What's Woody Doing Now

Water Changes Everything

Water is the best 'silver bullet' to end poverty and improve quality of life. Water improves education, health, and development.

 

Linchpins are Unreasonable, too

Linchpins are indispensable.  I believe a linchpin must be "unreasonable", too.  And you have to create an "unreasonable" product or service.

The book, "The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World", drove home the point.  I was so impressed that I gave the book away.  I JUST had to pass it on in the Seth Godin's tradition.  (Seth, what are we going to do with Kindle books?)

Muhammad Yunus is a linchpin just like Steve Jobs and Sir Richard Branson. 

Seth's Blog: Unreasonable.

All that succeeds is the unreasonable.

You can get my attention if your product is unreasonably well designed, if your preparation is unreasonably over the top, if your customer service is unreasonably attentive and generous and honest. You can earn my business or my recommendation if the build quality is unreasonable for the intended use, if the pricing is unreasonably low or if the experience is unreasonably over-the-top irresistible given the competition.

Eight killed by epidemic akin to polio in the Republic of Congo

 

Every time I hear POLIO, I think of these two young boys that I saw recently in a Congolese village.  They are the only two children not standing erect. They were stricken and crippled by polio.  Also, they were too poor and did not have access to braces.  So they crawl around in the dirt and dust.  BUT, they were lucky!  They were alive!!

Health officials said "There is a serious outbreak of polio in the Republic of Congo:120 cases of acute flaccid paralysis (a syndrome related to polio) and eight deaths."  I heard the story last week at a Rotary District 6560 meeting.  Our Polio contact just mentioned southern Congo was the site.  I thought it was about my Congo (the Democratic Republic of the Congo) instead of the other Congo (the smaller and northern neighbor, the Republic of Congo).

IRIN Africa | CONGO: Eight killed by epidemic akin to polio | Congo | Health & Nutrition.

An epidemic akin to polio, which has raged for nearly two weeks in the main commercial city in southern Congo, Pointe-Noire, has already killed eight, and several dozen cases have been reported, say health officials.

"Patients admitted to hospitals have flu-like symptoms. They are also presenting with paralysis starting in the lower limbs which spreads to the upper limbs, "said Director-General of Health Alexis Elira Dockekias.

"This epidemic is related to the recent polio outbreak. The only difference is that this time the disease affects adolescents and adults, unlike polio which affects mainly the young and children," he said, adding that those affected by the epidemic are aged 15-45.

He called on the public "not to panic but to observe strict hygiene measures: boiling drinking water; washing vegetables properly; and cooking cassava [the staple food] thoroughly."

New Proposals for the End of Poverty

Fair trade arrangements are part of the solution.  Is it the silver bullet?  A hail of bullets is needed to end poverty.  The bullets needed are agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, water and sanitation, and fairer trade arrangements.

Rethinking Jeffrey Sachs: New Proposals for the End of Poverty - STWR - Share The World's Resources.

Take the Democratic Republic of Congo. Canadian negotiators recently convinced the DRC government to barter away mineral concessions worth some $120 billion to China in exchange for a paltry $6 billion of infrastructural development. Why are the Congolese people so desperately poor when they're literally sitting on a goldmine? Because -- as in the days of old European colonialism -- their mineral profits are being siphoned by first-world corporations that can get away without paying them the real price of the commodities they extract or the labor that digs them up. Africans don't need aid, they need fairer trade arrangements.