Thanks to an anti-obesity law passed last year, Japanese salarymen across the nation are pulling up their shirts to have their guts measured… and if they’re overweight, they face consequences.

If you’re male and your waist is over 33.5 inches, you’re considered fat. If you’re female, the limit is 35.4 inches. Thanks to those burgers, you now have to attend mandatory counseling with a physician. For every grotesquely obese employee like yourself, your company gets hit by a fine; ergo, they strongly encourage you to lose weight with gifts of gym memberships and pedometers.

The goal of all this is to prevent Japan from experiencing an obesity epidemic like so many other industrialized nations. The theory is the less overweight people you have, the lower health care costs will be across the board. Although I think the waistline restrictions are a bit strict (how is a six foot tall foreigner supposed to have a 33-inch waist?), this seems like a good idea overall. America could certainly benefit from less junk in the trunk… but would such a system work here in the UK? Source: Current.com

Utah state workers were the first state in the United States to switch to a four-day work week and have a three day weekend every weekend; since then Hawaii and Washington have followed suit, while West Virginia and Virginia are close behind. In August of 2008, the state offices in Utah went to a four-day workweek with Fridays off in an attempt to save on energy costs. In a newly released report, the energy savings wasn’t as much as projected, but an unexpected savings on overtime was discovered. Utah saved $4.1 million dollars in overtime pay in the last year by switching to the four-day workweek. State employees wanted the three day weekend, but because of the ten-hour days Monday-Thursday they weren’t up to working additional hours, so the savings was unexpected. The state saved $502,000 in energy costs, and $200,000 on janitorial services, which totaled a savings of $4.8 million.

La Leche League Oxford runs a Maternity Clothes Library, for a small fee per item (currently £2) maternity clothes can be hired and kept for the whole pregnancy. They have many sizes and styles available as well as smart wear for that special night out before the baby arrives. They also have a small number of breastfeeding clothes available.

This idea is something I’ve never come across before, but such a simple and meaningful one. The idea of a library of (fill word in here) extending beyond books like this one, has such great potential to help out communities and individuals in need.

http://www.llloxford.org.uk/LLLmcl.html

Imagine you are walking around your city, and you see an amazing piece of street art in the wall of a building. You go next to it, like in a museum, and take a look at the tag next to the piece of art, identifying the artists, the techniques he used, and also, if you have your iPod in hand, an audioguide track recorded by the artist himself, talking about his art and inspirations.

That’s exactly what we did in Lisbon, with the World’s First Ephemeral Museum. We cataloged more than 100 pieces of street art in 3 major neighborhoods around Lisbon, and with your mp3 player and map in hands, that you previously downloaded from the Ephemeral Museum Website, you can walk the city streets like a real museum.

Every important piece of street art is tagged and identified. This way people could enjoy and understand more Street Art while walking through the biggest museum in the world, the streets of Lisbon.

We are working to open new galleries in Madrid, Barcelona, and São Paulo.

http://www.museuefemero.com/

Cardboard Citizens changes the lives of homeless and displaced people through theatre and the performing arts.

Mission:
- Present plays performed by homeless and displaced people, to share experiences and problem-solve together.

- Work in partnership to widen the reach of the company’s work and underpin its support for participants.

- Make theatre for general audiences so a wider public can share in the company’s learning and understanding of the issues faced by homeless people.

- Enable excluded people to develop skills and confidence through projects and workshops.

- Meet the practical needs of homeless and displaced people, supporting them in matters of housing, education, employment, health, career and personal development.

Vision:
- Cardboard Citizens strives to be a world leader in its field, creating great theatre that makes a real and positive difference to our society and those living on its margins.

- They know that theatre can be a catalyst for change, growth and learning for participants and audiences.

- They are working to further develop theatre projects in and out of hostels for a wide range of audiences, focussed on the lives of homeless and displaced people.

- They will be supporting people in diverse ways, helping homeless people to play their part in the world, and society to understand how life is lived on the margins.

- Their ambition is to enable every hostel resident in London to be able to access the company’s work, as audience or participant.

