We have the ability to provide clean water for every man, woman and child on the Earth. What has been lacking is the collective will to accomplish this. What are we waiting for? This is the commitment we need to make to the world, now. – Jean-Michel Cousteau
The Power of Microfinance
Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Give a woman a microcredit, she, her husband, her children, and her extended family will eat for a lifetime. – Bono
Visiting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center in Seattle. The center opened in February of this year, and showcases the innovative work that the foundation’s partners are doing to address difficult challenges in the developing world in health and poverty alleviation, and in the United States through education. The foundation is guided by the belief that all lives have equal value, and that every person deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life.
Service is Joy
I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.
A Model of Hope and Perseverance from Niger
Dominated by the vast expanse of the Sahara, Niger, the second poorest country in the world, is 80% desert. It is also landlocked, plagued by near-constant drought, and at the epicenter of the world water crisis. 68% of Nigeriens lack access to clean water, 87% lack adequate sanitation, fewer than 30% of adults are literate. There is not a single rowboat or scull in the entire country. Basically, it is the last place on earth that you would expect to produce a hero of Olympic rowing. Yet this week, one of the biggest stories to come out of the Games in London is that of Hamadou Dijbo Issaka, a gardener from Niamey, Niger’s capital, who is competing in the Olympics as the sole member of his nation’s rowing team.
Wordy Wednesday
“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture, and transform.” – Diane Mariechild
Happy Fourth of July from Wells Bring Hope
Fourth of July reflections
Teen Volunteerism
Being a teenager is horrible in a lot of ways. It’s a point of your life when all of the pressures of adulthood are conferred upon you, without any of the merits. You’re starting to develop real opinions for the first time while every tiny drama turns into the greatest tragedy in human history because your body is slowly eating itself with hormones. But it’s also a point when you have the energy to sleep three hours a night and still have enough juice to whine about it the next morning. It’s a point when you can do absolutely crazy things for no reason whatsoever. It’s a point where you can spend all that energy writing bad poetry, partying ’til the break of dawn or, if you really want to, making a difference for the first time in your life.
Wordy Wednesday
Wordy Wednesday
Wordy Wednesday
Wordy Wednesday
