Two partnerships that will make a difference

By  Francine Argentino - summed up from the magazine Newsweek

Through its partnership with the UNESCO, Panasonic will contribute to environmental conservation.

Panasonic, world leader in the development and manufacture of electronic products announced an agreement with UNESCO to sponsor sustainable development through their conservation and environmental education for the next generation.

Under its two-year contract, Panasonic will make communication and educational activities to promote the conservation of world heritage.

They are developing educational activities for children, echo through school learning programs, to share the importance of conservation with the younger generations through experiences.

First, innovation will get a green lifestyle green lifestyle to enrich people's lives. Second, the green business innovation will minimize the environmental impact of manufacturing operations of Panasonic and promote good ecological issues.

Panasonic 2018 green plan:

·         Reducing emissions of CO2 by solar panels and other energy management technology

·         Minimize water consumption.

These are just some examples of this. This project is a beginning and an example for other large-sized companies to come together and achieve great results.

Visitors Wanted

By Marcelo Delaqua Burim - summed up from the magazine Newsweek    

   This report talks about the power to persuade people to travel around the world in countries where it is required a special vision.
       Some countries create special advertisements to induce the visitors with tools to travel to their countries.
       For example: Japan is not a popular country concerning tourists, so the government launched a huge campaign to attract them. The slogan of the campaign was a problem though: "YOKOSO JAPAN" that means "Welcome to Japan".
Creating an effective slogan is not easy task - mainly for a nation. Some countries as Australia, Israel and Uganda have done image to makeover campaigns to try to persuade people to visit these countries.
       Australia created the "So where the bloody hell are you?" campaign inviting tourists to visit Australia's natural wonders, trying to clear the previous image of a "STAGNANT" country.
       But in some cases some countries prefer to advertise the fact that it is "gifted by nature", not plagued by the past in the case of Uganda which burdens a brutal past.
       Branding a country for tourists requires vision, honesty and citizens who love themselves.
       To conclude, to have an attractive country for visitors it's important to make your country like the one you'd like to visit.

DIGITAL DUMP

By Elisangela Oliveira, summed up from the magazine Newsweek

On the outskirts of Accra lies the Agbogbloshie slum, this place is the Ghana’s biggest eletronic-waste dumps, the locals already gave a nickname for this place: “Sodom and Gomorrah”, because of the black smoke and stench of burning plastic, this things made the landscape look ugly.

Behind all that, there was a good intention, for decades Western countries have been donating computers to West Africa. They thought that this action was developing world into the digital age. Instead, the efforts were not enough, all this action became a digital disaster.

The problem began with the computers, many of them were outdated, broken, unusable and besides, they arrived in a greater number that anyone could expect.

So now, in these recent years people have been thinking in alternatives to change this situation, but they have been unsuccessfully. The results has been unregulated shipping containers, marked “donations”,  that land in developing countries, packed with e-waste.

Some Project was tried but quickly devolved into a scheme for get around national regulations and cheaply dump dangerous garbage into poor rural villages. After that, Agbogbloshie is a treacherous treasure hunt, the locals burn the discarded electronics to extract cooper and other importante metals, the local manufacturers buy the products, offering one of the only steady income stream in town.

The smoke from the burning is extremely toxic, with high concentration of lead, Mercury, thellium, hydrogen, cyanide and PVC, not only that, Ghana is also the stop sources of cybercrime in the world.

The only thing someone can conclude with this story is that sometimes good intentions don’t work out, and when they don’t, the big companies (in this special case) in the world have to try hard to fix the situation they created on their own, because a lot of innocent people can die or get sick, besides living in clandentinity or outside the law.