Smiley Movement
A new sanitary pad initiative is giving girls and women in Papua New Guinea a safe way to deal with menstruation while simultaneously providing economic opportunities for Aboriginal women in northwest Queensland.
Despite living in one of Queensland’s most disadvantaged areas, women from the community of Doomadgee have spent months sewing more than 1,300 washable sanitary pads and making hundreds of Moon Sick Care Bags for girls and women living in remote Papua New Guinea.
A British astrophysicist who was passed over for the Nobel prize for her discovery of exotic cosmic objects that light up the heavens has won the most lucrative award in modern science.
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a visiting professor at Oxford University, was chosen by a panel of leading scientists to receive the $3m (£2.3m) special Breakthrough prize in fundamental physics for her landmark work on pulsarsand a lifetime of inspiring leadership in the scientific community.
The supermarket Iceland has become the first in the UK to install a reverse vending machine in-store, in a bid to empower shoppers to cut down on plastic waste from packaging.
And it’s giving people an incentive to get involved, too — handing out 10p Iceland vouchers for each returned plastic bottle.
The scheme is being trialled in the Fulham store for six months before being potentially rolled out across the country.
Veronica D’Souza is a social entrepreneur with heart and soul who strongly believes in using innovative business solutions to improve the world. In 2011, she co-founded Ruby Cup, which addresses the lack of affordable menstrual hygiene products for women and girls in poverty.
Since then she has been recognized as a ‘Global Shaper’ by the World Economic Forum and was designated as the youngest jury member at INDEX, an award honoring the best sustainable, life-improving designs. With an educational background in international business, politics, languages and culture, she founded CARCEL in 2016, a Copenhagen-based fashion label whose products are produced by women in prison and made from 100% natural materials.
“I believe in the power of sustainable business models to address societal challenges and scale these solutions. There is something very dignifying in seeing people as resourceful rather than as victims that need help. It is also my belief that if you provide opportunities for women, you help the entire family”