Kiddle away!

Dia Mundial da Água / World Water Day 2012

Light for Malawi

and it's beautiful ;)

A solar-charged light might seem like just another green gadget to the average American, but for families in rural Africa, it could prove revolutionary.

Product design consultancy Plus Minus Design is vying to replace unsustainable and potentially dangerous lanterns in the homes of off-grid Africans with the Solar Pebble. Engineered with the economic constraints of developing-world citizens in mind, the Solar Pebble will provide one hour of LED light for every two hours of charge, and will cost only $2.70 to manufacture.

Plus Minus Design, based in Leeds, U.K., was founded by three undergraduate students at the University of Leeds. While studying product design and engineering, Adam Robinson, Henry James, and Tom Eales were given the opportunity to work with SolarAid, a charity in the U.K. 

SolarAid, which works to fight poverty and climate change, worked with the students to develop a solar-powered alternative to kerosene lanterns. Those lanterns, commonly used in rural Africa, draw 20 percent of an average Malawian family's income, SolarAid said, and pose respiratory health problems, as well as create fire hazards.

The undergrads spent months researching life in Malawi to design a product that addressed the needs of rural families, but also took environmental, economic, and lifestyle factors into consideration. Local maintenance, potential for the development of children's education, and adaptability to charge other devices were the team's key requirements. 

Though mobile phones and portable radios are common in rural Africa, individuals must travel to locations with mains power for charging. With this issue in mind, the engineers designed the Solar Pebble to charge phones and portable devices in addition to providing light.

Plus Minus Design was also able to address the need for local maintenance with a simply designed product assembled through snap-in parts and repairable with basic tools.

The Solar Pebble provides light and a means of portable charging, but its implications are even greater. The lamp will ship partially assembled, providing jobs for locals who would finish assembly. Furthermore, Plus Minus Design hopes the lamp will increase radio usage, providing rural African families with HIV/AIDS prevention information.

According to Robinson, the Solar Pebble will launch in Uganda and the U.K. by midsummer.

Solar Pebble could light the way for rural Africans

Embrace Life

Via JC no Twitter ;)

Em Beirute

Two girls pick books from the children's section during the opening of the annual Francophone Book Fair in Beirut on October 22, 2009. The 16th edition of the Salon du livre francophone de Beyrouth, will be on till November 1st including several cultural events around it with Beirut being the World Book Capital for this year. AFP PHOTO/RAMZI HAIDAR (Photo credit should read RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images).

via Jezebel :)

E alarmes para lembrar da existência de bebés nos mil aparelhómetros que se adora ter hoje em dia, não?

À falta de alarme na cabeça, no coração, no instinto, nem sei o que digo, é escabroso...

Um menino de nove meses morreu fechado no carro do pai, onde ficou durante três horas sob o sol forte da manhã. O pai terá optado por deixar o filho a dormitar em vez de o levar logo à creche, que fica mesmo ao lado, mas acabou por esquecer-se dele no automóvel. Pode vir a ser acusado de homicídio por negligência.

Mais no DN online

Videos para Crianças: Kideo Player :)

Directamente do YouTube, filtrados para crianças

Baby Feeder, Life Saver / E nunca mais se engasgam ;)

À venda na Babies 'R Us

O parque do Lucas é uma cama de viagem!

Quadrada e algo colorida, embora em fundo preto, mas onde cabe o maravilhoso tapete Tiny Love maravilhoso (duas vezes :)

Riding New York's subway Alone at 9 years old

I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale’s (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door. Bye-bye! Have fun!

And he did. He came home on the subway and bus by himself .

Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.”

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

The cute illustration - who are you, magic touch illustrator? - links to Lenore Skenazy's blog on this and other matters.

Read her original article for the New York Sun, and her reply to the moniker «America's Worst Mom» that ensued.

Estes Americanos estão loucos...
Oxalá o meu filho saiba andar de transportes públicos!