Activity Description:

The Full Belly Project, spearheaded by Jock Brondis, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer and light and sounds engineer, is a non-profit organization that designs and delivers simple agricultural machines to people in developing countries around the world. This project teaches people how to build hand-operated machines with common materials.

The peanut industry is not only huge in the Philippines but the reach goes as far as the different corners of the hemisphere, to almost 100 countries, feeding 500 million people and making it a great source of protein. It is also a cash crop which provides livelihood for poor people of developing countries.

But for such a big industry, the agricultural technology of peanuts is still trailing behind. People are still shelling peanuts by hand, painfully one by one. In Africa, most of those who do the work are women. (To save on fuel, peanuts are left dried under the sun which makes their shell hard to open.)

Jock Brandis, on his way to visit a friend in Mali, saw the heart of the problem and decided to use his technical skills to provide an agricultural solution. Thus the Universal Nut Sheller was born.

Invented by Brandis, the nut sheller can work 40 times faster than by hand. This coincided with the establishment of The Full Belly project spearheaded by Brondis which aims to “to relieve hunger through appropriate agricultural technology.” The goal of the organization is to distribute these machines around the world and make peanut a number one source of protein of third world countries. Brandis, out of his generous heart, didn´t patent his invention because he believes that it is “a gift to those in need.”

Not only can peanut provide livelihood but it contains highly nutritious properties which could solve worldwide hunger and eventually poverty-this time on a full stomach.

The machine is made of concrete and simple metal parts which only cost 50 dollars to make. It can shell “50 kilograms of peanuts per hour, and one machine can serve the needs of a village of 2,000. Its life expectancy is 25 years.” The Full Belly Project is now working in Uganda, Senegal, Zambia and Ghana. Filipino MIT graduate and Centromigrante head Illac Diaz has also collaborated with Full Belly Project with the help of a local cement company to teach locals how to build the machines.

Activity Description:

Activity Description: Tools for Self Reliance is a UK-based charity that aims to empower artisans working in developing countries so that they can better participate in the development of themselves and their communities. To achieve this, TFSR works with local partner organisations to provide tools and skills training, thereby increasing self-reliance, diversifying incomes, and improving livelihoods.

Recognising that tools are only a small part of the answer to the problems facing the poor, TSFR works with local organisations to take an integrated approach to meeting the needs of rural crafts-workers , such as ensuring availability of credit to crafts-workers, teaching tool-using and repairing skills, as well as business and enterprise training.

Activity Description: The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) is an independent, non-profit organization that assists developing countries to realise locally-owned, sustainable development, by harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs). IICD works with its partner organisations in (currently nine) selected countries, helping local stakeholders to assess the potential uses of ICTs in development.

Activity Description: Tonnet Enterprise, a Uganda based agro-processing firm, has introduced an improved manually-operated groundnut (peanut) sheller for local farmers.

Capable of shelling 300 to 400 kilogrammes of groundnuts per hour, the sheller is made of steel plates, but is light enough to be portable. Each unit sells for sh250,000 (appx.US$137).

Traditionally, farmers shell with wooden pestles, however this slower process is more likely to damage grains, cause grains to mix with broken pods, stones and dust, and scatter grains during grinding.

Activity Description: LOAN PERFORMER is a database for recording and evaluating microloans. This program has it's roots at the "Uganda Women's Finance Trust" where it was initially developed as the "Trust Information System" in 1995. Development at UWFT took about 3 years, from 1995 to 1998, when LOAN PERFORMER became available as a commercial product. The product had so much potential that CRYSTAL CLEAR SOFTWARE LTD. took over the future support and development.

Activity Description: Founded in January 2000, Mango Tree manufactures innovative educational tools for schools and health centers and provides training in how to use them effectively. Products include educational games and toys, pictorial charts, counseling tools for health care workers, and large format story charts used to ignite discussion on subjects such as gender, communication, and HIV/AIDS. Many of these educational tools are made from locally available materials like grain sacks, bottle tops, recycled slippers (flip-flops), bicycle spokes, gourds, and plastic jerry cans. This makes them easy to replicate by low income educators, and they impact low-income individuals (75% of clients are below the poverty line of $2/day) by improving the quality of educational services they receive.

Activity Description: The MamaMikes remittance service empowers Kenyan immigrants in North America and Europe to transfer help home - not via cash, but by sending shopping credits, cell phone airtime, and other gifts. MamaMikes operates a courier delivery service in the Nairobi area, and its web site allows senders to set up a monthly remittance payment automatically deducted from their secure account.

Activity Description: The Grameen Technology Center is replicating one of the greatest success stories in international development, the Grameen Village Phone Program from Bangladesh. In rural villages where no telecommunications services have previously existed, the program provides cellular phones via a sustainable financing mechanism to poor entrepreneurs who use the phone to operate a business. In its first replication, the Grameen Technology Center established a joint venture with MTN Uganda to create MTN villagePhone in Uganda.

Activity Description: Launched in January 2003, the US$4 million Uganda Energy Fund - a partnership between Shell Foundation and Dfcu Leasing - provides both business development services and lease finance to SMEs in the pro-poor energy sector. Shell Uganda acts as a special adviser to Dfcu Leasing, providing no-cost support to market the Fund, train staff from Dfcu Leasing and share skills with eligible SMEs. Thus f

Activity Description: Grameen Foundation USA and MTN Uganda launched MTN Village Phone Uganda based on the success of GrameenPhone in Bangladesh. MTN Uganda distributes cell phones to women entrepreneurs in rural villages who can purchase them through a microfinancing scheme. These women entrepreneurs then use their new cell phones to sell per-minute usage to other villagers. The women entrepreneurs increase their inco

Activity Description: Pride Africa is a microfinance organization that is using IT for increased efficiency and faster growth. It launched its portal "DrumNet," which stores information on the buying and business habits of Pride clients, in order to group the purchasing power of thousands of small entrepreneurs. Pride is also developing improved loan tracking software and, under its SunLink program, investigating the use of swipe cards and information kiosks.

Activity Description: Bushnet, a private limited company, provides wireless communication and information access across Uganda. Begun in 1996, the company implements a profitable and sustainable model by which it subsidizes wireless services to the poor by providing valuable services to local micro-finance institutions, banks, NGOs and multinational corporations. Bushnet's Wireless Highspeed Data Network, dubbed Ten by Ten for its extensiveness, services schools, health clinics, and poor communities throughout Uganda.

Activity Description:

EnterpriseWorks (formerly Appropriate Technology International) is a non-profit organization that fights poverty in the developing world through business development programs that allow small agricultural producers and other entrepreneurs to increase their productivity and incomes, pursue sustainable business opportunities, and create jobs that benefit their families, communities and regions.

EnterpriseWorks has successfully assisted the creation of small-scale food and oils processing and garment making businesses, implemented irrigation to help productivity, created farm cooperatives, and managed many other entrepreneurial initiatives.