kristiewang's blog

Nutrients for All: Thriving Ecosystems for Productive, Resilient Food Systems

Created: 07/25/13 by Kristie Wang

Natural ecosystems ensure that vital nutrients flow from soils to food to people. Thriving ecosystems are the bedrock of healthy nutrient chains, the basis of all life on the planet.

So what’s the issue?

The New Farm Bill: An Opportunity to Create a Sustainable Agricultural System

Created: 12/20/11 by Kristie Wang

Change could be on the horizon for agriculture and food in the United States. The controversial 2012 Farm Bill, which failed to pass in November, is back on the table and due for a rewrite. (For a recap of the original “Secret Farm Bill” and how it failed, read this).

The new Farm Bill could be a tremendous opportunity to finally introduce both incremental and systems-level innovation in the way we eat and grow our food.

It’s important to note that the Farm Bill affects more than just farmers—it impacts everyone who, well, eats.

Have a Slavery-free Holiday: Buy Ethical Chocolate

Created: 12/08/11 by Kristie Wang


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This isn’t intended to ruin your holiday cheer, but it definitely caused me to think twice before buying big-brand chocolate for an upcoming holiday fête: Much of mainstream chocolate contains cocoa produced by child slaves.

Helping Refugees Heal: Pathways to Wellness

Created: 11/29/11 by Kristie Wang


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While working as a social worker at a refugee resettlement agency, Beth Farmer saw that mental health support was a major gap in the services accessible to refugees.

“When you’re driving a client to a job interview, and they’re crying and telling you that they lived in the woods for three years, sucking water from mud, and that their newborn baby and wife were killed in front of their eyes — of course, you start to think that this person needs some extra support,” she said (in an understatement).

Even after fleeing unimaginable circumstances like terror, murder, rape, or torture, refugees face extraordinary challenges. There are about 15.4 million refugees worldwide (not including 27.5 million internally displaced people); and less than 1 percent eventually qualify for resettlement with the UN after a rigorous application process.

Refugees who do make it to the United States are immediately under pressure to quickly gain economic self-sufficiency.

Wal-MartCare – Could it Work?

Created: 11/22/11 by Kristie Wang

Should we be celebrating the fact that Wal-Mart is considering joining the health care industry? The retail giant made big news last week when NPR learned that it was seeking partnerships with health firms for a major expansion of its in-store medical clinics. According to Wal-Mart’s request, the retail giant wants to “dramatically: 1) lower the cost of health care while maintaining or improving outcomes, and 2) expand access to high-quality health services by becoming the largest provider of primary health care services in the nation.”

Most of the commenters that weighed in for NPR’s article expressed doubts. Ann O’Malley, physician and senior health researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change, said:

"Maybe Wal-Mart can deliver a lot of this stuff more cheaply because it is an expert at doing this with other types of widgets, but health care is not a widget and managing individual human beings is not nearly as simple as selling commercial products to consumers.”

I admit, my first reaction to the news was also skepticism. Wal-Mart’s abysmal reputation for “rolling back” employee health benefits doesn’t seem to make it a frontrunner for becoming the savior for America’s worsening health care crisis.

Tech and Design for Social Change – After the Hype

Created: 11/08/11 by Kristie Wang

Recently, I’ve been posting about innovative gadgets (health-related devices last month and fresh water yesterday). We’re experiencing a unique and exciting cultural moment: while design and innovation once trended towards the production of sophisticated, expensive technology, innovators are now creating elegantly simple and inexpensive solutions that have the potential to make a big impact on the world’s problems.

But it’s important to remember that creating lasting social change takes more than just a gadget or technology, no matter how revolutionary. The infamous PlayPump fiasco illustrates the potential pitfalls of models that rely on a new device without seeing the bigger picture. 

Simple Gadgets for Fresh, Clean Water

Created: 11/07/11 by Kristie Wang

Access to freshwater for agriculture, drinking, and household use will be potentially one of the greatest challenges facing the world as our population crests over 7 billion and demand increases for both drinking water and agricultural goods that need water. Add drought-causing climate change and desertification to the mix, and we may be facing a global freshwater crisis.
 
Innovators are looking ahead, however, and coming up with better ways to make the most of scarce resources. Here are five up-and-coming technologies—all simple and affordable—that are helping people access clean water and use it more efficiently.

