Education, Safaris, and Jewelry?

In 2006, H.E.L.P. Malawi was founded with the goal of spreading Hope, Education, Love and Protection to the children of Malawi. Today, H.E.L.P. Malawi is raising funds and awareness through sales of various products, including a jewelry line (Panthera) that is gaining popularity in Hollywood. 100% of profits made go to direct service, as the products are sold through the organization itself.

H.E.L.P. has partnered with Wilderness Safaris to build schools throughout Malawi in rural areas:

Nanthomba Primary School
Nandumbo Healthcare Center
Community Outreach

Funds continue to be raised for books, meals, furniture and clothing for the students as well as an endowment to ensure sustainability of the schools. H.E.L.P. and Wilderness Safaris together hope to build a secondary school in the near future.

These programs are most beneficial to those teachers and students who are in good health. H.E.L.P. believes education and health are complementary pieces to achieving their goal. For this reason, H.E.L.P. has partnered with other non-profits and the Malawian government to construct a rural healthcare clinic and a maternity wing that will provide medical care to the community.

H.E.L.P. is a non-profit organization dedicated to making a difference by giving the children of Malawi Hope, Education, Love, Protection, and a chance to realize their dreams and aspirations. 100% of the funds collected by H.E.L.P. go to direct service. They are a registered 501(c) 3 non-profit organization.

For more about HELP Malawi

It's Bigger Than Coffee

Starbucks has been working hard on its' image recently, and has launched a number of social awareness campaigns, of which this is the most recent:



Also... check these out

Starbuck's "RED", supplying medication to Africa

Starbuck's "Pledge5", encouraging community service in exchange for a free tall coffee

Painting for Peace in Kenya

In case the video link doesn't come up, here's a link to the article and video about Kenyan street artist Solomon Muyundo's (or "Solo7") recent work. "Don't Kill Innocent Kenyans" and "Keep Peace" beg slogans hand-painted on the charred walls of shacks and storefronts destroyed by looting mobs — messages from a local artist trying to heal a neighborhood with his paintbrush.

The International Herald Tribune also has more.

Global Voices Online

Anyone who isn't aware of Global Voices Online by now is missing out on a huge conversation.

Great new section on GVO asking people to submit videos answering the question “What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?” for the World Economic Forum in Davos.

While the question may sound "Miss America" pageant-y, the results are fascinating because they are coming from, literally, all over the globe.

For example:


More videos and responses to Davos are found here:
http://www.youtube.com/thedavosquestion

Global Voices, and projects like "The Davos Question" is just another example of how new media is allowing for a much more engaged, interactive global civil society which shares its voices and opinons, instead of a global citizenry that is passive and only gets information from the top down.

Philanthropic Learning

You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day...Or you can teach yourself a new vocabulary word and help the United Nations World Food Program feed millions of impoverished people.

Wow. Yet another laudable way for people anywhere, sitting at their computers, can make a small contribution to help solve some of the world's largest problems. The techies, and foundations, and corporate sponsors of the world are truly getting quite creative in developing ways to use the internet for positive social change around the world (see post on Kiva.org below).

To these and other such efforts, we say kudos (if you don't know what "laudable" means, then you should certainly visit freerice.org immediately and brush up on your vocabulary).



Read this article about it on the Christian Science Monitor:

"It began as a way for John Breen to help his son prepare for the SAT. Today, some 500,000 people daily visit the vocabulary-quiz website the Indiana-based computer programmer set up. And while word-game fun is part of the draw, players get an extra jolt of "feel good" joy: Every time they get an answer right, they help combat world hunger.

Freerice.com, which debuted in Oct­o­ber, donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program (WFP) every time a player selects the correct definition for a particular word. Paid for with advertising income, 4 billion grains have been won for the WFP so far. That's 160 metric tons, or enough to feed 200,000 people for one day.

"It's really caught fire," says Brenda Barton, a WFP spokeswoman. "More people visit our site from the link on Freerice.com than any other referral." It's the first site like this she's ever seen, she says. Given its success, however, no doubt copycats will crop up soon."

e-democracy

Politicopia is a new e-democracy initiative founded by Steve Urquhart and Utah citizens. It is a simple wiki based setup which enables debate on real and potential state legislature bills and other issues. As the site says, "Users create summaries of bills, pro and con arguments, comments, links, and more."

So far the site only contains information on Utah state legislation, but says that more states are forthcoming. Pretty interesting and a great tool to educate and inform citizens about the laws that may govern their lives.

Heard about it on Andrew Chadwick's "Internet Politics" site. www.andrewchadwick.com.

Running on veggie oil?

Yeah, its true.

Some people are actually powering their cars with used vegetable oil... there is even an online "trade" site, where you can get it... for free. Yes, free.

Think about it. Restaurants go through tons of this stuff... and getting rid of it in an eco-friendly manner costs money. So, if some "tree-hugger" will take it off their hands for free to power his car, they will more than likely be happy to oblige.

I'm not an engineer... not even close, so I'd rather spare myself the research, and you the pain of reading my uneducated version of the way it works.... so read about it here, here, and here.

And of course there's also wikipedia's take on it.

But a word to the wise, apparently it is technically illegal.