Moving to Teen Ink magazine's Global Issues Blog

The Teens with a Vision blog has moved to Teen Ink magazine's official Global Issues blog.

Read it here at http://global.teenink.com/blogs/

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Hurricane Ike Disaster Relief

Hurricane Ike hit Haiti and now Texas, where the estimated tens of thousands of residents who did not evacuate now face flooding, a lack of power, and fires. The American Red Cross is providing blankets, food, shelter, and health assistance to those facing this disaster in both Haiti and Texas. You can help by donating at redcross.org or 1-800-RED-CROSS or by organizing a Red Cross fundraiser.

Hurricane Havoc: How to Help Haiti and the Hands and Feet Project

THE NEED: Hurricane Hanna slammed into Haiti Thursday and Friday, leaving 529 dead, according to the latest reports. Senator Yuri Latortue told the Agence France-Presse that about 200,000 people in Gonaives, Haiti - the now-flooded city he represents - haven't eaten in three days. To add to the destruction of three hurricanes in the past few weeks, Category 3 Hurricane Ike is estimated to hit Haiti this Sunday.

Aid organizations like the U.N. World Food Program are rushing to feed Haitians who've lost everything to the storms. Meanwhile, Hurricane Gustav buried the Hands and Feet Project's Children's Village in four to five feet of mountain rock and destroyed their supplies, including the food, clothes, and diapers that allow them to provide for Haitian orphans. The Hands and Feet Project put up this video of Hurricane Gustav.

THE STORY: When Tropical Storm Noel flooded Haiti last November, the Hands and Feet Project, an organization started by the band Audio Adrenaline to help Haitian orphans, reached out to their online supporters for help.

“Immediately everybody around the world knows about it," said Joel Griffith, director of the Hands and Feet Project, over the phone. "We put up a post and there’s a response. Some say MySpace and Facebook are impersonal, but it gives kids a personal touch to bigger organizations, because they can contribute and someone is going to respond to them. It’s a tangible thing.”

The Hands and Feet Project wrote on their web site that the current destruction is worse than Noel. But once again, they're tapping in to online supporters for help, stressing that every dollar makes a difference.

MEETING THE NEED:

Mark Stuart from the Hands and Feet Project and the band Audio Adrenaline talks about the hurricane havoc - and how you can help.

Hold a fundraiser for hurricane and send your funds to the Hands and Feet Project, or donate online below. You can also raise money for the U.N. World Food Program by improving your vocabulary on freerice.com.

Relaunching

The Teens with a Vision blog will be relaunching with new content and a new format within the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Helping Hurting Kids

Originally published on IgniteYourFaith.com.

"That's me," my little sister Jessica said between bites of a chocolate chip cookie. She pointed to a photo on the refrigerator.

My mom put down the gallon of milk she'd been pouring into Jessica's glass and glanced at the refrigerator. "The girl in the pink shirt?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"That's not you, honey. That's a picture that came in the mail."

Confused, my 8-year-old sister left her chair and walked up to the refrigerator. Looking more closely, she saw that the picture wasn't her at all. She furrowed her eyebrows, and I could almost see the thought running through her head: Who was that girl?

The photo had come with a letter from a child sponsorship organization, asking me to sponsor one of the many impoverished kids like her. This little girl lived in Guatemala.

And Jessica was right: The girl in the photo did look a lot like a younger version of my little sister. The girl's smooth brown skin was just a few shades darker than Jessica's milky brown complexion. Disheveled strands of black hair, which Jessica must have mistaken for her own dark brown, framed her face and small shoulders. She had a round face and soft cheeks. She wore a fuchsia shirt Jessica would love.

Although they looked alike, as I sat at the kitchen table and compared the girl to my sister, I realized how strikingly different her eyes were. They were deep brown—the same color as Jessica's eyes—but they were sunken and glossed with tears. Poverty had made her eyes so sad, so unlike my sister's dancing brown eyes. And according to the letter, the girl from Guatemala didn't even own that cheerful fuchsia shirt. It had been given to her for the picture.

