Eric Saldanha

One Another is an initiative that aims to build kinder communities one simple act at a time. It is a platform that supports people experiencing homelessness by contributing directly towards meeting their basic needs.

Homelessness is a circumstance that is devastating, dangerous and isolating. On average, people who are homeless in the UK die at just 44 years old (University of Sheffield, Crisis). The most visible form of homelessness is when people sleep rough by seeking shelter on streets or informal settlements. The number of people rough sleeping in the UK at any given time has doubled in the past 10 years to a conservatively estimated total of 4266 people as of 2019 (Rough Sleeping Snapshot in England, 2019).

People who are homeless face complex issues with mental and physical health, alcohol and substance dependency, security of employment and income, and sense of safety and shelter. People experiencing rough sleeping not only deal with these, but in addition struggle to meet their most fundamental needs like food, water, sleep, showers, toilets, and clean clothes. Addressing their basic wellbeing can transform their ability and motivation to subsequently address their more complex needs that would lift them out of their current circumstances.

One Another was born out of Bethnal Green, London, through interactions with people experiencing homelessness, volunteers, locals, and business owners. It connects people in the community who want to help, to people who can use the help. It is essentially a new transaction model by which people can pay for basic goods and services, like food, laundry, and showers. People experiencing homelessness
can choose to access these services through local businesses in the area. One Another primarily increases the current insufficient access, run by homeless-specific entities like day centres and charities, and instead integrates all members of the community, by enabling access to commonly used entities like corner shops, cafes, launderettes and hostels.

It is designed to work using affordable and easily available technology like NFC-enabled cards and touchscreen NFC readers, connected to a central database. The token-like cards are the physical transaction medium whose value is held digitally and can be loaded and redeemed at local businesses in the area using the NFC-readers, in exchange for goods and services. The cards and the transaction system are sponsored and managed by a trust set up to run One Another.

The impact that One Another aims to create is to build kinder communities, by giving agency and dignity to people experiencing homelessness to meet their basic needs. This impact is sustainable as it cuts out the middleman in charitable donations, making it compelling to engage in the system repeatedly, while improving the local economy in the process. One Another aims not only to meet this fundamental need by bringing people together, building trust and breaking down invisible barriers in the community; but through its impact, serve to advocate to local councils and the Government to ultimately end homelessness.

A world without textiles is hard to imagine, but the fashion industry has a tremendous negative impact on the planet. There exists a widespread throwaway culture coupled with fast-fashion ideology, which leads to a detachment of consumers from their contribution to the problem. At the current rate, the textile industry would account for 26% of the world’s carbon budget (associated with a 2°C pathway) by 2050. What is little known however, is that half the lifecycle emissions of our clothes occur when they are in our possession – through washing, drying, ironing, and dry-cleaning. To offset this, Wearloop aims to normalise the rewear of clothes.

People’s routine and behaviour, the dominating influence over why clothes are washed regularly, are shaped by their environment, society and upbringing. In the majority of houses, clothes have only two assigned places – clean clothes are placed in a wardrobe, and dirty clothes in a laundry basket. The lack of a universally accepted space in a house for clothes that have been worn, but can be subsequently reworn, reflects in the social stigma against wearing clothes without being freshly washed. Additionally, distinguishing between everyday contamination like odour, wrinkles and sweat, over other issues like physical dirt and stains, is an effective point of intervention to encourage people away from excessive washing.

Wearloop is a dedicated space to hang clothes at the end of the day. It can be placed on any wall in a room, or even inside a wardrobe or on a door. The garment can also be hung using an ordinary hanger. Once turned on, the active ambient airflow and UV-C light will kill the secondary-bacteria and evaporate any residual moisture and sweat on the garment. This in turn will remove any odours and most wrinkles, rendering the garment suitable for rewear. The clothes can therefore be reworn or placed back in the wardrobe, encouraging minimal washing, and a considerably smaller environmental footprint.

About 17% of the global population live with some sort of visual impairment; with 217 million people having moderate to severe sight loss and 36 million people being completely blind. Yet their primary tool for travel, the white cane, has remained relatively unchanged, since its inception a century ago.

Currently there are only two primary modes of travel for people with visual impairment, with a cane or with the help of a guide dog. Most often people use a cane, because getting a guide dog can become a considerable commitment of time, money, and resources. For some people however, a fundamental deterrent to getting a guide dog is trust. It is the entrusting of one’s own safety to another being; a responsibility that is not taken lightly by many.

The key difference when travelling with a cane and with a guide dog is that a cane is an obstacle detector while a guide dog is an obstacle avoider. The latter enables a smoother path of travel, avoiding obstacles ahead of time with minimal disruptions. One can travel much faster with a guide dog, without needing total undivided concentration. Even with the other benefits of using a guide dog, like a broader range of sensing, threat detection and companionship, it is widely not considered worth it, at the cost of one’s independence.

Milo reimagines the cane, as a tool for mobility for people with visual impairment. It aims to create an obstacle avoider that retains the agency of the user.