Around the World
Photo by Hossein Attar
The iShack: The simple, solar-powered home that could transform life for slum-dwellers
Meet the iShack, a modern take on an age-old design that is bringing new hope – and light – to the slums of South Africa.
Millions of people are unable to afford to move out of slums and shanty towns in sub-Saharan Africa but the development of the iShack is intended to lift their living standards.
People living in rickety and makeshift shacks in slum areas can wait for years before they can get connected to the electricity or water grids, and the United Nations estimates that 62 per cent of the urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa lives in slums.
With the iShack, the ‘improved shack’, they get a solid dwelling that is fitted with enough solar panels to keep the lights on at night and provide power for important equipment such as mobile phone chargers.
It is an initiative from researchers at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa which they hope can allieviate
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2259075/Slum-dwellers-South-Africa-given-taste-mod-cons-introduction-environmentally-friendly-iShack.html#ixzz2LrWmdVw1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
poverty across the country and beyond its borders.
Housing backlogs, government budgetary restrictions and a rise in the number of people moving to urban areas means it will be many years before the shacks of slums can be cleared away and replaced with bricks and mortar.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2259075/Slum-dwellers-South-Africa-given-taste-mod-cons-introduction-environmentally-friendly-iShack.html#ixzz2LrXSOdFj
Grandmother Power: A Global Phenomenon
"All over the world grandmothers are forming activist groups to tackle intractable issues: poverty, illiteracy, environmental degradation, disease, injustice and violence. Never before have grandmothers campaigned so vigorously or universally to make the world a better place." Paola Gianturco spent three years interviewing and photographing 120 activist grandmothers across 15 countrie s on 5 continents for her magnificent book: Grandmother Power, A Global Phenomenon. "I met them as my sister s -- I am a