Some app designers are now thinking beyond the traditional targets for their products and are focusing on how technology can help the poor instead.
As we’ve pointed out, Significance Labs sponsors three-month fellowship for entrepreneurs and software engineers as develop technology that serves the poor. (Twenty-five million American families live on less than $25,000 a year, yet 80 percent of low-income Americans own some kind of mobile device, according to Significance Labs’s website.)
One tool that reaches low-income Americans is Text4Baby, which can help expectant low-income and teenage mothers give birth to healthy babies, writes Jill Duffy for PC Magazine.
Text4Baby is a free service that sends pregnant women and new moms text-sized bits of wisdom and advice to support their health and parenting skills. The messages, which are available in either Spanish or English, are also tailored according to the zip code of the mother and the due date of the baby or age of the child.
The texts include health notices, such as the importance of cooking meat thoroughly and wearing a seat belt, descriptions of symptoms that shouldn’t be ignored and developmental updates as the baby grows. Texts also inform pregnant women when to schedule their next prenatal appointment and ask about blood tests they took in prior appointments.
These small, regular reminders, such as, “Even if U feel great, a pregnant woman needs checkups with a Dr./midwife (CNM/CM). For help with costs, call 800-311-2229,” can be a powerful tool for women with limited resources and support. Text4Baby messages also include information to help women access the necessary healthcare.
Tamara Grider, the director of marketing and communications for Text4Baby, says that while the service isn’t exclusively for low-income mothers, “We do put effort into [reaching them] and that includes women who are low-income, women who are African-American and Hispanic. We definitely have a target audience because we know where the need is the greatest, for one, and because of the infant mortality rate among ethnic groups.”
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition runs Text4Baby and collects no information from users beyond their zip code and the baby’s due date. It’s anonymous and easy to use for anyone with a cell phone — regardless of manufacturer.
Users can benefit from a number of special programs, such as a current promotion that offers free flu shots for all Text4Baby users at RiteAid.
Grider tells Duffy that the reminders help because lower-income people “have a lot to worry about. A lot of our moms who are low income or younger moms, for them it’s kind of like insurance: ‘I don’t know what I don’t know. But if I need to know something, Text4Baby is going to tell me.'”
It all adds up to a tech solution that is GR8 for low-income moms.
MORE: Where Helping the Poor Comes Before Innovating for the Privileged
Tag: kids
The All-Hands-on-Desk Initiative to Improve Low-Performing Schools in Tennessee
If several educators have their say, teachers, not Elvis, will come to mind when you think about Memphis. That’s because they have a bold plan to turn the Tennessee city into Teacher Town, USA.
The Shelby County school district (where Memphis is located) has identified 68 schools in its purview performing in the bottom 5 percent of the state. Pledging to bring these failing Memphis schools into the top 25 percent of Tennessee educational facilities (an unprecedented turnaround challenge proposed by the Achievement School District and Shelby County) in five years, superintendents Dorsey Hopson and Chris Barbic are using every lesson plan they can find to do right by their kids.
To create the best classroom environments, Shelby is taking a three-pronged approach for “1) retaining great teachers, 2) developing local teacher talent, and 3) recruiting national talent,” according to the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
As Sara Solar, portfolio director of the Teacher Town USA funding initiative explains, “We know that transforming Memphis … will require that we work at every stage of the teacher life cycle — from novices to our strongest teacher leaders.”
As a part of this initiative, they’re focusing on cultivating young teachers with the leadership and guidance of older educators and encouraging them to build a strong, personal and lasting bond with the community.
Knowing that big changes always come up against entrenched political, economical and racial tensions, Shelby started bringing together representatives from the schools (public and charter), civic organizations, non-profits, universities and others to start a discussion on “how to make Memphis the best place in America for great teachers.” Consulting the philosophy of “high-stakes donor collaborations,” Shelby’s school district is using the newest and best ideas out there to push the envelope into the future and secure long-range funding and philanthropy for their school programs.
One of the funders, Jim Boyd, sums up the initiative very nicely: “We know we have this moment in time, and something concrete and specific to work on together…And so we partner even when it’s hard. Perhaps because what makes it hard is also what makes it powerful.”
