Make Social Change A Reality

The subway seems an especially strange place for random acts of kindness . Strangers isolated in their own thoughts, the linear stresses of getting somewhere by a certain time. Even asking for directions, or maybe reaching out to say "what an adorable baby," or "hey, I liked that book too," could be an intrusion. It's easy to get shy in the seemingly unbreakable silence of strangers. On September 11th, 2003, I got on the subway with a bag full of copies of Speaker For the Dead , by Orson Scott Card, a novel I've read many times since my teens. It has an elegant view of mourning and commemorating death, by speaking the truth about a person's life and connection to the community. Not just the nice truths- sometimes the painful ones that will help those left behind heal. It's thoughtful science fiction that raises questions about ethics, anthropology, humanness and communication, spiritual goals and memorial practices. It is one of the places I s

Rounding out the last of the Millennium Development Goals are goals seven and eight, Environmental Stability and Global Partnership . Both of these goals are so much more specific than the previous six, Goal 7 including four targets and Goal 8 including five, that it would be impossible to examine them exhaustively in such a short space. Therefore, let’s examine one target per goal. For a more detailed look at these aims, please visit the website for the United Nations, www.un.org. To ensure environment sustainability, target three aims to, “halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. “ One Step Forward: Thirst Relief International is an international nonprofit organization that works with local groups to implement safe, potable water facilities in communities all over the globe. With projects in the Congo, Amazon, Kenya, and many more countries, Thirst Relief provides funding and serves as project mana

Hello friends, A brief post for the evening. We've just added the Followers gadget to our blog and strongly encourage you to start following! By joining our fan base, you're letting the public know that you support social change and the people who are working to make social change a reality. Never miss a blog again! And of course you can follow anonymously if you wish. To make social change a reality we need your support. We look forward to having you join us!

Homophobia? Xenophobia? Both words express the fear of the unknown world of homosexuals on the first case or foreigners on the second. Interestingly enough, the phenomenon is so widely accepted that we actually had to come up with a word to describe our condition. What I enjoy in searching for the etymology of a word is also trying to understand the circumstances and the reasons under which that word was created. Homophobia for instance, why do we need to describe a fear of homosexuality? What threat does a homosexual person or lifestyle pose for the human being or the society? Is it a physical damage? Is it a psychological, moral, legal damage? Each question may receive a different answer from different sectors of society. Religion, politics, the educational system, academia, history and tradition, all stand differently on the matter depending on their influences and what they stand for. The www.freedictionary.com defines homophobia as “bias” and “prejudice” against the homosexual pe

Millennium Development Goals five and six are closely related to goals three and four discussed last week. As we move on, it will become more apparent what an emphasis the United Nations has put on healthcare in the fight to eliminate poverty. The fifth Millennium Development Goal is to “improve maternal health.” Maternal health encompasses not only prenatal and postnatal care, but also family planning and education in proper childcare. Therefore, this is actually a very broad statement and not much else. Included in this goal are pledges to reduce the maternal morality ratio by two-thirds, as well as achieve universal access to reproductive health. This first target does help to clarify the goal. However, the word “universal” in target two is so expansive that its inclusion can actually undermine the UN’s ability to achieve its goals. One Step Forward: Each year the world loses over 10 million mothers and children, and the fact remains that many of these deaths are

Last week we took a brief glance at MDGs one and two. This week we’ll take a closer look at the third and fourth goals, as well as see how dedicated groups of individuals are doing their part to make dreams a reality. The third Millennium Development goal is to promote gender equality and empower women . Once again, we see the problem of vague language noted last week in Goal 1. As it is hard to fathom the UN promoting gender inequality, the goal itself, while altruistic and admirable, is quite obvious. Without any set benchmarks or method with which to measure successes, the pledge to “empower women” sounds weak and insincere. One Step Forward: Women for Women International is a nonprofit organization working worldwide in areas recovering from recent conflict. While no one will debate the negative impacts of war on local citizens, Women for Women also sees these disaster zones as clean slates. Local women complete a three-step program. While at the beginning stages participant

The first of the eight Millennium Development Goals is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Encompassed in this goal are targets to halve between 1990 and 2015 the number of people living on less than one dollar a day, ensure employment and “decent work” for all, and halve the number of people suffering from hunger. This first objective in particular is quite broad and stands precariously on vague language. There is no concrete definition for concepts like “extreme poverty” or “decent work”. Terminology of this sort threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the UN’s aims. The language conveys overwhelming international social problems that seem impossible to solve over the course of a decade by member states simply tweaking their respective foreign policies. One Step Forward: The Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs is a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization that runs Farmer-to-Farmer projects in Moldova, Belarus, and the Ukraine as part of USAID’s John