Seeing this girl who looked so much like my sister made me wonder what I could do to help kids like her, kids who gazed hopelessly up at the camera. I was reminded about how dramatically different our lives are. As I sat in the kitchen and ate cookies, kids like her hunted through garbage for scraps of food. My life—and my sister's life—includes a warm, safe home, plenty of food, and the chance to go to school. I knew I couldn't assume this girl had any of these things that are so basic to me.

Jesus tells us to reach out to "the least of these" who are hungry, thirsty, unclothed, and sick (Matthew 25:34-40). I've discovered there are so many ways teens can make a difference to kids living in poverty. I'm sponsoring a kid, and I get to hear about his life through his letters. He's 18 and wants to be a doctor Sponsorship has made a difference to him and his dreams. If you want to sponsor a child, check out World Vision, Compassion International, and Kenya Children's Fund.

Recently, I learned about The Better Hour contest. It offers $40,000 in prizes to high school students who design and carry out projects that improve the world. Zach Hunter, a 15-year-old modern-day abolitionist and author of Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World, supports The Better Hour contest. He believes our generation has the power to make a genuine difference and succeed in eliminating injustices like slavery and poverty. I do, too.

I've read that nearly half the world's kids live in poverty. So now, I'm working to make a difference in their lives—and Jessica helps by collecting money to donate to UNICEF, an organization that helps kids in developing countries. We believe that our generation has the compassion to care for impoverished kids and the dedication to erase poverty from our earth. Because of our faith, we want to reach out to change lives.

Changing the World One Book at a Time: The Story Behind Room to Read

Here’s a story you don’t hear too often: Microsoft millionaire visits a school in Nepal and decides to abandon his job and life of luxury to bring back books for kids.

That’s John Wood’s story. The school he visited in Nepal had 75 to 80 kids packed into one small room with dirt floors, according to Oprah.com’s summary of the “I Walked Away from Millions” show about Wood. Their library had only twenty books, many of which were not suitable for children.

This injustice disturbed Wood, and he promised to do something about it. Wood founded Room to Read, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading child literacy. Soon, he was so passionate about his cause that he started shrugging off e-mails about Bill Gates in order to pursue child literacy, according to Oprah.com.

When he made his decision to leave Microsoft, Wood thought, “It's been a great eight years, but I'm making wealthy shareholders wealthier,” according to Oprah.com’s show summary. “Meanwhile, there are 800 million people in the developing world lacking basic literacy. . . . What kind of a man am I if I don't go face this challenge directly or devote my life to this?”

Wood wrote a book about his story, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children (HarperCollins), which Publishers Weekly gave a starred review. You can find it at your local bookstore or online.

According to Wood’s book web site, Room to Read has established more than 3,800 libraries, published 147 books in the local languages of the countries they work in, and provided more than 1.6 English language books and 1.4 million local language books. Read more about Wood’s accomplishments on www.leavingmiscrosoftbook.com.

For more information on Room to Read, check out www.roomtoread.org.

Technology at Its Best: Google Earth Revolutionizes Humanitarian Aid

Latest News on Myanmar and China Earthquake:

Myanmar's government will be mourning the devastating tragedy of Cyclone Nargis for three days, starting Tuesday. The UN Chief will visit Myanmar to increase effective aid on Thursday. There are an estimated 134,000 dead or missing in Myanmar, according to bloomberg.com. Read more here.

The most recent numbers indicate that 50,000 have died from the China earthquake. According to the Los Angeles Times, 6,898 schoolrooms collapsed within one province as a result of the earthquake. China is also mourning for three days, beginning today. Read more here.
TO HELP: Disaster relief organizations such as UNICEF, World Vision, and the CARE Network are working to aid those suffering from crises. Please check their web sites for the latest updates on caring for the China and Myanmar situations.


Technology at Its Best: Google Earth Revolutionizes Humanitarian Aid


If you’ve logged on to Google Earth (earth.google.com) and looked up your house, you know the program is surprisingly accurate, with individual cars and buildings made visible. And hey, that dot on the sidewalk could be you walking to school.

