This World Poverty Day let’s stand with those most in need

Since 1992, the world has observed what is formally known as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17. This year is no different. Except it is. This is the first (and hopefully last) time the day occurs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year the annual designation offers us an important reminder…

The Journey of West Virginia

Rev. Matthew J. Watts has been a leader in his West Charleston community for decades and is a fearless advocate for education reform. He will be the first to point out that West Virginia is ranked dead last on most economic prosperity lists and its failing schools are yet another obstacle young students face.  “School…

Virtual Movie Premiere of Education Reimagined + Q&A

You are invited to join Dignity Unbound on Friday, October 16 at 12:00PM ET for the world premiere of the short documentary Education Reimagined: The Journey of West Virginia. After the screening of the 9-minute short documentary, there will be a live Q&A discussion with the film’s subjects. This virtual event is free, but an…

UN should prioritize ease of trade to fight poverty

Sri Lanka’s exorbitant diaper taxes hurt low-income families

In Sri Lanka, baby diapers are expensive––too expensive. For Sri Lanka’s low-income parents, this is an extreme burden. In 2018, D A Jayamanne, a senior Fellow from Advocata Institute, a nonprofit organization in Sri Lanka, blew the whistle on this injustice by telling the tale of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital in a suburb of the country’s capital city,…

Reforms move Costa Rican confectioner from his kitchen to filling his factory with workers

Luis Diego Soto Clausen was just out of high school when his family hit serious financial troubles. He thought he could earn money if he improved on a traditional holiday treat—Turrones nougats. “I remember tasting, tasting, and tasting and my brothers told me that it would not work, it wasn’t going to work, but I…

Argentine cooperative helps neighbors rise with bread, creates jobs with computers

Cooperativa La Juanita was born in the aftermath of Argentina’s deadly riots of December 2001, when the economy crashed and created social and political turmoil. “We started as a cooperative formed by a group of unemployed workers who rejected the government assistance in the 2001 crisis, because we wanted to generate our own source of…

From prison cell to community reintegration in Georgia

Georgia leads the United States in the number of people under correctional supervision with one in 13 adults in the state either in jail, in prison, on probation, or on parole. This compares to one in 31 adults nationally.  In a state like Georgia, criminal justice reform, prisoner reentry, and community reintegration are more important…

Bamboo Entrepreneur

Rekha Dey had a dream that she could grow the bamboo industry in India as an environmentally friendly option for housing, but there was one word standing in her way. Outdated legislation in India had classified Bamboo as a tree instead of a grass. Because of the regulatory structure in India, this one word severely…

Street vendors escape harassment, grow opportunity when India gives them legal status

Dinesh Kumar Dixit is known as a “rehri-patri walla,” or street vendor. He has spent the past 42 years in New Delhi selling the glass bangles that are a specialty of Firozabad, his hometown in the Uttar Pradesh state of India. For most of that time Dinesh was at the mercy of the police, local…

Scooters give entrepreneurs a lift in Nepal, but laws are blocking the way

In Kathmandu, Nepal, more than 3 million people are squeezed into a small valley between mountain ranges. Moving around is a challenge because of unreliable mass transit, expensive taxis, and roads with 3.2 million two-wheel vehicles zooming by. All those scooters clog the roads, but also present an opportunity. Sixit Bhatta is an engineer who…

Ending tariffs gives computers to impoverished Argentinian students, expanding their vistas

As the morning bell sounds at Juana Manso elementary school, students in red and navy-blue uniforms carrying brightly colored backpacks laugh and chatter as they flow past principal Alejandra Grandinetti. Normal day. But in an abnormal place. Juana Manso is in Dock Sud, a remote neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It is one…

Build-up of small businesses started with Peru simplifying taxes

Verónica Canales owns a small hardware store within a sprawling market about 70 miles from Lima, Peru. She broke into the male-dominated hardware business in 2017 thanks to a change in Peru’s tax system. “What I love about my customers is that they demand things from me. That makes me demand more of myself in…

Lithuania grows entrepreneurs like Ona grows cakes: Keep it simple, drip by drip

Ona Raudeliūnienė whisks 36 eggs into the batter, then drips it onto a spit as she turns a crank so the wood fire can slowly bake a cake that grows branches during the five to six-hour process. She repeats the routine on many of her Saturday afternoons, because the work is worth it. It is…

Small investment in Costa Rican beer company brews big dividends for whole neighborhood

Mónica Mendoza and Jaime Zuluaga started six years ago brewing beer in pots at their small restaurant. They stayed in Barrio Escalante, the neighborhood with the highest rates of poverty, drug use, and crime in San José, Costa Rica. They rose up, and they’re working to take the neighborhood with them. They hire those no…

One innovator’s tractor improved life for thousands of farm families in Nepal

Before Lorik’s innovative solution, mothers and fathers had no choice but to spend precious time traveling outside the village.

