Flag Intraglobal opines that poverty cannot be mitigated sufficiently well by corporate business, government and/or banking because these are precisely the same 3 economic forces which throughout history have traditionally favored poverty sustaining policies.

Vitamin A deficiency is the root cause for the high mortalities in women (MDG #5) and children (MDG #4), whose bodies cannot defend against even simple infections without sufficient Vitamin A. The full scope of this plant project was recently presented at AfriCities 4 (Nairobi, Kenya, September 2006) and incorporated into the final resolution on MDG #4 submitted by UNICEF.

Flag Intraglobal acts as the root cause of high mortality with the very low cost plant Kalanchoc daigremontiana bryophyllum, also know as the Thousand Daughter Plant. The plant from Madagascar produces 100 units of Vitamin A per gram and propagates quickly enough to be able to supply living plants to every poor family in Africa within 5 years, potentially sparring a billion lives in Africa and realizing 2 of the MDG targets before the year 2015.

During the period while KeMRI, KeFRI and UNICEF investigate this plant's potential, Flag IntraGlobal initiated a second project to mitigate poverty by creating thousands of new, easy, non competitive, $-a-day jobs through a visionary idea called Micro-Publishing (M-P). In Kenya, FLAG's entry salaries are 100 shillings per day, which is about one-thrid more than than a dollar.

M-P is intentionally labor intensive. The journalism efforrt is divided into 10 components to create as many simple, entry-level jobs as possible. The fabrication effort requires 8 separate procedures with one or two artisans working on each procedure. Small communities publish a sort of community diary that has pages in the shapes of fig leaves. Each fig leaf s hand cut and hand decorated with a variety of artistic elements so that no two are alike. It is hoped that the combination of literary and visual beauty and uniqueness will result in a product which has a wide appeal amongst the affluent and whose value will never decline. Thus, the millions of people around the world who support GCAP and desire to se a reduction in poverty will have a functional outlet to help realize this dream. At the same time, their contributions gradually build into a substantial investment, a collection of FIG leaves.

In a 2-hour format, all knowledge relevant to Vitamin A deficiency and the propagation and preparation of the Thousand Daughter Plant, along with details and experiences of M-P and the creation of tnew economic potentials for small communities, will be presented in English with handouts also in Spanish. Ample discussion time facilitates the replication of concepts in all communities represented. We will use an analogy of building a bridge with pillars of alignment, horizontal supports, and vertical suspensions to give every participant a memorable experience of fun, knowledge and the empowerment of actual achievement. In a 4-hour format, the participants will also engage themselves as a spontaneous M-P team, producing a bona-fide issue of fig leaves from the venue in Atlanta, using pre-printed templates like what is in use by the other M-P teams of Kenya. In both formats, every participant will take home the knowledge and ability to generate new ideas, create new jobs, and foster new economies within their home community.