With the ability to zoom in on one’s own house and view photos of college campuses, Google Earth may be a source of amusement and interest, but this program also serves a greater purpose.

Many nonprofit organizations now use Google Earth to quickly locate refugee camps and provide aid. In dire emergencies, lack of communication and panic can make it almost impossible to find those in greatest need, so Google Earth is a necessary advantage for aid workers. In fact, after Hurricane Katrina, some used this technological tool for rescue operations, according to Frank Jordans’s April 2008 Associated Press report. Google Earth now offers its $400 enhanced program to humanitarian groups for free; the regular Google Earth program is free for everyone.

As if rescuing refugees wasn’t enough, Google Earth also helps groups like UNICEF, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the UN Refugee Agency change the way the world views humanitarian crises across the globe. A visit to a refugee camp on Google Earth, for example, places the viewer amidst the haunting realities of violence and poverty. Such up-close coverage closes the distance between well-off lives and genocides, conflicts, and other human rights issues igniting the world.

Without knowledge of these critical stories, the rampant fires of bloodbaths today will continue to burn. Just take a look at Rwanda, 1994, when the world had the opportunity to rescue so many innocents.

As one American TV reporter said in Hotel Rwanda—according to the “This Week” list of quotes in ABC News—“If people see this footage they’ll say, ‘Oh my god, that's horrible,’ and go on eating their dinners.”

In 1994, concern did not translate into action, and one million people died in a span of just 100 days, according to Explore Faith’s Hotel Rwanda web site coverage. Although some did respond, their efforts were not enough to save those one million people—deaths that could have been prevented if the entire world had rallied behind justice in Rwanda.

But thanks to today’s technology, donating to the suffering—and collectively extinguishing the flames of war, genocide, and poverty—is made easy on the Internet. Take a few seconds to input a credit card number and click a mouse; it’s this simplicity that empowers more and more people to donate. Not to mention Google Earth, which holds the unprecedented potential of bringing to light some of the unnoticed tragedies that seldom reach the TV screen.

But is technology enough to change apathetic attitudes? Like Rwanda in 1994 and slavery prior to the Civil War, the world may look back on the deaths in Darfur, Uganda, Colombia, and Chad, and wonder why its ancestors did nothing to diffuse these tragedies.

U2’s Bono spoke eloquently about the current generation at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., a transcript of which appeared on USAToday.com. “I truly believe that when the history books are written,” Bono said, “our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did—or did not to—to put the fire out in Africa.”

To view the refugee camps, download Google Earth and then download the UNHCR layer at http://www.unhcr.org/events/47f48dc92.html. Also check out the “World is Witness,” “Crisis in Darfur,” and “Mapping the Holocaust” Google Earth layers at http://www.ushmm.org/maps.

Kendall Ciesemier: A Teen with a Vision

A few months ago I had the opportunity to chat with Kendall Ciesemier, the 15-year-old founder of the Kids Caring 4 Kids organization, which provides impoverished African children with food and education. This past September, she appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” with former President Bill Clinton, who came to her high school and spoke at a surprise assembly.

Kendall felt moved to fight for justice in fifth grade, when she watched an Africa special on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” about orphans. One girl her age had lost her family to AIDS, and now she carried the responsibility of raising her younger sibling. Compelled by the orphan’s pain and grief, Kendall signed up to sponsor a child through World Vision that day. Later she expanded her sponsorship to include an entire Zambian village. Her charity eventually grew into a nonprofit organization, Kids Caring 4 Kids.

“It’s gotten so much easier for people to join the force to fight AIDS,” Kendall said at a coffee shop in January 2008. She recommended PRODUCT(RED) and the ONE Campaign as examples of other organizations fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS. “These people in Africa are our future. It’s just deciding to take responsibility to change someone’s life.”

Kendall pointed out that it doesn’t take a lot to transform life for a kid in Africa. “Ten dollars, school uniform, right there,” she said. “If [these kids] don’t have ten dollars for a school uniform, they don’t get an education. . . . That can change their life, give them an education for as long as they can fit into the uniform.”

