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WE CARE Solar promotes safe motherhood and reduces maternal mortality in developing regions by providing health workers with reliable lighting, mobile communication, and blood bank refrigeration using solar electricity. The Problem Maternal mortality worldwide accounts for more than half a million deaths a year; 99 percent of these occur in underdeveloped countries. For every maternal death, at least 20 women suffer severe complications from childbirth. Major causes of maternal death include obstetric hemorrhage, obstructive labor, eclampsia, and sepsis. These emergencies cannot always be predicted, nor are they always preventable. However, with prompt, appropriate and reliable medical care, they are unlikely to result in loss of life. Sporadic electricity impairs the operation of surgical wards, delivery wards, essential hospital equipment, and hospital communication devices. This compromises the ability of health workers to provide safe, appropriate and timely medical care. Labor and delivery nurses cannot quickly notify on-call physicians of emergencies. Midwives and physicians are forced to make treatment decisions without the benefit of necessary diagnostic tests. Obstetric procedures and emergency surgeries are conducted under grossly suboptimal conditions, and can have tragic consequences. Our Background Co-founder Dr. Laura Stachel went to Northern Nigeria in 2008 to study ways to lower maternal mortality in state hospitals. She witnessed deplorable conditions in state facilities including sporadic electricity that impaired maternity and surgical care. Without a reliable source of electricity, nighttime deliveries were attended in near darkness, cesarean sections were cancelled or conducted by flashlight, and critically ill patients waited hours or days for life-saving procedures. The outcomes were often tragic. Laura wrote to her husband, Hal Aronson, a solar energy educator back in Berkeley, California. Together, Laura and Hal co-founded WE CARE Solar to improve maternal health outcomes in regions without reliable electricity. Hal designed an off-grid solar electric system for the hospital Laura was studying, targeting the maternity ward, labor room, laboratory and operating theatre. A Portable Solution Hal created a suitcase-sized prototype of the hospital solar electric system so Laura could show Nigerian hospital workers the LED lights, headlamps and walkie-talkies planned for deployment. When Laura returned to Nigeria toting the "solar suitcase," her Nigerian colleagues immediately grasped its significance and began using this kit to charge headlamps and walkie-talkies while they awaited the larger solar installation. In addition, hospital employees introduced Laura to clinicians in outlying health facilities who begged her to bring solar lighting to their own clinics, too. Our five-year goal is to serve 5 million mothers in remote areas by deploying 10,000 Solar Suitcases to health care facilities around the globe.

The Kateri Tekakwitha Fund exists to empower Guatemalan women to break the cycle of poverty by having a positive impact on their lives, families, and communities through collaboration, educational scholarships, and support.

ACFA's vision is " a Mali where all children are afforded the tools necessary for a successful future." We march towards that vision by executing our mission: " to provides Mali's vulnerable children a safe and loving environment which fosters their health, learning, happiness, and success." ACFA was founded from the personal experience of its founder, Kadiatou F. Sidibe, who was separated from her mother from age 3 to 26 and was raised by a single father in Bamako, Mali. Our goal is to turn risk into opportunities. We take street vulnerable children exposed to drug, prostitution, robbery, criminal activities, and give them a home with caring staff, food, health care, and education and see them through a upbringing that lead them to becoming self-sufficient, and support their own family and become contributors to Mali's economic development.

Supporting vulnerable persons and survivors of human trafficking by providing income-generating opportunities, social reintegration, and programs for self-empowerment. We believe in: - Income generation so that vulnerable women can gain economic independence. - Educational and social programs for intellectual empowerment. - Using business sensibilities to achieve humanitarian goals.

Limitless Horizons Ixil's mission is to create opportunities for the indigenous youth, women, and families of Chajul, Guatemala, to develop the academic and professional skills needed to effect change in their lives and community.

Mali Health empowers Sikoro, an impoverished urban community in Mali, West Africa to transform maternal and child health sustainably. We do so by: -Fostering the agency of residents and community structures to mobilize to address community health needs. -Promoting health education, prevention, and early care seeking. -Enhancing financial, geographic, and cultural access to health care for poor families.

The U.S. Association for International Migration (USAIM) is the nonprofit partner of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the United States. As a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, USAIM seeks to empower migrants. Through outreach, education, and fundraising USAIM aims to raise awareness about the reality of migration while encouraging positive action. USAIM's Mission: To broaden public awareness To support programs that promote the humane and orderly migration of people To mobilize private sector resources To work in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to support domestic and international programs benefiting migrants, displaced persons, and families

The Smiles Forever mission is to break the cycle of poverty by vocationally training young indigenous women to be dental hygienists in Cochabamba, Bolivia. We recognize women as the first socialization factor in the family. Enabling them to become financially self-sufficient, we are both creating female community leaders and bettering the lives of their children. Students give back to their community by providing free dental care at the school, burn center and rural communities.

The Appropriate Technology Collaborative creates sustainable technologies that promote economic growth and improve the quality of life for low income people worldwide. We design, develop, demonstrate, and distribute affordable technologies. Working in collaboration with local talent and other nonprofits (NGOs) we create solutions that are culturally sensitive, environmentally responsible and locally repairable in order to improve the quality of life and reduce adverse impacts on the environment.

The mission of the SFBC Education Fund is to provide education, training and services for San Francisco Bay Area residents who commute by bicycle or ride bicycles recreationally.

Enhance Worldwide envisions communities where girls and women have the skills to lead meaningful, dignified lives in which each individual has agency, autonomy and aspirations. Enhance Worldwide aims to facilitate a process in which girls, women and their communities unearth, discover and learn strategies to navigate the challenges to their wellbeing in an effort to develop as individuals in their own right. Enhance Worldwide understands harmful traditional practices as a leading barrier to a life of dignity and focuses its efforts on combating these practices worldwide. Enhance Worldwide creates customized interventions in collaboration with local people, with an emphasis on the leadership of women and girls, who understand the challenges and opportunities as part of their lived experience. The intervention design is focused on Positive Deviance, the concept that in every community there are positive deviants, individuals whose behaviors and strategies have allowed them to overcome the challenges to their wellbeing with which their peers struggle. By discovering and practicing these positive deviant behaviors, Enhance Worldwide focuses on existing, indigenous solutions.

Founded in 1998, The Democracy Council advocates freedom, human rights, equal opportunity, and public participation across the globe. The Council's work is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the belief that a vibrant civil society and accountable public administration remain fundamental tenets of democratic societies. The rights of all human beings, governed and governing, should be respected. The right to organize and advocate on one's own behalf is a fundamental right of all people. Discrimination, repression, and torture must be resisted at all levels - at all times. The Council maintains a proven track record of working with both local and national government offices and civil society organizations to build the capacity of those pushing to promote these values. Through civic engagement and education, public testimony and partnerships with civil society organizations, the Council works to ensure that respect for rights and the promotion of public participation in an accountable and productive manner are priorities of transitioning states.