Update on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Yes, It’s Still There)

Created: 11/04/11 by Kristie Wang


One-third of all albatross chicks die on the Midway Atoll, often as the result of being mistakenly fed plastic by their parents.

The North Pacific Gyre is commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But a more accurate description might be a giant vortex of plastic soup, roughly twice the size of Texas. 
 
Awareness of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is widespread, but it hasn’t translated into widespread action—yet.  
 
Tackling the challenge is daunting, but the truth is that we CAN all do something to end plastic waste in our oceans. But first, here’s what we know so far (e.g., the scary part):
 
6.4 million metric tons of plastic circles the globe.

China’s Cultural Crisis – Bystander Apathy and Empathy

Created: 10/28/11 by Kristie Wang


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Last Friday, YueYue, the toddler that was run over twice in China and ignored by 18 passersby, died from her injuries. The incident was caught on closed circuit camera, and the online video of YueYue lying bleeding in a gutter while pedestrians and bikers swerved to avoid her went viral and garnered over 1.5 million views on Youku video, a popular video sharing site.  
 
Nationwide, newspapers and online communities have continued to discuss how such horrifying inaction might reflect a deeper cultural problem in China. While many Internet commentators have pointed to the possibility that in China, ethics have been left behind in the wake of economic development and urbanization, I think there’s more to the issue.

A New Paradigm for Biomedical Research

Created: 10/20/11 by Kristie Wang


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In the world of biomedicine, a few trailblazers are envisioning a new way for researchers to share information and accelerate the progress of curing human disease. According to Stephen Friend, Ashoka Fellow and founder of SAGE Bionetworks, academic and commercial researchers typically work in isolation. They are “hunting and gathering,” accumulating data that becomes protected intellectual property. In this competitive atmosphere, research is often duplicated, and progress that could be accelerated by cooperation is stonewalled. 
 
SAGE Bionetworks is working to change that. The nonprofit hopes to create a new paradigm of cooperation through an open-source commons that incentivizes information sharing and, ultimately, benefits health consumers. 

Engineering a Way for Businesses to Partner with Schools: An Interview with Lila Ibrahim

Created: 10/19/11 by Kristie Wang

“Engineering students want to solve the world’s problems and to use engineering to do so.”
 
In this Ashoka Changemakers interview, Lila Ibrahim, an internationally-recognized leader in the field of engineering and business, discusses how she encourages women to become technologists, and how to build successful private-sector partnerships that strengthen science, technology, education, and math (STEM) learning in schools. 
 
Ibrahim is a partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. Before joining KPCB, Ibrahim had a diverse 18-year career with Intel Corp, where she led the startup business of Intel's Emerging Markets Product Group, as well as Intel’s Digital Village Initiative, which delivered technology projects to advance entrepreneurship, health, education, and e-governance all over the world. Ibrahim was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and was featured on the cover of ForbesWoman (2009) for her role in promoting women in technology.
 
During the past decade, Ibrahim has established and sustained three computer labs at the orphanage in Lebanon where her father was raised. She earned her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University, where she continues to guest lecture. 

Good News in Rwanda: Strong Strides in Maternal Health

Created: 10/17/11 by Kristie Wang

Just 17 years ago, civil war in Rwanda culminated in a horrific 100-day genocide that killed between 800,000 and 1,000,000 citizens. Today, however, the country is making notable strides towards the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, and against all odds has doubled the life expectancy of its citizens. Despite the scars left by decades of violence, Rwanda’s story is changing into one of hope and pragmatic determination at the local and national level.
 
Through an ambitious set of health reforms, the country is saving the lives of children and mothers. The backbone of Rwanda’s newly-decentralized health system is its vast network of over 45,000 local community health workers. Each village elects three members to serve as trained community health workers — one each for maternal health, child health, and community health. 
 
Because 85 percent of Rwanda’s people live in rural agrarian areas, more than an hour’s walk from the nearest health center, the presence of local health workers is vital, particularly for pregnant women.

International Day of Rural Women

Created: 10/14/11 by Kristie Wang


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Every October 15, the United Nations celebrates the International Day of Rural Women. Rural women make up nearly half of the world’s farmers, and in some countries represent over 60 percent of the agricultural labor force. When you consider that the world’s population is set to double by 2050, the importance of rural women for food security around the globe comes into sharp focus. 
 
