Peak stuff. Minimalism. De-cluttering. The life-changing magic of tidying up. Our cultural keywords of the moment seem to suggest the appearance of something in the current zeitgeist that has us obsessed with thinking about all the stuff we have and why we have it. Here’s 5 ways to de-clutter that are actually going to change the world we live in by de-cluttering the planet and our homes.
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Transplanting Traditions Community Farm is helping Burmese farmers create new community. The farmers’ market in Carrboro, North Carolina is filled with local staples like lettuce, tomatoes, and eggs. But if you turn left after the welcome booth, you’ll find a table that offers less common crops like pennywort, lime leaves, and kermit eggplant. That table belongs to Tri Sa, a Karen refugee farmer from Burma, present-day Myanmar. Her stand is called “Mu Tar K’Paw Gardens,” a Karen saying which translates to “everything comes from sunlight.” Tri Sa grows many traditional herbs and vegetables at Transplanting Traditions Community Farm, with 27 other Karen refugee families. The farm started as a community garden for low-income families in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, and it attracted many Karen farmers who asked for more space. Thanks to land donated by the Triangle Land Conservancy, the farm expanded into a five-acre operation. The Karen are a Burmese ethnic minority group, many of whom fled agriculture-centered communities Burma to escape violence and persecution by the Burmese military regime in the mid-2000s. Thousands of the refugees went to camps in Thailand before ending up in the United States. There are now nearly 70,000 Karen living in the U.S., […]
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“Rough” and “unhealthy” are the words Tim Dubuclet uses to describe his childhood. Raised in inner-city New Orleans, he and his friends would wander the city’s violent streets after school, living on a diet of fast food and soda. By the time he was 17, Dubuclet weighed more than 300 pounds. But he dramatically transformed his lifestyle during a program with Grow Dat Youth Farm, where students are paid to grow fresh produce. There, he started focusing on his diet. He spent two days each week working in the garden, growing and weeding the radishes, chard and other vegetables he had never heard of before. He felt empowered cooking these new healthful foods, and lost 80 pounds. “At the farm, people came to talk to us about health, opening our eyes to the dangers of things like sugary drinks,” said Dubuclet, now 20. “I started eating healthier, growing my own food. I realized there was so much more to life than what I was doing with myself.” In 2013, Grow Dat found most of its incoming students living unwholesome lifestyles, with only 12 percent who reported eating vegetables in the previous 24 hours. Some, like Dubuclet, came from poor neighborhoods, or […]
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This $300 DIY underground greenhouse is ideal for gardening in colder climates by collecting the sun’s rays and earth’s heat to grow food year round. From vertical farms to solar-powered “farms from a box,” we’ve seen how farming technology has grown leaps and bounds in recent years. But for those who prefer something a little more rustic, growing food from a hole in the ground is as low-tech as you can get. A walipini, meaning “place of warmth” from the Amaraya Indian language, is an underground greenhouse with a transparent (usually plastic) covering that stays warm by passively soaking up the sun’s heat and absorbing the earth’s thermal energy. Fruits and vegetables can be grown year-round, making it ideal for communities in colder locations that can’t usually grow their own fresh and local produce during certain parts of the year. The farming method isn’t exactly new. Walipinis have been used in South and Central America for decades, including one that can grow bananas at 14,000 feet in the Andes. The technique was notably adopted by The Benson Institute, a worldwide food security program of the Mormon church. According to The Plaid Zebra, the Benson Institute and its team of volunteers built a community-sized 74-feet-by-20-feet walipini […]
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The U.N. Sent 3 Foreign Women To The U.S. To Assess Gender Equality. They Were Horrified. A delegation of human rights experts from Poland, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica spent 10 days this month touring the United States so they can prepare a report on the nation’s overall treatment of women. Human rights experts Eleonora Zielinska (Poland), Alda Facio (Costa Rica), and Frances Raday (U.K.), visited the United States in December to assess gender equality. The three women, who lead a United Nations working group on discrimination against women, visited Alabama, Texas and Oregon to evaluate a wide range of U.S. policies and attitudes, as well as school, health and prison systems. The delegates were appalled by the lack of gender equality in America. They found the U.S. to be lagging far behind international human rights standards in a number of areas, including its 23 percent gender pay gap, maternity leave, affordable child care and the treatment of female migrants in detention centers. While the U.N. delegates were shocked by many things they saw in the U.S., perhaps the biggest surprise of their trip, they said, was learning that women in the country don’t seem to know what they’re missing. The most […]