This law stopped India’s poor from starting their own businesses

More than 125,000 people live in New Delhi’s Zakir Nagar neighborhood. But it feels more like a small town where everyone knows each other. Known for its annual “food walk” that comes alive during Ramadan celebrations, this close-knit, predominantly Muslim neighborhood plays a unique role in the diverse social fabric of India’s capital city. Frequenting…

How an 80-year-old Ukrainian ended a Soviet-style property scheme for 7 million farmers

Viktor Tsytsyura was stuck. He was born in Ternopil, Ukraine, and worked for 15 years at a manufacturing plant near the Mongolian-Russian border. He eventually returned to fill a similar position in his hometown, where he and his wife Lubov have lived in the same Soviet-era blockhouse since 1985. Viktor and Lubov maintain a dacha…

This Argentina nonprofit fights child hunger by empowering mothers

An hour outside the bustle of Buenos Aires, an early morning haze blankets Tigre, a quiet neighborhood where hundreds of children are waking up hungry with little to eat. Nearly a third of Argentina’s population lives in poverty. This corner of the country is far away from the prosperity of the capital city. But Tigre is…

Ukraine—Let Me Sell My Land

Imagine you own a parcel of fertile farmland, but you’re too old to work it, cannot sell it, nor use it as collateral in a bank loan. Would you say that land is really yours? That hypothetical question is the reality for roughly seven million Ukrainian landowners who, after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., received…

Doing Development Differently: A Taste of Tradition in Lithuania

Ona Raudeliūnienė whisks 36 eggs together on a breezy, rainy Saturday afternoon in Zūbiškės, a small rural town in central Lithuania. She is preparing the batter for a traditional šakotis, a local, spit-baked cake that is shaped like a tree, that she will spend hours baking for a client. Šakotis holds a special place in…

Doing Development Differently: Nepal — Tootling Towards Prosperity

Nepal is a landlocked country wedged between India and China in the Himalayas, with gigantic mountains, incredible natural beauty, and irreplaceable World Heritage sites. The country is multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic—rich in diversity, and endlessly interesting. This year I experienced some of Nepal’s breathtaking views, culture, as well as some of the challenges that her people…

Doing Development Differently: Costa Rica — Cheers to Costa Rica’s Credit Reform and Even Better Beer

Located in the heart of Costa Rica, San José is home to exquisite architecture, lush rainforests, and friendly locals. It is also home to an abundance of entrepreneurs and bustling small businesses. One family-owned business in particular stands out to its community—Costa Rica Beer Factory, co-founded six years ago by Mónica Mendoza and Jaime Zuluaga…

Doing Development Differently — India: A Pathway to Prosperity in India

More than 125,000 people live in the Zakir Nagar neighborhood of New Delhi, but this close-knit community feels more like a small town where everyone knows each other. Famous for its “food walk” that comes alive during Ramadan celebrations, this Muslim corner of the city breathes a cultural vibrancy into the diverse social fabric of…

Doing Development Differently: Argentina — Centro Conin Empowers Mothers in Need

An early morning haze blankets Tigre—a vast and quiet neighborhood an hour away from the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires. The only sounds are that of children running through the streets and the howls of the stray dogs following behind. This is not a wealthy neighborhood—it’s a place where hundreds of children are waking…

Doing Development Differently: Nepal — Against the Grain: Permissionless Innovation in Nepal

A thick fog blankets the wide expanse of farmland each morning in the small village of Sugauli Birta, an agrarian community near the Indian border of Nepal. There is an accompanying silence as women and men rise with the sun to work. Sugauli Birta is a 9-hour drive—or an 11-minute flight—from the Nepali capital of…

Doing Development Differently: Costa Rica — Opportunity is Sweet

The process of making nougat—a gooey candy traditionally eaten at Christmastime—can take up to four hours and requires the utmost attention to detail. A creamy mixture of egg whites, honey, and caramelized sugar sprinkled with slivers of assorted nuts is quickly poured into trays lined with thin, edible paper. The warm, sticky mass is laid…

Doing Development Differently: India — From Floor to Sky: A street vendor in India finds his voice

Street vendors are an integral part of life in India. Vegetables, fruits, milk, clothing—everything people need for day-to-day living is available from sellers who trade in the open-air. Dinesh Kumar Dixit is one of those street vendors—known locally as a “rehri-patri walla”—and he’s spent the last 40 years standing on a Delhi street, selling the…

Doing Development Differently: Peru — Building Business, Building Community, Building Peru

Colorful stands of fruit line the streets, the tang of assorted spices fills the air, tuk tuk taxis flutter along dirt roads in orderly chaos, and vendors scurry to open up shop for eager customers. This is Mercado Mayorista—a market located in the heart of Cañete province, 70 miles outside of Lima. The huge market…

Doing Development Differently: Argentina — One computer in Dock Sud is a passport to the rest of the world

In the early hours of the morning, a remote neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires awakens. Streets begin swarming with cars, shopkeepers roll up metal doors, and families accompany their eager children to school. We are in Dock Sud, one of the most dangerous and poverty-stricken areas of Argentina—but in the midst of the…