Give a Little

I believe I have ADD.....it is very hard for me to read one book at a time be/c so many interest me! I think I have about seven going right now.....

One of those seven is Give a Little-How your small Donations can Change the World by Wendy Smith. I was immediately interested in this book. Most Americans are not rich and don't have an extra million to give away yearly but most of us do have an extra twenty, fifty or even a hundred we can give away to help someone. And the good news is that those little donations DO MAKE a DIFFERENCE! You don't have to be Bill Gates or Oprah to impact change

From Wendy's book: "One of the world's deepest pockets, perhaps the deepest pocket of all, is the collective and generous pockets of American citizens. And, I'm not talking about wealthy citizens only; I'm talking about everyday individuals who have an enormous leverage that most know nothing about. That leverage is the billions of dollars you donate to charities every year. In 2007, your donations amounted to $229,000,000,000. That is NOT a mistake. The figure is, indeed, $229 billion."

To put it into perspective:

• $229 billion is greater than the gross domestic products of 136 of 180 countries around the world
• $229 billion is over 21 times Wal-Mart's profits of 11.3 billion in fiscal year 2007
• $229 billion is 114.5 times the total giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2007 ($2 Billion)

During the first half of the twentieth century, Polio was one of the most feared diseases in the developed world. The disease caused paralysis and use of the iron lung to force air into and out of the lungs. There were tens of thousands of infections each year in the U.S. with a peak of 57,628 cases in 1952--more than 21,000 resulting in paralysis. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a polio victim himself, established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1938. The foundation hired Eddie Cantor, a star in radio and vaudeville, to lead a campaign to combat polio by asking his fans to send a single dime to the President. The campaign was called "the March of Dimes," referencing a popular newsreel called The March of Time. 

In the first year 1.8 million was raised, with $238,000 arriving one dime at a time! The White House was forced to hire extra clerks to help manage the waves of mail and according to some White House workers, the difficulty of finding official mail among the millions of envelopes of dimes nearly halted daily operations within the government. 

Donations increased every year. Even during the war, dimes poured in with nearly 20 million raised by 1945. In total, the campaign raised a total of 622 million by 1959. Those dimes helped fund research by Dr. Jonas Salk, who produced an effective vaccine that reduced the number of infections from over 20,000/year in the early 1950's to approximately 3,000 in 1960. By 1979, the disease was eradicated in the U.S. An ocean of dimes had eliminated one of the country's worst nightmares. 

$3/year could help eliminate tuberculosis, the widest-spread disease around the world and responsible for more than 5,000 deaths every day

$20 provides 400 lbs of food to hungry children in the United States

$50 pays a teacher's salary in Afghanistan for a month, allowing 30 children to get an education

You don't have to be rich to help someone. You just have to be willing to give. By giving up eating out once a month, that money can feed starving children. By giving up one Starbucks, you can help eliminate tuberculosis. One idea I found that I fell in love with is fasting from a meal, snack or coffee and instead giving that money to charity. Can you imagine how much you could give if once a week or month you fasted from something that is a luxury?

If you don't have a lot of extra cash after everything is paid and your family is taken care of, whatever you have will help and make a difference. Don't be afraid to give a little. Every little bit adds up especially the more you do it and the more everyone does it =) 

CAMFED

I was raised in a home with two loving parents and was told I had to go to school. But who in America isn't told when she is a child that she has to go to school? We've all (yes there are some exceptions) been through preschool, elementary, middle school and high school and some college. It's natural to us. It's part of our daily life. I've never known anything different........


But around the world in Africa, Asia and the Muslim communities, it is a privilege and usually not for girls. Families are poor, living on less than $2/day. Most families can only send one child if any and it is a boy because the idea is that boys will be able to use the education more than a girl would. Where does that leave the girls then? At home, illiterate, getting beat by their husbands. A poor woman doesn't know how to stand up for herself. She doesn't have the confidence or courage to say stop. Our culture in the U.S. is so different. It is hard for me to grasp why other cultures are this way. Why they think or act in certain ways. It is mind-boggling to me. 


