HumanKindMedia

This almost makes me wish I could go back to high school

Guys, next time you wear pink, I'm going to know you're doing it for a ninth-grader and his kick-ass friends in Nova Scotia. I'm posting this mostly because I'm so floored by these guys, but they did use the Internet to create a shared mission of peace, so technically it is in line with our official mission here at HumanKind ;)

And while you're here, check out my new column. Or I'll steal your lunch money.

CAMBRIDGE — Two students at Central Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a sea of pink after a new student was harassed and threatened when he showed up wearing a pink shirt.

Beyond Bono

"Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live." Bono

The first I heard of the One Campaign was when Audrey told me about hearing U2 frontman Bono's plea to the 2005 TED conference , a meeting of the brightest and best thought leaders in the world. He was that year's recipient of three wishes granted by TED attendees , and he made them all for Africa. It's a powerful speech that I hope you'll bookmark and listen to.

While there's nothing like a celebrity to draw a crowd to a cause, for me it's still about one story at a time, one unique person doing something with his or her own individual gifts -- Jeff Sachs studying the economic failures of the past, Ze Frank considering possibility, Chris Baty getting friends together to write novels and build libraries. One story at a time about people-- who don't have billions or celebrity-- who are creating, connecting, and changing things gets me thinking about what I could do.

Need a hug

I had a bumpy weekend and didn't write the three really exciting posts I had in mind for HumanKind. It occurred to me that it's tough work healing the world, for all of us, and there are some things you have to do for yourself while you are taking it on.

A few of the reactions I got when I first became excited about creating media about all the people, organizations, villages, and communities around the world working to heal the world, went something like this, "We've got enough problems here at home--what about the problems right here? Why not let Africa and Asia and South America and whoever take care of themselves?"

How can two people save a fishing village in Egypt?

I'm still at sleepover camp for writers and artists here in Vermont, and I've got to tell you about the world-changing project one of the artists here founded in Egypt.

In 2000, husband and wife team Sameh El Halawany and Aliaa El Gready wanted to find a way to use art to help one of their country's last fishing villages, El Max, lift itself out of poverty and save itself from being razed. With an initial grant of about $3,000 from the Ford Foundation, they formed Gudran and moved into the village.

First, they tried to pitch their ideas to the local fishermen, but that didn't go so well, Sameh says.

Tipping, connectors, mavens and persuaders, and... one red paper clip

No, no, we're not accepting tips. (But if you wanna donate a bed net ...)

The "tipping" I'm thinking about is "previously rare phenomenon becoming rapidly and dramatically more common," as described in the Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell. That's a new recommendation of an "old" book, worth reading if you didn't when it came out. Gladwell explores the tipping point of social phenomena, ranging from the educational impact of Sesame Street and the spread of Ya Ya sisterhoods across America, to teen suicide in Micronesia -- how an idea spreads like a virus, and under what conditions of connection it catches on and grows exponentially. For obvious reasons, we'd like that to happen here with HumanKind Media -- an exponentially expanding base of people hopping on for the all the possibilities of evolutionary social change.
You can read more here.

Part of Gladwell's theory relates to Milgram's small world experiments which some of us know as the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Thank you, Wikipedia (whom we will have much more to write about in the future.)

Are you a connector, a maven or a persuader according to the Tipping Point theory? Want to hear what Paul Hawken has to say about what's happening in the world ? Are you headed to a mosquito abatement conference anywhere? Want to hear what One Red Paper Clip has to do with anything? There's more...

A practical step you can take to end extreme poverty

The more I've been learning about the work that's already been done and is being done to help communities around the world lift themselves out of extreme poverty, the more I realize it is possible to do it everywhere, and it's possible to do it quickly, within this generation. Check out this interview with our favorite economist, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs -- it's only seven minutes -- and see if you're not more convinced, too.

Here's an excerpt in case you don't have seven minutes right now:

Guilt, giving, googlewhack, and intention

I've been feeling guilty lately about asking people to read my e-mails, buy mosquito nets, forward HumanKind Media to their friends. I'm not an evangelist by trade or at heart. I'm a media magnate (laugh here). But most of the people I know, and the people you know, and, well, all people, are generous by nature. They give of themselves every day to their families and schools, their churches, their sports teams, their towns, their political candidates, their colleges, and to their kids, for the future. If they could each send a million nets to Africa, they would today.

That's the thing. Each person thinks, "Africa needs a million nets," (it's 300 million, actually), "and I really want to help, but I can't do anything about this huge problem!" And the guilt that comes from that overwhelm gets in the way of giving.

How making art is like changing the world

I'm spending September at Vermont Studio Center, which is like sleepover camp for writers and artists. (Yes, it's that awesome.) I had an unexpected impossible-to-possible moment the other night during a conversation with some painters and a writer. We were all hanging out at a picnic table, drinking wine from the gas station (like I said, camp is awesome), and when we hit a lull, the writer asked what we all did when we got stuck in the my-work-is-awful-and-I-should-quit mode.

Everybody laughed and offered up their most useful trick, like putting the canvas in a closet and starting on a new one, or telling yourself that everyone else's work sucks in order to give your ego an emergency boost (that was my favorite).

My point is that not one person said, "That never happens to me." Nobody said, "I never feel like giving up." And here they were, still doing it, still showing up to make art, even though they all have moments when it feels totally and completely impossible. That is exactly what I want to remember when I feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the world's suffering. I want to remember that everyone gets overwhelmed, but instead of turning away in frustration, some people stay in that moment and use it as a chance to think in terms of something they can do. And if we all do that a little more often, we will see steady, and eventually incredible, accomplishments. That's how creativity happens, and that's how change happens, too. Nothing impossible about it.

For some more inspiration along these lines, check out this video about a Rwandan woman who, through the support of Women for Women International (which we'll write more about in October), went from impoverished and alone to becoming a landowner and the employer of other women in her community.

Staggering generosity and humanity

This week included 9/11, a day of remembrance. But it was also, for me, a day of a little too much media fear-mongering, which, as you may have guessed by now, I'm against. For fun I counted the number of inspiring stories on the front page of the New York Times on Sept. 12, and the number was 0.

So I hope you'll visit us here, in addition to your other morning news, for some HumanKind Media when you can. We're for what Mark Morford, a San Francisco columnist, describes in this beautiful quote, something he wrote when the United States began the war in Iraq in 2002:

"Stop thinking this is all there is... Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental devastation and Iraqi attack plan, there are a thousand counter-balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral." -- Mark Morford

Novelists build global community

If you're a writer, or if you know one, chances are you've heard of National Novel Writing Month. It's that nutty contest where contestants pledge to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. For fun. There are no judges, and you don't win anything but self-respect.

The amazing thing is, NaNoWriMo, which started on a lark about seven years ago when Bay Area writer Chris Baty invited a bunch of friends to write a novel-in-a-month together, quickly grew into a passionate, worldwide throng of tens of thousands. And it raises thousands of dollars each year for Room to Read, which builds libraries for kids on two continents.

That's right: Chris's idea generated an online, global community with a shared intention that's changing the world. No wonder we like him so much. Check out our interview with Chris, and let him show you what's possible.