Is an engineering-based non-profit organization focused on mitigating health risks posed by contaminated sites in low- and medium-income countries. To date, Blacksmith has carried out over 50 projects in 21 countries.

Mission

Blacksmith Institute currently estimates that the health of some 100 million people is at risk from toxic pollution. Blacksmith’s programmatic efforts are designed to both increase the international community’s understanding of the nature and scope of the issue, and to reduce its scale through concrete, cost effective interventions that reduce environmental health risks.

This process involves:

• Identifying polluted places in low and middle income countries through nominations received from members of the public, local and international organizations, governments and through Blacksmith’s independent research;
• Assessing potential health risks posed by pollution hotspots by conducting on-site screenings using a rapid environmental health risk assessment protocol; and  
• Designing intervention strategies tailored to specific sites, and implementing those strategies collaboratively with local public, private and civil society partners.

Blacksmith also supports local civil society and government partners by providing assistance in a number of forms to increase the capacity of partners to deliver concrete, cost-effective solutions.

Blacksmith provides:

• Technical Research: bringing the necessary resources to research a pollution problem and its proposed solutions thoroughly. We partner with scientific and technical groups around the world that have demonstrated expertise in areas relevant to pollution remediation.
• Strategic Assistance: providing help with project planning and implementation planning, using our experience in similar projects to enable local champions to describe a credible methodology for site remediation, and move forward with it.
• Networking Capabilities: developing collaborative networking opportunities for our partners, linking them to the most appropriate resources to meet their needs.
• Financial Support: Through the generosity of personal and institutional funders, providing both seed money and continuing support to projects, offering long-term core support, whenever possible, to projects that have demonstrated clear successes (or the potential for success) in reducing environmental health risks from toxic pollution.

Blacksmith Institute in the project

Blacksmith Institute joined the current project in November of 2013 and will implement four key outputs:

•  a consolidation of existing inventory data on pesticide contaminated sites in the Former Soviet Union;
• development of bespoke rapid environmental assessment (REA) protocols for each country in the region;
• assess 60 locations with the newly developed instrument; and
• conduct remedial investigations at 2 high priority locations.

 Contacts