HumanKindMedia

Where I find the economics lesson I've always needed

I'm embarrassed to say I have still been struggling to understand this whole economic crisis in its entirety (and I'm an MBA). I couldn't read enough to make sense of the bailout of large financial institutions when people were losing their homes, so I thought all would be explained when I attended a lecture by Newt Gingrich and Robert Reisch, each touted by their parties as economic experts. Though the lecture was fascinating and they were both profoundly thoughtful and intelligent, I came away worried that all of the solutions and thoughts they had about the crisis were still based upon what I see as a flawed assumption: continued growth of the economy...ad infinitum.

Simply put, when you look at any sustainable system diagram, the arrows go in a circle; when you look at how we talk about our economy, the arrows always want to point up and off the chart. I couldn't reconcile what I knew from my series exploring sustainability and what I recently learned about our global footprint with how the "experts" were talking about the economy.

After the lecture I came back and decided I would keep searching to try to find something that reconciles this question for me. Then I remembered that little money movie someone had sent me last week to watch that I had forgotten.

Canadian Paul Grignon captures in his simple story-telling what he says he learned in high school: "We were studying logarithmic functions such as interest and it struck me that a money system in which money accrues interest at every turn could only function with exponential growth of the money supply." His film, Money As Debt, is to this question of building a sustainable economy as the Story of Stuff is to the question of consumption of our resources. I hope this film makes it around the world twice or more. I can't believe how much I did not understand about our system of money.

Though its longer than most films, I encourage you to watch--it's worth every minute. If you don't know the history of money and banking, or can't imagine how we'll get to the place where there is more equity in who has and who has not, take a look at Money as Debt. And, share it.

September Birthdays

Way back in March, for World Water Day, we wrote this post about Scott Harrison, founder of Charity:Water, and his dream to build wells around the world to provide clean drinking water for those who still go without. His Tap Project and many other events are an amazing example of how someone tackles "the impossible".

But, he hasn't stopped with World Water Day. Using his birthday (and the anniversary of his founding of Charity: Water) as a fabulous excuse for a new campaign, he provided a well for a hospital in Kenya last year with gifts from 90 friends. Today, on his 33rd birthday, he drilled a well in Ethiopia , the first of the 333 he hopes to drill (it's his 33rd birthday). More here!

Kudos to Cammi Walker, Founder of the 29-Day Giving Challenge, who invited all of her fellow Challenge givers to contribute to Charity: Water for her Dad's September birthday. How could anyone turn down such a triple whammy way to give: safe drinking water for people who don't have it, a Dad, and the Giving Challenge all at once? I signed up. Then, I sent the links to my college son who's birthday is in September (and he may be receiving a gift receipt for a donation, also). You can donate through the 29-Gifts site here or at Charity: Water, here.

If you are a September birthday, or know someone who is, here's a chance to celebrate with Scott:

Hooray! 1st Anniversary Blog

Today I'm celebrating the first year anniversary of HumanKind Media. In the blogging world, HumanKind is just an infant. Hard to believe so much can happen in a year, though. The prospect of many more years of telling stories about people who are creating possibilities for healing the world is exciting and daunting when I look back over what's happened from this little blogging venture in just a year.

Liz and I started with this post and plea for help ending poverty, and within weeks we had many donations to Malaria No More and had found our matching donor, a mosquito abatement philanthropist from Kansas City who went beyond matching our donations from readers (we still love you, Paul). If you want to help me celebrate, buy a net to help end poverty.

After about 6 months, and our appearance as a TypePad Featured site, Liz, who had propped me up at the beginning, gently sent me off on my own so she could pursue her writing career and her life (but has promised to return once in awhile for a post or two).

Though it's been a whole year, it feels like I'm just getting started. The word for this next year is COLLABORATE. HumanKind media is one of many Changebloggers, blogs about social change (healing the world), and we can hope to see lots of new ideas, collaborations, and hopefully guest writers from some of our favorite old friends and new old friends in the coming year. Good news for good media.

