It's been a while - quick news from betterplace

Lately, we’ve posted more in the German blog. We didn’t mean to neglect our English-speaking readers! Here’s a quick update on the most important news at betterplace:

+++ Over 20.000 Euro within a few days for surviving victims of cyclone Nargis in Burma. German/Swedish energy group Vattenfall will match every Euro donated by an employee. The money is used to buy survival packs, containing a plastic cover, clothes, kitchen and hygiene articles, a blanket and a petrol canister, for 35 Euro each. CARE have been present in Burma for over 20 years with mainly local staff, the packs get distributed directly to the victims of Nargis. +++ Why can’t we do the same to help the victims of the earthquake in China? Big discussions here in the team. We don’t have a partner organisation with that amount of experience on location, and that we know to be trustworthy, like the case with CARE in Burma. That’s the problem. +++ Toilet collabo kick-off: past Tuesday we welcomed Jack Sim, founder of World Toilet Organisation (with the great acronym WTO) from Singapore, German designer Werner Aisslinger, and a group of design students from Berlin’s Universität der Künste (UdK) and Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) in Karlsruhe. Assisted by their professors Aisslinger and Axel Kufus, the students will design the toilet for “the other 90 %” of humanity - those 2.6 Billion people without access to sanitary facilities at the bottom of the pyramid and mostly neglected as potential customers. +++ It’s everybody’s business - we got covered by Germany’s reputable newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The smart article by Johannes Boie was both published on jetzt.de, and as printed version in the newpaper’s “young” supplement. +++ to be continued…