HumanKindMedia

Revisiting the Global Oneness Project

One of my favorite places to visit every once in awhile for inspiring videos is the Global Oneness Project. Yesterday I found so much, I just have to invite you to visit, too. Amazingly, as I was looking for this original post we did on them last year, I realized that it was almost exactly a year ago that I found them.

Much has happened on the Global Oneness Project front in a year. From The People's Grocery creating sustainable food sources for an impoverished community in Oakland, and Goonj using every scrap of cloth to help the poor in India to peace efforts in Israel and Palestine, Emmanuel and the Global Oneness Project team have been meeting people around the globe so we can meet them, our fellow global citizens, too.

I especially recently enjoyed this blog about their visit to Israel, and still love this interview with Nipun Mehta of the smile card revolution.

The Global Oneness Project mission is simply to create short films and interviews from around the world to explore how we are all connected. To that end, they offer their amazing videos free for downloading or you can order a free DVD for use in screenings for your neighborhood, your communities, your friends. I'd recommend a favorite video, but now I have too many to mention them all. Click here and watch for awhile. You'll see what I mean.

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:

Gather up that Small Change for a Big Change

I've been doing the 29-Day Giving Challenge all summer. Like any new attitude or behavior, most of the practice is learning how to come back when you fall off. Though I haven't written on our 29-Day Giving HumanKind blog much lately, I have been an active participant in Cami Walker's simple idea to give something away every day for 29 days. For many who began with Cami, the idea of quitting after 29 Days seems kind of ludicrous. If you read the stories on the site (you know how I like stories about possibilities) you can find reflections on the multi-layered experience of conscious giving every day, in addition to millions of fabulous ideas for gifts--ranging from patience to good causes, from flowers to time.

As part of my giving practice, every month I pick one non-profit to give a small donation to. Since my encounter with Ann Cotton and Mathis Wackernagel I am partial towards organizations that support women in developing countries. Way back in our early days, while we were writing about poverty, Liz did this great interview with Tracey Pettengill Turner, founder of MicroPlace.

Microfinance, once the realm of large institutions and philanthropists, is increasingly available to investors like me (read this WSJ article) through organizations like MicroPlace. I love the idea of sending my little extra to someone somewhere who could use that little extra to bring herself and her children out of poverty.

I've seen estimates ranging from $90 to $120 for the amount of loose change the average middle class family has lying around the house. Recently, MicroPlace has been putting that "little extra" into the context of their new campaign: Small Change = Big Change.

For my big project this weekend, I'm emptying my piggy (and encouraging the kids to share a fraction of theirs also) and the coin crannies around the house, rolling up $100, selecting a MicroPlace investment somewhere in the world that supports women (for obvious reasons if you read this post), and making my own small investment in changing the world.

Working with micro-lending institutions around the world, MicroPlace has made over 20,000 loans to over 100,000 people in 47 countries (including loans to the poor in the US). If you've got change and would like to participate, click here. Get your change, give the change, be the change. Cool.

The New Orleans 100

On the anniversary of Katrina, there are probably more stories about new possibilities than there were about tragedy and devastation 3 years ago--probably thousands of stories about healing in New Orleans and the areas affected by Katrina.

Kudos to All Day Buffet for creating the New Orleans 100. In their words: " To combat top down media during the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we will leverage bottom up tools on the social web (email, blogs, twitter, facebook, digg, etc.), which can reach a combined audience of millions to raise awareness about New Orleans and inspire action to make a difference.'

From the high visibility stories like Brad Pitt's Make It Right Campaign to the RUBAR (Rusted-Up-Beyond-All-Recognition) project restoring bikes and helping the youth of the 9th ward and the Nola 180 schools project which I hope also finds its way to Dave Egger's list of stories about possibilities for schools. The New Orleans 100 has great links and great stories from great writers including a moving Sports article (I love moving sports articles).

Here's to a fine example for celebrating possibility and providing inspiration for the rest of us! Help spread the word!

Doldrums links

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

I've been in the doldrums all week. Technically, in sailing terms, doldrums mean windlessness and drifting. That's how I've been feeling. Windless. I've had blog block and project block and I've been sleepy.

This condition could be the result of the Young Man's departure. (Now that he's left and will be on his way to college when he gets back, I've dropped the "Boy A" name.) After months of planning, he left for India for 18 days earlier this week. That was a big effort, and poof, now he's gone and there's nothing to do on that front but wait for him to come home. Sigh.

It's hot here, too. Even the dog isn't his usual peppy self. Also, I had one of those sneaky internal narratives going on about not posting enough, not doing enough, not being enough, not, NOT! ENOUGH! Heavy sigh.

Ever get one of those going in your head? Not a good loop for focusing on what's possible. No wonder there's no wind in my sails.