Also, I hope you, wonderful readers, will help by forwarding cool links and articles you find, giving a heads-up on people you know who are starting out with new projects, or just sharing the possibilities you've uncovered or are wondering about. And, if you or someone you know would like to try their hand at writing some HumanKind Media blogs, I'd love to add some new voices. Help me fill year #2 with amazing media for possibility.

For today's post I thought I'd make a "favorites" list, but the truth is I couldn't decide amongst all the people we talked to, videos we found, or amazing organizations who astonished us. As I've wound my way through the world of ending poverty, the connection between helping women and ending poverty, peace and connection, creating a sustainable future, and the possibilities for media contributing to change, I have met some of the most amazing, creative people (see the partial "amazing" blog scroll here) I could ever imagine.

I have noticed over the years that when a client takes on an issue or a project in their lives, though they usually think they're working on it, often, it's working on them. HumanKind Media, my little project to change the media to change the world, has been working on me. I have changed my priorities, my understanding of what's important to me, my habits, my appreciation for the difficulties that people face when they take a stand or a step, and a realization of the rewards that come from working on something you care about and giving what you can.

I am not where I was when I started by any measure, and I hope, if you're a regular reader, you've also discovered that changing your media diet, even just a little, changes how you see yourself and the world.

Here's to more years and more possibilities! Thanks for reading! Sorry for giving you a rerun, but Matt best explains how I feel today. Seriously, take a few minutes on me, even if you watched it before--it just gets better the more you view it. Celebrate with me!

Concerned about our global footprint? Help educate a girl

In an unusual and inspiring conversation hosted by Swissnex last week in San Francisco, Mathis Wackernagel, founder of Global Footprint Network, was not talking about increasing food production, reducing carbon emissions, or lowering consumption. He spent most of the evening talking about co-presenter Ann Cotton's work at The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) in Africa.

Cotton and Wackernagel came together as part of Swissnex's ongoing program for "connecting the dots" between science, higher education, art and innovation for exchange and collaboration between innovators in Switzerland, the US and other countries.

In this conversation, the two described their first meeting at the Skoll World Forum (both have received Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship). After a chance seating arrangement next to Ann, Wackernagel realized a connection between the outcomes Ann was describing and the goals he was looking at for sustainability. Since then they have been looking at ways to work together to educate leaders, countries, communities, and NGO's about this correlation.

Ann Cotton and Camfed have been HumanKind Media favorites since this interview Liz did with Ann and Camfed graduate Fiona Muchembere. Fiona, you may remember, is now a human rights lawyer, and serves as director of Camfed’s alumnae network of 8,000 African women as well as being a big supporter of those girls herself (she sponsors 22).

Wackernagel is a Swiss native and PhD in community and regional planning from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he created the Ecological Footprint, a science-based sustainability tool that measures how much of the Earth's resources we use, how much we have and who uses what.

In 2003, he and Susan Burns co-created Global Footprint Network with a mission to work with countries and cities, companies and individuals to monitor current ecological resource balances and to plan for the future, with the ultimate goal of reducing humanity's worldwide use back down to a "one planet" footprint. Check out the link to see when we passed the "one planet" mark (meaning we exceeded the Earth's bio-capacity.) You can assess your own footprint if you haven't already, here, or for eye-opening world footprint data click here.

Global Footprint Network aims to make the Ecological Footprint as prominent a metric as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to help countries begin to plan for sustainability. By 2015, through its flagship Ten-In-Ten Campaign, they hope to have ten countries managing their ecological wealth in the same way they manage their finances. To date, the list of countries, companies, NGO's and collaborators is growing and the case stories are impressive.

Last month on their 5th anniversary, GFN released their Africa report which examines the possibilities for managing African resources to advance African goals for ending poverty and disease within a sustainable development model. In spite of the fact that individual Africans' resource consumption is extremely small - in many cases not enough to adequately provide for
themselves and their families - rising population is bringing the region close to its ecological limits, according to Global Footprint Network's report.

Using scientific standards for the footprint to measure a country's bio-capacity combined with the UN's Human Development Index as an indicator of socio-economic development, Wackernagel is an evangelist for female education as a way to ensure Africa’s growth and development within the one-planet sustainability window. He says, "For $2 billion a year, just by investing in girls, you could transform all of Africa. This is one of the best investments we could make to achieve human development goals that can persist in the face of, and even help alleviate, resource constraints."

