Photo: youngrobv (flickr)

A bike can change a life.

The benefits of a bike can range from awakening your inner child to being an eco-friendly commuter. In a developing country, however, the simple bike becomes a locally sustainable method of alleviating poverty and building healthy communities.

The bicycle means greater access to educational and economic opportunities. (Cool fact: A bike can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian and uses five times less energy.) But in communities where people make only a few hundred dollars a year, a bicycle that costs an average of $100 is financially out of reach.

To help bridge the gap, various organizations have sprung up as bicycle distributors for developing communities mostly in Africa.

World Bicycle Relief, an organization fighting the HIV/AIDS crisis in Zambia, describes the power of bicycles in its mission statement:

Simple, sustainable transportation is an essential element in disaster assistance and poverty relief. Bicycles fulfill basic needs by providing access to healthcare, education and economic development. Bicycles empower individuals, their families, and their communities. Our mission is to provide access to independence and livelihood through The Power of Bicycles.

Organizations like this depend on donated bikes, which they then ship to community-based organizations that employ and train locals as bike mechanics. In Namibia, the Bicycling Empowerment Network has bicycle workshops (called Bicycle Empowerment Centres) stocked with tools and bicycle parts that act as the hub for bike distribution and repairs.

Even grassroots groups in the U.S. have joined the cause. Bikes to Rwanda, a project supported by Stumptown Coffee in Portland, Ore., ships cargo bicycles to farmers in a Rwandan coffee cooperative.

With today’s gas prices, cycling is a more attractive alternative for residents of places from Amsterdam to Zambia. But bikes aren't limited to transport anymore. They can be modified to sharpen knives, double as an ambulance, and even filter and store water — all innovative adaptations geared towards positive social change.

We buy cheap bootleg DVDs and fake Coach purses from random street vendors with little hesitation. But what about buying your daily medication from them, too?

This is a common practice in the developing world. In Zimbabwe, for example, street vendors offer the poverty-stricken populace medicine for a price five to eight times less than a legitimate pharmacy.

The trouble with these cheap meds is that they're often not the real thing. One study cited by the World Health Organization says the counterfeit medication industry could reach $75 billion by 2010. Although the industry's reach is worldwide, it's more prevalent in developing countries. The WHO says "many countries in Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America have areas where more that 30% of the medicines on sale can be counterfeit."

Though buying counterfeit medications can save a lot of money, it is also very risky. In 1995, 89 Haitian children died from taking counterfeit cough syrup that contained the active ingredient in antifreeze instead of the real medication. Governments in the developing world often lack the resources to track and prosecute these illegal manufacturers and sellers. The Internet is only making the fight harder.

Major pharmaceutical companies are protecting their products from counterfeiters using different methods. Today, companies like GlaxoSmithKline use holographic labels or stickers to make their product more distinguishable from fakes. Recently, counterfeit drugmakers have, however, been able to convincingly duplicate many of these stickers and packaging. For example, one study revealed that about half of Southeast Asia's supply of the anti-malarial drug Artesunate was counterfeit despite holographic packaging.

The easiest and fastest way to decrease the market for these fake drugs is for consumers to increase their own awareness. Many news organizations have begun to help. In this video, Al-Jazeera reports on counterfeit drugs in Mauritania.

Community Health Workers in Haiti have had one of the most astounding responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in industrialized or developing countries worldwide. When the epidemic first came to Haiti’s shores, many world leaders thought the country was too poor and underdeveloped to make intervention worthwhile. In the decades since, they have been proven wrong. The World Security Institute writes that "Twenty-five years after the AIDS epidemic was given a name, it is a plague with tangled ties between the wealthiest and the poorest countries in the hemisphere. With HIV rates second only to those of sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean islands that conjure visions of sun, sand, and tourism now highlight the interplay between poverty and the epidemic in this hemisphere."

This short film, In Focus - Haiti's Hope by the Pulitzer Center, showcases what health clinics in rural and urban Haiti are doing, in order to create a sustainable approach to treating disease – and help the Haitian people move out of the world’s most dire poverty level at the same time.

Want to know the hot gossip in a small Rwandan village? It's not the latest developments in AIDS treatments. Instead, it's the recent $2000 foreign order for coasters and place mats.

Read The New York Times' guest columnist Josh Ruxin's great article about the importance of supporting business opportunities to combat AIDS and other health problems in Africa.

Photo: J. Mark Bertrand (flickr)

"(Product)RED," a campaign started by U2 front man Bono, combines consumerism and altruism. In the year since its start, American consumers have generated over $22 million to fight HIV/AIDS through the purchase of "(Product)RED" branded ipods, t-shirts and other products. While the campaign has had a positive effect by providing much needed funds to health clinics in Rwanda, Ghana and Swaziland, critics of RED remain skeptical.

According to Rwandan officials, Red contributions have built 33 testing and treatment centers, supplied medicine for more than 6,000 women to keep them from transmitting H.I.V. to their babies, and financed counseling and testing for thousands more patients.

Ben Davis of San Francisco, who created a Red parody online that says “Buy(Less),” is encouraging consumers to give more directly to nonprofits that support AIDS programs in Africa. “I just think that increased consumption in America can’t be the only way to solve Africa’s problem,” Mr. Davis said.