Founded in 1999, Blacksmith Institute is an international non-for-profit organization dedicated to eliminating life-threatening pollution in the developing world. Blacksmith identifies and cleans up the world's worst polluted places, focusing on communities where children are most at risk. Based in New York, Blacksmith has completed over 50 cleanup projects around the world. Blacksmith is currently engaged in over 30 projects in 15 countries.
In 2011 Blacksmith was recognized with the UN-backed Green Star Award for its work in environmental emergencies. In 2010, Blacksmith's work was profiled in Time magazine's Power of One column and in April 2012, nationally syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer wrote about Blacksmith in "Heroic NGO Takes on Big Job of Global Toxic Cleanup."
Blacksmith is known for its annual World's Worst Polluted Places Reports, for the creation of the Blacksmith Index (used around the world to rate levels of health risk from pollution), and for the Blacksmith database, the only resource of its kind, which currently documents over 600 of the world's worst polluted places. This Polluted Places Initiative identifies polluted sites throughout the world by means of an online nomination process.
Blacksmith is currently expanding their database with the Global Toxic Site Identification Program, formerly known as Global Inventory Project. Blacksmith investigators are assessing polluted hotspots in over 60 countries to build the first comprehensive global inventory of the world's worst polluted places with human health impact. The sites identified in this global inventory will be targeted for cleanup under a global alliance.
Read more about Blacksmith Institute: The GAHP (Global Alliance On Health and Pollution), Blacksmith Success Stories, World's Worst Polluted Places Reports, How Blacksmith Works
Famous quotes containing the words blacksmith and/or institute:
“The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)