The summer before sixth grade, Kendall, who was born with a liver disease (biliary atresia), went to the hospital for a liver transplant. She ended up spending most of her summer there, asking family and friends to donate to her cause instead of buying her gifts.

Kendall triumphed over the disease; now she says her hard experiences help her relate to kids in Africa. “I feel empathy for them,” Kendall said. “I know how they feel and I want to help.”

Kendall, who has raised $680,000 so far, also stressed the importance of channeling empathy into action. “Teens have to find a cause they’re passionate about,” she said. “You have to get in contact with people and see how you can help.”

She pointed out that teens don’t have to launch an organization to change the world, and then added, “It can start with people at your school. There’s always people in school—even knowing who’s the loner in your science class and asking them to be your partner. You can change their life. High school is a hard time . . . but that in itself is enough to make a difference.”

Read my full coverage of Kendall’s story here on the Chicago Tribune's TribLocal.com.

HOW YOU CAN HELP KIDS CARING 4 KIDS AND AFRICA

• Visit Kendall’s web site at www.kidscaring4kids.org. You can donate to her organization, buy a Kids Caring 4 Kids T-shirt, or write to her through her online guest book.
• Recruit friends to support Kids Caring 4 Kids through the Facebook Causes application. You can find the Kids Caring 4 Kids Cause page here.
• Check out how you can get involved in World Vision at worldvision.org.

Letters from Faizo of Kenya

Here are a couple of letters I just got from Faizo, the child I sponsor through Kenya Children's Fund. A few words of explanation: "P.S. Kevin" has the "P.S." in it because I wrote it on the bottom of the page as a P.S., and it never occurred to me that Faizo might think it was part of my brother's name! Also, there are a lot of references to Christmas because it takes a few months to get the letters through the mail.

Please feel free to share your child sponsorship letters in the comments! :)

"Dear Catherine Newhouse,

I hope you are fine and well too. I thank God for keeping us alive including your family and friends there. May God help you in your work and strengthen your heart too.

I am glad and happy for the Christmas gifts. You are so caring and may the Lord God bless your work and add you more as we live in this world.

My family are so glad with you and they bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Despite being happy, I too enjoyed my Christmas holiday by buying the Christmas gifts you had offered to me.

During the Christmas holiday I received twenty-five dollars which really helped me enjoy and share with my family and friends too. I bought the following items including clothings, school items and food stuffs too. I bought a school bag, shirt, inner ware, tea leaves, sugar, wheat flour, maize flour, bar of sopa, cooking fat and two toilet papers.

I ask God Almighty to bless your work and keep you safe for the rest of your life. Good bye!

Your sponsored child,
Faizo"

"Dear Catherine Newhouse,

"Hallo dear!" I hope you are fine and well too. I hope Jessica, P.S. Kevin together with Cat are well and fine too. It is pleasure for me to see them sending in letters which are very interesting and amusing.

It is so well and fine that God has kept us alive and safe. Many wished to be alive but they are not.* That isn't something to worry us for the Lord our God knows why He created us and we should appreciate that.

I'm happy for sending me letters, photographs from geographical world and stickers too which are very attractive and eye catching. May God bless you for that and I pray to you always for the blessings of the Lord to shower your heart and life too together with the lives of your friends and families.

Although there isn't something to send you back I will only say thanks for the many Christmas and Happy New Year gifts. They are attractive and interesting to see. They reflect one's eyes and make you happy whenever your heart hardens.

I too appreciate the writings from Cat for she is really a writer as she pleaded in her letter and may God bless her so much for I would like to see some of her writings.

Biblical scriptures from P.S. Kevin were really good and blessings too. May the Lord our God bless him. Let all of you be blessed, your work, families, and life too.

Your sponsored child,
Faizo"

*Here Faizo is referring to the post-election violence in Kenya, which you can read about here.

Alek Wek: The Sudanese Refugee Turned Fashion Star

Guest blogger Keri S. from Wheaton, Illinois wrote this week's Teens with a Vision blog.