Rural women are also arguably the backbone of many societies in the developing world. According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, “across the developing world, rural women carry the main responsibility for providing the food, water, and fuel needed by their families. And the quality of the care that mothers give to their children and other household members influences the prospects for healthy and productive lives for all.”
 
By celebrating rural women, we recognize their invaluable role, as well as the need to address the obstacles that they continue to face. While men may have access to land, education, financing, and technology, women seldom have these same opportunities. 

The New Minimalism: Five Low-Cost Health Gadgets Express Genius in Simplicity

Created: 10/13/11 by Kristie Wang

Around the world, innovators are going back to basics. Since September, The New York Times has been running an ongoing segment, “Small Fixes,” featuring low-cost health solutions that have a big impact. 

The simple solutions include using vinegar to assist in removing pre-cancerous cervical lesions and folding a sari cloth four times to create a filter that reduces 99 percent of cholera in water.
 
The innovations featured in the NYT are remarkable in their simplicity, affordability, and cleverness. (The NYT did, however, include LifeStraw in its featured solutions, which has been under fire for the past year for its controversial incorporation of carbon credits to offset its steep production costs.)
 
With the simplest of solutions often proving to be the most effective (a la Occam’s razor), we at Changemakers have become fascinated with the new wave of low-cost health gadgets, which could dramatically reverse health care’s trend towards the more complex and expensive. Here are five more emerging health innovations — elegantly simple and affordable — to look for on the horizon. We think they’re pretty nifty, and hope you will, too.

Texas: Doing Something Right

Created: 09/29/11 by Kristie Wang

Transforming inmates into entrepreneurs in Texas — and saving millions of tax dollars

Texas has been the center of a swirl of controversy lately in two very different arenas: the state’s enthusiastic embrace of the death penalty, and Republican frontrunner Rick Perry’s touted track record of job creation. Perry’s history of job creation has come under fire from numerous critics, as well as a new study revealing that Texas’s poverty levels rank the second highest in the nation.

But deep in the heart of Texas, there’s a promising light for real job creation — and for bringing positive change to the criminal justice system.

Health Innovations in Asia: Making More Health With Less

Created: 09/28/11 by Kristie Wang


A team of emergency medical responders at Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI). EMRI's state-of-the-art call response centers are able to dispatch over 2600 free ambulances across multiple states in India to respond to medical, police and fire emergencies. via

Skyrocketing health care costs are a global problem, but creative entrepreneurs in South and Southeast Asia are figuring out how to do better with less. Changemakers worked with its network partner, The Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI), to spotlight four promising strategies that innovators in this region are using to tackle high out-of-pocket costs and simultaneously ramp up the delivery of quality health care. 

These cutting-edge, cost-saving health solutions are homegrown, within ecosystems of limited resources. Leveraging both technology and creative business models, they are proving once again the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention. 

Supporting the Free Press

Created: 09/22/11 by Kristie Wang

Photo from a Citizens for Democracy letter signing campaign in Pakistan, covered by Global Voices blogger, Sana Saleem
 
Is journalism getting better or worse in the new media landscape? And what does that mean for democracy? During the Arab Spring earlier this year, new media seemed to not only generate unusually multi-faceted news coverage, but also play a role catalyzing the revolutions themselves.
 
Still, reactions to the state of news today continue to fluctuate between anxiety and elation. On the one hand, the digital age blesses us with access to more information than ever. On the other, the ability of the news infrastructure to serve the public interest seems to be threatened on all sides. 
 
The free press has been long recognized as the life-blood of democracy; informed citizens are necessary for a just and functioning democratic state. But commercial networks are influenced (some would say enslaved) by market interests, and public media is vulnerable to political meddling and funding cuts. The new media is generative, iterative, disruptive, democratizing, and fragmenting all at once. 
 
What’s the average American citizen to do? Where do we put our focus, energy, and money? How do we ensure that we get both the information we want and the information we need to be smart citizens? 

“Telling a Story is a Form of Activism”: Interview with Naveen Naqvi

Created: 09/14/11 by Kristie Wang
 
Changemakers recently sat down with Naveen Naqvi, co-founder and executive director of Gawaahi, to discuss her work in Pakistan’s turbulent and often violent environment, where she uses citizen media as a tool for political engagement and raising public awareness. 
 
