That picture to the left is one of the first images you get off google search when you type in "family", and family is pretty important, right? Family is what's left when everyone else goes away. They're who help us grow and learn and get us out of tough situations. In poverty, family is everything, because they work together to try to get themselves through all the hardships they have to endure, just like everyone else. But how awesome would it be if every family was this happy all the time, and especially around the holidays? The world would be such an amazing place! Today's challenge is to sponsor a family. There are a ton of organizations that let you sponsor families in other countries or in your area, year round or whenever. I've run across some that let you help with groceries and other necessities, but I have a different plan in mind. A while ago, my family sponsored another family for Christmas. We got to buy adorable little princess outfits for presents for the kids and necessities like nice warm socks that the parents asked for. It was a great experience, and there is no better time to bring a family together than at Christmas! So I think I'll tuck this challenge away until the Christmas season :)
DIFFICULTY: Hard
That picture to the left is one of the first images you get off google search when you type in "family", and family is pretty important, right? Family is what's left when everyone else goes away. They're who help us grow and learn and get us out of tough situations. In poverty, family is everything, because they work together to try to get themselves through all the hardships they have to endure, just like everyone else. But how awesome would it be if every family was this happy all the time, and especially around the holidays? The world would be such an amazing place! Today's challenge is to sponsor a family. There are a ton of organizations that let you sponsor families in other countries or in your area, year round or whenever. I've run across some that let you help with groceries and other necessities, but I have a different plan in mind. A while ago, my family sponsored another family for Christmas. We got to buy adorable little princess outfits for presents for the kids and necessities like nice warm socks that the parents asked for. It was a great experience, and there is no better time to bring a family together than at Christmas! So I think I'll tuck this challenge away until the Christmas season :)
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DIFFICULTY: Medium
A while back, I found a really cool site called Hope Equity. They're an organization that has come up with this whole new way to look at donating and charity! It's kind of like Kiva, but with a twist. You get to pick where your money is going, whether it's a country in Africa or somewhere else around the world. Whether it's a certain charity or a specific cause, it's your choice! Not only that, but your money works differently for Hope Equity than for any other charity that I've seen so far! At Hope Equity, you make a donation and that donation creates interest. A portion of that interest is then used for the charity's needs and the rest goes back into your original "savings". This continues over, and over again, with your original money never being touched. Another cool thing is that your original "Micro-Endowment" can support as many different groups as you'd like. The interest it earns would be divided among the different charities. There is a video on the site that explains it a little better, but overall it's just a really unique way to look at giving back. On a different note, a couple days ago when I gave the challenge about writing a list of things you're grateful for, I forgot to mention something. There's this really amazing blog called "1000 Awesome Things". Check it out! It lists a ton of awesome things that I don't even notice day to day, but which really are awesome. For example "laughing so hard that you cry" or "opening a book to the exact page you're looking for". Who knew there were so many awesome things? What can you do for one dollar? Not that much. For one dollar, you can buy 1 song on Itunes. You can buy around .3 gallons of gas. At my school, you can by 3 cookies for one dollar. It doesn't seem like much of anything, right? But in reality, you can do a LOT with one dollar. With one dollar, you can fill four cups with food for children suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition. To you and me, four meals might not seem like a lot, but think about it: According to the World Food Programme... ...for the first time in history, the number of hungry people worldwide will exceed one billion... ...one child dies every six seconds from hunger... It takes 25 cents to fill a cup for one child. 5 dollars to feed a baby for one year. So the real question here is not whether or not we are able to give but rather, if it is possible for us to make a difference in the world for the better, why wouldn't we? Below is a video that I've already posted in the Get Inspired section, but if you haven't seen it yet take a look! DIFFICULTY: Medium
This one is a little more expensive, but definitely possible! A really awesome organization called Sleeping Children Around the World helps children across the globe to get a goods nights rest. This month is really about all the things that we are blessed to have that others aren't. Imagine that you had no bed to sleep on at night, nothing to keep you warm, and the knowledge that you had to get up really early the next day to do work. This is the reality facing hundreds of thousands of children every day! Sleeping Children Around the World has already helped over 900,000 children in 33 countries! The bedkits, besides blankets and such, also contain clothing, towels, school supplies, and a mosquito net if applicable. A really cool thing about this organization is that you receive a picture of the person who you donated the bedkit to! It's amazing to be able to see whose life you directly impacted and what a difference you're making just by providing a good nights rest! DIFFICULTY: Medium Relatively recently, a couple of my friends started a club at my school that deals with Microloans. Microloans are just what a they like, mini loans! For the club, we sell baskets handmade in Africa by fair-trade certified groups and then use that money to loan funds to groups of women in Malawi who are trying to start a business. Our club works on a larger scale, but there are ways that the every day person can make loans too! Kiva is a large organization that helps thousands of people around the world! Here's how it works. Field partners (from Kiva) find entrepreneurs looking to be loaned money in poor countries throughout Africa and other continents. They upload the profile of the entrepreneur, and people like you and I can choose who to lend to. There's a more thorough explanation here, but basically, the money you loan will be repaid and can then be used to make another loan, donate, or can be put back into your paypal account! It's a really simple process, and you can donate as little as $25. Kiva has loaned over $130,00,000 and helped people in over 196 countries! DIFFICULTY: Hard