The best interrupt I know to any "stuck" story is to review, edit, and to get going making more news that I like (about myself and the world). If I review the evidence, there's enough worth sharing here without too much composing or creating necessary:

My Young Man's graduation trip to India came with suggested reading which I did and he did not. The very attractive photojournalism trip also includes many days staying with villagers, farmers (and goats and yaks maybe) in Ladakh, an area near Tibet which many consider to be a model for sustainability (and for trying to stay sustainable under heavy western tourist influences). A good book about this is Ancient Futures.

And yesterday, as I was looking for a link to put on the Boy's (oops) Facebook page in case he's checking his e-mail and has a sudden desire to read about where he's going (hah), I found this fabulous NYT article by one of my favorite writers, Pico Iyer. I wonder what impact this balancing act in Ladakh between a sustainable, connected people and Western globalization will have on an 18-year old California boy.

Speaking of sustainability, this spring I signed on as a part-time volunteer with the Story of Stuff project after I wrote this post about Annie and this about the Story. Let's just say I have become hyper-conscious of what I buy, where things come from, and where they're going after I'm done with them. I was delighted to read this wonderful post by Britt Bravo at HaveFunDoGood about Ari Durfel, a guy who kept his trash for 6 months--a trash meditation (a braver soul than I). If you've been thinking about your own move to zero waste (or something closer to it) his story is a must read.

I've also been putting more of my attention to giving now since June. I reentered the 29-Day Giving Challenge for a second round, hoping someday it will become the natural way of my thinking in everything I do and everywhere I go. I haven't been great about my journal on the site, but I have been pretty consistent at remembering the intention. Some of the highlights are my donation to Camfed, many gifts of non-martyr-like assistance to my sons, free-cycling clothes and household items to anyone and everyone, and I returned a client's payment for a month as a gift. She was surprised. Mostly, the giving has been small, but intentional and, because it causes me to see everyone as someone receiving a gift from me, my relationships and my days seem to be lighter and happier, even in the doldrums.

Well, now that I've put this all down, I can feel a little breeze lifting my sails. Hope you found something here to click and enjoy, and if you've hit your own summer doldrums, I hope you find a different story and your own light breeze soon.

Cami's response to difficulty: give

I've always found great wisdom in the counsel that you can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to what happens to you. In development circles, they call this response-able, able to respond with grace and ease. In the mainstream media these are usually heroes--people who respond in ways that are heroic.

The great mainstream example of responding with grace and ease these days is Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon professor, Imagineer beyond the Disney sense, and the man who has given us the Last Lecture. He has inspired millions with the video, his book, and his continued show of courage in the face of pancreatic cancer. Though I'm inspired and moved by Randy's Pausch, I also believe there are millions of untold stories of equally inspirational people who respond to difficulty in equally powerful ways that we don't get to see on the front page or in prime time.

Lately the person I'm most amazed about is Cami Walker. In March, during "dark days" Cami took out an old journal and read what Mbali Creazzo, spiritual guide and leader of her women's circle, had suggested months back: "Give something away for 29 days." Cami decided right then that 29 days of giving, focusing on others, might be just the thing to help shift the weight of her problems. I'd tell her story here, but I'd really like you to visit her 29 Gifts site and read it yourself--it's inspiring.

Thus began a journey that she has turned into a movement in a few short months. When I signed up on June 1 as part of HumanKind Challenge #4, I was #340-something. At last count today, the giving community (the ones who have signed up to be counted) is at 486 and growing. I haven't counted the countries but I know there are some 29-day givers from the UK, Canada, Japan and the US. Though the majority of members up until now are mostly women, Cami knows men to be very giving and she's looking for more to join the challenge.

I talked to Cami last week the day before she completed her third round of the 29 Days. You can see the photojournal of her latest "29th Day" here. She said that though the Challenge was not her first experience with giving (her mother is a philantrhopist at heart), it has been the most dramatic. She is amazed at what she has received, tangible and intangible, as a result of something so simple.

I'm guessing there's no question that you already give every day. The 29-Day Challenge just invites you to check out what happens when you do a giving "project" for 29-days, where you've shifted your intention to search out new opportunities, and when you do it as part of a world-wide giving community.

I hope you'll watch Cami's video and read her story. If you haven't joined her 29-Day Giving Challenge yet, click here now. It's never too late to start your own 29-Day challenge. You can read stories from the giving community where people have submitted the mundane and the miraculous for inspiration and new ways to think about generosity. And, after you've joined the 29-day challenge, add yourself to our HumanKind Group if you'd like.

If you like imagining a world where giving is the default shared intention everywhere, pass this along (to the guys, too). I don't think Cami will have trouble getting to her goal of 2,000. Her response to her life's challenges was to give a gift that I and others are now receiving--a reminder to hold generosity in our hearts and minds when we wake every day. If I could have my wish, she would get to 20,000,000+ in the next year or two, changing the world one small gift at a time.

