We’re back with another fresh batch of amazing projects on Giveth.io. We have six projects from a wide range of causes that we are featuring in this project spotlight. This is also an extra special spotlight because Giveth.io itself is currently active and accepting donations on the latest round of Gitcoin Grants (GR11). If you feel inspired by the Giveth mission after reading this article then consider making a contribution via our Grants listing and learn about the magic of Quadratic Funding! More on that later…
Without further ado let’s dive in and highlight these projects that are making our DApp great!
ETHOS
Emergency Transitional Housing Offering Services (ETHOS) is designing funding solutions for the homelessness crisis in Olympia, Washington State. ETHOS has been championed by ‘Art Is Solidarity’ which is a local non-profit combining blockchain technology and art mediums to find solutions and funding opportunities for pressing social issues. At the heart of this project is the city’s first initiative: to combat homelessness. From ETHOS’s project description:
“In 2018, the City of Olympia sanctioned a tent city adjacent to the transit center downtown dubbed the “Mitigation Site” for those struggling on the streets to have somewhere to rest and seek shelter. In late 2020, two-and-a-half winters and many tents later, a next step in creating a path to housing for downtowners was conceived when the City of Olympia contracted a local design and build firm to create 60 ‘micro-houses’ to replace tents and offer more security and safety for those trying to get on their feet.“
Following the successful construction and installation of these micro-houses, Art Is Solidarity will use additional funds raised to improve upon the amenities inside the Mitigation Site in a unique way. They are engaging the help of local artists to beautify the micro-houses into works of art and mint the art pieces into NFTs to be auctioned off digitally. Proceeds of these auctions will go towards outfitting the house with furniture, heaters and more!
Art Is Solidarity also intends to educate the shelter’s inhabitants and local artists about the vast opportunities that NFTs and cryptocurrencies can offer for alternative forms of income, and provide them with the tools to get involved. Check out their project on Giveth.io and donate to help the build and beautification of micro-housing, and the educational opportunities being created for the homeless in Olympia.
Finca Morpho
Nestled in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, there is a community of thriving nomads building ecological harmony at Finca Morpho. This 5-acre beachfront paradise is where humans create strong ties with each other and the land while learning a wide range of skills for a harmonized lifestyle. These skills include permaculture, bamboo building, recycling techniques, holistic medicine, renewable energy, and healthy cooking techniques.
Founded in 2014 Finca Morpho is a place for curious travelers to spend time in nature and to fully immerse themselves in communal living. They also host events and retreats to further share the important knowledge they have cultivated on the farm. They have created closed-loop recycling systems from the ground up, having found ways to completely repurpose all of their waste. From a simple sandy beach they have nurtured a thriving permaculture system complete with aquaponics, soil sanctuaries and carbon sequestration techniques. They have come a long way from their humble beginnings.
There are 7 pillars that comprise the core physical and conceptual foundations of the farm: The Kitchen, The Resource Center, Permaculture, Hospitality, Infrastructure, Project Management and Relationships. Finca Morpho is seeking funding to upgrade a few of these pillars which need a bit of love in order to maintain and improve their functions. The four pillars needing improvements are:
- Kitchen — To keep feeding hungry mouths and processing the bounty of the land. Buying new equipment such as blenders and stoves.
- Resource Center — To fulfill their mission of recycling or repurposing everything they use. Purchasing a 3d printer, plastic shredder, extruder, microscope and expanding the area of the center.
- Infrastructure — The cabins, water storage system and solar grid they maintain are in need of love. Buying new solar batteries, renovating cabins and installing a new water storage system.
- Permaculture — Every season comes with new challenges and needs. Purchasing seeds, plants and trees.
Check out Finca Morpho’s project on Giveth.io and make a donation to keep this community thriving and capable of spreading its message to those who seek it, and learn more about how they do it on their website.
Solidity Development Course in Farsi
The language and gender barriers created by the english-dominated blockchain industry severely hamper opportunities of up-and-coming demographics to fully participate in the revolutionary technology that Blockchain produces. Shayan Eskandari, the project’s creator summarizes the opportunity to provide support:
“Farsi is spoken by an estimated 110 million speakers mostly in Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Russia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan . . . In contrast to the West where computer engineers are predominantly men, Iran’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) graduates are about 70% women.”
CoinIran, the project’s host organization, has built opportunities to overcome these barriers by creating unique programs for Farsi speakers, notably their latest project, “Women in Blockchain’’. This program is putting Iranian women through the ConsenSys Academy Blockchain Developer bootcamp while providing technical and linguistic support, giving them the knowledge and skills to acquire jobs as Ethereum developers. Their initial cycle put 7 women through the course, who all passed, receiving developer certifications from ConsenSys.
