Parasitic worms or helminthes live inside the body. Unlike parasites that live outside the body whose main threat is posed by the capacity to transmit diseases, parasitic worms cause debilitating effects from their mere presence in the body. Symptoms of worms include intestinal obstruction, vomiting, weakness, and stomach pains, all of which prevent children around the world from going to school and getting a proper education.

According to a non-profit organization called Deworming the World, deworming reduces school absenteeism by 25 percent. As a result, this can lead to a significant increase in literacy rates in developing countries.

Worms can cause children to experience anemia, malnutrition, insomnia and other sicknesses that make them too tired to concentrate in class. Their solution to the problem is a mass deworming campaign at schools, which can be administered by school teachers.

The solution is relatively cheap, as the cure for parasitic worms is a simple pill that can be taken orally. The dosage is as low as one to two pills a year, and the pills cost only a few cents each.

Deworming the World, which was founded in 2007, has already dewormed 1 million children in Ethiopia, 3 million children in Kenya, and 2 million children in India among, many others. Last year alone, 13 million children were dewormed by the organization, which signed an agreement in 2008 to use 300 million tablets to treat children in 19 countries.

The organization struggles to keep costs low in order to be able to treat more children. Their original goal was to keep it down to $0.50 per child, but the children treated in Andhra Pradesh in India were dewormed for merely $0.18 each.

The efforts of the organization solve both health and education problems, two problems that are often major concerns in poverty-stricken countries. Through its efforts to deworm the world, the organization is innovatively helping to alleviate poverty itself.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about innovation.