Theme Tuesday: Giving Community Links

(Writing to you, late, from rainy Minneapolis) I'm starting to think that when we shift our media to stories about people helping people, giving is naturally invoked in us. Just as our fears, cynicisms, frustrations, and disappointments can be triggered by mega-media and news entertainment, I think our best selves are summoned by the changing-the-world stories, and we become more connected to our generosity.

We've been telling a lot of those stories the past 9 months, so for Theme Link Tuesday, I cavalierly thought I could come up with a "quick" list of cool links to give our 29-Day Challenge participants for ideas for places to spread their money, their time, or just to share with others. But, I can't top the ideas and touching reflections on giving that you'll find if you flip through the blogs and the forum on the 29-Day Giving Challenge community page. It's so fun to be part of a virtual giving community.

In fact, my hopes for the world rest largely on the phenomenon of virtual, web-based communities of smaller physical communities--groups of like-hearted clusters banding across the airwaves with other similar groups to create critical mass in healing the world...like you and me, joining the 29-Day Giving Challengetogether.

Change.org, Care2, Dollar Philanthropy, and, our friends at helpothers.org are just another few giving/changemaking communities I'm aware of. What are some of your favorite on-line giving communities?

It's officially Day 3 of HumanKind Challenge #4, the 29-Day Giving Challenge. People are starting every day, trying to help Cami get to her goal of 2000 participants. It's not too late for you to jump in. Here is where you sign up and here is our group page (please sign up here, too) and I'm posting my updates to the challenge on my page. Please join us. Did I mention it's so fun to be part of a virtual giving community?

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.

Day 1 of HumanKind Challenge #4

Hooray, it's June 1, the first day of HumanKind Challenge #4. I'm pondering the little personal idiosyncracy of mine that made me have to start the 29-Day Giving Challenge at the beginning of the month. If I look back at my week, I "gave" my time, my energy, stuff, and love all week long. So did you probably. But, somehow, today, waking up with the intention of being generous, I feel a different lightness and connection, and I feel a little happier. I can't wait to hear how it's going for you. I expect the 29 days will be filled with ups and downs, dids and didn'ts, but most of all a sense of shared community and fun.

If you're on the fence about joining us, I'm invoking Mother Teresa here to give you encouragement:

"If you can't feed 100 people, then just feed one."

and

“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.”

If I needed a reason or a "goal" to do a giving challenge (which, apparently I did), my goal would be to help Cami, the amazing person who started this, meet her goal. She's looking for 2000 people to do the 29-Day Giving Challenge by the end of July. My goal is to help her by encouraging as many people as I can to join with me. I'm #349, and there are already several after me. Wouldn't it be cool if you all joined, and then invited 3 or 4 friends to join (who invited their friends?). More than 2,000, or 20,000 would be good. Not impossible. (You know my stance on "impossible".)

I guess the reason I waited until June 1 was so I could invite my HumanKind readers and my friends to join me. Now you've all received your invitation. I hope you'll jump in. Some of you already have signed up, I see, and I applaud those of you who started right away (thanks, Audrey) without that artificial June 1 hang-up I had.

Liz says informs me that signing up is a two-step process. If you've signed up at the 29-Day Giving Challenge community, but not the HumanKind Challenge #4 group yet, you have to click on our little "globe-in-the-hands" logo on the main page (on the lower right) or on the group page and "join" the group. You'll read our daily updates there, and can share some of your experiences, too, once you're in the giving-your-comments mood. If your browser is different and you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, e-mail me and I'll try to explain it differently.

I woke up pretty excited about my ideas for my first day of giving. You can read my recap on the 29-Day page. I'll just say that already before noon, I'm filled with that special kind of gratitude for the world that comes from doing a small thing for someone else.

Coming up on Tuesday Links: a myriad of links and ideas for your 29-Day Challenge. 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 chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Lamed Vovniks redux

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself. ---Thomas Carlisle

Some bloggers get a little obsessed with their blog stats--how many people visit, how many subscribers actually read the blog, percentages of newcomers, length of visit, and on and on. I'm hoping that over the next several years mine keep going up, but I'm happy with slow, solid growth and trying not to be too affected by the sky-high days and the low trough days. I do watch the stats to see which links people visit and I really enjoy the wild searches that lead to HumanKind Media. In fact, if you're a regular reader that found me from an accidental search, I'd love to hear about it (begging for comments, again.)

I am intrigued by a mystery, though, and the most mysterious and wondrous of all the stats for HumanKind Media are the "lamed vovnik" hits. Way back in the fall I wrote a rambling piece about the Jewish legend of the Lamed Vovniks, the 36 Just Men (just, meaning righteous or good). You can read the whole post here In it, I performed a complex set of steps toward reasoning that, if the Jewish scholars hundreds of years ago thought there were 36 wise men (translated to "humans" by me), we should be at millions or billions of wise humans by now (using math, genetics, and Jewish scholarship, none of which I'm proficient in).

