GIVIT is a new Brisbane online giving portal designed to connect a community of givers to our community of people who need to receive. It is a site that requests quality goods and pro-bono services for members of the community who are marginalised, vulnerable and disadvantaged, and anyone can step up to help meet a request. I’m in the process of moving house and it’s been great to use GIVIT to donate several things to the Pindari Homeless Women’s Service. There is something nice about knowing who your goods go to directly. Continue reading ‘givit, got it, good’
When Don and Laurie Schoendorfer were vacationing in Morocco, they witnessed the plight of a disabled woman struggling to drag herself across a dirt road. Unnoticed by the crowds and barely missing traffic, the woman’s suffering was a scene that they remembered upon returning to their home in California. So affected by this, Don, an engineer, walked away from his career and developed an inexpensive and durable wheelchair – the heart and soul behind Free Wheelchair Mission (FWM). Launched in 2001, FWM has distributed 350,000 wheelchairs in 70 countries. Don has a goal to eventually reach 20 million wheelchairs, which is certainly possible. At FWM, the logistics are systematic and designed to achieve the greatest outcomes. The chairs are manufactured in China, for cost effectiveness, and then shipped to the country of destination. A distribution partner then locates the beneficiaries for the wheelchairs. The first thing you can do to help FWM, is to spread the word.
Most of us are blessed with good health. Others, unfortunately, have to live without full use of their bodies. Depending on which country you live in, the support and funding for disabled persons is varied. Indian organization Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) Jaipur was set up in 1975. It is a non-governmental, non-religious, non-sectarian, non-regional, non-political society, helping the physically challenged, particularly the financially weak among them. This is a social organisation that engages in humanitarian work to provide all the artificial limbs, calipers, crutches, ambulatory aids like wheelchairs, hand-paddled tricycles and other aids and appliances, totally free of charge to the physically challenged. This organisation, above all else, shows selflessness, compassion and provides courage for those who need it most.
Arts, crafts and vintage design buffs heed this: an opportunity to free your inner bowerbird while doing the greater good. Next Saturday 1 August, the annual Karuna arts market will spill a glorious trove of original and pre-loved art, crafts, jewellery and clothes upon Brisbane. Retro, deco, vintage, modern, all under $75. Last year someone unearthed a Pro Hart original on a Bible cover. All proceeds will help Karuna to support Brisbane families to care for a terminally ill loved one, at home and at no cost. Karuna - a Sanskrit word meaning ‘compassion‘ - provides free round-the-clock nursing, family counseling, equipment loans, respite care, bereavement support and spiritual care.
If you were lucky enough to see it, Earth from Above was the stirring, photographic installation project of Frenchman Yann Arthus-Bertrand that toured the world. A decade in the making, the collection of images taken from the air, documented both the World’s natural and man-made happenings. Not satisfied with either the exhibition, or DVD of the same images, in 2009, Yann, who was possibly inspired by Jehane Noujaim’s Pangea Day, is releasing Home. In partnership with French film director Luc Besson, and a global PR firm, Yann is simultaneously broadcasting the film on the same day in over 50 countries. That day, is World Environment Day, June 5. There’s no place like home. (Apologies, it’s late…;)
It’s climate backwards. In March this year, the tiny atolls of the Maldive Nation committed to joining “the world carbon club”, those countries who achieve carbon neutrality. Five other countires - New Zealand, Monaco, Costa Rica, Iceland and Norway have also signed up to the UN-backed plan to become zero emitters. For The Maldives, it will take ten years. For Australia, I don’t think the prospect has been publicised. Continue reading ‘etamilc.’
Dr. Elizabeth Davis-Russell is the President of the William V.S. Tubman College of Technology - located in the “City of Harper” in Liberia. Dr. Davis-Russell, having just retired from work in the USA, has chosen to, instead of simply “retiring”, to share her wealth of knowledge and experience from a life in education with a community that desperately needs that assistance.
As a result, Dr. Davis-Russell and her husband have packed up their worldly belongings and moved to Liberia, where they have managed, with the help of a lot of fund raising, to re-build this college of higher education. Continue reading ‘education “building” in Liberia’
Via World Architecture News: The controversial Tsunami Museum in Aceh, Indonesia, will come to represent a fitting place for reflection but at its opening last week a row over the 700 families still to be re-housed overshadowed the event. Accusations of misplaced priorities over the locals left homeless after the Tsunami of 2004 were triggered by the investment of millions of dollars in a monument rather than housing, but now the Tsunami Museum in Aceh is complete it presents an opportunity for closure and a chance to move on. Continue reading ‘reflection in the water’
Cadbury chocolate comes from Ghana? Apparently it has sourced the beans from the Ghanaian Theobroma cacao for the last 100 years. And now in an encouraging move, the ‘glass and a half’ multi-national has announced it is going Fair Trade. The company has released an understated site, communicating its intentions and inviting feedback. The glass is half full indeed.
