Honoring the Missing Schoolgirls

Mother’s Day is this Sunday, and, by all means, let’s use it to celebrate the moms in our lives with flowers and brunches. But let’s also use the occasion to honor the girls still missing in Nigeria.

One way is a donation to support girls going to school around Africa through the Campaign for Female Education, Camfed.org; a $40 gift pays for a girl’s school uniform.

Another way to empower women is to support Edna Adan, an extraordinary Somali woman who has started her own maternity hospital, midwife training program and private university, saving lives, providing family planning and fighting female genital mutilation. AtEdnaHospital.org, a $50 donation pays for a safe hospital delivery.

Or there’s the Mothers’ Day Movement, mothersdaymovement.org, which is supporting a clean water initiative in Uganda. With access to water, some girls will no longer have to drop out of school to haul water.

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Spokane doctor brings first retina laser to Angola

It took two years of fundraising and a mountain of paperwork for Dr. Eric Guilielmo of Spokane Eye Clinic to install a retina laser at a hospital in Angola, a country located on the southwest shore of Africa. Many of the patients there suffer from retinal eye conditions and up until Dr. Guilielmo brought the disassembled laser to the country there was nothing available to save them from blindness.

Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, and then spent the next 27 years engaged in a blood diamond funded civil war. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has  been in power since 1975 and has been accused of corruption and of plundering the country’s oil wealth. According to Forbes, the people of Angola live off of $2 a day while President dos Santos has secured a $3 billion fortune for his daughter through questionable government funded business deals.
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The Science of ‘Paying It Forward’

ONE morning in December of 2012, at the drive-through window of a Tim Hortons coffee shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a customer paid for her order and then picked up the tab for the stranger in the car behind her in line. Then that customer paid the bill for the following customer in line — and so on, for the next 226 customers, in a three-hour sequence of spontaneous generosity.

It turns out that such “pay it forward” chains are not unheard-of at Tim Hortons (though they are usually much shorter), and news outlets have reported the emergence of many such chains in a variety of restaurant drive-throughs and tollbooths throughout North America. Last year, a Chick-fil-A in Houston experienced a 67-car chain. A few months later, a Heav’nly Donuts in Amesbury, Mass., had a run of 55 cars.

Why do these things happen? One possibility is that generosity among strangers can be socially contagious.
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In an experiment the results of which were published last month in the journal PLoS One, we studied both possibilities. We found that receiving and observing generosity can both significantly increase your likelihood of being generous toward a stranger, but that if you observe a high enough level of generosity, your willingness to help suffers — you become a “bystander” who feels that help is no longer needed.

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Photos that Bear Witness to Modern Slavery

Slavery has come back into our sphere of attention with "Twelve Years a Slave." Lisa Kristine poignantly (and painfully) brings attention to modern day slavery in this Ted Talk. It will take 30 minutes of your time to view and in my view will be very worthwhile.
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For the past two years, photographer Lisa Kristine has traveled the world, documenting the unbearably harsh realities of modern-day slavery. She shares hauntingly beautiful images — miners in the Congo, brick layers in Nepal — illuminating the plight of the 27 million souls enslaved worldwide. (Filmed at TEDxMaui)
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Probably the best video giving practical advice to help you change the world [video]

Rarely have I come across such a well-produced, well-written video clip for a good cause. Even rarer are videos that give such clear and simple ways to do good.
"Guy Kawasaki"

Three Myths on the World's Poor

by Bill and Melinda Gates

This is a must read.

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MYTH ONE: Poor countries are doomed to stay poor.

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MYTH TWO: Foreign aid is a big waste.

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MYTH THREE: Saving lives leads to overpopulation.

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Raising Children With an Attitude of Gratitude

Research Finds Real Benefits for Kids Who Say 'Thank You'

Giving thanks is no longer just holiday fare. A field of research on gratitude in kids is emerging, and early findings indicate parents' instincts to elevate the topic are spot-on. Concrete benefits come to kids who literally count their blessings.

Gratitude works like a muscle. Take time to recognize good fortune, and feelings of appreciation can increase. Even more, those who are less grateful gain the most from a concerted effort. "Gratitude treatments are most effective in those least grateful," says Eastern Washington University psychology professor Philip Watkins.