With Millions Suffering From Alzheimer’s, This Teenager’s Invention Will Improve Their Safety
Kenneth Shinozuka isn’t like other teenagers. Maybe it’s because he’s one of the contestants in the Google Science Fair, an international competition for 13- to 18-year-olds, or because he’s the winner of the Scientific American Science in Action Award.
Most likely, though, it’s because of the impressive fact that he just invented a device to ease the lives of Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.
About 5.2 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, and, of those, 65 percent are wanderers — meaning that they walk away from their homes and loved ones, sometimes ending up lost or disoriented. Not only is this dangerous for the person with Alzheimer’s, but it causes added stress for caregivers.
Shinozuka’s grandfather is a wanderer. Many times at night, his grandpa will just get out of bed and start walking — oftentimes resulting in accidents. Which is why Shinozuka took matters into his own hands and created a wearable detection device.
So, how does it work?
Well, the device is worn on the patient’s foot, and it detects the pressure every time the patient takes a step. This triggers the wireless audible alarm in the caregiver’s smartphone signaling them that the patient is on the move. The device comes as a sock and a sensor assembly that can be attached to the foot.
Shinozuka used his grandfather as the subject of his six-month-long test trial. The result: Of the 437 known times of wandering, the device detected 100 percent of them. Even better, there weren’t any false alarms.
Currently, Shinozuka is conducting further testing, using nursing home patients as subjects.
Detecting patients’ movements isn’t Shinozuka’s only goal, though. “In addition to solving the originally intended problem, using the sensor to monitor a larger population of Alzheimer’s patients could lead to a fundamental understanding of the causes of wandering and thus ways to mitigate or prevent it,” Shinozuka explains in his project proposal.
Who says that teenagers can’t solve the world’s problems?
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The Homework Assignment That’s Saving the Lives of Hungry Kids in New Mexico
Marvin Callahan is no stranger to childhood hunger. As a kid living in a low-income neighborhood in Albuquerque, Callahan watched his parents do everything they could just to get by. For example, Callahan attended Catholic school, and while the tuition charge was $29 per month, his mom sent in whatever she could spare — be it $2, $3 or $4. Despite this, he always had something to eat.
Sadly, food is something that many of his students don’t have. For the past 29 years, Callahan has been working as a first grade teacher in Albuquerque public schools, and every day, he sees his students come into school without having had a meal.
This situation is typical for many children living in New Mexico. For the past two years, New Mexico has ranked number one in the U.S. for childhood hunger. Sixty percent of the students at Comanche Elementary (where Callahan works) are members of the federal free or reduced price lunch program, and 6,000 of the 87,000 students in the district are homeless.
While the federal programs provide lunch to kids from low-income households five days a week, oftentimes, the meal served at school is only one that these children receive. Which is why Callahan took matters into his own hands.
For Callahan’s students, class begins with breakfast. Every morning, he asks his students who has eaten breakfast, and those who haven’t are either sent to the cafeteria or given a snack from the classroom closet. The kicker, though, is that all the money for the food comes out of Callahan’s own pocket.
“I look into my kids’ eyes, and I can see that sadness and apprehension, and the discomfort of not being their powerful, strong, engaging little selves,” he tells the Huffington Post. “Kids are boundless, but the ones who aren’t being taken care of properly with proper nutrition and rest… you can tell.”
Daily breakfast isn’t the only way that Callahan helps out his hungry students. About two years ago, he also started the backpack program with school counselor Karin Medina and other community members. Every Friday, 37 students are sent home with a backpack containing two breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners — enough to feed them for the weekend.
It’s not much, but the breakfast bars, oatmeal, mac & cheese, beefaroni and sliced turkey is more than the kids would probably have otherwise.
“It’s hard for me to go home some weekends when the kids are saying, ‘I don’t want to go home because I don’t have anything at home,’” Callahan says. “I just hope that when I get home and open my refrigerator and there’s food in there, I hope that they have the same thing.”
Thanks to this special teacher, that hope is a reality.
MORE: This 14-Year-Old’s Homework Assignment Sparked A Mission to Feed America’s Hungry
How Birthday Cake Is Improving the Lives of Needy Children
Whether it’s chocolate, angel food, or rainbow sprinkled, a birthday cake is pretty much a necessity when celebrating someone’s special day.
