DailyGood

For the last 27 years, DailyGood newsletters have offered a daily email that inspires you to respond to life with creativity and kindness. To join a community of 148,407 subscribers, subscribe here.

Mar 22, 2011

"Goods are called good because they can be used for good." --Clement of Alexandria

Recycled Cell Phones Save Lives

"It's your trash, but it turns into value, it turns into lives saved really quickly." Josh Nesbit says excitedly. Four years ago, Nesbit noticed that health workers in Malawi often lost important information during their strenuous trips to patients in isolated villages. Instead of walking for hours on end, doctors and patients could instantly text each other if they just had the right technology, he thought. With the help of the 500,000 cell phones found in trash cans each day, Nesbit set up a network that allowed health workers to turn paper records into text messages, saving time, resources, and lives. His small project has spread across 11 countries and helped 3.5 million patients.