here is part of a conversation around people who connect world leading experiment in grassroots up power - please find others who you know to be in the same revolutionary space- let's set ourselves a goal of a 10 times better for the world way of inviting travellers to buy carbon user reinsurance than the average plant a tree

chris writes to stewart of the briliant http://barefootpower.com and invites a circulated email list to get weaving

Here are some dotted lines. I dont know how to connect them though I specifically chose the circulation list on this email because you all could do

1 Rick solaroof nelson with friends such as anne http://www.ned.com/user/u648265411/ , mitchell (brixton's number 1 community entrepreneur) , sofia http://www.ned.com/user/u4358995 68/ (community builder and women entrepreneur for london, Yunus...) promise that it is possible to map out a 10 times better carbon travel reinsurance scheme than plant a tree, and that collecting for a kibera based power project for this slum's 1 million people and 50000 orphans would be a first such case

2 Samuel's https://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/news/1747/ (an unseen hero I first microfinanced after being deeply upset by american idol and other place) number 1 missions in life in rural Kenya relate to orphans ; and his friends also shoot grassroots films of orphans across kenya; we dont know yet how to edit them into youtube formats though Guilhem in London and many of his hi-tech friends -eg tav of http://green.tv - are looking at that content; this could have been particularly relevant in 2007 because american idol fundraise 50 million dollars using stories of kibera child and then never gave a cent back to the grassroots at kibera (a typical bono-esque replay of global aid that telethons on both sides of the atlantic now serially replay -so near and yet so far from http://peoplepower.jp ) http://kibera.tv http://africanidol.tv

3 Peter Burgess of http://tr-ac-net.org and end malaria http://www.ned.com/group/econo-p olitics/news/6/ : tracks more grassroots transparency projects across africa than anyone I have met; Lesley fundraises in London for more grassroots projects than other fundraisers I have met (not that I have developed fundraiser networking contacts). Elfneh is intending to help london develop fundraising networks by going to the upcoming Tom Hunter conference on how to get grassroots funding from the rich.

Other Places better Media and Dubliner: Clare Mulvany http://www.omidyar.net/user/u680173710/ http://exceptional-lives.blogspo t.com will be in London on Friday 21 Sept and meeting eg sofia; Wangari Maathai is one of the great grassoots coordinates for common sense on energy; london should find a way to engage both Sir Nick Stern and Richard Branson the huge door openers to grassroots up energy networks if only what you and rick practice can blend with Maathai's advocacy of communities who as yet dont bhave any energy at all

Sofia's friend Taddy Blecher in CIDA south africa http://cidaworld.tv wants to peer to peer open source sustainability curricula and Rick is chatting up Schumacher College to see if they will join forces in doing this. India wants to completely revise all educational curricula on peer to peer practices of sustainability, and to have completed this by 2020 at the very latest, but I need to transfer more of my relatinship mapping time to India from Africa so that we can flow with Abdul Kalam's world leading challenge to youth in this regard. Rick may also be relocating his photosynthesis agriculture and architecture networks primarily to Dublin.

There are probably lots of other dots to try and get on to the same map at the same time; and if Yunus gives us londoners freedoms to invite 1000 most collaborative people to meeting then all of the above will be one of the clusters we try and network weave to unite with his offer to chnage the globe with Yunus

Mostofa is london's most connected person with Yunus citizen forums and in Warwick we also have the co-founder of Yunus Pop group http://www.thegreenchildren.org/ tgcf/community/tom/ which also storytells for Kenya, and he can probably find out how fast Yunus free university is accelerating and whether it wants any grassroots power peer to peer correspondentnce courses, as well as possibly what is Yunus own apprasal of how well his green nergy businesses are evolving

hope someone else will add links that I have forgotten - just a starter mail in case there is a power up africa community to form round this circulation list

cheers chris

Stewart Craine <@barefootpower.com> wrote: Hi Chris,

I have heard and researched the basics of Wangari Mattahai, as we are starting projects in Kenya early next year. I have a contact at Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums, in Nairobi, which is our starting point, and if this can attract the attention of Wangari's group, we can then push into rural areas with a grassroots push by women, which would be great. I have one link to a small women's microfinance group in Kenya, which will also be a good example to show Wangari's group, but these things take time to get together.

We presented at the world summit of microfinance last October, and this gave us contact with about 60 microfinance institutions, some of whom are very focused on women, some who are not. We are also concentrating in the Pacific, though these MFIs are small and generally do not have a high focus on women (though women probably account for more than 50% of the clients).

So the long answer is yes, we do network with women-focused MFIs a bit, and will do so far more next year. It is mostly women who use kerosene lighting inside houses, so it should be of big interest to them to hear about a product that improves the indoor living condition. If any of the above is interesting to Sofia or the rest of your group, please complete the CC, but I though best to spare their inbox the clutter of this long reply.....

Stewart