innovations for sustainable living from around the world

All Blog Posts (19)

Africa Rural Connect Kicks Off 2010 Ideas Competition

… Continue

Added by ivili on March 11, 2010 at 10:00am — No Comments

Dragons take their Den to Senegal

A group of UK based business people who helped found a project bringing entrepreneurial skills to hundreds of African women will be venturing out to Senegal next week in true Dragons’ Den style to asses the many projects requiring funding. Surrey based Richard White and Marieme Jamme founded the Dakar Dragons project after being inspired by the story of Viola Vaughan and her own 10,000 Girls Project. Retired American Viola is currently living and working in Senegal with the aim of improving the… Continue

Added by Anna Lowe on November 20, 2009 at 10:27pm — No Comments

Green Hamlet builds ecovillage in Poland

Green Hamlet is a group of friends putting the building practices presented at natural homes and earth hands and houses in to practice. We are building our ecoVillage in Poland, not far from the medieval town of Olsztyn. The first phase of the hamlet is to get building permits, a reliable supply of water and some basic buildings to support the builds between 2010 and 2013. Green Hamlet lies in War… Continue

Added by ivili on October 21, 2009 at 9:52am — No Comments

New book - 'Citizen Engineer' - available for free download off web

Citizen Engineer is a fusion of ideas, information, advice, and opinions from the authors, their colleagues, and dozens of other sources, brought together to provide you with the tools and insights you’ll need to maximize your success in a new era of socially responsible engineering. The information in these pages will be most relevant to engineers who design and build “things”—engineers in fields… Continue

Added by ivili on October 21, 2009 at 7:36am — No Comments

Internet brings accountability to Aid

An emerging body of websites that can provide instant feedback on the use of aid money is sparking debate about whether such online tools could not only revolutionize non-profit fundraising, but also boost aid accountability. The Kwale Subdistrict Hospital in Kenya announced earlier this week on German fundraising site betterplace… Continue

Added by ivili on October 20, 2009 at 2:45pm — No Comments

No fertiliser? No problem

It’s common knowledge that not all governments are in a position to provide subsidies for their farmers to purchase fertilizers. Yet they need not be too concerned, as according to scientists, the current levels of nitrogen fixation (combining unreactive atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen to produce ammonia) globally may soon see heavy restrictions placed on fertiliser use, and famers across the world may soon be encouraged to revert back to traditional and sustainable methods of fertilizing the… Continue

Added by Keiron Audain on October 12, 2009 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Utilizing the Sun While We Wait for Pipes

One of, if not the major issue surrounding infectious diseases in Africa is the lack of regular access to clean water. In countries like Ethiopia, it is said that around 78% of the population do not have access to clean water, which is equivalent to about 56 million people – in one country alone. In such drastic circumstances where so many people are going without water and investment in infrastructure is for the most part inadequately financed or outright neglected, innovative measures need to… Continue

Added by Keiron Audain on October 4, 2009 at 7:35pm — 2 Comments

The Dinner Garden - providing free seeds to anyone in America

For several years, Holly Hirshberg's family had grown fruit and vegetables in a home garden during the summer months. She had enjoyed fresh tomato sandwiches, vine ripened cucumbers, red and yellow bell peppers, fresh herbs, like basil, thyme, and rosemary, potatoes, and watermelon. The fresh produce was a nice summer treat each year. Then in 20… Continue

Added by ivili on September 22, 2009 at 6:49pm — 1 Comment

Liberia's analogue blogger brings news to the masses

Alfred Sirleaf is an analog blogger. He runs the “Daily News”, a news hut by the side of a major road in the middle of Monrovia. He started it a number of years ago, stating that he wanted to get news into the hands of those who couldn't afford newspapers, in the language that they could understand. And this blackboard blogger even makes money from advertising. [via… Continue

Added by ivili on September 16, 2009 at 12:30pm — 1 Comment

Wonderbag: insulated material container that can cook food without fuel

The Wonderbag is the brainchild of Natural Balance, Natural Balance is a South Africa based organisation supporting community based projects. The Natural Balance Wonderbag Project is cutting fuel consumption and creating employment in South Africa, as well as numerous othe… Continue

Added by Carol Horne on September 13, 2009 at 7:11pm — 1 Comment

New online guide to setting up a food coop

Sustain, a UK charity focussing on sustainablity and food issues, have published a new online guide to setting up your own food coop. It has information on everything from planning issues to permits to examples of prior successful scheme… Continue