The pair make a compelling argument for the direct impact of female education on Humanity's Ecological Footprint: Girls who receive an education and can make decisions regarding their lives have a higher likelihood of marrying their peers at an appropriate age; they have fewer and more healthy children, are more likely to positively affect the health and education of their children, and contribute to their communities. They also earn significantly higher income than their peers--15 to 20% more per year of high school education.

As an illustration of this, last year Camfed and its alumae organization, Cama, supported more than 408,000 kids in school, had amassed 2,700 partner schools, and developed 380 community health care workers. The over 8,000 alumnae of the organization are sponsoring schooling of over 25,000 African children themselves.

Among the alums are filmmakers and program managers for Camfed in their countries; there are also assemblywomen, physical therapists, doctors, nurses, human rights lawyers, and business owners. In the UN Chronicle Ann says, "For the Millennium Development Goals to become a reality rather than just a broken promise, the rights—and dreams—of rural girls and women must remain at the forefront of policy planning and strategies. The education of girls and young women—with its dividends of poverty alleviation, gender equality, HIV/AIDS reduction—is the single most effective means by which so many of the problems blocking Africa’s development can be overcome."

In March, Goldman Sachs announced their 10,000 Women initiative which includes a partnership with Camfed to provide rural girls with post high school education in business, financial management, and entrepreneurship in a "summer school" program beginning in December.

Today, in my 29-Day Giving Challenge Day 3, Round 2, I added my support of a Camfed high school student, which I can now see not only as an investment in a girl's future, but in the future of a continent and a planet, too. Not bad.

You can help a woman heal the world by donating here. You can contribute to the important work Global Footprint Network is doing around the globe here.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail me at chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Carpe Millennium: The Long Now Foundation putting things in perspective

At the Long Now Foundation museum in San Francisco there's a sign on a staff person's computer that says, "Carpe Millennium". For some of us on the planet, Carpe Diem is a tough one. Carpe Millennium, Seize the Millennium, puts every issue, every question, every intention into uncommon perspective.

The Long Now Foundation began as an e-mail from MIT PhD computer genius (paralell processing), Imagineer, inventor and thinker, Danny Hillis. He wrote to some friends,

"When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever-shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium."

In 01996 (the extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about 8,000 years) futurist Stuart Brand, musician Brian Eno, former Wired Magazine editor and author Kevin Kelly, and a long list of other amazing humans, joined Hillis to form the Long Now Foundation. In their words, the Foundation would provide "a counterpoint to today's 'faster/cheaper' mind set and promote 'slower/better' thinking...creatively fostering responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years." On New Year's Eve, 01999, this prototype (a much smaller version) heralded the second millennium by chiming twice.

I'd like to write an essay marveling at the Long Now, but Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon wrote this a few years ago, and I'll admit right now, there's no way to top it, unless maybe Michael Chabon does a follow-up piece when they install their 10,000 year clock in the Nevada desert.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Donna and I visited the Foundation's museum not far from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, wandering among the prototypes, browsing through the mind-expanding bookstore, and skirting around the researchers working on Long Now projects. It was a great outing, but not essential as there is almost more to savor on their site on-line.

There's more about the clock--for philosophers, engineers, and dreamers. The Foundation sponsors regular seminars by many interesting people and there's a treasure trove of blogs and essays pondering the possibilities of the future. On one of my recent re-visits I discovered this essay by Danny Hillis about working with Richard Feynman on thinking machines and learned why my space-ship can't go faster than the speed of light.

At LongBets you can read about long-term predictions and bets, or place your own Long Bet. Here, you'll get a sampling of bets and predictions spanning from 02003 until 02203. Though Ted Danson won the bet about whether the US would win the World Cup before the Red Sox won the series, the jury's still out on Warren Buffett's bet about the S&P or the bet that the US Constitution will be ammended to cede to a global government by 02025. Pilotless air travel by 02025? Will at least one human alive in 02000 be alive in 02150? It's a fascinating glimpse into possible futures by some of our brightest minds, and a reminder that everything changes.

