Product/Service Development

Transitioning Mental Health Interventions for War-Affected Youth to Scale through Youth Employment Programs in Sierra Leone: A Learning Collaborative Approach

Community REcovery Achieved Through Entrepreneurism (CREATE): A new paradigm for recovery from serious mental illness in low-resource settings (Kenya) People with serious mental illness living in low income contexts often lack opportunities for meaningful employment and psychosocial support – key factors in recovery. CREATE will address this gap by developing a locally-viable social business model designed to employ people with mental illness. It will also support their overall function and well-being.

Over two billion people in the world burn kerosene for lighting. Inhaled kerosene fumes are detrimental to human health, killing at least 1.5 million people each year. The primary users, women (who do the cooking) and children (who stay in the house), ingest the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarette per day. This project will study the relationship between kerosene smoke and child health more closely. It will also evaluate the effects and effectiveness of clean LED lighting and home solar lighting systems on health.

Arsenic in drinking water threatens more than 55 million people in Bangladesh. This project aims to conduct a Phase I/II clinical trial to prove that selenium dietary supplements can effect arsenic excretion in humans. The innovation is to supply selenium in fortified table salt which can be inexpensively manufactured within Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, 1 in 5 deaths (600,000 per year) occur due to groundwater arsenic, dubbed by WHO as the largest mass poisoning in history, with some 77 million people at risk. A project based at the University of Calgary, meanwhile, will work to increase the use of Western Canadian lentils in Bangladeshi diets. The crop is rich in selenium, which can decrease arsenic levels and improve health.

Silica dust inhalation causes tuberculosis, cancer and silicosis, affecting millions of people worldwide. In India, cottage industries grinding agate used in jewelry and trinkets expose 20,000+ workers and their families to silica dust.  This project will pilot prevention strategies and locally sourced technical solutions that can be adapted to other industries and occupational diseases caused by dusts.

To increase access to clean cooking technology for the most vulnerable households in Senegal by designing and distributing affordable and cultural acceptable cooking equipments. This will eliminate the cost, supply-chain, and technological barriers.

This project will finance the use of energy-efficient cookstoves in India through the sale of carbon credits in the international carbon market.  For more information visit www.theunion.org"

We provide remote medical second opinions by linking volunteer specialists, many from the African diaspora, to patients in Kenya. Fees charged to affluent, urban patients allow consultations to be provided for free or at-cost to rural & poor patients.

With just 124 doctors serving 10 million people, South Sudan has one of the world's worst child (135 in 1,000) and maternal (2,054 in 100,000) mortality rates.  A public-private system of micro-franchised mobile health workers, created by this project in partnership with the local government and South Sudanese-Canadian doctors, will help extend healthcare throughout South Sudan. For more information visit www.cbu.ca.