Integration and Development Brazilian-style

Access to Water Is a Daily Battle in Poor Neighborhoods in Buenos Aires

By Daniel Gutman
"Look at this water. Would you drink it?" asks José Pablo Zubieta, as he shows a glass he has just filled from a faucet, where yellow and brown sediment float, in his home in Villa La Cava, a shantytown on the outskirts of Argentina's capital.

Local School Is a Model for Energy and Water in Rapa Nui

By Orlando Milesi
A school in the capital of Easter Island (Rapa Nui, in the local indigenous tongue) gives an example of clean management with the use of solar energy, rainwater recovery and an organic vegetable garden, as well as rooms and spaces built with waste materials.

Solar Energy Provides Hope for Poor Neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires

By Daniel Gutman
Solar panels shine on the rooftop terraces of 10 neat buildings with perfectly straight lines and of uniform height, an image of modernity that contrasts with the precariously-built dwellings with unplastered concrete block walls just a few metres away, with rooms added in a disorderly manner, surrounded by a tangle of electric cables.

Mexican Village Wants to Turn Thermoelectric Plant into Solar Panel Factory

By Emilio Godoy
Social organisations in the central Mexican municipality of Yecapixtla managed to halt the construction of a large thermoelectric plant in the town and are now designing a project to convert the installation into a solar panel factory, which would bring the area socioeconomic and environmental dividends.

Solar Energy Begins to Light Up Favelas in Rio de Janeiro

By Mario Osava
“We can’t work just to pay the electric bill,” complained José Hilario dos Santos, president of the Residents Association of Morro de Santa Marta, a favela or shantytown embedded in Botafogo, a traditional middle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro.

Local Innovation Facilitates Solidarity-Based Biogas Networks in Cuba

By Ivet González
Black plastic pipes, readily available on the mainly empty shelves of Cuba’s shops, distribute biogas to homes in the rural town of La Macuca, buried under the ground or running through the grass and stones in people’s yards.

Solar Energy Crowns Social Housing Programme in Brazil

By Mario Osava
"Solar energy makes my happiness complete," said Divina Cardoso dos Santos, owner of one of 740 houses with photovoltaic panels on the rooftops in a settlement on the outskirts of this central Brazilian city.

Local Communities in Mexico Question Benefits of Mayan Train

By Emilio Godoy
"If thousands of people flock to this town, how will we be able to service them? I'm afraid of that growth," Zendy Euán, spokeswoman for a community organisation,said in reference to the Mayan Train (TM) project, a railway network that will run through five states in southern Mexico.

Water, an Environmental Product of Agriculture in Brazil

By Mario Osava
For the first time in her life, retired physical education teacher Elizabeth Ribeiro planted a tree, thorny papaya, native to Brazil's central savanna.

Thermal Houses Keep People Warm in Peru’s Highlands

By Mariela Jara
Thirty families from a rural community more than 4,300 meters above sea level will have warm houses that will protect them from the freezing temperatures that each year cause deaths and diseases among children and older adults in this region of the southeastern Peruvian Andes.

Solar Energy Drives Social Development in Brazil’s Favelas

By Mario Osava
"We can't work just to pay the electric bill," complained José Hilario dos Santos, president of the Residents Association of Morro de Santa Marta, a favela or shantytown embedded in Botafogo, a traditional middle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro.

Cuba’s Only Semiarid Region Reinvents Agriculture to Survive

By Ivet González
At a brisk pace, Marciano Calamato and Mireya Noa walk along the dry, yellow soil of their farm, where they even manage to grow onions in Cuba's unique semi-arid eastern region.

Diversifying Crops to Help Overcome Drought in Brazil

By Mario Osava
Dozens of trucks used to leave São Gonçalo every day, carrying the local agricultural production, mainly coconuts, to markets throughout Brazil, including the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, more than 2,000 kilometers away.

Rainwater Harvesting Eases Daily Struggle in Argentina’s Chaco Region

By Daniel Gutman
"I've been used to hauling water since I was eight years old. Today, at 63, I still do it," says Antolín Soraire, a tall peasant farmer with a face ravaged by the sun who lives in Los Blancos, a town of a few dozen houses and wide dirt roads in the province of Salta, in northern Argentina.

Youth in Latin America Learn About Paths to Clean Energy

By Mariela Jara
Young Peruvians plan to take advantage of the knowledge acquired in Brazil's semi-arid Northeast to bring water to segments of the population who suffer from shortages, after sharing experiences in that ecoregion on the multiple uses of renewable energies in communities affected by climatic phenomena.

Students Go Green to End Global Energy Poverty

By Busani Bafana
In Africa, over 640 million people – almost double the population of United States – have no access to electricity, with many relying on dirty sources of energy sources for heating, cooking and lighting. While not offering a solution to the electricity gap in Africa, Brian Kakembo Galabuzi, a Ugandan economics student, can offer a cleaner and cheaper solution.

Farmers Generate Their Own Electricity in El Salvador

By Edgardo Ayala
In Lilian Gómez’s house, nestled in the mountains of eastern El Salvador, the darkness of the night was barely relieved by the faint, trembling flames of a pair of candles, just like in the houses of her neighbours. Until now.

Preservation of the Klamath River – a Life or Death Matter for the Yurok People

By Emilio Godoy
Fishermen are scarce in the Klamath River delta, unlike other fishing season, because climate change has driven up water temperatures which kills off the salmon, the flagship species of this region in northern California.

Q&A: As Water Scarcity Becomes the New Normal How Do We Manage This Scarce Resource?

By Manipadma Jena
Growing economies are thirsty economies. And water scarcity has become “the new normal” in many parts of the world, according to Torgny Holmgren executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

New Relationship Evolves Between Society and Energy in Brazil

By Mario Osava
“We want to make history," agreed the teachers at the Chiquinho Cartaxo Comprehensive Technical Citizen School. They are the first to teach adolescents about generating power from bad weather in the semi-arid Northeast region of Brazil.

Scientists Warn of the Imminent Depletion of Groundwater in Chile’s Atacama Desert

By Orlando Milesi
Eighteen national science prize-winners in Chile have called for a halt to the over-extraction of water in the four regions over which the Atacama Desert spreads in the north of the country, a problem that threatens the future of 1.5 million people.
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