Image via The Australian: The bushfires in Victoria are being called Australia’s ‘worst peacetime disaster’, with 131 confirmed deaths and the toll expected to rise as high as 230. Though sickening tales of arson and carelessness with cigarettes have emerged, so too have inspiring tales of bravery, self-sacrifice and true human kindness. In the face of such anguishing and preventable loss of life, it’s sometimes hard to know where you can help. Some are offering up their homes to the homeless, food and clothing to those who have lost everything, and even room for pets who are no longer able to be cared for. Others simply donate whatever amount is within their means, which you can do here, via the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
What are you doing? This is the question that Twitter poses to every user, everyday. By answering this simple question, users can network and share information, ideals, websites and cool finds. Joining together like-minded folk, Twitter has created unique online communities around the world. In September last year, a Twitter community in London decided to come out from behind the web interface to meet and socialise face-to-face, in order to network and raise money for a local homeless charity. The move has sparked a worldwide Twitter phenomenon, where Twitter communities have been inspired to come together in the name of charity and goodwill. And so Twestival was born. 175 cities around the world – from Lima to Honolulu, Tokyo, Brighton and Brisbane – will host the first-ever Twitter festival in the name of charity: water, a non-profit organisation that funds clean water solutions in developing nations around the world. Continue reading ‘twestival’
Tonight Australian philosopher Peter Singer spoke at the State Library of Queensland as part of the 2009 Ideas Festival. Though Peter’s areas of passion and expertise range from The Ethics of What We Eat to Animal Liberation, his focus in this particular lecture was global poverty, and how it can be eradicated through action from individuals within the community. Peter makes his point very simply: “If we could easily save the life of a child, we would. For example, if we saw a child in danger of drowning in a shallow pond, and all we had to do to save the child was wade into the pond, and pull him out, we would do so. The fact that we would get wet, or ruin a good pair of shoes, doesn’t really count when it comes to saving a child’s life. UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, estimates that about 27,000 children dieevery day from preventable, poverty-related causes. Yet at the same time almost a billion people live very comfortable lives, with money to spare for many things that are not at all necessary. (You are not sure if you are in that category? When did you last spend money on something to drink, when drinkable water was available for nothing? If the answer is ‘within the past week’ then you are spending money on luxuries while children die from malnutrition or diseases that we know how to prevent or cure.)” With his new book The Life You Can Save (the proceeds of which will be donated to Oxfam), Peter is trying to change this based on the premise that if everyone who can afford to contribute to reducing extreme poverty gave a modest proportion of their income to effective organisations fighting extreme poverty, the problem could be solved. Continue reading ‘the life you can save’
If you were asked on the spot, “how far do you have to travel for a glass of water?”, many of you would reach out to a glass or bottle that you readily have by your side. This bottle may also be carried everywhere with you, prepared for those instinctive urges to take a sip every few minutes so not to risk dehydration. Once you have finished this bottle of water which, might I add, is on average a quarter of your recommended daily intake, you will not be troubled to find access to a fountain or tap to fill it up with clean, filtered water. For those who don’t bother to recycle, you will be a stones throw away from the nearest IGA situated on every corner of every street in the city, so it seems. Continue reading ‘water with a difference’
“Building schools is just fine and dandy,” Mortensen remembers the congress saying. “But our primary need as a nation is security. Without security, what does all this matter?” Mortenson took a breath. He felt an ember of the anger he’d carried all the way from Kabul flare. “I don’t do what I’m doing to fight terror,” Mortenson said, measuring his words, trying not to get himself kicked out of the Capitol. “I do it because I care about kids. Fighting terror is maybe seventh or eighth on my list of priorities. But working over there, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren’t being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.”
“Three Cups of Tea” is an inspiring story of Greg Mortenson and his drive and passion to promote education in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He redirected his energy from “failing” to summit K2 toward the even greater challenge of helping impoverished children of a war they had nothing to do with. Within a decade, he built 55 schools for children in remote areas of the region. Well worth the read.
Three weeks ago, some friends introduced me to a new range of gifts that I wish I had of asked for. Without explicitly asking for one, my friends received a piglet; … and a goat; clean drinking water; and a few immunizations. Without the desire to receive any gifts, yet acknowledging that most people wish to give gifts - especially on customary occasions such as Christmas, they selflessly asked people to donate the money that would have been spent on a material gift to a humanitarian organization. After they reviewed some annual reports from a selection of aid agencies, they concluded that not all agencies manage donations in the same way. They also noticed that different agencies charge different percentages as administrative overheads. For a perspective on how some of the philanthropic objectives of aid agencies are not always met as they should be, take a look at the book titled “The Lords of Poverty” . They suggested World Vision to their friends, which has a wonderful donation concept via the Smiles Gift Catalogue. You have a choice from 48 gift options, where a chicken for example will require a donation of $6. After your donation, you can then virtually give the chicken as a gift - in the form of a card provided by World Vision in traditional, pdf or e-card format. As for a donkey, you’ll need $225. Of course, plenty of other organizations and websites are out there - looking forward to many suggestions before Christmas 2009.
Australia’s freshest and most innovative film festival, Human Rights Arts and Film Festival (or HRAFF – [ pronounced her-aff] as they like to call it) kicked-off in Melbourne on November 12. The festival was founded in 2007 by Evelyn Tadros, Naziath Mantoo and a dedicated team of her-aff-ers who had a wish to make human rights accessible, relevant and significant to the broader Australian community. In less than two years, HRAFF has grown into a nation-wide festival showing in Melbourne (November 12–30), Perth (November 28–29), Sydney (December 4–7),) and Brisbane (March 6–7, 2009). The festival aims to bring human rights issues to the stage and to challenge, inspire and touch all walks of life. Continue reading ‘haraffing’
