According to 2008 figures quoted by Mercy Corps, 11 million Indonesian children suffer from malnutrition. In the slums of Jakarta, many parents give their children a few rupiah for dinner, which they spend filling up on sweets and junk food from street vendors, leading to anaemia rates of over 50 percent in some areas of the city.

A new social enterprise by Mercy Corps is taking a pragmatic approach to improving children's food intake. The Healthy Street Foods Project has funded a fleet of food stalls and is providing them to selected street-vendors around the city. Worth USD 600 each, these are no ordinary food stalls. Known as Kedai Balitaku ('My Child's Cafe‘), they serve nutritional food at low prices. Each cart comes equipped with a hand-washing station, and they have been designed by Saatchi & Saatchi to be both appealing and accessible to young children, displaying food at child's-eye-level and featuring colourful pictures of 'superkids'. Dishes served include bubur ayam, a rice, chicken and coconut milk porridge served with vegetables for IDR 2,000 (USD 0.20). One bowl satisfies one third of a child's daily calorific needs.

The scheme has already proved popular with children, some of whom are starting to text orders for delivery. But they're not the only ones to benefit. The hand-picked local vendors now own thriving micro-businesses which, according to Mercy Corps, started turning a profit in their second month. It shows the sustainable progress that can be made by empowering local entrepreneurs to combat problems in their own communities. (Related: Food store for kids — Happy healthy meals.)

Website: www.mercycorps.org/countries/indonesia/15689
Contact: www.mercycorps.org/contact

Spotted by: Susanna Haynie

We’ve covered the value of worm poop, and now it’s time for the merits of cow dung to come to the fore. EcoFaeBrick turns cattle waste into bricks that are greener, stronger and 20% lighter than regular clay bricks.

The Indonesian organization was set up earlier this year to tackle the problem of excessive waste in farming areas. From this, the ecological and economical solution of the Cow Dung Brick was born. There's no visible difference between a traditional brick and the dung brick—and before you ask, there's no smell either. Instead of using wood fire the dung bricks are fired using biogas, helping to further reduce carbon emissions. The new product also lets land be retained for farming, rather than being excavated for clay for conventional bricks, or becoming a health risk due to ‘too much dung’.

A green product that boosts the wealth of rural Indonesians, it's not hard to see why EcoFaeBrick came first in the 2009 Global Social Venture competition. The company has identified 22 areas around Indonesia that they want to expand the project to, plus 22 more in other parts of the world. One to support, or otherwise get involved with!

Website: www.ecofaebrick.com
Contact: yusufaria@ecofaebrick.com

Spotted by: Tais Reis

When consumers buy fair-trade products, it's typically because they are motivated more by ethical considerations than by price--which tends to be higher for such goods. Fair-trade exporter CraftNetwork, however, is focusing on long-term sustainability with an approach that aims to make fair-trade goods more competitive with other alternatives.

CraftNetwork provides export-facilitation and enterprise-development services to Indonesian artisans with the goal of increasing sales, strengthening ethical trading practices, building organizational capacity, generating employment and improving the artisans' standard of living. In Etsy-like fashion, CraftNetwork offers an online marketplace for jewelry, paintings, sculpture, home decor and accessory items crafted by more than a thousand disadvantaged Indonesian artisans. Going beyond just a B2C marketplace, however, CraftNetwork also helps the artisans it represents compete with large-scale factory producers in global wholesale markets, according to an article in BusinessWeek. Specifically, by helping the artisans produce goods to common specifications, it enables them to offer volumes and uniformity that are competitive with those of factory-based counterparts, BW reported. A recent deal with Carnival Cruise Lines, for example, calls for CraftNetwork's artisans to produce 50,000 books woven out of banana leaves, employing an entire Indonesian village and bringing in USD 70,000 per month. CraftNetwork also offers its artisans business training and resources including a pool of money that they can reportedly borrow from to finance their operations while waiting for payments. CraftNetwork is supported by the Grassroots Business Initiative of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation group.

Ethical consumers notwithstanding, true sustainability--particularly during tough economic times--still comes down to the fundamental ability to compete on basic considerations like quality and price. CraftNetwork's is a model to watch--and emulate.

Website: www.craftnetwork.com
Contact: info@craftnetwork.com

Spotted by: BusinessWeek

There are plenty of schools out there with green practices among their goals, but a new school opening this fall in Bali will be entrepreneurially green from top to bottom.

The Green School, which will offer preschool through year eight, aims to provide a place where students can become more curious and more passionate about their education and the planet. The school's eight-hectare campus in Sibang Kaja is divided by the Ayung River, on whose western bank are the school's classrooms, libraries, laboratories and kitchens. Aquaculture ponds, organic vegetable gardens, edible mazes and permacultural gardens are interspersed throughout the vast campus, which is built entirely of low-impact and environmentally conscious materials such as bamboo, alang-alang grass and traditional Balinese mud walls. For energy supplies, the school is experimenting with micro-hydro power generation as well as producing methane from cow manure to fuel stoves and developing a gasification unit that will use rice husks and other organic materials to produce electricity. A working organic chocolate factory, large sports fields, gymnasium, high ropes course and a network of bicycle paths are also part of the campus.

The Green School's curriculum, meanwhile, combines demanding academic content taught through a holistic approach that aims to inspire and enhance all of a child’s capacities. The school's Learning Village, for example, gives students a chance to apply lessons to specific disciplines and real business situations, making abstract ideas come to practical life. Students are involved in everything from manufacturing their own chocolate to helping manage the organic fields, bamboo plantations and rice paddies that are integral to the campus. The Green School is open to children from all over the world, with boarding available starting next year for those in seventh grade and up. Villas are available for international families whose children attend the school. Tuition ranges from roughly USD 4,000 to USD 9,000 per year, depending on grade.

It doesn't get much more eco-iconic than a thoroughly green school, and eco-minded consumers with the means to afford it will surely find the Green School compelling. Of course, the concept seems like one that could also work in other parts of the world. One to watch!

Website: www.greenschool.org
Contact: info@greenschool.org

Spotted by: Caramel