OneProsper International is an Ottawa-based Canadian charity. Their mission is to reduce world hunger and improve nutrition by strengthening the capacity of small farmers.
In India, 500 million people are part of small farmer families. Water scarcity is the key challenge to increasing the productivity of small farmers.
OneProsper International provides small farmers in India with drip irrigation kits; enabling them to significantly increase their crop yields and incomes. Small farmers, on average, increased their incomes by 116% within one harvest while saving 30% water. As a result, they are able to feed their children more nutritious food, milk and spend more on their books and schooling. The crops under cultivation include chilli, tomato, onion, egg plant, okra and other vegetables.
“Melinda and I believe that helping the poorest smallholder farmers grow more crops and get them to market is the world's single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty.”
Bill Gates
OneProsper International has been featured in The Globe and Mail, CBC Radio and Desi News.
You can read about this great initiative here. www.oneprosper.org
Action Against Hunger is a global
humanitarian organization committed to ending world hunger. Recognized as a
leader in the fight against malnutrition, ACF works to save the lives of
malnourished children while providing communities with access to safe water and
sustainable solutions to hunger. With over 30 years of experience in emergency
situations of conflict, natural disaster, and chronic food insecurity, ACF runs
life-saving programs in over 40 countries benefitting some 5 million people
each year.
Toon Boom’s values rely on respect, integrity and honesty. As the worldwide leader of animation technology, Toon Boom caters to a great variety of users living in all parts of the world. It is its duty to contribute to the success of such honorable initiatives as the ones carried by ACF.
Toon Boom is directly involved with Action Against Hunger Canada and has assisted the Montreal Desk in setting up and contributing to several fund raising activities. In addition, Toon Boom has facilitated the introduction of Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) with ACF to create a series of promotional videos that enable students to increase awareness of supporting meaningful societal causes.
You can read about this great initiative here.http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/
In 2008, Toon Boom Animation began a campaign to save the man behind the voice of the Toon Boom Animation tutorials at the time, Emru Townsend. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia in December 2007, and in early 2008, he discovered he needed a bone marrow transplant. His only sibling was not a match, and he quickly learned about the unrelated registries of donors worldwide, and the lack of visibility of accurate information about registration as a donor and the donation process if someone proved to be a match.
Emru found a potential match in June 2008, and in September, the donor was still committed to providing a donation. Emru received a transfusion of the donor's stem cells the day before the Ottawa International Animation Festival, fittingly, at the Ottawa Hospital 10 minutes away. For this reason only, he missed his first Ottawa festival in 20 years. Despite his transplant successfully engrafting to his body, his cancer proved to be too resistant to chemotherapy and stem cell therapy, and he died peacefully on November 11, 2008 in the presence of his family.
Emru has asked that people learn more about becoming registered donors, and sign up if they can. Toon Boom Animation is committed to helping get Emru's message across, even though his voice is now silent.
Here are some common facts about stem cell registration and donation that are often unknown or misunderstood.
Resources: OneMatch (Canada): www.onematch.ca National Marrow Donor Program (US): www.marrow.org Anthony Nolan Trust (UK): www.anthonynolan.org.uk Other registries: www.healemru.com
You never donate stem cells or bone marrow at risk to your own life.
Whatever is donated replenishes itself naturally in the body. There is a myth of extreme pain, which is one of the major reasons people do not donate. In fact, the donor may feel achy and sore, and possible flu-like symptoms before or shortly after donation, depending on the process used.
70% of people will donate in a process that takes a few hours and is similar to donating blood. For a few days leading up to the extraction process, the donor receives injections to produce additional stem cells in the body.
30% of people will donate by having liquid marrow extracted from within the back of the pelvic bone. The donor will be under general anaesthetic or an analgesic will be applied in the area of extraction.
There are 8 blood types, but for a stem cell match there are several million combinations of possible human leukocyte antigen (HLA) profiles - 150 billion different possibilities in theory.
Blood type does not affect a matching. When a donor has a different blood type, if the transplant works, the recipient's blood type will change! Even though blood is important, and people who need transplants (in addition to many other people) need donated blood to survive, people with a rare blood type can probably find a match in a room with 100 people of different ethnicity. For someone looking for a stem cell match, they may need a stadium of 20000 or 50 stadiums (or more) to find a match.
Then they have to hope that person is on the registry.
The most likely match within the general population is someone of the same or similar ethnicity. Many donor pools are severely underrepresented, including donors of African, Aboriginal, Asian and Latino descent. It is vital for these numbers to increase to help more people find matches.
So far due to the efforts of many people who have continued to support this awareness campaign by spreading the word and getting registered, two matches other than Emru's have occurred.
To learn more, go to www.heal-emru.com. Questions can be directed to info@healemru.com.