But as Lisa Ray and Patty McTighe of Bowling Green, Ky. realized, not every kid enjoys the privilege of receiving this annual confection. So they started Celebration Cakes Ministry, using the kitchen of First Baptist Church to provide low-income children with personalized cakes for their birthdays.
Ray and McTighe aren’t professional bakers; everything they needed to know about decorating cakes, they learned from Internet videos and trial-and-error. In less than a year, they’ve already baked and delivered 140 cakes, all the while leading a group of 20 dedicated volunteers who meet several times a week.
Each cake is customized for its recipient, incorporating the child’s favorite characters, colors, or activities. (Check out the group’s Facebook page for photos of some of their whimsical creations, featuring such kid favorites as Elsa from “Frozen,” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Elmo.)
Celebration Cakes learns about deserving local youngsters from social workers, schools and other organizations that work with needy children. “These kids, some of them are going through a hard time, and just one little thing like a cake can brighten their day, and that’s what makes it worth it,” Ray tells Laurel Wilson of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
These volunteers’ unique efforts are already gaining notice. Volunteers in Action gave Celebration Cakes the Rookie Volunteer award and Western Kentucky University named it the 2014 Emerging Nonprofit Organization of the Year.
As much as the cakes brighten the children’s birthdays, they make the volunteers happy, too. Cynthia Jones started baking after watching the Celebration Cakes crew enjoy themselves as they worked. “Once I started,” she tells Wilson, “I was hooked. It brings back childhood memories of playing with Play-Doh. I love it, because when I was a child…I can’t remember having a birthday party. I just think even if kids cannot afford a cake, they deserve to have a cake they like.”
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The Surprisingly Simple Actions Helping Veterans Visit the Memorials That Honor Their Service
Collecting cans and recycling them for cash can yield a person quite a large amount of money. For one man, however, this bounty doesn’t go into his pocket; it goes towards helping out veterans.
Each week, Warren Vincent of Hutchinson, Kan. straps a towering pile of garbage bags bulging with cans to the back of his pickup with an elaborate web of bungees and cables and drives them to Midwest Iron and Metal Inc., where he usually receives a couple hundred dollars.
Every cent Vincent raises from his can-hauling missions goes to his program Cans 4 Kansas Honor Flights, which helps fund Kansas Honor Flight, an organization that flies veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to Washington D.C. to visit war memorials.
Each vet’s trip costs $700, and Vincent keeps that amount in mind as he travels around the town collecting cans wherever he sees them and picking them up from two drop-off stations he’s set up in McPherson County, Kan., including one at the NCRA Refinery, where employees have been especially generous with their leftover soda cans.
Since May 2013, he’s raised nearly $10,000 — enough to send 14 veterans on an unforgettable trip.
Vincent told Katy Hanks of the Hutchinson News as he drove her in his can-crammed truck that he could haul even more if he had a trailer. Later that day, some good news came through. “The workers at NCRA are going to buy me a trailer,” Vincent tells Hanks. “That’s the best news of the entire four years I have been doing this.”
Vincent’s efforts to help veterans are remarkable, and he’s not the only Kansan providing assistance to our former service members. According to Hanks, there’s a group of youngsters — made up of Kristin and Rikkie Estus and Connor and Katherine Nilson — that have raised $550 for Kansas Honor Flight by running a lemonade stand for the past three years. Thirteen-year-old Kristin Estus tells Hanks, “The best part of having the annual lemonade stand is hearing the veterans’ stories.”
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7 Ways to Help the Residents of Ferguson
All it took was one incident, and Ferguson, Missouri become a news story. Since the shooting of Michael Brown on August 9, the town has been plunged into the national spotlight with cameras and riots filling the streets.
However, amidst all of the unrest are the town residents who are just trying to get by. In response, a number of organizations are providing assistance to Ferguson residents, determined to bring normalcy to their lives and bring change to the country.
Here are some of ways you can help.
1. Provide food to the children.
Due to the current situation, Ferguson schools delayed opening until August 25. When the 11,000 Ferguson students aren’t in classrooms, they also miss the federal free lunch program for all students that was starting this year.