It was my way of saying we all have the potential for goodness and contribution to changing the inequities in the world, and that the prognosis for doing so was getting better every day. "Unabashed optimism" could have been the tagline for the post.

Anyway, it's historically the most visited page on the site--several times a week. It's a complete mystery. Maybe there are more Jewish scholars out there than I could imagine. Maybe somewhere in the world every day, a few people just google "wise men" and up pop the vovniks, or maybe the word "vovnik" means something in every language in the world, and I'm just lucky I put that word in a title.

Since I have this regular Lamed Vovnik reminder in the stats, I've begun looking around for vovniks in my daily travels. We've written about some of the more famous, obvious candidates: Paul Farmer, Jeffrey Sachs, Mohammed Yunus. I think Randy Pausch, the Last Lecture professor, certainly has my vote, and I'd put my Sweet Husband Jeff on the list because he knows just what to do (which is normally nothing) when I'm off balance (or schizoid) and because he has the wisdom to enjoy life to its fullest while I'm over-thinking it sometimes. My friend and meditation teacher, Pam, is one of the wisest humans I've ever met, and, of course, I'd put the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Carter on the list--and all the older, wiser leaders working tirelessly and patiently for peace and understanding around the world.

But, if I knew you, I might put you on the list for saying something to someone who needed just what you said last week, or for being quiet when it was the right time to be quiet. Or, if you reached out and helped a stranger, or if you're thinking about voting this year for your love for the world rather than your fear of the future, I'd put you on the list for your courage--that's got to be a Lamed Vovnik trait. I might put someone on the list for tutoring children, or drilling water for villages that have none. I'd put anyone on the list who had learned to forgive, or let go of a bias. If you've felt that longing to make a difference, and haven't turned away at what seems like the impossibility of it all, you're on the list for sure.

I do think we're all Lamed Vovniks. Every Lamed Vovnik search hit I see in the stats makes me wonder--is it you? What's the wise and just-ness in you up to these days? Do you see yourself as a Lamed Vovnik, a just , good, wise person? I hope so. Imagine the possibilities.

Got any candidates you'd add to the list? Send me a comment! (2nd begging for comments in one post--new record!)

----

Tomorrow, June 1, is the first day of the HumanKind Challenge #4, 29-Day Giving Challenge. Everyone is invited to participate. Invite your friends, too. What could be more fun than practicing generosity together for a month? Here's the post with the details, and here's our group page (where I'll post my daily updates and hope you will, too) on the 29-Day Giving Challenge community page. For those of you still absorbing your possible Lamed Vovnik status, it's a great place to start.

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.

HumanKind Challenge #4 - The 29 Day Giving Challenge

Yay! I'm not stuck any more. I'm totally jazzed about some upcoming cool organizations and people for you to meet who are creating new possibilities for changing the world. And, I'm ready for HumanKind Challenge #4.

Way back at the beginning when we began our posts about the possibility of ending poverty in the next decade, we (Liz and I) always wanted the blog to have a giving component. We began, fittingly, with HumanKind Challenge #1, which generated a few hundred bednets (thanks to a generous match by Paul Friedrichs) donated to Malaria No More. We still have a few nets donated on our site every month from generous HumanKind readers. From HK Challenge #1 I learned there's only one thing more fulfilling and worthwhile than giving to a cause I believe in--it's collaborating with a community (like our little HumanKind Media community) to contribute to healing the world.

I'd like to claim this next challenge as my own idea, but it's not. Speaking of cool people, Cami Walker is the originator of the on-line incarnation of the 29-Day Giving Challenge. Read her amazing story here. Her description of the concept is simply this: "Give one thing away each day for 29 days. Why? Because to see the world change, we have to do something to change the world."

I heard about this from one of my favorite "changebloggers" (she actually coined this term herself, she's so amazing), Britt Bravo of HaveFunDoGood. Britt started her 29 days with her readers in April and ended it with this inspiring reflection (which includes a great video). It was that post that got me thinking about doing my own 29 days. I was all set to start by myself this week, but wait a minute...I remembered what I've been learning about changing the world. It's more fun with friends.

If you'd like to hear more about it, you can read Britt's post, Cami's story, and the 29-Day Giving Challenge .

I'm starting my 29 days on Sunday, June 1. I'd love for the HumanKind Media community of readers and change makers to join me. For fun, I've set up a group on the 29-Day Challenge page here. I'll be posting a one or two sentence update there each day about my giving experiences and would love to hear from you if you decide to participate, too.

Cami says her goal is to inspire at least 2,000 people to commit to the 29-Day Giving Challenge by 7/29/08. I bet we can help with that.

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.