Research has shown that some of the best aid is health and education. It is amazing what happens when a girl is given the opportunity to go to school and learn. Ann Cotton, a Welsh woman started the organization Campaign for Female Education or Camfed, now. When she visited a particularly poor part of Zimbabwe she learned that what prevented most girls from going to school was poverty. The families simply couldn't afford the fees and books and uniforms. 


From the CAMFED website: http://us.camfed.org/site/PageServer?pagename=what_index

In sub-Saharan Africa, 24 million girls can't afford to go to school. A girl may marry as young as 13 and has a one in 22 chance of dying in childbirth. One in six of her children will die before the age of five. Research shows if you educate a girl she’ll:

• Earn up to 25 percent more and reinvest 90 percent in her family.
• Be three times less likely to become HIV-positive.
• Have fewer, healthier children who are 40 percent more likely to live past the age of five.

Since 1993, Camfed has fought poverty and AIDS by educating girls and empowering young women. More than 1,451,600 children in impoverished areas of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Malawi have benefited from our innovative education programs.

We believe every child has the right to an education. Camfed uses a community-based, holistic approach to bring about change in Africa. The girls we support are selected by the community as being the most in need. We don’t just provide her with books or school fees. We help her throughout her development, from her elementary school years until adulthood. Our package allows her to get into school, do well academically, and maximize the value of her education after graduation.

I learned of this organization in the book I'm currently reading, Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Here's an excerpt from the book:

"Perhaps the greatest surprise is that Camfed alumni have themselves become philanthropists. Even though their incomes are tiny by Western standards, they still support other schoolgirls. Ann says that Camfed's high school graduates are each helping an average of five other girls at any one time, not counting their own family members, whom they also support. 

'They are becoming real role models in their communities', Ann says. 'It may be that the neighbor's child can't go to school because she doesn't have a skirt, so she'll provide that. Or maybe she'll pay another girl's school fees. This was something that we didn't expect at all. It shows the power of education'."

Please head over to the CAMFED website and check out the amazing things that are being done by determined and passionate women.

Depraved Indifference

Ordinary Hero Blog: An Immediate Need In Ethiopia

Ordinary Hero Blog: An Immediate Need In Ethiopia: "I have so many things I need to post but not enough time or posts in one day :) I want to post today about an immediate need that we have in..."

What's this all about?

I started a blog last May to help me get through a difficult time. I was struggling to find a job and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was lost. I didn't know who I was or where I was going. I was a newlywed and happily married but inside me I was a mess.

For some time I knew I wanted to encourage people, I just didn't know how or in what way? There is so much negativity, pessimism, and cynicism in our world that I wanted there to be a place where someone could go and not be hit with that stuff. So I started Sun is Shining......and.....Life is Good blog.

On May 27th it will be a year that I've been blogging and I've done it everyday. In the beginning my blog gave me a purpose everyday and something to look forward too. It helped me stay positive and encouraged during a rough time. As the days and months passed though I started figuring out who I was and what I was passionate for.

The more I read and hear about life in developing countries (especially Africa) my heart breaks. I can't imagine living the way they do when I am so, so, so blessed here in the U.S. For me personally I feel I have a responsibility to help. How can I live like a queen here (compared to people in developing countries) while people are suffering so badly over there?

As I started getting passionate for "the least of these" I would write about it on my blog but the blog I had started was suppose to be encouraging and uplifting and I wasn't always writing the most positive things. I had to spin it a little to make it positive. Like, here's the situation and yes it's not good BUT here's how we can help and make it good. My heart is overtaken with the help that these people need and I want to talk about it and yell about it and get passionate but I can't on my other blog.......so here's my new blog where I do just that. I advocate for those who are suffering and don't even have their most basic needs met. Here's where I say "Why is this happening? How can people be so cruel and mean?" and "What can WE do to help?"