Good Fact

Students Cleanup Their ‘Hood

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Students at Spain Middle School, which is nowhere near Spain, in fact the school is in Detroit Michigan. Detroit is renowned for it’s urban areas that are falling apart, well these kids had enough. For a school project they utilized technologies used by NASA and marketing corporations, GIS – also known as Geographic Information Systems.

They went around their neighborhoods documenting all things wrong. They plotted the location of say an abandoned car and took a picture of it and went on to the next sign of urban blight. After collecting all their data they took the next logical step.

“They students have compiled their material into Power Point presentations for Detroit city council members, highlighting areas that have been neglected and need improvement. They were able to show, for example, that the number of abandoned homes in one neighborhood had increased by more than 50 percent. The Wayne County prosecutors’ office began targeting the area.”

With GIS technology becoming more accessible hopefully we can see it used for more projects like this and maybe for tracking environmental damage too.

First Fair Trade Town in USA

- Adam Clare

Buying fair trade is increasing in popularity, as any ThingsAreGood reader already knows, but it has taken a little longer for the World Bank to catch on. On the WB’s private sector development blog they announced today that fair trade is popular. Even if they are a little slow, good for the WB for figuring things out.

In the United States of America, a town has proclaimed itself to be the first town to be a fair trade community. These communities have existed in Europe for years now, but now that it’s happening in America let’s hope the idea continues to grow. Congrats go out to Media, Pennsylvania becoming a fair trade community.

“The Media Borough Council unanimously passed a resolution on June 15th supporting the concept of Fair Trade and promising to serve Fair Trade products at its meetings and functions. The resolution was the last goal necessary to become a Fair Trade town. The other goals are that a certain percentage of retailers and institutions sell and use Fair Trade products, widespread support and media coverage exist for Fair Trade, and an ongoing steering committee keeps the Fair Trade issue vital. Since there is as yet no national Fair Trade town initiative in the United States, Media, Pennsylvania used the goals established by the Fairtrade Foundation of Britain.”

How to Train Your Husband Like a Dolphin

- Benny Powers

A brilliant animal trainer named Amy Sutherland has been using animal training techniques on her husband with great results!

She’s learned how to train wild animals, and is applying the same techniques to her husband Scott. She says her marriage is happier and smoother than it was before, and best of all, she doesn’t have to nag!

I hope this one helps smooth over a few rough marriages!

Guns for Bikes Peddling Works

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The Democratic Republic of Congo has a program that allows people to turn in their firearms for some thing useful – bikes. The program has been so successful that it is being expanded.

A BBC corespondent proclaims that it’s more successful than a previous UN disarmament program. It’s so sucesful that tin roofs are being given out in places where they don’t have enough bikes to hand out.

“Ngoy Mulunda, a pastor in the south-eastern Katanga region, says he has been given some 6,500 weapons in the past year, which he has destroyed.”

Internet Hunting Banned

- Adam Clare

The internet fad of hunting living animals in the wild through a website is losing momentum. Recently “Louisiana has joined 21 other states in banning Internet hunting,” which is nice to see. Banning internet hunting will obviously make it easier for animals to keep living.

Thanks Kate for letting us know about this, and remember that anyone can submit news through our handy submit form

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