I must say thinking about the Long Now and their projects has had an impact on me. I'm pondering small things like imagining some unknown being finding my plastic water bottle during an excavation in 10,000 years. I'm conscious of larger concerns about how my children will contribute to a developing evolution of humans, rather than how much money they can make after college. I'm reimagining my responsibility for electing stewards of a larger future during this election. I think of that clock ticking away back only a few hundred miles from where I grew up, and my imagination goes wild. I am at once excited about the possibilities, and remorseful that I won't be there. What a great job for a person of the future to be a caretaker of the clock! (Maybe I'll come back.)

Hillis had a conversation about the clock with Jonas Salk before he died. Salk asked him about the clock and what problem he was trying to solve, or what he was trying to preserve. I like his response because it mirrors what the whole Long Now Foundation mission evokes in me:

"OK, Jonas, OK, people of the future, here is a part of me that I want to preserve, and maybe the clock is my way of explaining it to you: I cannot imagine the future, but I care about it. I know I am a part of a story that starts long before I can remember and continues long beyond when anyone will remember me. I sense that I am alive at a time of important change, and I feel a responsibility to make sure that the change comes out well. I plant my acorns knowing that I will never live to harvest the oaks.

I have hope for the future."

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Post Pangea Day review: A reminder of what media can aspire to

As a champion for more media to heal the world, I am enthralled with Jehane Noujaim. Daughter of two worlds, filmmaker, and dreamer, Jehane, with the TED community, pulled off a TED wish from 3 years ago. Her wish for a "day of film where the world comes together and that that day would echo out into the future" --to create greater mutual respect and understanding amongst the people of the world--came true last Saturday, May 10. What a wish!

If you didn't get to see Pangea Day, you're in luck. As part of their incredible vision and generosity, everything's posted on the website for anyone and everyone to get a generous slice of true media for possibilities. I watched parts with my 18-year old and I think the few short bits he got were more than he'd ever gotten in social studies, economics or psychology classes so far.

What I loved about the Pangea Day talks and films was--everything. But if I had to pick and make a recommendation for you start, I'd say start at the beginning. The four-hour production, spanning all the continents, was a beautifully orchestrated set of stories within a story, commencing with Cosmologist, Carolyn Porco's stunning description of us inhabitants of planet earth and her sharing of Carl Sagan's moving Pale Blue Dot -- and continuing on through a palette of films.The program covered all our shared experiences: love, laughter, tears, strife and reconciliation on a planet where the sentient species (us) all share more traits in common than differences.

Let's pretend you live in a world where you receive a gazillion bits of information a day and, like bits of confetti, that information rains down on you and sticks, affecting how you see yourself in the world, how you see others, and how you see the world. We've written a little about changing your media diet and here Jehane and friends have offered us a feast of media designed specifically for healing the world. I hope you'll add Pangea Day to the part of your media diet you want to stick.

I hope you'll go on a Pangea Day diet for a few weeks and let it work on you as it has on those of us who've been watching. Watch the highlights, or if you can, watch the whole thing (with some breaks). I hope all of us who watch will be a part of Jehane's wish for "the echoing out" that comes from meeting each other in a new way on this small planet.

As one of the speakers said, "Films can't change the world, but the people who watch them--the people who are moved and transformed by them--can."

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Story of Stuff: Annie's story

Annie Leonard told me she found her life's purpose standing in the middle of Fresh Kills landfill (one of two man-made structures visible from space--the second is the Great Wall of China) on Staten Island, amidst a sea in every direction of couches, refrigerators, books and banana peels.

In this blog when we began our series on sustainability, we first introduced Annie and her Story of Stuff, the clever and entertaining 20-minute film about our stuff, a short month after it premiered. For Earth Day, it seems natural to return to the sustainability message of the Story of Stuff.

Meeting Annie reminded me of why I wanted to tell stories about people who just start something and stay with it, somehow knowing it will make a difference. They inspire me to keep taking one step at a time toward what I care about. Though it's only four months and 2.5 million views ("Some of those are repeat visits by my mother," she says) since the December launch of Story of Stuff, the real story, the story of Annie the activist, researcher, educator, and mom, started when she was 6.