After finishing Alek Wek’s autobiography Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel, I was astonished. What she went through, the odds she overcame, were unbelievable. Not only did she survive the Sudanese violence in her childhood, but also she succeeded in breaking into the fashion industry and making a name for herself.

Alek was born in Wau, in the southern Sudan. She enjoyed a few years of peace with her family until war broke out. Between the ruthless militia armies and the unstable government, there was no one to be trusted and no place considered safe. After running from their homes for fear of being killed, the Wek’s fled to their tribal relatives. During this time, the health of Alek’s father was steadily deteriorating because of a hip surgery he had. It worsened to the point that the Wek family decided to return to Wau and try to catch a plane to Khartoum. The journey back was long, and treacherous; the whole family was on foot. Even after they made it to Khartoum, their situation was not much better. Her father’s condition eventually claimed his life. Left with her mother, brothers and sisters, they again decided to relocate to a safer place. Alek and her sister went to London to stay with other family.

For Alek, who had only seen two flushable toilets her whole life, flying to London was a terrifying experience. Even upon arriving in London and reuniting with her older sister, Ajok, she was still incredibly disoriented. After being thrown into “modern” life, Alek decided to get a few odd jobs to pay for her sister’s kindness. It was at one of these jobs (working in a café), that Alek was spotted by a model agent. Again, her world changed drastically. She began her modeling career a little unsure of what to expect. She was afraid that she would be taken advantage of. Even her mother, who had finally made it to London, was unsure about the situation. With strong persuasion, Alek and her mother finally came around.

Alek’s modeling career started out slowly. Designers and photographers were afraid to use a face as exotic as hers. She began to lose hope and almost left the agency because it was not going anywhere. It was only after an amazing shoot with Steven Meisel from Italian Vogue that her career began to change. Although go-sees (when models visit designers and photographers to be noticed) still filled her days, people began to take interest in her appearance. Her biggest break came when Elle magazine decided to take a chance and put her on the cover. The copy sold millions and Alek was a hit. Newspapers reported that it challenged the traditional conceptions of beauty. Alek benefited greatly from all the press. Larger names like Chanel and John Galliano hired her for shoots and runways. After a few years, Alek decided to use her supermodel status for a good purpose. With a film crew, she returned to the Sudan. Her efforts have greatly increased awareness about the grave situation in the Sudan.

Today Alek graces the pages of the most glamorous magazines, and walks the catwalk for the biggest names in fashion. She still lives in New York and has her own handbag line, Wek 1933: the name of her father and the year he was born. Even though Alek has reached superstardom, she still remembers that she only barely escaped death because of her family’s strength.

Alek Wek has started her own nonprofit organization, W.E.K. Working to Educate Kids. Read about it at alek-wek.com.

Food Pantries Across the U.S. Suffering Shortages

Today is not a good day to be picking up food from a food pantry, or receiving a meal from a soup kitchen. Due to the increasing cost of food, more people who need assistance, and less government donations, food pantries and soup kitchens across the United States are facing a crisis.

“This is as bare as I have ever seen the shelves,” said Melissa Travis in a press release on the People's Resource Center web site. Travis is the Director of Food Services at the People's Resource Center food pantry in Wheaton, Illinois.

“We just can’t buy the quantities we need to keep the pantry full," she added, "and that, coupled with a 40% drop in the commodities we receive from the Federal Government and the weakening economy, makes a ‘Perfect Storm’ of circumstances.”

Susannah Rosenblatt from the Los Angeles Times reported in January 2008 that there are 44.7 million fewer meals for the needy in California.

Meanwhile, the New York Times pointed out that the Food Bank for New York City--which used to distribute 5.5 million pounds of food per month to food pantries and kitchens--can now only provide 3 million pounds.

Pantries and kitchens across the U.S. depend on the outcome of the farm bill, which will determine how much food the government provides in upcoming years.

The Senate is currently debating the farm bill. Many food pantries may be forced to close if it doesn't pass, such as the Campaign Against Hunger pantry covered in the New York Times.