Making Blockchain and Cryptocurrency more accessible will only help to ensure its growth and adoption. The project is seeking funding to cover the expenses of putting the women through the course and for the costs of building the course tailored for Farsi speakers with comprehensive media, translations and syllabuses. Further funds raised will allow more women to go through the program. Read the full article on CoinIran and visit their project on Giveth.io to make a donation!
Oika
Can be defined as “The feeling of ecological wellbeing and belonging to nature. It is the intelligence of nature as expressed through human thought and action.”. The word is derived from the Greek word Oikos, meaning “home”. The project, Oika, is reconnecting humans with nature and raising awareness of climate change through NFT technology. Dr. Rich Blundell, the project’s creator, has gathered a team of scientists, artists and storytellers to cultivate Ecological Intelligence. They are combining the realms of academic ecological analysis with different artistic techniques to produce images and videos that are minted as NFTs. You can check out their creations on the Oika Media page.
Oika also maintains an off-grid homestead and marine research vessel for inspired researchers to collaborate, incubating new ideas and generating knowledge. There are a wide variety of subjects that Oika advocates research on, such as:
- Ecological Survey & Monitoring
- Invasive Species Response
- Pelagic/Neritic, Plastics Clean-up
- Fishing Debris Location & Removal
- Wildlife Reporting & Monitoring
- Aquaculture Research
- Phenology (study of climate change effects)
- Citizen Science
- Sci-Art Collaboration
- Public Interpretation/Communication
- Conservation Journalism/Documentary
Oika also offers courses for teaching the concepts of Ecological Intelligence. They seek funding to continue operating their off-grid research center and to pay artists and scientists for their contributions and collaborations involved in crafting the NFTs. Visit the Oika website to learn more and check out their project on Giveth.io to make a donation!
Grassroots Economics
The ability for local economies to spring up, create their own money and give it value is one of the most revolutionary concepts created by cryptocurrency. Grassroots Economics is proving this concept by building open-source economies in communities throughout Kenya. Their base token. known as Community Inclusion Currency (CIC). is to be used across all their participating communities in order to quantify and redistribute the abundance of goods they produce.
Their vision is to create healthy and decentralized ecosystems by empowering locals to design their own economies. They also believe heavily in syntropic agroforestry as the main technique to provide agricultural abundance and economic value production.
They seek funding in order to build the open-source software they need in order to achieve their goals. Development currently takes place on their public repository on Gitlab. Check out their project on Giveth.io and make a donation to allow Kenyan communities to build new economies using Blockchain!
Rainbow Crystal Land
Among the Andes mountains in San Agustin, Colombia, there is a community of free-spirits liberating mother nature and creating communal living spaces. Rainbow Crystal Land (RCL), established in 2014, strives to create a global network of leaderless, horizontally structured communities that live in harmony with each other and the Earth. Currently they operate out of their main hub in San Agustin but are seeking to build a global community that shares their philosophy. They are mostly donation based but also sell the food they grow on the land to the local markets. All of these funds go into their “Magic Hat” which is used to buy necessary food and pay overhead costs to continue their existence.
They have written a comprehensive handbook detailing many aspects of their organization, including their declaration of Common Intention as well as their Mission, Vision and Values. On the land they maintain several houses for families and dormitories for their human inhabitants. They operate a solar grid for closed-loop electricity provision and also a permaculture farm on their 14 hectare plot of land.
RCL is seeking funding to improve much of their existing infrastructure. They are hoping to purchase treated bamboo and other wood to finish building their housing projects. Tools and plant supplies need to be bought to begin putting to use their recently acquired land. Funding also is always needed to feed their citizens, namely, those who are working hard to build their utopian vision. Check out their project on Giveth.io to learn more and make a donation!
That’s a wrap for this community project spotlight! Six diverse projects that are making a positive change across the globe, check them out and consider making a donation to keep these important causes alive and thriving! Stay tuned for more featured projects in the future!
Also, if you love Giveth.io and the work we do to provide free and open-source funding platforms for philanthropic causes, consider making a donation to our Gitcoin Grant. We also have our other DApp, Giveth TRACE, for more complex projects that want to offer traceable donations. You can make a donation to Giveth TRACE on its Gitcoin Grants listing as well. Every unique donor to our listings increases the amount of matching funds we receive via Quadratic Funding, so the more the merrier!
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