So I was originally saving this challenge for a later month, but decided to change it after today. A bunch of my friends and I visited a Step into Africa exhibition at a local church, which was set up by World Vision. It was an incredible experience, and I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to go through the exhibit or host it in their town to do it! They set up this whole thing that you walk through. Every person is assigned a child from Africa and a set of headphones. You walk through the exhibit and listen to their story, learning about how AIDS has affected their lives. You can learn more about it by watching the videos you'll find here. It struck a chord with me because it was such an interactive experience. I got to hear a true story about a young girl in Africa. Her name was Mathabo and her father died when she was very young. At around 6 years old, her mother sent her to the market place to get a treat. When she came back her mother wasn't there, she had left to find work in South Africa. Her older brother began to abuse her, but he, too, left eventually. She wouldn't have survived if it weren't for a World Vision representative allowing her to stay in her house, feeding her, paying for her education, and keeping her safe. When Mathabo's mother returned from South Africa, she was deathly ill. Mathabo cared for her and prayed for her, but her mother refused to get tested for aids. The World Vision representative eventually told Mathabo that she needed to be tested because she'd been tending to her mother's open wounds without gloves. (In the exhibit we actually sat in a clinic and went to a window where a man stamped our hands with either a positive or negative sign). Thankfully, she did not have AIDS, but the disease eventually killed her mother and she was left alone. These children throughout Africa are desperate. Most have at least one parent missing, if not two. In some cases they are completely dependent on organizations that pay for their education, food, water, clothing, etc., and there are thousands of them. World Vision helps children by allowing people like us to sponsor them. You can pick who you sponsor, and they have children from countries around the world that need help. If you sponsor a child you receive annual progress reports and updated photos, and you also have the opportunity to send and receive letters to and from the child you sponsor. DIFFICULTY: Easy
Today's challenge...give socks! Socks are another thing that we often take for granted. Hannah's Socks is an organization totally dedicated to providing people with socks! The idea was also started by a young girl, which is really cute! She's raised a ton of money and helped a bunch of people get socks, which is awesome. Not only would you be helping people by donating socks, you'd be supporting a little girl trying to make a big difference in the world she lives in! Otherwise, local shelters and organizations, I'm sure, are willing to accept donations of new socks :) DIFFICULTY: Easy Today's challenge is to donate to end hunger in the United States. When we think of hunger, we usually think about third world countries and starvation, but in reality, there are people in the U.S. that go hungry to! The Dinner Garden is an organization that supports gardens to help feed people. Gardens are really great because it's fresh food that's healthy for you, relatively inexpensive, and you can collect the seeds from it to keep growing even more. You could even sell the produce to make a profit. So what can a few dollars do? - $1.72 provides ten different types of vegetable seeds for a family to grow a full garden. - $5.00 provides enough seeds for a family of seven to grow produce for one year! Every little bit counts! (Speaking of counting, a big thanks to my aunt who gave me 63 tabs and 10 box tops for the count!) DIFFICULTY: Medium So you may be wondering, what exactly is the pound for pound challenge? Well, my sister (who happens to be a fan of The Biggest Loser ;) ) heard about this challenge through the show. The Biggest Loser has decided to donate 14 cents for every pound of weight someone loses to Feeding America. 14 cents is enough to buy one pound of food! So how does this work? Well, first you go here. Then, you pledge how many pounds you're going to lose. I haven't exactly gone through the process yet, but I figure it's relatively easy to figure out once you get signed up! It's a great way to get healthier, while also helping a family in need :) DIFFICULTY: Hard Wow! I can't believe it's already 100 days into 2010 and I've already posted about 100 different ways to give back! Anyways, today I'd like to talk about a different way of showing kindness. A really huge part of being kind is being able to empathize with people. It's really hard to put your heart into fighting for something that you don't believe in or that hasn't affected you personally. It's important to note that empathy is different from just feeling sympathy for something or someone, because with sympathy you understand that what they're going through is difficult yet you can't fully comprehend how hard it really is. So what does this have to do with poverty? Well World Vision has this thing called the 30 Hour Famine that happens every year from April 23-24. On the site they have different ways for groups to sign up for it (although it's basically just for teenagers), but you don't really have to sign up for it to participate! Hunger is one of those things that I know must be really hard to deal with but have never experienced myself. So hopefully I'm going to try to go for about 24 hours only drinking water. It's definitely not going to be easy, but I honestly believe it'll help me better understand what millions of children, some my age or younger, as well as adults are going through every single day. I definitely don't blame you if you don't want to go 30 hours without eating (yikes!), but next time you feel hungry for lunch or dinner, try to think about how that feels, multiply it by 10, and then imagine how it would feel if you knew that hunger may never be sedated. It's definitely not a good feeling!
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Grains of Rice Donated: 31,370
"I Am Malala"
By: Malala Yousafzai
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