Gawaahi, which means “witnessing” in Urdu, is a Pakistan-based citizen-sector organization that produces digital stories of survival and resistance. Through its online platform, Gawaahi shares stories about women's human rights, child sex abuse, unfair labor practices, and religious persecution. 
 
With a background in journalism, Naqvi was previously the senior anchor and morning news presenter at DawnNews, Pakistan's first English-language channel. Before that, she was a producer for NBC News and online contributor for MSNBC.com. Naqvi is serving as an expert commentator for the Citizen Media competition.

citizenmedia

The Anti-bullying Movement: Where do we go from here?

Created: 09/08/11 by Kristie Wang

Across the United States and around the world, the anti-bullying movement has become a rallying force. From celebrities telling gay teens that “It Gets Better” to the world-wide attention paid to a bullying incident in Australia captured on video, the problem of bullying in schools has garnered heightened media attention and is being tackled with increasingly stronger laws by communities.  

There are anti-bullying laws of varying strength in at least 40 states. Last week, New Jersey enacted the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, the nation’s toughest anti-bullying state law yet; it received both cheers and criticism. The law includes a requirement that teachers and administrators report incidents of bullying to the police, and has raised questions about who should be held accountable for protecting students. It has also sparked debate around the potential implications of criminalizing bullying, as well as how schools are going to pay for anti-bullying programs, given already-slashed budgets and overworked teachers.
 
But schools and communities agree on the critical nature of the problem. Studies have shown that bullying leads to increased incidence of mental health issues later in life and lower achievement levels, especially for minority students. In fact, according to a Harvard Medical School study, verbal abuse — even without physical abuse — acts like a neurotoxin, having serious effects on brain development, most markedly in students in their middle school years.

Sustainable Farming and Livelihoods Take Root

Created: 08/24/11 by Kristie Wang
 
Organic and fair trade agricultural SMEs are expanding their markets despite the global economic downturn, and are getting a boost in the developing world through organizations like Root Capital. The nonprofit investment fund recently acquired a loan package of $4.9 million from the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of the U.S.-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group. 
 
Root Capital will use $3 million of the funds to expand its ability to lend to sustainable coops and agricultural SMEs in Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Another $1.9 million will go towards a technical assistance initiative to help the organizations strengthen their financial skills.
 
As the organic cotton export industry in India has demonstrated, sustainable agriculture has the power to support sustainable livelihoods for small-scale rural farmers. Global demand, mostly from developed nations, for organic and fair-trade agricultural products has grown over the past few years, even throughout the global economic downturn. 

Citizen Media Trends: Digital Tools in India Catalyze Participatory Citizenship and Combat Corruption

Created: 08/22/11 by Kristie Wang
 
Access to media in India is accelerating in both traditional and new digital forms. Television and radio are reaching more people than ever, and unlike much of the world, print readership in India is strong and on the rise. Although universal Internet access is far from a reality — only about 5.3 percent of India’s population uses the Internet, according to the World Bank — rapid changes to the way people access news and share information are on the horizon. 
 
Internet access and the use of social media tools for personal expression and news-sharing is fairly strong in cities and among middle- and upper-income groups. Prominent Bollywood actors, like Aamir Khan, are contributing to the mass popularity of blogging and tweeting, and due to its sheer population size, India ranks globally as one of the highest participants in top social media sites like Facebook. 
 
The situation is far different in rural areas, which have extremely limited access to digital communication technology. But awareness is growing. Last year, the Internet and Mobile Association of India reported that only 16 percent of the rural population was aware of the Internet. This year, that number jumped to 69 percent. 

Interfaith Means Cooperative Action for a Better World

Created: 08/18/11 by Kristie Wang


  Amidst the tidal wave of riots that swept the United Kingdom earlier this month, stories emerged of different religious faiths working together to protect one another from violence and support the cleanup of London.

Changemakers Top 10 Summer Reads

Created: 08/09/11 by Kristie Wang

Wilting from this summer’s record temperatures? We’ve got 10 great books to get you energized.

We asked social innovators from around the globe, including a few members of the Changemakers team, to tell us about their favorite summer reads. From poetry to memoirs to personal wisdom guides, our summer reading list is packed with insight and knowledge that is guaranteed to get you pumped to make change.

