Ellen Knuti

As the need to meet basic human needs grows more and more dire across the globe, innovators from both the private and public sectors have begun to take action in developing tools to facilitate universal access to food and water, energy, healthcare, education and transportation.  As exemplary voices of their environments, musicians have always played an important role in movements of social change, and inductees to Afropop’s Hall of Fame are certainly no exception.  As well as using their individual fame to serve as social catalysts, musicians and other patrons of the arts have established a plethora of organizations geared towards raising both money and awareness for increasingly imminent social issues.   

Habib Koité and Oxfam

In 1989 Koité formed his group, Bamada, in Mali, where social unrest was reaching a peak prior to the first democratic, multiparty elections in 1992.  Over the course of his 20-year musical career, Koité has learned to use his cultural influence to pursue positive ends.  "I think that my voice is one that carries. Because I have a certain popularity at the national and international level, I must seize this opportunity to make an appeal to the entire world to try to help the farmers in underdeveloped countries sell their products," Koité said, "It is my hope that the organizations which guide world trade will establish measures to address prices and subsidies more equitable for all countries throughout the world." Koité has teamed up with Oxfam in their “Make Trade Fair” campaign, which aims to protest privileging farming subsidies and the unlawful dumping of commodities on poor countries.  Koité has also used his concert tours to educate on the plight of struggling farmers in the developing world.   

More on Oxfam available at: www.oxfamamerica.org
Habib Koité: www.habibkoite.com
http://www.putumayo.com/acousticafrica



Youssou N’Dour

Recently named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2007 (and inducted into Afropop’s Hall of Fame in 2005), Youssou N’Dour has worked with the United Nations and served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since his appointment in 1991. With his ever-growing popularity, N’Dour has grown into a major African leader, pioneering numerous campaigns to expedite the spread of technology, working to combat malaria, and performing at concert events to advance a wide variety of social initiatives.  In addition to investing in significant forms of media production in Sénégal, N’Dour also founded the Youth Network for Development, whose first initiative is the Joko Project (joko translates to “link” or “connection”), which is aimed at opening community-owned internet cafés across Africa where visitors can surf the Web, send e-mails and take computer courses at a fraction of the amount charged by cybercafes in larger cities.   

Fondation Youssou N’Dour – Youth Network for Development:
http://www.fondation-youssou-ndour.org/

Unicef and Youssou Ndour:
http://www.unicef.org/people/people_youssou_ndour.html

Time’s 100 Most Influential People:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1595332_1615978,00.html

UNESCO interview with N’Dour:
http://www.unesco.org/courier/1998_08/uk/dires/txt1.htm



EDUN: Socially Conscious Clothing

Edun – nude spelled backward – is a clothing company created by U2 frontman Bono and his wife Ali Hewson, with New York clothing designer Rogan Gregory. Since its launch in the spring of 2005, the company has worked to bring the issue of sustainable employment and stable commercial relationships to the developing world through high fashion in the industrialized world. Bono explained, “This is the fashion equivalent of mothers looking at the back of a can to see what exactly she’s going to feed to her kids. We’re answering a demand that’s just stirring”  (AP News).  Thus Edun promotes conscious consumerism, with a radical and crucially stylish twist.

Edun grew out of a desire to shift the focus away from aid in the developing world, particularly Africa, to trade as a means of building sustainable communities. Edun employs factories in Africa, South America and India that provide fair wages to workers and practice good business ethics as part of a specially designed business model intended to encourage foreign investment in developing nations.  In 1980, Africa had a 6% share of world trade; by 2002 this had dropped to just 2% despite the fact that Africa has 12 % of the world's population. As a company, Edun supports trade as a potential solution for alleviating widespread poverty because if Africa succeeded in capturing an additional 1% share of global trade, the continent would earn $70 billion more in exports each year - more than three times what the region currently receives in international assistance.
Information on EDUN available at: http://www.edunonline.com/live/ 

Notable Innovations in Humanitarian Development: Designing a Better Future

According to the World Water Council, 1.1 billion people (18% of the world's population) lack access to safe drinking water, while dirty water and poor sanitation account for the vast majority of the almost 2 million child deaths each year - almost 5,000 every day- from waterborne illnesses (United Nations Human Development Report 2006).  At any one time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from waterborne diseases (Fact Sheet on Water and Sanitation, 2006, United Nations Water for Life).  Needless to say, access to safe drinking water is a concern of imminent importance in the developing world. 

The LifeStraw

Designed to turn surface water into potable drinking water, the LifeStraw successfully removes particles as small as 15 microns.  This purification process significantly reduces the risk of infection by common waterborne illnesses such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, and typhoid.  The LifeStraw contains a specially developed hydrogen-based resin – an extraordinarily effective material that kills bacteria on contact, and doesn’t require electrical power or spare parts.  The LifeStraw has revolutionized individual water purification systems and is already in use in Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Uganda.   

For more information, visit: http://www.lifestraw.com/en/low/low.asp





The PlayPump

The PlayPump is a large-scale water pump powered by a children’s merry-go-round.  By rotating the merry-go-round water is purified and pumped into a 2,500 liter (660 gallon) holding tank designed for the use of an entire community. 

More than 700 PlayPumps are currently in use in South Africa, providing clean drinking water for more than 1 million people.

For more information, visit:
http://www.playpumps.org/site/c.hqLNIXOEKrF/b.2559311/k.7BCB/Playpumps_International_and_the_PlayPump_water_system_Kids_play_Water_Pumps.htm








“XO”: The $100 Laptop

Designed by Nicolas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab at MIT, the original proposal for the low-cost, high-efficiency computer was first laid out at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.  Emphasizing the laptop’s importance as marking the beginning of “open-source education,” Negroponte’s prototype was welcomed as an “expression of global solidarity” by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. 

The laptops themselves are encased in durable rubber and their AC adaptors act dually as carrying straps.  Each XO has a 500MHz processor, with flash memory and four USB ports.  The computers are linked together through “mesh networking,” which maximizes the number of computers able to access the internet through a single connection.  The computer is currently being tested in Brazil and Nigeria, and is scheduled for launch in September 2007.

For more information, visit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC): http://laptop.org/





To see these breakthrough inventions and more, visit “Design for the Other 90%,” currently on display at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NYC.  The exhibit “highlights the growing trend among designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world’s population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by professional designers.”  On exhibition are products of exceptional and innovative design aimed at increasing access.  Items featured include the Q-Drum, a cylindrical container that rolls along the ground carrying up to 75 liters of water (pictured below and already in use in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania); the PermaNet, a long-lasting polyester net impregnated with the insecticide deltamethrin which repels and kills the mosquitoes whose bites cause malaria; the Jaipur prosthesis, an artificial leg manufactured from inexpensive materials in local production facilities; pumps designed to extract ground water during dry seasons and earthenware pots with capable of keeping food hot or cold for hours at a time.

The exhibit is on display from May 4 to September 23, 2007.

For more information on the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, visit:
http://www.cooperhewitt.org/

A comprehensive slideshow of the exhibit compiled by The International Herald is available at: http://www.iht.com/slideshows/2007/04/25/style/web-0430design30.php. 

First published: www.afropop.org