"MacDonald's came to our school to tell us about the new McDonald's opening in our town. They told us how much they cared about the environment, and I was so excited I did what all the other kids did. I went home and said, 'We've got to go to McDonald's.' I walked in, and in the middle of the store was a big planter with plastic flowers. I was sooo disappointed in them."

Child of "a mother with a strong moral compass" and product of an environmental education in the Northwest, Annie traces her curiosity about where stuff comes from and where it goes to the family's annual camping trip. "I looked out the window as we were driving (that was back before I-pods and DVD's in the backseat). Each year it took longer to get to the forest, and where there once was forest were strip malls."

Certain that she wanted to do something for those forests, Ann set off to New York where she studied city and regional planning. You can read more of what she's done here. What she told me was that, while she was doing graduate work in New York, she would walk from 110th to 116th every day. In the morning the curb would be piled with trash as high as she is tall, all the way down those six blocks. She started to dig around in it and found cardboard, paper, boxes--her trees! At night the piles would be gone. From Fresh Kills and beyond, she decided she would work to prevent waste, fight landfills and incineration. Her idea, and many others', were that if waste began to be harder for corporations to get rid of, "they'll stop."

But they didn't stop. What no one counted on was (the word, "sleazy" was used here) that, as the regulation increased on corporations' waste, they began shipping the waste to third-world countries. She joined Greenpeace and began to work on the UN campaign to stop shipping waste to foreign countries. "Everyone (at Greenpeace) had a piece of the work--lobbyists, researchers. Mine was sampling and documenting the waste sent to other countries--all over the world." Here's where she rattled off story after story of incinerator waste being sent to Haiti as fertilizer, PCB's shipped to a farmer's land in South Africa, of an Indian hospital with an incinerator where demonstrators posted a banner, "Cancer caused and cured here," and of a load of hazardous waste she mixed with fertilizer she tracked down to a Bangladeshi farmer. (The lowest moment she ever experienced was when the farmer asked for reassurance that her country would "fix this".)

She's got a million stories, and deep friendships around the globe--with those who explored with her "the factories where our stuff is made and the dumps where our stuff is dumped." When her daughter went through "her princess phase", she drew beautiful pictures of the prince and the princess, with the dump in the background. After 10+ years her daughter's school started asking for full attendance and she had to figure out how to keep "investigating garbage" but with less travel. It was then she began working for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

For 10 years, Annie's been telling the story of our stuff, fighting incinerators around the globe, and working to create awareness internationally and at home. After years of requests for a filmed version of her talk, the Tides Foundation approached her to do the Story of Stuff. Enter the creative geniuses at Free Range Studios and the rest is...or will be history.

What I love about Annie and her story is that she's just a person (ok, a very smart, cool person) who followed her curiosity and her passion step by step, to a place that will bring about awareness and change that we'll all benefit from. I predict that in a few years we'll look back on Annie and sustainability the way we look at Jeffrey Sachs and poverty or Paul Farmer and healthcare. I can't wait to see what happens.

In the next post, you'll hear the unfolding story of the Story of Stuff (as told to me by Annie). Amazing things are happening. So, if you haven't watched it yet, here's your chance. It's pretty cool. Stay tuned.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail us at chris or liz (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Alison's soup

Until recently, the word "sustainability" didn't hold any meaning for me. I kept thinking about housing material, or recycling my electronic doo-dads--all many great actions people can take to minimize our impact on the resources that we all should be sharing on the planet. Then in a wonderful, odd convergence of experience, I came upon a more personal understanding of what it means for me. It all started wtih Alison's soup.

Two years ago my family ate better than ever when the "Mom brigade" brought us food 3 times a week during my chemotherapy. If you have to go through breast cancer treatment, it doesn't hurt to have friends who are gourmet cooks, or like my dear friend and neighbor, Alison, a chef of some fame. Alison loves food the way I imagine Michaelangelo loved stone. Though Alison is known as an experienced and talented chef of in our area, she's mostly famous at our house for being David's mom and someone with the biggest heart in the smallest body you've ever met. She is also acclaimed by our youngest son as an expert on latkes.