As we reported earlier this week, a North Carolina public school teacher has responded by starting a Fundly campaign that donates 100 percent of the proceeds to the St. Louis Area Foodbank. Already more than $146,000 has been raised. Click here to contribute.
2. Advocate against police brutality.
Although the details of the incident are hazy, many people are proposing that stricter measures for police officers. Currently, a Change.org petition is circulating the internet offering a wide range of solutions to this problem. Some examples include requiring on-duty officers to wear forward-facing cameras as well making the shooting and killing of unarmed citizens who don’t have a violent crime arrest warrant out for them a federal offense. Click here to find out more about the petition and what you can do.
3. Support the Brown family.
While the family grieves and looks for justice, they also need assistance with legal, burial and travel costs. You can learn more about the Michael Brown Memorial Fund here.
4. Help the library that’s helping the people.
In the midst of all the turmoil, the Ferguson Municipal Library is acting a safe haven for residents. Not only can they go there for a break, but also teachers use the facility as a place to read to students and offer activities. For its part, the library is giving out water and allowing computer access. Support the library by clicking here.
5. Give assistance to looted businesses.
After nights of looting, more than 30 businesses are trying to pick up the pieces (literally). Between stolen goods and destroyed shops, these businesses wonder how they will survive. Which is why the St. Louis Regional Business Council has started a fund to help these businesses get back on their feet. All donations can be sent to:
North County Regional Development Association
350B Village Square Drive
Hazelwood, MO 63042
6. Provide a safe learning environment for children.
In lieu of the public school system, Wellspring Church is offering itself as an alternative. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the church provides educational activities, counseling and free lunch. Click here to help fund these activities.
7. Support the healing process.
For Ferguson residents, counseling is just as important as food. So, to help, the United Way of Greater St. Louis has started the Ferguson Fund, which will cover mental health needs, counseling, community building and anything else the town needs. To learn more and contribute, click here.
MORE: With Ferguson in Turmoil, Teachers are Cleaning Up the Mess
How Hearing Their Parents’ Voices From Behind Prison Walls Helps Children Feel Less Depressed
Hearing a bedtime story before being tucked in at night is often the best way to ensure a child’s peaceful night’s sleep.
However, for the children of incarcerated parents, having a book read by their parents isn’t an option. This sad fact is the reality facing many families in Oklahoma, where 7,701 children have mothers in prison, and 121 women per 100,000 people are incarcerated, compared to the national average of 65.
Enter Redeeming the Family, an Oklahoma nonprofit working to preserve the bond and relationships between parent and child. According to the organization, after a parent is incarcerated, the chances of depression, suicide, poor performance in school and arrest all increase for kids.
That’s exactly why they’ve launched the Oklahoma Messages Program. Under it, volunteers go into prisons and video a mother or father talking to their children or reading them a book. The videos are then sent to the offspring, who can now see their parents for the first time in, what may be, quite a while.
These videos are an important lifeline between individuals because, for children living with their mothers, only 55 percent have visited and only 40 percent have spoken on the phone during incarceration. In its four years of operation, the program has sent videos to more than 3,000 children, 823 in 2013 alone.
These DVDs are really making a difference. Redeeming the Family conducted outcome surveys on the children to gage impact. Initially, 81 percent said that after their parent was imprisoned, they had moderate to huge increases in sadness and depression. Another 84 percent reported moderate to huge spikes in stress and anxiety. After the videos entered the children’s lives, however, 65 percent reported a decrease in feelings of sadness and depression, while 54 percent had less anger and disruptive behavior.
While the videos do not replace the presence of the actual parent, receiving them three times a year — Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day — can make all the difference. Executive Director of Redeeming the Family Cheri Fuller has witnessed this first hand.
“Over and over, we hear children say it felt like my mother was in the room,” she told NewsOk.
For these children, hearing and seeing their parents is just what’s needed to induce a great night’s sleep.
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All That Was Needed to Make This Prosthetic Hand Was $20 and a 3D Printer
If you pay attention to any tech news whatsoever, you’re aware that 3D printing is the latest fad spreading through the industry with labs across the country attempting to outdo each other with their printing projects.
