Rats Save Lives says Nick Kristof

Let's hear it for the HeroRat, one of our favorite Development Marketplace winners!! HeroRat  is the brand name for APOPO, a Dutch company that has trained giant African pouch rats  to detect tuberculosis and landmines. 

Last week Nicholas D. Kristof  wrote a whole column in the New York Times saying that sponsoring a rat as a “really nifty Father's Day gift.” HeroRat has an ‘Adopt a Rat’ program where one can sponsor a rat named Alfredo, Kim, Olaf or Ziko. It's pretty amazing what these rats can do. Did you know that a rat can evaluate 40 samples in seven minutes, equal to what a skilled lab technician can do in one day? Talk about a cheap, easy to train work force!

In 2003 the HeroRat project won the Development Marketplace  Global Competition, providing the very first capital to support tuberculosis detection by trained rats. The Development Marketplace also supported APOPO with a strategic planning consultancy.

Winning the Development Marketplace grant in 2003 set the stage for numerous additional wins. In 2009 HeroRat went on to win the Skoll Award for Social Enterprise, the Lien i3 Challenge, and the Pheonix 50 List  that recognizes innovative enterprises. In 2008 they won the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award . Lastly, Bart Weetjuns, HeroRats founder was recently nominated as an Ashoka Fellow.

Even though Father’s Day has passed you might consider sponsoring little Kim for the next Mother’s Day. Kim is described as "eager to get to work each day and keen to make her mother and father proud.”