Feel Good Friday - Bridges to Prosperity

If you've been following Feel Good Friday (and probably even if you haven't), you've heard of people building houses around the world with Habitat for Humanity. Well it's a new Feel Good Friday and time you heard about people building bridges around the world with Bridges to Prosperity (B2P).


Their mission, as stated on their website, is a simple one. "Bridges to Prosperity provides isolated communities with access to essential health care, education and economic opportunities by building footbridges over impassable rivers."

B2P was founded in 2001 by Ken Frantz, a man who saw a broken Ethiopian bridge in a National Geographic photos and was compelled to rebuild it. Since that beginning, they have built 140 bridges around the world and, much like Habitat, B2P partners with local builders to use local building methods and materials in the bridge construction.

Their vision of "a world where poverty caused by rural isolation no longer exists" is slowly being realized. Data on their website shows that after a bridge is built, "12% more children enroll in school" and there is a "24% increase in healthcare treatment, 18% increase in women employed (and) 15% increase in local business".

Living in a city where the bridges I cross to get things done are iconic and photogenic, it's important to realize how vital something as simple as a well-contructed footbridge can be in a community of people that walk everywhere.

To learn more about the work being done by Bridges to Prosperity, you can watch a 3 minute B2P promo video or the 11 minute TEDx talk from CEO Avery Bang. As always, like their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter @B2P