Added by ivili on September 10, 2009 at 4:07pm — No Comments

Raised vegetable beds made from glass bottles

We have built raised beds in our garden using empty wine bottles. (Any large glass bottles you can find will do). How: Just dig a small trench and sink the bottles upside down to just below the bottom of the necks. You will need a lot of bottles! There are sever… Continue

Added by Carol Horne on September 9, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Blog Watch: Afrigadget.com

We love Afrigadget.com as it sums up everything Ivili is all about. Both a blog and a website, it's 'dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity'. In a mix of blogs, videos and photo stories, it profiles inspiring innovators and their projects from across the continent, and we've already featured a few of thei… Continue

Added by ivili on September 7, 2009 at 9:58am — No Comments

Family Organic Garden

I am so happy that there is this amazing community forum Thanks Jeannine Continue

Added by Jeannine Davidoff on July 7, 2009 at 9:30am — 2 Comments

Five great sites for sustainable solutions - June 2009

One of the most rewarding aspects of developing this site has been whom and what I keep discovering. All across the internet I keep finding great sites working with similar ideals to ivili. I'll be adding them to the directory continuously, but in the meantime, here's my favourite five so far. (and judging by how regularily I find a new one, I'm sure I'll be telling you about some others before too long, and this might become a regular strand for t… Continue

Added by ivili on June 18, 2009 at 9:48am — No Comments

Pots watered by gravity

Auto Pots are plant driven systems that automatically provide water and nutrients to your plant as required using only gravity (no pumps!!). Very simply, you pot your plant up in a suitable growing medium, such as Coco, Coco/Soil (50/50) Mix or Perlite and then connect the A… Continue

Added by Carol Horne on May 14, 2009 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Making roof tiles from waste in Nairobi

A few years ago the Kayole estate in Kenya's capital Nairobi suffered terribly from lack of facilities to deal with waste and as a result people were dumping their rubbish on the open ground. So bad was the problem that the waste was blocking sewage and water drainage systems, resulting… Continue

Added by ivili on May 12, 2009 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

Turning children's roundabouts into village waterpumps

By harnessing the energy created when children play on the sort of roundabout or merry-go-round found in playgrounds, PlayPumps International, a South African company, enables villages to pump water from the ground. Costing around US$14,000, the… Continue

Added by ivili on May 11, 2009 at 6:30pm — 2 Comments

A solar water heater from glass bottles

Ma Yajun is a farmer in China's Shaanxi province, from the village of Qiqiao. Back in 2007 he developed and installed a simple solar water heating system onto his roof, made from a grid of 66 modified glass water bottles , all connected to one another and attached to his sloping roof. E… Continue

Added by ivili on May 11, 2009 at 1:00pm — 2 Comments

Featured Blog Posts

View All

Latest Blog Posts

Monthly Archives

2010

March (1)

2009

November (1)
October (8)
September (8)
July (3)
June (1)
May (7)

Welcome to
ivili

Sign Up
or Sign In

Forum

License concern... 2 Replies

This is hard to categorize as seeking a solution - but I am seeking a response so I'll post here. Jeremy, I love that you've tagged the site with a Creative Commons license. I do strongly suggest no…

Tagged: knowledge-sharing, licenses

Started by Chris Watkins in Solution Wanted.... Last reply by Chris Watkins Dec. 23, 2009.

Floating gardens: growing food on flooded land

This solution was created by Practical Action, adapting to climate change in Bangladesh http://practicalaction.org/food-produc of the land in the Gaibandha district of Bangladesh is covered by water…

Tagged: floating, gardens, hunger, agriculture, flood

Started by Carol Horne in Solution Offered... Nov. 20, 2009.

Can Straw bales be used externally to retrofit an existing building? 5 Replies

I want to use straw bales to retrofit an existing brick building (small detatched cottage in London) in order to improve its insulation. Is this possible and does it have any implications re intersti…

Tagged: insulation, bale, straw, building

Started by carolyn ingle in Solution Wanted.... Last reply by carolyn ingle Oct. 23, 2009.

UK too reliant on imported food? 3 Replies

51% of British food is imported. This means our food supply is not secure (although of course Britain's food supply is nowhere near as vulnerable as that of developing countries). There are also envi…

Tagged: food, imported

Started by Carol Horne in Solution Wanted.... Last reply by Job S. Ebenezer Oct. 23, 2009.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Badges | Report an Issue | Privacy | Terms of Service