Meet Dollar A Week

Hello SuperForest folk!

Recently, a friend of mine teamed up with five of her friends to establish a new initiative called Dollar A Week. I'm not sure what the response has been just yet, though I'm excited to help them spread the word and let it trickle as far and wide as possible. Here's the lowdown:

"In early 2007, a group of friends sitting around in Sydney, Australia, decided that enough was enough. Tired of looking at a world caving in under the weight of poverty, hunger and disease, this group of six or so 'no-one specials' awoke to the idea that they, just as they were, could make a difference...

Everyone had a dollar in their pocket that day. And, unsurprisingly, each of them agreed that they wouldn't really notice if that dollar went missing. In fact, they were willing to give it away. And another one, next week. And another one, after that. If only there was a way for that dollar to get to those who needed it most...

Enter: Dollar A Week.

Dollar A Week is a not-for-profit organisation that raises funds to provide financial support to various community projects and charities which are working to release people from poverty, hunger and disease all around the world."

The idea is so simple, which is why I think it will take off. It illustrates that when enough people get on board, small change can make a big difference.

One Voice

If you don't yet know, today is Blog Action Day's 2008 campaign to raise awareness about, and inspire action towards helping solve POVERTY.  It's an impressive international initiative with over 11,500 websites and writers participating worldwide, all focused on one collective theme.

  

Thinking about what I might contribute as I browsed the hundreds of posts on blogactionday.org, I found myself feeling, well... slightly overwhelmed.  It's the same feeling I had when, as an aspiring writer, I signed up to work in a library.  Nothing is more humbling and daunting than placing your own small voice next to rows upon rows of the masters who have come before.

Pushing my cart through fields of books stacked ceiling high, I would find myself wondering what did I have to offer? What difference in the history of the world could my little voice make?

I never found an answer to that question. I still haven't... and I'm writing every day.  Because what I did find was the answer to a more important question: 

Not what difference can my one voice make in the world if I express it, but what difference can it make if I don't?

Poverty is a huge issue.  A global issue.  And we can choose to be overwhelmed by it, or we can choose to help.   To do something.  Raise our voices.  Act!   It's so easy and it's the hardest thing.

Because how many of us ever really give ourselves to a cause?  How many people commit their lives to an idea or ideal?  How much difference do we make in the world, each and every day?

One voice matters.  Your voice matters.  Do more.  

Not sure how?  Read here Peter Singer's famous call to charity: "The Singer Solution".

Or this list of 88 ways to end poverty now.  Read it, pick one, do it today!

With love,

-Jordan and Team SuperForest

In My Name

Throughout history, millions of people have stood up in the fight against global poverty.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

"The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger and so on, are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share."

Nelson Mandela

"Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . . "

Barack Obama

"If poverty is a disease that infects the entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation . We have to heal that entire community."

Now it's our turn to take action. In the year 2000, government officials from around the world gathered together to form an 8 point strategy to end global poverty and promised to achieve most of these goals by 2015. In My Name is a website launched only a few weeks ago in partnership with YouTube as an effort to both raise awareness on the issue and to encourage each of us to take action by doing anything from spreading that awareness to making sure our government officials do their part in keeping that promise of ending global poverty.

We can be the generation that ends poverty. We can make a difference.

Search the Web Make Some Waves

Ripple.

A simple and effective search engine uses the fundamental portal to the information super-dooper-high-sky-way as its tool against poverty. Every time YOU use the RIPPLE search engine or click on selected buttons to Give Access to Clean Water, Feed a Village, Educate, or Microfinance the money generated by the ads you see go towards these causes. They are harnessing the power of OUR wonderful intraweb-internet-organic-community-robot-animal to end poverty. One Search at a time. So get your search and learn on and makes some big kahuna waves.



Love,
TV