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The old adage that virtues are caught, not taught, applies here," says University of California, Davis psychology professor Robert Emmons. Parents need to model this behavior to build their children's gratitude muscle. "It's not what parents want to hear, but you cannot give your kids something that you yourselves do not have," Dr. Emmons says.

This may seems obvious, but it eludes many parents, Dr. Watkins says. "I think the most important thing for us adults to realize is we're not very grateful either," he says.

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Another study examined 1,035 high-school students outside New York City. The study, published in 2010 in the Journal of Happiness Studies, found that those who showed high levels of gratitude, for instance thankfulness for the beauty of nature and strong appreciation of other people, reported having stronger GPAs, less depression and envy and a more positive outlook than less grateful teens.

Further, teens who strongly connected buying and owning things with success and happiness reported having lower GPAs, more depression and a more negative outlook. "Materialism had just the opposite effect as gratitude—almost like a mirror," says study co-author Jeffrey Froh, associate professor of psychology at Hofstra University.

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Alabaman Becomes Ray of Hope to Desperate Family in India

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Real-estate developer Chip Moore left his four-bedroom home here one morning in his GMC Yukon SUV, drove through his community's gate, past the golf course to a Publix supermarket.

There, he wired $1,000 to Rahima Sheikh, a gravely ill woman in a 240-square-foot home in India. He considered it a one-time thing.

"I thought I'd sling some money at the problem," he says, "and make it go away."

Instead, 10 months later, Mr. Moore was in northern India, sitting cross-legged on the roof of Mrs. Sheikh's tiny brick house on an August night, eating goat curry and talking with her husband about the business Mr. Moore had helped the family start as a way to escape poverty.

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The Sheikhs' struggle is common in India, where two-thirds live below the international poverty level of $2 a day. Medical-care costs and other unforeseen expenses can plunge a family into destitution. The Sheikhs and most people in their district lack toilets and don't have electricity much of the day.

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One family's helping another directly is "not a suitable model" to fight global poverty, says Cambridge University's Mr. Munshi. But, he says, Mr. Moore's and Mr. Srivastava's efforts will probably help the Sheikhs because the two avoided the pitfalls of many development efforts by tailoring their assistance to the situation. "One thing that never works is trying to provide generalizable solutions to all the problems that people face."

The Sheikhs' business has been thriving the past few months, with more orders than they can meet. Still, they were back with another request in November, for $3,000 to buy an adjacent lot to build a bathroom. Mr. Moore declined, saying he wanted them focused on their business and on curing Mrs. Sheikh. She used $180 in tailoring profits and borrowed $500 from a friend to buy a sliver of the land, anyway. "I hate that they borrowed," Mr. Moore says.

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A Save-the-World Field Trip for Millionaire Tech Moguls

When Harrison founded charity: water in New York City in 2006, he initially intended to counter the cynicism of his club buddies. “I wanted to create a model that would put all the excuses aside,” Harrison says — a charity, in other words, for people who didn’t trust charities. To pre-empt objections to high overhead and waste, Harrison set up two bank accounts: one, raised chiefly from a handful of wealthy individuals, to pay for administration and fund-raising; and the other to finance the digging of wells and other water-related projects in the developing world. Today the organization’s heavily promoted “100% Model” allows it to claim that every dollar donated to water is actually used that way. (Some consider this more a matter of marketing than anything else, but even so, charity: water is a relatively efficient organization, earning a nearly perfect rating from Charity Navigator, a sort of Consumer Reports for the nonprofit world.) Many donations are earmarked to specific projects, so if a church group gives, say, $5,000 for a well in Ethiopia, its members are not only told where their $5,000 is spent, but they also receive pictures of the well they financed and its G.P.S. coordinates. All of this information is publicly available on a section of charity: water’s Web site dedicated to “proving it.” Most donors who happen to visit their well will find their names on a plaque there.