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Imagine Whole Foods at dollar-store prices—a new company called Daily Table is shifting the power back to people of lower income, so they too have the option of eating right. This has long been the frustration of healthy food – that for some reason eating properly is saved for a wealthier segment of society. This isn’t the way it needs to be. With over 30 per cent of the national food supply wasted in the U.S., there is plenty to go around at affordable prices. This was the realization of Doug Rauch, former president of Trader Joe’s and CEO of Conscious Capitalism, when he founded Daily Table, a not-for-profit grocery store. (According to their website, “there are plans to open additional stores in both the greater Boston area and additional cities across the country.”) The first location opened in Dorchester, Boston on June 4, 2015 and as the very first line of Time’s article reads in large bold text, “Tons of items are under $1.” Doug Rauch, former president of Trader Joe’s, has founded a new low-cost health food store called Daily Table. The first store opened in Boston on June 4, 2015. “The answer here isn’t a full stomach, […]
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Natalia Rigol is attempting to figure out if community information can help developing world banks decide who to lend to. Banks in developing countries often won’t lend to the poor, because they have no credit, or they will only lend at prohibitively high rates, making it so that many people can never break out of the cycle of poverty. Natalia Rigol is a PhD candidate in economics at MIT with an innovative thought. Is it possible, she wonders, to use community information to create an informal credit rating to help banks or micro-finance institutions decide who to lend money to? Rigol ran a pilot project asking this question in India this summer, and she is now launching a much larger study of some 1,500 small business owners in poor communities in India. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got inspired to become an economist? I am originally from Cuba, so I lived in Cuba until I was 9 and did the beginning of my schooling there. At the age of 9, I moved to Russia and lived there for two years, and then I was in the Czech Republic for two years. I came to the […]
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Gardening isn’t just for people living on farms or in suburban neighborhoods with sprawling lawns. As more people seek to beautify their urban living environment and grow their own organic food, urban gardens are springing up around cities all over the U.S., and the world. Detroit is taking this one step further by transforming 22 blocks of blight on the east side of the city into a massive urban farm. The 60-acre farm, which will be known as “Recovery Park,” will consist of 35 acres of city-owned property and other land purchased for the project. It will house a vast set of greenhouses and, at its 3-year mark, is expected to employ some 120 people. The project will cost about $15 million. RecoveryPark already operates 2 urban farms where fruits and veggies like radishes, greens, and edible flowers are grown and then sold to restaurants in the city. [1] The city of Detroit is lined with empty buildings that often revert to the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA). Some houses go for a piddling $500 in an effort to bring young people into the fray to rebuild and revitalize the city. Many buildings, however, have little chance of being purchased […]
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Consider starting a new Black Friday tradition by visiting a state park. Forget the stampedes at the mall. Forget the sidewalk sales. Forget the shopping bags and gift receipts. This Black Friday, which falls on November 27, some states are encouraging folks to get reacquainted with nature by offering free admission to all the state parks within their borders. If you live or will be traveling in California or Minnesota for the Thanksgiving holiday, consider starting a new Black Friday tradition by visiting a state park – without paying an entrance fee. California leads the move, citing Seattle-based outdoor retailer REI with inspiring its move to waive the admission fees at 49 state parks for one day only, provided you print out your own Save the Redwoods pass. Black Friday – also known in the United States as the day immediately following Thanksgiving – is a commercial holiday of sorts which began with a marketing campaign by American Express in 2010. Now, the day is synonymous with holiday sales and stores filled with stuffing-stuffed shoppers. REI won attention from the media last month when the retailer, which has 143 stores nationwide, announced it would not open its doors on Black […]
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Millennial women are set to take on unprecedented leadership positions. Here’s how to prep for them. Coming of age for working women in the “lean-in” era isn’t easy. For millennial women (those born between 1980 and 1994), life and work are blended. The same technology that makes staying connected so easy makes staying “on” after working hours easy as well. Meanwhile, businesses expect more work for less pay, and parenting challenges are leading many women to take more time off work. That helps explain why 34% of millennial women say they aren’t interested in becoming a boss or top manager, according to a Pew Research Center study. Like their male counterparts, millennial women place a higher value on security and flexibility than on pay. But that doesn’t mean they’re satisfied with their working lives. In fact, 75% of millennial women say gender inequality in the workplace is an issue that needs addressing, compared with just 57% of millennial men. Here’s a look at some of those obstacles and what millennial women can do to get past them. No Shortage of Hurdles Despite the presence of several high-profile women at the national level, women hold only 4.6% (or exactly 23) of […]
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