As the daughter of a photographer, I can appreciate great pictures. When I heard about Esther Havens and checked out her photos, I was stunned. Her artwork is absolutely breathtaking. She has a true gift for capturing moments that would ordinarily be so fleeting.
She does a great job at drawing emotion out of her photos without making the viewer feel uncomfortable, which is not an easy task when tackling subjects such as poverty and war. She has gone all over the world taking her pictures, and her work is proof that she is as beautiful inside as she is on the outside.
For more information about Esther Havens and her photography, please visit Esther Havens Photography.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a HUGE supporter of IC.
In the spring of 2003, three young men (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole) went to Africa with a camera and searched for a story. What they uncovered wasn't expected by anyone. They found the story of a twenty-year-long war, children being used as soldiers, children being forced to trek long distances twice a day in order to sleep in a safe zone and keep from being abducted, and heartbreaking accounts of the internally displaced. They created a documentary and from there, a movement was born.
They currently run a number of programs both in the US and in Uganda, including a scholarship program for Ugandan students, an international tour of the documentary, and a competition which partners American schools with schools in Uganda to help rebuild schools affected by the war.
It is an incredible organization and has truly helped to show the power of youth and that one person really can make a huge difference in this world!
For more information, please visit Invisible Children.
Click your mouse. Go on, just click. Pretty easy, right? And it took, what, two-tenths of a second?
That's all it takes to feed someone who is hungry if you visit The Hunger Site. With every click of the mouse, sponsors donate money which allows the organization to in turn donate food to those who need it. As of today, every click donates 1.1 cups of food. If you need a visual to compare that with, that's about an average serving of cereal. A lot of food, considering all you have to do is click!
The Hunger Site also has clicks set up for breast cancer, child health, child literacy, rainforest conservation, and animal rescue. As if that weren't enough, there are also online stores with some beautiful items available for purchase - all of which fund the respective charity. For instance, I have a peace sign necklace from there, which allowed for 25 cups of food to be donated!
For more information about The Hunger Site, please visit The Hunger Site.
Not that I'm one of those "Shoe Girls" by any means, but I can appreciate a comfy pair. And that's what you get when you buy a pair of TOMS. They're cool, incredibly comfortable, great for all seasons, and did I mention that with each purchase, a pair of shoes is donated to a child in need?
I personally own two pairs of TOMS - the navy and the bright red. I wear them all the time, proudly, and I love how they look and feel. They range in style from the simple and solid-colored to the glitzy and glamorous - such as the sparkly silver and gold! They look great on men and women, and there are even some children's styles available!
For more information about TOMS, please visit TOMS Shoes.
Speaking of TOMS...
This dude is totally radical. He spent time on a shoe drop with TOMS, helping to distribute shoes to children in need in South Africa. He also spent a good chunk of time in Congo, which is...shall we say, NOT the safest place in the world. In fact, he personally met with a rebel leader, was one of the first Westerners allowed into military camps with a camera, and has some wild adventures to share.
He kept a regular blog while in Congo. Though I knew who he was vaguely thanks to Invisible Children, it wasn't until I started reading his blog that I realized what a truly amazing guy he is. He's one to watch!
For more information about Sean Carasso, please visit SeanBlog.
If you haven't read A Long Way Gone yet, I really do insist that you go and pick up a copy ASAP. It's deceptive - the cover has a beautiful photograph of a young boy carrying a gun through a lush green jungle and the book itself is not a large volume. But once you open it, you're in for a wild ride. I thought I knew a thing or two about child soldiers - oh, how wrong I was.
Beah spent a huge part of his childhood first on the run from conflict, and then as a child soldier, forced to kill, take drugs, and faced constantly with violence. His book is incredibly gripping, touching, and leaves you wondering, How can this be? When I read it, I remember putting it down for a few minutes to go outside and clear my head. My head couldn't be cleared. The story is so haunting that I simply had to go back and finish it, right then and there. Once I did, despite the frightening impact it had on me, I was left with an intense feeling of hope. It is a rare book that can inspire true hope the way this one does.
For more information about Ishmael Beah and A Long Way Gone, please visit A Long Way Gone.
I wish I had known about this before I took the SATs.
It's a simple concept: play a vocabulary game, and for each word you get right, 20 grains of rice are donated through the UN Food Program. I know, I know, it sounds boring. I thought it would be boring. But I gave it a chance, and it's more addictive than Spider Solitare. Plus, there's the added bonus of seeing your rice bowl fill up as you play. It makes you feel smart and you feel great for helping out in such an easy way.
My personal highest rice donation for one day is 38,600 grains, and my highest vocab score is 55. Can you beat that?
For more information, please visit Free Rice.