You can help your community during this time of need. The solution is simple: run a food drive.

Deliver flyers to your neighbors and pick up the food from their doorsteps the next week. Pass these flyers on to your Key Club or other volunteer club at school, and ask them to encourage members to join.

Copy and paste this food drive flyer into MS Word, fill in the blanks, and print out it out for distribution.

Today is World Water Day!

Watch the UNICEF video about World Water day and the Tap Project here. And then check out how you can tap into the movement for clean water around the world.

You can also join the World Water Day walk or the virtual walk here.

According to worldwaterday.net, over one billion people don't have access to clean water. But one dollar donated through UNICEF's Tap Project can provide a child with water for 40 days.

Photo courtesy of www.InvisibleChildren.com/media/photos.

"Invest in Peace": After Devastating 22-Year War, Hope for Peace Finally Emerges in Uganda

Two decades of violence have drenched Uganda in blood. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have captured children, forced them to become soldiers, and brainwashed them with terrible lies. They define training as killing another child, murdering those who refuse to comply. They rub shea nut oil on the children’s skin, and say the bullets will bounce off.

Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), caused this pain and chaos when he seized power two decades ago. He claimed a relation to Alice Lakwena, who allegedly was a prophetess. According to a 2006 BBC News profile, Kony has 50 “wives,” or girls he has abducted. He also insists the LRA is fighting for a government based on the Ten Commandments.

Apparently, Kony overlooks “thou shalt not kill.” 12,000 Ugandan people have perished at his hands, according to a 2005 estimate from The Seattle Times, which does not include the countless Ugandans who have starved or died of disease because of the displacement the conflict has caused.

Hope for an end to this brutal war resides in the peace negotiations between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army. They recently established a permanent ceasefire. The LRA agreed and signed the last agenda item on March 1st. They only needed to sign the final peace agreement. But according to Resolve Uganda’s web site, the LRA representatives left and refused to agree on a date for the final peace agreement signing. They demanded that the International Criminal Court, which accused Kony of the unspeakable crimes he has committed, lift their indictments. Now Resolve Uganda reports that the Ugandan government is asking the International Criminal Court to do so, in hopes of restoring peace as a result. Recently, Uganda president Museveni implied that if Kony did sign the peace agreement, the ICC indictments would no longer be valid, according to the Uganda Conflict Action Network.

In the hour of hope, reports surfaced that the LRA rebels supposedly killed 11 people and abducted 27 in southern Sudan. However, according to a March 2008 report from the Sudan Tribune, the leader of the Cessation of Hostilities Monitoring Team concluded that the LRA was not in the area during the attacks. Since then, local officials accused the LRA of attacking a town in Central African Republic and abducting 80 people last week. If true, the attack suggests that the LRA may not abide by the peace agreement.

Uganda is closer to peace than it ever has been in the past two decades. During this critical time period, it’s imperative that other nations ensure that fragile Uganda reaches peace and stability, instead of slipping back into chaos. The February 2008 Lobby Day for Northern Uganda was the biggest Lobby Day for an African issue in all of U.S. history, according to Resolve Uganda’s web site. Almost 1,000 people came to Washington D.C. to speak out about what the United States can do about the LRA and the war in Northern Uganda.

A record 23 Senators and 16 representatives from the House signed a letter addressed to the United Nations Secretary General, as mentioned on Resolve Uganda’s web site. The letter, posted on the Democracy in Action web site, calls for “more diplomatic and material support from the United Nations” in Northern Uganda.

Even if long-awaited peace does descend upon Uganda at last, the nation still has a long way to go after decades of inhumane violence and suffering. Lisa Dougan, a Regional Manager for humanitarian organization Invisible Children, traveled to Uganda this past summer and witnessed the tragedy up close.

“My time in Uganda revived in me the understanding of the urgency of the situation there,” said Dougan over the phone this fall. “You see the kind of damage that has been done, especially to the children there. It made me understand how important it is to stay committed to these people and help them heal. There is a potential for another war if the children from the war don’t rebuild their lives.”

Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization that has made groundbreaking improvements in Northern Uganda, is currently encouraging supporters to participate in the TRI Campaign to invest in peace for the Ugandan people.

The TRI Campaign video, available on YouTube, asks, “How much time would you spend to end a war? How much talent would you give to save a life? How much money would you raise to change the world? What if it only cost this much?” A cup of Starbucks flashes in front of the camera.

Invisible Children then urges supporters to give up one coffee a week to donate three dollars to Invisible Children, in order to give peace a TRI.

The video asks: “If you don’t TRI, who will?”

Watch the TRI Campaign video here.

For more information, visit www.invisiblechildren.com/blog or www.resolveuganda.org. To reach your Congress representative regarding action in Uganda, dial (202) 224-3121.

All photos are from Lisa Dougan's trip to Uganda.

What are your thoughts on the situation in Uganda? Leave comments and share your ideas below.

Give an Easter Care Basket to a Kid in Kenya

Regular blog readers will recall stories about Faizo, the child I sponsor through Kenya Children’s Fund. Every Easter, Faizo and the other Kenyan children get a month off from school. To me, time off from school means joyous freedom and a relaxing break, but to these students, it means hunger. Since many Kenyan kids eat the majority of their meals at school, they often return to KCF sick and malnourished at the end of the month.

To combat this hunger, Kenya Children’s Fund started the Easter Care Basket program. They give students care baskets with food and soap for their month-long vacation. Donating an Easter Care Basket through Kenya Children’s Fund is an awesome way to show your love to Kenyan students and help them when they need it most.

With the recent ethnic and political violence in Kenya, these kids need your help to relieve their suffering now more than ever. One basket can prevent malnourishment and thus susceptibility to diseases. One basket can save a life.

Each care basket costs $15 and includes:

• 4 kgs (8 lbs) maize flour
• 4 kgs rice
• 2 kgs (4 lbs) wheat flour
• 2 kgs cooking oil
• 2 kgs sugar
• 500 grams tea
• biscuits
• soap

You can donate to Kenya Children’s Fund through the Teens with a Vision Facebook Cause page or the Kenya Children’s Fund web site. Please donate before March 12 if you’d like your money to go to an Easter care basket.

Recruit your friends through Facebook or e-mail to let them know how they can feed a hungry child this Easter. To see photos of children and their parents with Easter care baskets, click here.

Join Dumbledore's Army This Friday! Plus breaking news in Uganda.

February 29^th is International Be Awesome Day, the finale of Be Awesome Month (February). Be Awesome Day is dedicated to the loving actions you can take today, whether it’s to brighten someone else’s day or to help the needy and suffering.

The Awesome movement started with two Harry Potter fans on the Internet, who run the online Ministry of Awesome blog—which honors Harry Potter-inspired music—and the Cauldrons and Chocolate Frogs Harry Potter e-zine. They launched the Awesome movement when they realized that they could not honor a Harry Potter band on February 29, since the band could then only celebrate their awesomeness every leap year. Instead, they decided to honor the awesomeness displayed in everyday loving actions around the world.

The Harry Potter Alliance, which aims to follow Dumbledore’s example of love by rescuing the suffering in Darfur, has adopted Be Awesome Day. The Harry Potter Alliance had gained a lot of momentum recently, with coverage in the Chicago Tribune, New York Post, the New York Times bestseller Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, and Do Something’s web site. On the Harry Potter Alliance web site, the founder, Andrew Slack, points out that J.K. Rowling herself used to work for Amnesty International when she started writing the Harry Potter books. He believes her writing glows with a dedication to love and social justice.

Just look at Hermione and her compassion for house elves. Sound anything like a passion for abolition of slavery to you? If you want to join a real-world S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare), visit the modern-day slavery organization Loose Change to Loosen Chains—started by teenager Zach Hunter—at www.lc2lc.com.

Check out Be Awesome Day at www.be-awesome.com and the Harry Potter Alliance at www.thehpalliance.org.

