Reporting the news

Reporting the news: Variation

Billionaire Offers to Buy Island for Refugees

Pouring into Europe

by Terry Turner - September 7, 2015 http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

While Europeans are offering up houses to refugees, an Egyptian billionaire wants to buy an island where tens of thousands of refugees can live and work.

N aguib Sawiris is offering to buy an uninhabited island from either Italy or Greece large enough to sustain up to 200,000 people.

“All I need is the permission,” Sawiris told CNN. “I’ll pay for the island, I’ll provide the jobs.”

The CEO promises to pay refugees to build their own houses and schools along with a hospital and university.

He heads Orascom, a diverse company spanning transportation, construction, and communications, which is Egypt’s largest private sector employer.

Sawiriss suggests the refugees could turn the island into their own country and suggested naming the new nation “Hope.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maasai Women & Donkeys Bring Solar Power to Those Who Need it Most

by Sonja Schulken - September 7, 2015 http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

U sing donkeys to haul their equipment, groups of women in Kenya are going door to door, hoping villagers will see the light–and benefits–of adding renewable solar energy in their homes.

The solar house-calls are courtesy of a program launched by Green Energy Africa that is putting income into the pockets of women from the Maasai tribe, a semi-nomadic people of East Africa. The company provides the women with solar products — energy efficient lights, panels and rechargeable batteries—and teaches them how to install the equipment in homes and villages.

Installing solar power means people no longer have to burn firewood or kerosene to light their homes and children can read or do homework without inhaling smoke. Solar lamps also can light up livestock pens, scaring away the hyenas and wild cats that threatened their cattle and goats.

Human Library Lets You Check Out People, Aims to Foster Diversity

by McKinley Corbley - September 7, 2015 http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover… especially if they can talk.

The Human Library based out of Denmark lets people check out “interactive books” for half an hour–but the words are coming from humans that volunteer to tell their tales.

R eaders peruse the library catalog and select an experience to hear about–Child of The Holocaust Survivors, The Gypsy Tale, Iraq War Veteran, and Orphanage Boy, are examples of story titles offered.

Started in 2000 by a Danish youth-based nonprofit, “Stop The Violence,” the Human Library was a project intended to start conversation and foster understanding between different types of people that would normally not interact with each other. “The purpose is to challenge what we think we know about other members of our community,” reads the Human Library Facebook Page. “To challenge our stereotypes and prejudices in a positive framework, where difficult questions are accepted, expected and appreciated.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------