Brooke Fraser is a singer-songwriter I have just recently begun to love. After seeing her video for the song "Albertine", I couldn't help but keep listening over and over...it is truly beautiful. Don't take my word for it - see for yourself!
Not only is the song beautiful and her voice a cause of great envy for me, but it really sends a great message with the line "Faith without deeds is dead". Whether it is your faith in God, however you hold Him in your heart, or whether it is a faith in humanity that guides you, let this song inspire you to connect with that faith and do the deeds you know are right to do.
For more information about Brooke Fraser, please visit her Myspace.
When thinking about slavery, it's easy to think about it as something that happened long, long ago, before even our grandparents were alive. But the reality is that slavery is very real, very present, and very much something that goes on today. The statistic says that 27 million people are enslaved currently. As a comparison, that's about the population of the state of Texas.
The Not For Sale Campaign seeks to change that. By running their website, publishing a very powerful book, and dispensing information, they seek to end slavery in our lifetime. I have read their book and own a copy, and I must admit that I had no idea the extent to which slavery exists in our world. It shocked me to my core. I strongly urge everyone to take a look at the website, read the book, and learn more about the global slave trade.
For more information about Not For Sale, please visit Not For Sale Campaign.
"Razoo is the platform for social good." - that's what you see at the top of your screen when you sign in to this website. And it really is! On Razoo's website, you can connect with people from all over the globe who are united in one message: change the world. Under the tabs at the top, you can choose to Learn, Connect, or Take Action. Each of those tabs brings you to vast amounts of information about things you may never have heard about but which need attention, to groups of people dedicated to each cause, or to thousands of suggestions of ways you can help to change the world. It is a fantastic website which I visit every day.
Another thing to note is that Razoo can be found on Facebook, and they run what is called Speed Granting. This year, I was able to help Invisible Children win $1,000 by using Speed Granting, so if you have a cause you feel is worthy, nominate them and gather the votes!
For more information about Razoo, please visit Razoo.
Andie Miller has become a regular contact and online friend to me this year after I pseudo-stalked her via Facebook and friended her since finding out she was a roadie for Invisible Children in the fall. We got in touch and I soon discovered what an amazing girl she is. Not only has she spent the year working as an unpaid intern at IC - yes, that's unpaid...as in no moolah! - but she also started a Facebook group that has become an incredibly popular project. What she started is Books for Burma.
What Andie hopes to do with Books for Burma is to collect as many books (textbooks, storybooks, cookbooks, anything!) as possible and send them to Burma, where the displacement situation has caused countless people to be without access to educational materials. It's a huge undertaking, but many have been moved to donate. In fact, between my books and those I've collected via a book drive, my friends have been inspired to donate a total of over 300 books. THREE HUNDRED! So Andie, hats off for taking a great little idea and making it into a great BIG difference!
For more information about Books for Burma, please visit the Facebook group.
If you are not familiar with the crisis in Darfur, I'm afraid that I am not nearly a good enough writer to create any form of summary that would manage not to be insulting to the scale of the situation. As of this moment, Darfur faces a genocide, the scale of which increases in severity with every passing day.
Fortunately, there are a number of organizations and individuals who are dedicated to bringing awareness and action to ending the Darfur genocide. Perhaps the best single resource I have found is Save Darfur, an organization whose website features a vast amount of background, up-to-the-minute news reports, and lots of information for anyone who wants to join the movement to save Darfur. It is an incredibly worthy cause for an incredibly dire situation. Please take the time to learn more!
For more information about Save Darfur, please visit Save Darfur.
Before you get completely turned off, yes, this is powered by PETA and no, I am not necessarily a supporter of PETA. However, I do support vegetarianism. This website has vast loads of information that cover not only the health benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet, but also the environmental benefits. You don't have to be one of those crazies throwing buckets of blood on fur-wearers to be a friend to the animals, and you don't have to eat tofu every day to be a vegetarian!
Check out the website to get some tips on how to downsize your meat consumption. Speaking from personal experience, it's one of the healthiest things you can do for your body as long as you get your nutrients elsewhere. Plus, you're actually helping the environment, just by skipping that burger!
For more information about the benefits of vegetarianism, please visit GoVeg.com
This is an easy one. For me, the dream of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer began in middle school after seeing a special about the volunteers on TV. The Peace Corps go all over the world and provide aid to those places that need it the most. Being a volunteer has many benefits, from student loan deferment to gaining fluency in foreign languages to having an amazing experience to remember for the rest of your life.
It is my hope that after I graduate from college, I will be able to spend at least two years in the Peace Corps. If that sounds like something you would like to do, take the time to check out their website.
For more information about the Peace Corps, please visit Peace Corps