So load up your beach bags and e-readers—there isn’t a more perfect way to escape the August heat than a great book (and possibly air conditioning)!

Small Farmers Willing to Quit, Jeopardizing India’s Food Security

Created: 08/08/11 by Kristie Wang

India’s rapidly developing urban economy and the legacy of its Green Revolution are posing an increasing threat to small farms. Yet small farms produce 41 percent of India’s foodgrains.

The nation’s ability to feed itself may suffer as a result. In fact, there is an increasing body of evidence indicating that the technologies ushered in by the Green Revolution — pesticides, chemical fertilizers, high-yield seeds — are to blame for India’s current soil crisis.

An epidemic of farmer suicides (it is estimated that one farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes in India) and rising concerns about food security are underscoring just how critical small farms truly are. Despite the Green Revolution of the 60’s, which transformed India into one of the largest agricultural producers in the world, India is still home to one-fourth of the world’s 800 million under-nourished people. Rural people make up most of the country’s poor.

Imagination in American Schools: Building the Foundation of Creativity and Innovation

Created: 08/02/11 by Kristie Wang

An Interview with Scott Noppe-Brandon

It is often said that American economic competitiveness depends on our capacity to innovate. But how exactly can innovation be fostered in schools?

To answer this question, Scott Noppe-Brandon, executive director of Lincoln Center Institute and co-author of Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility, is leading a campaign prompting each of the 50 states to conduct Imagination Conversations. The Conversations are series of public panel discussions in which leaders representing a multitude of professional backgrounds discuss the role of imagination in their work and how to foster imagination in schools and communities.

Last week, after two years of Imagination Conversations across the United States, America’s Imagination Summit took place at Lincoln Center in New York. It served as both a celebration and a recapitulation of all that had been learned during two years of ideological exchanges. Featured speakers included Peter Cunningham, assistant secretary for Communications and Outreach at the U.S. Department of Education, Sir Ken Robinson, Deepak Chopra, and Tony Derose, Senior Scientist at Pixar Animation Studios.

Following the summit, Noppe-Brandon sat down with Changemakers to discuss imagination, innovation, and STEM learning.

Revamping Skills Training to Help India’s Rural Unemployed

Created: 07/27/11 by Kristie Wang

If India’s economic growth is going to reach those who need it most, more has to be done to connect the rural unemployed to jobs. India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but rural workers are at risk of being left behind.

“In India, as in many developing countries, most of the growth is happening in urban areas. Rural populations are often unable to access these growth opportunities,” said Warisha Yunus, moderator at Work and Employment Community, Solution Exchange, a knowledge management initiative of the United Nations in India.

The search for employment has driven widespread rural-to-urban migration, but workers from rural areas face multiple barriers once they move.

Are We Holding Back Tomorrow’s World Cup Stars?

Created: 07/22/11 by Kristie Wang

Last week, in the nail-biting finale of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011, Japan captain Homare Sawa delivered a dramatic penalty kick for the winning point against the United States. Sawa, who made her debut on team Japan at the age of 15, took home the Golden Ball and Golden Boot awards and has garnered admiration for both her prowess on the pitch and her sportsmanlike manner.

Sawa is a star role model for girls who play sports. But while the women’s game drew record viewership in the United States, girls who are inspired by the excellence of Sawa and female athletes like her face real challenges: play is in peril for girls. 

Gaming Reveals the Invisible World of Science to Students

Created: 07/18/11 by Kristie Wang

The exploration robot in the Nintendo DS game Ruby Realm, developed by Possible Worlds to teach 7th graders photosynthesis.

This post is part of a week-long STEM Matters series. Thought-leaders, social innovators, and experts from around the country are sharing how and why science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are critical to our abilities to solve complex problems across a wide range of fields, from climate change, medicine, economic development, space exploration, to the movies!

As the Changemakers Blog discussed last week, there’s been a lot of buzz lately about the potential power of digital gaming to do more than just exercise thumbs. In a keynote speech at the Games for Change (G4C) annual conference held last month, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore spoke encouragingly about games’ potential to educate and develop critical thinking—and there were several presentations of games that support STEM education.