- And to offer all homeless or displace people who become involved with the company individual help and support.

- They will produce theatre-based and site-specific productions on a regular and sustainable basis, telling stories of the excluded.

- Every audience member at a Cardboard Citizens show will learn about issues affecting the displaced and homeless people they work with.

- The company will be fully engaged in national and international networks, where appropriate joining in alliances and campaigns to bring unheard voices to the fore. 

- All their partners, peers and friends will have the opportunity to share best practice, knowledge, skills and expertise, and to travel further with us on Cardboard Citizens’ future journey.

http://cardboardcitizens.org.uk/p1.html

FareShare has been operating since 2004 and today has 12 locations around the UK. Established in 1994 as a project within the homelessness charity Crisis, FareShare aims to help vulnerable groups, whether they are homeless, elderly, children, or other groups in food poverty within our communities.

FareShare helps to improve lives:

In 2008/09, the food redistributed by FareShare contributed towards more than 7.4 million meals.
The FareShare Community Food Network has over 530 Community Members across the UK receiving food, training and advice.
Every day an average of 29,000 people benefit from the service FareShare provides.
As well as redistributing food, FareShare provides a programme of education and vocational training opportunities – the Eat Well Live Well programme.

FareShare Helps The Environment:

The redistribution of food by FareShare minimises surplus food going to landfill.
This redistribution of food helped businesses reduce CO2 emissions by 13,950 tonnes in 2008/09.

FareShare’s New Vision:

Open a further 18 depots, bringing the total number to 30.
Provide nutritious food to 2,500 community organisations and charities.
Redistribute 20,000 tonnes of food per year.
Everyday support 100,000 vulnerable people through food provision; as well as provide training and education through our Eat Well Live Well programme.
Offer 6,000 volunteer opportunities.

http://www.fareshare.org.uk/

The inaugural Maker Faire Africa was a gathering of inventors and entrepreneurs from around the globe. One of the main purposes was to showcase African ingenuity to world. Taking place in Accra, Ghana, Maker Faire Africa had local artisans as well as Makers from as far as Liberia, Malawi and Uganda.

http://makerfaireafrica.com/

On an annual basis, Macmillan Cancer Support hosts the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning inviting people globally to participate by getting together with friends and family having coffee, cake and anything else that encourages others to raise money for the work Macmillan carries out. With over £6.5million raised in 2009 to help the charity’s work, 2010’s coffee morning looks set to be even bigger. Macmillan have tapped into an idea that globally, everyone can relate to (drinking coffee) to raise money and raise their profile. A day of tea drinking throughout the UK for instance, could be another idea which has scope to reach everyone, if another charity was to implement it. You can check out the Flickr group of Macmillan’s coffee morning here and be sure to check out the rest of the information on Macmillan’s website here.

Usually, when ordering food in a restaurant, you get the choice of which food you eat, but never how much ends up on the plate. Now, a new chic restaurant called SML opened in August 2009 in Times Square at Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and it introduces an innovative size-orientated dining experience. From bite-sized appetizers to large plate main courses, you can always find something you want to try on the menu with the right size!

SML offers the total freedom of choice, except the numbers of choices of Mediterranean food, everything on the menu are in Small, Medium and Large size, so no matter you feel like sharing with a large group of friends or just a casual dinner with your lover, this option is a perfect fit. Different European style dishes will be served with lovely presentation. The wine list features 38 various wines. Some of them are available from the automated wine dispenser. This wine serving system provides the choice of 15mls, a half or full glass of wine, which allow guests to sample different wines and this system surely goes well with this choice-driven restaurant. You can find more out about SML and the new dining concept it has created here.

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 by Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein of KleinDytham Architecture as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of conversation (”chit chat”), it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

PechaKucha is currently in 255 cities worldwide and is growing every week. I myself am now part of the London team who have brought it back to the capital, with the first event happening on the Monday just gone. You can join the London PechaKucha Facebook group here.

With a recently re-launched website, you can now view presentations online here and make sure to check out all the other information on the PechaKucha website.

http://www.pecha-kucha.org/