In just seven years, Harrison’s organization claims to have raised roughly $100 million — $33 million in 2012 alone, up from $27 million the year before and $16 million the year before that. Today it is the largest nonprofit in the United States focused on water, with revenues that are four times as great as those of Water.org, the group co-founded by Matt Damon. Charity: water doesn’t drill wells or buy water filters but acts as a fund-raising clearinghouse for locally based charities, which it subcontracts to do the actual work. It markets its partners, mostly using its Web site and social media. “You could almost imagine us a Kayak.com or an Expedia,” Harrison says. But charity: water promises to do more than a mere online travel agent does; it claims to verify that the wells its donors buy are actually completed in a timely fashion. “We create an experience,” he says, “a pure way to give.”
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Diane Von Furstenberg Donates Eye Care for Pinterest Repins

Diane von Furstenberg and VSP, the largest non-profit vision benefits company, are working together to give free eye care using a Pinterest campaign.

VSP will donate up to 1,000 certificates for eye exams and glasses — one per repin from its#PinToGiveAndGet board — to youth in need through the New York City Mission Society, a charity chosen by DVF. Each giveaway is valued at $385, which will total up to a $385,000 donation.

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How Nicholas Kristof Uses His Pulpit To Engage People With Empathy

How Nicholas Kristof Uses His Pulpit To Engage People With Empathy
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One advantage of social media is brevity. The other night, gunmen tried to assassinate one of my heroes, a Congolese doctor and anti-rape campaigner named Denis Mukwege. If I had tried to write a column about the attack, most readers would have immediately tuned out. But they let me inflict tweets on them even if they’re not hugely interested in the topic, because I can’t entirely put them to sleep in 140 characters. So Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ enable me to toss out little updates and tidbits that don’t merit a column--or would bore people if they did--but that are part of the mosaic of modern life

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How can activist writers best combat “compassion fatigue” in their writing?

My concern with this issue led me to the research in social psychology and neurology about how we can connect with our readers. A scholar named Paul Slovic has in particular done fascinating research in this field. To me, the lessons of this research are two-fold. First, tell an engaging individual story to suck people in. Second, show that it’s not hopeless, but that progress is possible. That was our strategy in Half the Sky.

Rachel Beckwith's Mom visits Ethiopia

Rachel Beckwith's Mom Visits Ethiopia. from charity: water on Vimeo.

Gifts That Say You Care

GIVE Grandma a bit of credit! These holidays, would she rather receive a silly reindeer sweater or help a schoolchild acquire glasses to see the blackboard clearly for the first time?

Choosing the perfect holiday gift is one of life’s greater challenges, modestly more difficult than earning a Ph.D. in astrophysics. So it is time for my annual gift guide.

For starters, the Web sites of the major humanitarian organizations offer alluring holiday gifts. Through the International Rescue Committee, $30 buys a flock of chickens for a needy family. At CARE, $29 gets a girl a school uniform. Through Heifer International, you can stock a fish pond for $300. With Mercy Corps, $69 can start a female entrepreneur in the sewing business.

Beyond those organizations, here are some lesser-known charities that may help put a grin on Grandma — and on someone else.

Helen Keller International

fights blindness and malnutrition around the world with simple and cost-effective programs. One of the best ways to improve children’s health is to focus on micronutrients, like iodine, vitamin A and zinc — and in some cases to fortify foods with nutrients at a negligible cost. Helen Keller International, at hki.org, is a leader in that effort, and gets more bang for the buck than almost any group I can think of.

And those glasses I mentioned for a schoolchild? That’s a Helen Keller International program, ChildSight, which operates in the United States as well as in Indonesia and Vietnam. Schoolchildren are screened for vision problems, and those who need glasses get them. Providing glasses costs just $25 per child — which is a much better value than a sweater that will sit in a drawer for eternity.

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Ex-Starbucks Exec Helps Develop Global Eye Banks

Some 10 million people suffer from corneal blindness. It's relatively rare in the U.S., and if you have it, you're likely to have a corneal transplant and your vision will be restored. But in the developing world, where most corneal blindness occurs, it's a different matter.
Now, a Seattle-based nonprofit is applying lessons learned in the coffee business in its efforts to bring sight to as many people as it can.
Tucked away in a downtown Seattle office building is one of the largest eye banks in the world. It's run by an organization called SightLife. It finds organ donors, collects the corneas from the newly deceased and prepares the tissue for surgery.
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What if, he wondered, his organization could help create 900 eye banks around the world to meet the local demand? Just about everyone thought his idea was crazy — except Schottman.
"[He] looked at it and said, 'Ah, only 900 — that's not that hard,'" Montoya says.
Schottman had been part of the global strategy team at Starbucks. "There were times we were putting plans together to open five, six, seven stores in a day," he says. "So to me, 900 over a 10- to 20-year time period seemed very modest in terms of its ambition."

