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Mao Hosaka, JICA volunteer in Environmental Education at Manchester 4-H Club hands out sticky notes and coloured markers to students of Morgan's Forest Primary School in Clarendon, their task was to write things they are thankful for. Mao Hosaka has perhaps done it all – from delving into the uber megapixels of animation in Tokyo, finding eternal bliss meditating in a temple in Thailand, to kicking up a storm as she brushed up her Muay Thai (Thai boxing) skills, learning Bahasa (the official language of Indonesia), and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. “Even though the work experience didn’t last long, it made me realise that this kind of life in a big city was not for me,” she said. “Since then I started looking for something that I’m passionate about, something I’m happy doing as a part of my life.” In her quest for finding purpose and meaning, Hosaka travelled to Zimbabwe and also volunteered in a wildlife conservation programme in South Africa. Now a Japan International Co...

Archivo CPI photo:  Humacao's landfill   By Omar Alfonso On a summer day in 2015, the elevator doors at the headquarters of the Puerto Rico Electric and Power Authority (PREPA) in Santurce opened. Off the elevator walked out Manuel Mata, President of AES Puerto Rico, a company that since 2002 has sold 454 Megawatts of electricity to the public corporation derived from its coal fuel plant in Guayama. The annual invoice for the deal exceeds $300 million. Without attracting attention and protected from public scrutiny, Mata walked up to the executive offices and signed a legal document. It dealt with an amendment in the contract made between the multinational company and PREPA: a clause that prohibited the company from disposing its waste derived from the burning of the coal on any part of the island. A few days later, on July 17, 2015, the agreement was completed. Once signed by Carlos Castro Montalvo, the former Interim Director of PREPA, the rules of the game ch...

View of AES from barrio Jobos in Guayama, Puerto Rico By Omar Alfonso | Center for Investigative Journalism They went looking for Víctor Rodríguez Aguirre to his home in the Santa Ana sector of barrio Jobos Guayama. He was a critical player. The young father was resident in one of the most densely populated zones near the AES carbon plant and knew what it was like to live in poverty. He became a local sports leader who strived to help his community move forward. He focused particularly on young students with no job prospects on the horizon. His desire for progress and his influence in the neighborhood were key to convince others to believe in the promise that AES would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the construction of a power generating plant that would bring wages and prosperity to the region. "They took us to Hartford, Connecticut, to see the AES facilities," Rodríguez Aguirre recalled sitting in a chair in the balcony of his home....

By Omar Alfonso Eight years have passed but Amparo Andújar Maldonado does not forget. She lost her first child while she was approaching the fifth month of her pregnancy. Nor does she erases from her mind giving birth to a disfigured fetus, with cranial malformation, something incomprehensible for a healthy 27 year old woman, counting with quality prenatal care. But Amparo was not alone. From 2005 to 2008, the rate of miscarriages and premature births rose suddenly in the Encantado neighborhood of Arroyo Barril, a working-class rural and coastal town, north of the Dominican Republic. An area rich in natural treasures such as the Bay of Samaná, global sanctuary for humpback whales. Amaparo’s friend, Rosa María Andújar, also fell into statistics. She gave birth to a child with exposed intestines and six fingers and toes. The newborn died not far from birth, in June 2008. Months later, another neighbor, Maribel Mercedes, gave birth to Siamese twins that also die...