Over 30 percent of the world’s population lives at or below poverty levels. Many of these impoverished individuals live on less than $1.25 a day, barely enough to eat, much less to have decent shelter. Some parts of the world, like Africa, remain in even more critical situations with over 97 percent of countries in need of some additional housing for their citizens or having a significant portion of citizens living in housing that is far below standard and can barely withstand a rainstorm. Abod Shelters is trying to change these facts with innovative housing designs and philanthropic work.

Abod Shelters started in a simple way with a simple story. Doug Sharp, a seasoned architect and builder, was traveling in South Africa when he met a woman living in an impoverished area.

“A woman took me by the hand and invited me into her home,” Sharp said. “It was dark with holes everywhere that scraps did not [cover]. It was unsteady with one tiny window. But, what impressed me was ‘her pride to have it.’ A home is the only means here to express one’s identity. I knew then, we must step up to create better housing for these forgotten families.”

Sharp came home from that trip and put his words into action by stepping up to the challenge. As chairman of BSB Design, Sharp was in a unique position to help. BSB Design is a leading residential and commercial architecture and land planning firm in the U.S. and worldwide. This connection, along with BSB and Sharp’s years of experience, allowed for what otherwise may have been a small step to become an enormous one.

Together, they founded Abod Shelters and made the organization’s vision to democratize housing in the developing world, its mission to build a foundation for affordable sustainable communities for those in need, and its goal to provide real value to individuals and help support local economies.

Using a novel pop-up design, Abod Shelters’ homes are mobile, allowing individuals to move freely if they must do so while still providing protection and stability to those who use them. So far, the organization has built many homes and is planning a community in Cape Town which will have 100 homes. Although this project is just start in an area like Cape Town, where 1.9 million people live in makeshift dwellings, it is indeed a start that will offer great benefit.

In the coming years, Abod Shelters hopes to increase its ability to help those in need by building key partnerships to accomplish its goals. Since November 2014, Ty Pennington, for example, has been helping the organization plan, build, and recruit, and the organization hopes to get other companies and individuals on board soon.

To find out more about Abod Shelters, the good work the group does, and how you can get involved, please visit the organization’s website.

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Routine vaccination is an important part of every child’s life. From birth until they leave the home, there are a variety of vaccinations that can help protect them from the most dangerous diseases at the their age and throughout their lives. Passport Health is committed to helping families stay healthy and keeps routine vaccinations in stock at all of its clinics throughout North America.

As another part of this effort, Passport Health looks for unique opportunities to help families and others learn more about the importance of routine vaccinations. Below is a vaccination schedule created by our friends at Nursing@Simmons, the online family nurse practitioner program at Simmons College. Feel free to look over the schedule or favorite the page to look over the schedule whenever you have questions.

For more information on routine vaccinations see our routine vaccination portal.

As August and National Immunization Awareness Month continue on, we focus on another important vaccine, the Japanese encephalitis vaccine. Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a common mosquito-borne disease throughout Asia and the western Pacific, particularly in rural or agricultural areas. The JE virus is just one of a group of mosquito-transmitted diseases that can lead to inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), and it is a potentially severe or even fatal disease.

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In the interest of promoting more robust discourse around the importance of regular vaccinations for serious but preventable contagious conditions, MHA@GW is hosting a guest post series in honor of National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM). During the month of August,they’re featuring blogs from thought leaders and advocates who were asked to answer the question, “Why immunize in 2015?” You can read an excerpt of our partner organization Vaccine Ambassadors Executive Director Jackie Kaufman’s post here, and be sure to read on to explore more posts. MHA@GW is the online master of health administration from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University.

“The absence of disease in our society has made us complacent. Without a direct memory of these events it is difficult to put this medical marvel into context. What many of us fail to realize is that our experience is the exception and not the rule. In many areas of the world where vaccinations have not become “routine,” parents and children continue to fear the very diseases we have forgotten. In 2013, it was estimated that 145,000 people (mostly children younger than 5) died from measles, a disease that has been preventable for over a half a century.

To be honest, it is difficult to find something fresh that hasn’t been said over and over again, whether it is a rehash of vaccine safety (myths versus facts), Andrew Wakefield’s debunked paper, conspiracy theories, or the motivation of big pharma. It occurred to me that we are continually taking the field in a defensive position, pushing back the false claims rather than creating our own narrative. We need to do better in conveying the amazing impact that vaccines have had and continue to have on our world. Parents, health care providers, and the media (no, there are not two sides) should resound with a common voice. Let’s move beyond the tired old arguments and focus on our messaging. The facts are the facts, but the question is how do we convey them so that they are meaningful and effective?” Read the rest of her post here.

As part of our National Immunization Awareness Month coverage, we look at pneumonia, an infection that hurts many throughout the world, including people in the U.S., every year. Pneumonia is a vaccine-preventable pulmonary infection that causes coughing, fever, shortness of breath, and in some cases even death.

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