The Gifts of Hope

All of the charities that Nicholas Kristof lists here are wonderful. I have supported Partners in Health for many years. The biography of the founder of this startup, Paul Farmer, is a fascinating read. It is called  Mountains beyond Montains.
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So by all means, buy your kids a $30 beehive (or an $850 camel) for a needy family through Heifer International, or write a check to the International Rescue Committee for its terrific work in Congo — but my focus today is groups that never make the spotlight:

What’s Next: Curling Up with E-Readers

Could electronic reading devices catalyze a new culture of global literacy? That’s the idea behind Worldreader.org, a start-up nonprofit with world-changing aspirations.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet Aim for $600 Billion Pledge for Charity

In the world's biggest demonstration of philanthropy, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are asking the world's billionaires to contribute at least 50 percent of their weath to charity: a total of $600 billion.

Millionaires who gave it away

Interesting and inspiring stories here...
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Here are a half-dozen individuals who have found that the highest and best use of their wealth is in helping others. 

Partying to Change the World

Maybe the most common question I get from readers is: What can I do?

They’ve read about malaria, or mass rape, or AIDS orphans, and they want to make a difference. Should they call the White House? Write a check? Howl in hopeless despair?
There’s never a perfect answer, but here’s one ingenious approach: Throw a party!

Let’s back up. In 2004, a Colorado woman named Torkin Wakefield, a Peace Corps veteran with a lifetime of experience in aid work, was temporarily living in Uganda. Her daughter, Devin Hibbard, then just out of graduate school, came to visit, and they strolled together through a slum in Kampala, the capital.

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BeadforLife reflects several fascinating trends in the battle against global poverty. One is the increasing interest in using businesses and entrepreneurship to create jobs and a more sustainable economic liftoff. A second is a focus on women, because of evidence that they are more likely than men to invest business profits in their children’s education and health. A third is the growing attempt to engage American supporters by asking them to do something other than just writing checks.
Increasingly, Torkin and Devin have also been using the bead parties to try to educate the jewelry buyers about Africa. To go with the beads, they’ve developed a curriculum on global poverty for American schools. They’ve also been taking Americans to Africa to see the work firsthand.
“At first, we thought BeadforLife was just for Ugandans,” Torkin said. “Then we realized that a lot of this was about helping Americans get involved.”

What Could You Live Without?

Another thought provoking editorial from Nicholas Kristof
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 While waiting at a traffic light, they saw a black Mercedes coupe on
“Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal,” Hannah protested. The light changed and they drove on, but Hannah was too young to be reasonable. She pestered her parents about inequity, insisting that she wanted to do something.

“What do you want to do?” her mom responded. “Sell our house?”
Warning! Never suggest a grand gesture to an idealistic teenager. Hannah seized upon the idea of selling the luxurious family home and donating half the proceeds to charity, while using the other half to buy a more modest replacement home.
Eventually, that’s what the family did. The project — crazy, impetuous and utterly inspiring — is chronicled in a book by father and daughter scheduled to be published next month: “The Power of Half.” It’s a book that, frankly, I’d be nervous about leaving around where my own teenage kids might find it. An impressionable child reads this, and the next thing you know your whole family is out on the street.
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“No one expects anyone to sell a house,” said Hannah, now a high school junior who hopes to become a nurse. “That’s kind of a ridiculous thing to do. For us, the house was just something we could live without. It was too big for us. Everyone has too much of something, whether it’s time, talent or treasure. Everyone does have their own half, you just have to find it.”
As for Kevin Salwen, he’s delighted by what has unfolded since that encounter at the red light.
“This is the most self-interested thing we have ever done,” he said. “I’m thrilled that we can help others. I’m blown away by how much it has helped us.”