The potential for games to enhance STEM learning is backed up by a growing body of research, which is revealing how digital games can be particularly useful for tackling STEM learning and teaching challenges. One way to put this theory into practice is demonstrated by Possible Worlds, a research and development center funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The project is studying how games can be designed to target specific problems that middle grade students face when learning about science.

The Road to Recovery: Green Job Training in the Gulf

Created: 06/28/11 by Kristie Wang

It’s been more than a year since the Deepwater Horizon disaster spilled nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP has since set up a $20 billion claims fund to compensate those harmed by the spill, but many of the long-term ramifications of the disaster are still unknown.

Scientists believe the extent of the damage to ocean ecosystems may not be fully realized for another 15 years. How this event will impact communities, young people, and employment in the long-term also remains to be seen.

In New Orleans, the Gulf South Youth Biodiesel Project (GYBP) is hoping to intervene in the lives of unemployed young people affected by some of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history: Hurricane Katrina, followed by Hurricane Gustav, and then the Deepwater Horizon spill. GYBP, a finalist in the Changemakers Strong Communities competition (“Engaging Citizens, Strengthening Place, Inspiring Change”), offers a training and green industry certification program for at-risk youth from 16 to 25 years of age. Many have either left school or were unsuccessful in conventional learning situations.

Slavery in the 21st Century -- and in the United States

Created: 06/22/11 by Kristie Wang

June 19th, or Juneteenth, commemorates the 146th year anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States. Yet, slavery remains a thriving industry in every country—including the United States. Human trafficking is the 21st century’s slave trade, and the fastest growing criminal trade in the world.

According to the United Nations, 12.3 million people live in modern day slavery today. 80% are women and children. Slavery appears in the form of debt bondage, forced labor conditions with little or no pay, compelled enlistment in state or rebel military groups, or commercial sex acts against the victim’s will. Revenues from human trafficking are estimated to be between 5 and 9 billion USD annually.

 

See innovative solutions from members of the Changemakers community that help end global slavery

Different from human smuggling, human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel victims to perform labor or services. And contrary to popular misconception, it isn’t limited to developing countries. In the US, the numbers of people in slavery are largely under-reported and unknown, but there are an estimated 100,000 – 300,000 children alone that are sex trafficking victims in the US.

Interview with Peggy Liu: “China is focusing on increasing jobs period, and those jobs have to be green”

Created: 06/17/11 by Kristie Wang

PEGGY LIU is Chairperson of the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE). She was honored as a Time Magazine 2008 Environmental Hero and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader 2009. Liu was an adviser to the Clinton Global Initiative 2008 on Energy & Climate Change. JUCCCE is a non-profit changing the way China creates and uses energy through international collaboration. Changemakers sat down with Liu to discuss China’s push towards going green and the country’s stance on green jobs.

Sweat Equity and Soccer for Community Development

Created: 05/26/11 by Kristie Wang


Drew Chafetz (center), co-founder of love.fútbol, at the 2010 inauguration event in Guatemala.

When love.fútbol approached the town of San Antonio Palopó, Guatemala last year to build a safe soccer field for its children, the organization was surprised to receive a lukewarm response. Community members were initially reluctant to agree to the project’s sweat equity requirement.

love.fútbol, which works with impoverished communities to build inexpensive, durable soccer pitches for kids, supplies raw materials and guidance, but partner communities are expected to contribute all labor and take ownership of the construction process.

“In our effort to provide the right to play, core belief is that we do not provide a gift of a soccer field,” said Drew Chafetz, co-founder of love.fútbol. “We provide an opportunity for a community partnership and an experience for a community that will lead to long term change.”

HIV Positive Football Players Aim for the Homeless World Cup in Paris

Created: 04/15/11 by Kristie Wang

Rumah Cemara’s HIV positive football players are pinning their hopes on playing at the Homeless World Cup (HWC) tournament this August on the famed Champs de Mars turf in Paris.

“For our HIV positive players to play 90 minutes of football on a world stage, televised from Paris—can you imagine? This would be a kind of magic,” said Aditia Taslim, Rumah Cemara’s international grant writer.

By playing in the HWC, Rumah Cemara’s players hope to transform their lives and change the Indonesian government’s hands-off stance on HIV awareness. They want to change attitudes about those living with HIV and homelessness, and to gain support from the Indonesian government, which has largely refused to engage in public HIV awareness initiatives due to prevalent social taboos.

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