During those days, though, she made soup--broths, vegetable laden soups, hearty stews, whatever was fresh and in season went into the pot. Also, on weekends for something to do, she would take me to the Farmer's market. While strolling around talking about the food, she would take photos of the produce (click on the one shown here), talk to the vendors, and smell everything--adding to my appreciation for fruits, vegetables, and locally produced meat and eggs.

At the same time all this was going on, I was making my way sloooooowwwwwwllllyyyy through Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma. I usually am not a zealot, but, seriously, I think everyone ought to read this book--if not for the eye-opening look at the evolution of our relationship to food, then for the sheer enjoyment of his wonderfully written accounts of the mushroom hunter culture or the most beautiful description of a meal with friends that I have ever read or imagined. Anyone who can keep me reading a book over many months with paragraph after paragraph of detail about the food we eat is a genius. And, I'm not the only one who thinks so.

All at once, having Alison love me back to health with food, and reading Pollan's quest for the heart of food, I was getting a look at food in a way I had never thought of it before--as a cycle, as a system, and most of all, as an expression of love. So my definition of sustainability is love: Love for who and what sustains us--the earth, the growers, the people we share food with. Such love inevitably engenders a strong desire to love and act in a way that reminds us to care, share and preserve.

I asked Alison some questions about sustainability and food, and you can read what she had to say here.

For a great article about Alison's work introducing healthy food to a large hospital system here.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

A wish for Will, Part I

"I wish that you -- you personally and every creative individual and organization you know -- will find a way to directly engage with a public school in your area and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved, so that within a year we have 1,000 examples of transformative change." --Dave Eggers

When I read Britt's recent post in Have Fun Do Good about last week's TED Award to Dave Eggers, the first person I thought of was Will Okun. I've been sitting on an interview with Will for several weeks, because at some deep level I knew I wanted to talk about sustainability and teaching and I knew Will's story would help me do that. Then, Hooray! Dave Eggers makes his big wish for public schools and teachers, and I knew I couldn't wait. (Here's a summary of the TED Award and Dave Eggers wish.)

While I was researching Africa and our pieces about coming to the aid of children around the world, I found Will, winner of the 2007 New York Times Trip to Africa (read his winning essay). Columnist Nick Kristof selected Will, a Chicago teacher, and Med student, Lena Wen, to go on a trip to Africa with him. You can see the video the MTV interview after their trip here. Will, Lena and Nick traveled in 3 African countries, met the President of Rwanda, visited a school (where Will has the previously unheard-of experience of having 40 kids listen quietly and intently) and played some basketball.

When he returned, he continued writing as a guest blogger on Nick's column about that other foreign country, high school--at a West Side Chicago "drop-out" high school, a last-chance program for kids who have excessive absences or are failing. Will's posts paint a picture of the dedication and the difficulty experienced by one teacher, but also illuminate the hopes for possibilities paired with the frustration at some seemingly insurmountable obstacles. His stories also provoke questions we need to answer as a global citizenry about how we will provide relevant, meaningful learning at the community level to contribute to the creation of a sustainable future.

I started to try to sum up what had affected me from his stories about teaching, but I realized every story had affected me. To keep this from being a 20-page post, I'll let you get your own glimpse. So, before I continue on to Part II next week, take a stroll through Will's posts and read about a teacher, the kids he wants to help, and the challenges that Dave Eggers, with his wish, has asked us all to join in to address. Will's topics range from the first day of school to reading and relevance and a love letter to basketball and a sad dirge for the loss of "one of our own". This week's photo-essay, "Amidst", is a beautiful testament to his appreciation for his students. His blogs offer a view you've never had before of what many communities are grappling with and why Dave made his wish for public schools.

Perusing Will's photos (more about his photography later) and reading his NYT blogs are enough to make you wish we could make a million Wills, but I'm pretty sure there are many out there, equally dedicated and passionate about their students.