However, SUNY New Paltz (State University of New York at New Paltz) has taken 3D printing to the next level, making it not just a science experiment — but a life-changing program. Last month, the school’s printing lab created a plastic hand for a six-year-old boy with no fingers, giving him a mobile hand for the first time in his life.
Joseph Gilbert was born with a congenital condition known as symbrachydactyly, which left him with a left hand devoid of fingers and one very foreshortened thumb. Although Joseph is a three-sport athlete — playing baseball, basketball and soccer — life with only one hand is no easy task.
So when Scott Paige, a friend of Joseph’s mother’s and a former worker in the prosthetics field, heard about a West Coast engineer who had uploaded a 3D printable model of prosthetic hand, he rushed to SUNY New Paltz.
After hearing from Paige, the school’s Hudson Valley Advanced Manufacturing Center set to work. Assistant director Katherine Wilson worked alongside Spencer Mass, a biology professor; Caryn Byllot, who works in biology and fine arts; and electrical engineering student Adam Carlock to design and build the hand.
While most prosthetics cost about $20,000 or $30,000, the 3D printed hand was made out of only about $20 worth of materials.
When Joseph came in to try his hand for the first time, he was joined by his mother, sister and the members of the team. He tried on the glove and for the first time was able to move his fingers.
How does the robohand work? Well, when wearing the glove, Joseph only has to flex his wrist which then allows the fingers on the hand to grip objects. The Center is continuing to make adjustments to the hand to ensure it is a perfect fit and will be able to make new ones to adjust it as he grows.
Dan Freedman is the Dean of the School of Science and Engineering at New Paltz and used to serve as the Center’s director. For him, the robohand is the perfect use of the technology. “Creating functional prosthetics for children is one of the best examples of how 3D design and printing can be used to build remarkable objects at a small fraction of the cost of standard fabrication methods,” says Freedman.
The creation of the robohand just goes to show that nothing is out of arm’s reach. All it takes is just a little elbow grease, some technology and childlike wonder to grasp what only sounds unattainable.
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Setting Politics Aside, Americans Are Stepping Up to Help Migrant Kids
A new Gallup Poll finds that the issue of immigration has become the number one national concern of Americans. And while there’s no legislative solution in sight to cope with the massive influx of refugee children fleeing Central American gang violence and arriving in the states that border Mexico, individuals across the country are putting partisan issues aside in the face of this humanitarian crisis, coming up with ways to help.
In San Francisco, 17-year-old high school student Julia Tognotti has been working tirelessly to collect clothing for the detained children ever since she saw a documentary on the crisis in her Spanish class last May. After school recessed for summer vacation, she traveled to Nogales, Texas, and volunteered in a shelter for the migrant kids.
“I talked to a boy there on the first day named Brian. He was 17 and I’m 17 and he was from Honduras and it took him two months to get to Mexico and he took seven trains. And I was so surprised to hear this because it really made me think, ‘could I do this?'” she told Sergio Quintana of ABC 7 News San Francisco.
Tognotti has collected two loads of clothes to send to Nogales and is planning to continue her work, accepting donations in Brisbane, California. She also hopes to organize a trip to the border for more teenagers to learn about the issue. Julia’s father David Tognotti told Quintana that the family doesn’t want to get “tangled up in the politics of the issue,” they just want to help the kids.
“We have a 17-year-old that’s trying to do what she believes is right to help people and it would be great if we could help support her.”
Meanwhile, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), a Washington, D.C.-based national organization promoting Latino leadership, organized a trip for concerned people to volunteer at a refugee shelter run by Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas. Actress America Ferrara, best known as the title character in “Ugly Betty,” joined the mission, reading books to the kids. HHF has also donated clothes, toys, books, and tablet computers.
In New York, La Casa Azul Bookstore is coordinating a book drive to supply migrant kids who arrive at shelters in the New York City area with free reading material. They’re looking for new and gently-used books in Spanish for kids and are offering a 10 percent discount to anyone who buys such books at their store. La Casa Azul will collect the books through August 10 and personally deliver them to children and teenagers in need.
As the actions of these caring Americans demonstrate, we don’t have to wait for government action before we reach out to help another human being.
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