HumanKindMedia

A surprise next door

Our premise when we started HumanKind Media was that the more people heard stories about regular people taking on some of the big-ticket suffering in the world, the more possibilities we as humans would envision for ending that suffering. Since we started, we've learned that there are gazillions of those people and stories, and while we enjoy relaying them to you, we're really having fun finding them. Not surprisingly, you don't have to go far before you trip over a story about someone who's decided to create the change they want to see in the world. Meet my neighbor, Ellen.

What would inspire you to run 31 miles?

If you know me, you know I don't run. Sure, I can do a few minutes on the treadmill. Okay, maybe 10 minutes. So you can guess how impressed I was at Lisa Shannon's decision to help support women in eastern Congo -- who are suffering from almost a decade of violent conflict -- by putting on a pair of sneakers and pushing herself to run a 31-mile fund-raiser of her own invention.

That run became Run for Congo Women, which over the past few years has raised money to support hundreds of women through Women for Women International.

Check out our interview with the inspiring Lisa Shannon.

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.

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.

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:

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

A "What If?" for the world

A couple of years ago, my perception of what's possible changed forever. It started when I strayed away from my steady diet of fiction and read Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder. It's about Paul Farmer, a doctor who did something impossible: He started small, and ended up changing the way infectious diseases are treated in impoverished communities worldwide. Next, I read Jeffrey Sach's The End of Poverty.

Then last year, after undergoing cancer treatment, I asked myself what I would do if it turned out I only had five or 10 years left. I wanted it to be something that seemed impossible, something big ...

A world full of bankers to the poor

I first learned about the microcredit site Kiva.org during the holidays, when I was feeling particularly unhelpful to the world. It was such a great find. Kiva links small businesses in developing countries with people willing to loan them money. Suddenly I had the ability to help someone on the other side of the world take a step toward financial independence.

With $25 ready to loan, I pored over the list of cab drivers, farmers, shopowners, and more on Kiva’s site, not knowing how to choose.

Each person had a picture and a few sentences about why they needed the loan, but beyond that, I guess I was just waiting to feel a connection, a tug in someone’s direction.