I must admit that reading some of Will's posts, I was caught up in a sense of overwhelm about the issues, the difficulties, the enormity of change that will have to occur to retool our educational system, get communities involved in supporting schools, and teachers like Will. But, I should have remembered--there will be many people I haven't discovered yet, working on possibilities.. The solutions always come from somewhere you'd least expect--like a novelist and a wish for more support for those dedicated teachers. I love it.

Part II of My wish for Will coming next week. Stay tuned.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get our free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right or scroll through the topics and archives on the left.

If you're a regular, thanks for your support. Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. Send us a comment!

Why the impossible needs to be considered in terms of steps, maybe 5 steps

If you haven't seen the Story of Stuff in Tuesday's post yet, or Liz's new column, check them out. Some of the ideas we've got for our upcoming posts are about sustainability--in the global citizen context. One of those ideas started way back when I got my Smile cards. When I was introduced to the giving economy through Charityfocus.org I had questions. It was so intriguing but seemed so impossible that we could shift our little human selves to a more equitable exchange of service, goods, resources, and caring.

One of the people I had planned to write about in the next few weeks is Mark Boyle, a former Glasgow business student who, after watching the movie Ghandi, was moved to study the man and his principles. Over the last few weeks his story has become even more compelling to me because, as is frequently the case with changing the world, it has become difficult--and touching--and I can't wait to share his story.

Many people we've covered have done this, created that or decided to change or are inspiring people to change. Mark has done , and created, has decided to change the world and is definitely inspiring people, but the most important thing about him is he's in the middle of doing it--not, "did it", yet, but in the mucky middle of doing the impossible, and it's gotten a little bumpy.

Mark started FreeCommunity at justfortheloveofit.org last fall as an experiment in making the transition from a money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society. Sounds impossible, yes? In his words,

Freeconomy is a manifestation of trust, kindness, community and love. Money and credit are a manifestation of fear, insecurity and greed. Freeconomy is the common denominator to all of its solutions; Money and credit are the common denominators of all the world's ills.

Right now freeconomies are the minority. This is unimportant. Soon they will be the overwhelming majority. Each one of us is a seed. The regenerative power of one seed cannot be underestimated. A forest can grow from the germination of a single seed, and similarly one simple act of generosity can give life to an infinite number of others.

Here's the 2-minute intro to Freeconomy--way cute and it made me sign up. :--)

Inspired by the work of Ghandi and longing to ease some of the suffering he could trace to economic systems, he wanted to create something different with more possibility for community and connection, less possibility for suffering and violence. Like Ghandi, he decided he wants his life to be his message. So, he decided to take a walk.

After setting up this amazing freecommunity web-based exchange, he embarked upon a pilgrimage to spread the word from England to India. The walking sounds impossible enough, but the condition is that no money exchanges take place.

On January 30, on the anniversary of Ghandi's death, Mark, aka Saorise (meaning Freedom in Gaelic) for the pilgrimage, began a 7500 mile trek from Bristol to Ghandi's birthplace in India. About 50 fans and fellow freeconomists saw him off. Here's a nice interview from early in the trek by the Guardian. Blogging along the way, he shared the horrendous initiation of foot problems, his recovery, his voyage to France and then there was a week of silence followed by an announcement that a big decision was forthcoming. The big decision ended up being that he returned to England last week. In spite of the difficulties and the big decision, all along the way Saoirse kept his focus on his message: do something for someone, offer a kindness. He had people writing in from everywhere.

What I find especially courageous is his heartfelt, honest blogging to thousands of fans, followers, and friends, some now "polarized" about his decision, which I imagine was similar to what Ghandi found to be true during some of his decisions and actions. Now, he's back in England, determined to continue via Plan B (which was originally Plan A to begin with) applying the same wisdom as the site's inspiration page, which holds enough encouragement to get anyone started (if you haven't taken today's step yet) and keep them going on their own impossibilities.

I am so excited about this whole venture, (easy to say from sunny California) that if I could, I'd be over there to cheer him along. The coach in me comes out and I want to tell him about the 5 steps I just made up today, for doing the impossible. Click continue to see these 5 steps and hear what movie they remind me of: