Get Shouty

It’s very easy to forget how privileged I am.

Recently I sat in my father’s kitchen in Mexico defending against the idea that the world is a darker and crueller place.

I had to laugh. I’d travelled across continents alone to be there, stopping along the way to have my voice heard and opinions sought. For me it isn’t dark.  I have economic, intellectual, sexual and social freedoms not afforded to almost the entirety of womankind ’till now. But that only means that I have the responsibility to share a bit of the light to those that need it most.

I vividly remember my mother having to get my Dad to co-sign the loan on her first business. As a result every Kiva loan I have supports a woman in the developing world trying to support her family by her skills brought to fruition through having access to a sewing machine.

‘Because I am a Girl’ is Plan’s global campaign designed to fight gender inequality, promote girls’ rights and lift millions of girls out of poverty. Across the globe, girls are at the bottom of the social ladder, deprived of the same opportunities as boys. For example,research has shown that girls are more likely to suffer from malnutrition; be forced into an early marriage; be subjected to violence or intimidation; be trafficked, sold or coerced into the sex trade; or become infected with HIV.

The campaign is based on a series of reports titled Because I am a Girl: The State Of The World’s Girls. To be published between2007–2015 from Plan International, these reports examine the rights and needs of girls throughout their childhood, adolescence and as young women – and how they are uniquely placed to break the cycles of intergenerational poverty gripping many people in developing countries.

Six of the eight Millennium Development Goals – the goals set by the world’s governments in 2000 to halve world poverty by 2015 – are unlikely to be achieved unless there is a greater international commitment to the fight against gender discrimination.Plan recognises that we have to address gender discrimination as a priority if we want to tackle the root causes of child poverty.Therefore we have made the commitment to ‘address gender inequality and the numerous ways in which the rights of girls and women are particularly denied and violated’ (Plan Program Framework, 2009–2013). This is the focus of the ‘Because I am a Girl’ campaign and will better enable Plan to achieve our overall mandate as a child-centred community development organisation, committed to child poverty eradication and all children accessing their rights.

You can download the 2010 Because I am a Girl report, ‘Digital and Urban Frontiers: Girls in a Changing Landscape’

You can find out how to support Because I’m a Girl here

And you can remember. You can be aware that the ease and access you enjoy now was built by the strength and sacrifice of generations before you. You can’t repay them but you can acknowledge your debt by lighting bridges of hope, access and equality for others. Shiny.

The ad is written by Richard Curtis and stars Bill Nighy.

A British coalition of charities and unions has launched a campaign The Robin Hood tax for a tax on speculative banking transactions.

The ‘Robin Hood Tax’ targets financial institutions who were bailed out using public money during the global financial crisis.

The idea is to direct the money to public services, poverty relief and addressing climate change.

For an Australian perspective you can listen to ABC’s Life Matters program which interviewed Max Lawson, Senior Policy Advisor, Oxfam U.K and Professor Neil Warren from the Australian School of Taxation, University of New South Wales. They have a chat about it here.

I’d have to agree: Not complicated. Just brilliant.

I’m riding my bike to work. Usually in a frock and heels. It’s great.

And I just wanted to share it- the great feeling of getting the wind in your face every morning, the comradery and casual chats with other cyclists at the lights, the ‘good on yous’ from people in my apartment complex…but most of all I’ve felt a big hug from pretty much all my co-workers, my friends and my family who have gone out of their way to make sure that I’m safe- that I have lights, that I wear a helmet, that I stick to the bike paths.

We’re all in it together.

At the 2009 PSFK Conference NYC, Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger shared a selection of his favorite environmentally positive, high-impact products, services, and people. Hyper Pecha Kucha style, with 60 powerful ideas helping to make the world a better place.

Armed with $500 worth of beans, two women founded a non-profit group in Denver in 1989 to empower impoverished women by teaching them workplace skills and providing jobs to the chronically homeless and unemployed. Their training opportunities have expanded dramatically over the years, and their annual operating budget has grown from $6,100 to over $1.5 million.

The Women’s Bean Project is a nonprofit organization that teaches job readiness and life skills for entry-level jobs through employment in a gourmet food production business. Women come with the goal of transforming their lives and moving toward self sufficiency.

SPENCER MICHELS: Now in its 20th year, the program employs 40 women each year who have been chronically unemployed and living in poverty. They make and package products such as soup, brownie mix, jelly beans, and salsas that are available in grocery stores in 40 states and over the Internet. But it’s not the food that makes this program a complete package, says executive director Tamara Ryan.

TAMARA RYAN: We’re not trying to make the best bean soup makers of America. What we’re trying to do is create an environment where we can teach basic job readiness skills, the idea that you have to come to work every day, and on time, and manage conflict in the workplace, and dress appropriately, and take direction.

But then also we find that that alone isn’t what helps women become successful. They’re lacking basic life skills — problem-solving, goal-setting, the ability to, when your child care falls apart, to fix that and then continue to go to work.

There’s a transcript and a streaming video micro documentary from Spencer Michels from PBS here.

My friend Scott Drummond has being having serendipitous book adventures quite recently. Books have come to him, found on the street, tucked into his frame of reference with notes saying: ‘please take me, please read me, please pass me on’. This has inspired a number of very invigorating conversations and interactions which I need to spend a little more time unpacking before I can still life them for you.

In the meantime I want to share a lovely example of compassion in action- Sarah Garnett’s “Benjamin Andrew Footpath Library”. Started in 2003, it now it puts books on the footpaths in the city and Manly and distributes to hostels and 15 shelters- about 1200 a week. This library wants nothing from it’s borrowers- the books are there for the taking and would seem to spread light where ever they go.

Here’s a story from their website from a fan:

I found the footpath librarywhile queueing up for dinner at JEF’s food van across the road on a wintery Tuesday night in 2007. I’d been a regular since 2004 when I was living in a shitty boarding house in Redfern with my son who’d just been released from Rozelle hospital.

A little while before I was living & working as a professional artist in a cosy mud brick studio on the outskirts of Melbourne. Things were looking up, I was starting to sell paintings, was in with a leading gallery & my health was good. I’d given up the part time teaching job that I’d done for over ten years & was determined to make my living as an artist. But that was then. In 2007 I was sneaking into my studio at night to sleep when I could. I was evicted from the studio for dossing there. In between I slept out or stayed in a shelter.

Throughout this time when I couldn’t paint I’d read & I’m grateful for the footpath library for sustaining me. Reading took my mind off my troubles & gave me a respite from the constant motion that that kind of life demands. The footpath library has been a saving grace. Apart from being down & out in Sydney I’ve been down and out in Paris and London with George Orwell, read about the homeless in Victorian London in Peter Ackroyd’s “London: A Biography”‘, discovered Proust in the Edward Eager Lodge, hung around seedy ports in the South Pacific with Conrad’s Lord Jim & reread one of my favorite books; Joyce Cary’s “The Horses Mouth” with its patron saint of destitute artists Gully Jimson. I read a book on the Lives of the Saints & felt both inspired & humbled. ” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats” gave me the background on those writers , some of whom I’d read & vowed to read again one day. I wandered through Europe in the 50’s through the eyes of Lloyd Rees & his wonderful drawings and was glad I was sober after reading a biography of Charles Bukowski. Patrick Whites “Tree Of Man” made my troubles look pretty small & I learnt a little humility from reading the life of the Australian poet John Shaw Neilson. Things have picked up since then. I’ve got a cosy little room in Glebe & am painting the grounds of the old asylum my son was a patient in . I’ve got in with another gallery & even sold some work, there’s a survey show coming up in Melbourne later in the year & I’ll take a trip down for that. I’ve got a belly full of cabbage and ham soup & you can guess where I found the recipe for that old chestnut!

* Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes

In Australia, compulsory voting means that every Australian citizen (18 years or older) is required by law to enrol and vote.

Proponents of compulsory voting argue that voting is a civic duty comparable to other duties citizens perform, such as taxation, compulsory education and jury duty.

Our Electoral Commission puts the case like this:

• Opponents argue that it is an infringement of liberty to force people to vote, and that the ill informed and those with little interest in politics are forced to the polls.
• One argument against compulsory voting is that voting can be an onerous imposition on some citizens. Against this it has been stated that: ”All our voting system requires is for a voter to attend a polling booth and mark some papers as they wish, approximately once every three years. This does not seem to be an insurmountable burden to be part of a democracy”.
• Another argument is that both the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights refer to people’s rights to “freely chosen representatives”. It is then claimed that a “right” is something that a person posses and chooses to use, not something produced on demand.
• Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, states that “rights and freedoms” are subject to “duties to the community”, including the “just requirements of of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society”.

So my friends in the States, I may be preaching to the converted but: Please vote. maps.google.com/vote

UPDATE: I’m being interviewed on ABC radio tomorrow (6/11) about compulsory voting. What do you think about it? A good thing? A bad thing? What do you think Australia would be like without it?

The Idea Village, a non-profit created for innovators in New Orleans, is launching 504ward’s $100,000 Business Competition for entrepreneurs with ideas to retain young talent in New Orleans.

As some of you may remember, The Idea Village was Planning for Good’s first client. One of the ideas coming out of that experience was engaging national corporations and organizations in driving innovation to New Orleans. The Idea Village is now proud to report that Worldwide Partners and two teams Google employees have joined them to help launch this competition.

Check out this YouTube video for more info and please help spread the word:

Don’t forget The Idea Village mantra: “Trust Your Crazy Ideas.”