Breaking News on the Situation in Uganda: There is currently a ceasefire in Uganda. Peace talks are going on at this moment. If you want to help Ugandans during this crucial time, call your Congress representative now at (202) 224-3121. Check out peace updates here.

Update from Last Week's Love 146 Way to Make a Difference

Watch the new Love 146 Valentine's Day video here.

And here's yet another idea for a way to show your love this Valentine’s Day: Make your own Love 146 T-shirt. Just copy a photo of the Love 146 logo from their web site, paste it into Word, and print it out on a T-shirt transfer sheets. Then iron on the transfer sheet to your shirt; transfer sheets are available at your local grocery or computer store. You can also copy the Teens with a Vision logo and iron it on the back, and you can type any phrases you want to include in Word. (For example, add links to the web sites: love146.org, www.teenswithavision.blogspot.com, myspace.com/teenswithavision, or a phrase like “Let your love shine this Valentine’s Day.”)

2 Weeks of Sacrifice: Saving Africans Dollar by Dollar

Fill up your water bottle and get ready for an awesome way to help provide kids in Africa with water. For the next two weeks, Teens with a Vision challenges you to drink only water. No juice, no soda, no sports drinks, no (gasp!) coffee, no Jamba Juice—for two weeks. Calculate how much you would have spent on other beverages if you had been drinking them, and donate that money to the Blood:Water Mission, a movement for clean water and HIV/AIDS-free blood, started by the band Jars of Clay.

Let’s say you sacrifice for two weeks and raise ten dollars. You just saved ten Africans. One dollar provides enough water for an African to survive an entire year, the Blood:Water Mission web site points out. Use this PDF scorecard to calculate how much your sacrifice raised.

Join our discussion on the Teens with a Vision Facebook group page, or comment here, and tell us why you’ll be sacrificing for the next two weeks. On February 23 (or whenever you finish your two weeks), total up your numbers and post how much you saved for the Blood:Water Mission during your two weeks of sacrifice. To send in your funds, follow this link.

The Blood:Water Mission started when Jars of Clay band member Dan Haseltine traveled to Africa and felt moved to provide much-needed aid. Watch the Blood:Water Mission video here (http://www.bloodwatermission.com/bloodwater.mov) and get inspired to make a difference these next couple of weeks.

Now, e-mail your friends a link to this blog, and ask them to join you in your two weeks of sacrifice.

You can visit the Blood:Water Mission web site at www.bloodwatermission.com.

Please note: The Blood:Water Mission also suggests sacrificing milk, but we suggest making an exception for milk, or eating calcium chews instead of drinking milk during your two weeks of sacrifice.

Show Your Love This Valentine's Day

Buy a white band, available at one.org or noexcuse2015.org, and wear it on Valentine’s Day. The white band symbolizes the fight against poverty, and reads “One” (for the ONE Campaign to make poverty history), or “No Excuse 2015” (for the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty significantly by 2015). The smallest amount you can order online is ten bands, so you can hand out your extra white bands as Valentine’s Day gifts. You can also wear a (RED) or ONE shirt to emphasize your message (see “Buy What You Believe In”).

Let your love shine through Love 146, an organization devoted to stopping child sex slavery and exploitation. On their web site, Love 146 points out that every year, human trafficking and slavery makes 32 billion dollars—which is less than the amount Americans spend on three Valentine’s Days (39 billion dollars).

Love 146 started with a group of girls wearing red dresses in a brothel, absorbed in the kid cartoons displayed on the TV. The founders of Love 146 saw them when they went undercover to observe the selling of child sex slaves. On the Love 146 website, one founder describes the lifeless expressions of the children, who were raped several times a night.
But one girl, who wore the number 146 pinned on her dress, didn’t watch the cartoons. Instead, she turned around and stared at them, with a gaze that understood the cruel injustice inflicted on her life. Love 146 is dedicated to her and her spirit; you can read her story and watch the Love 146 video at Love146.org.

There are lots of ways to make a difference through Love 146 this Valentine’s Day. You can throw a Love 146 Valentine’s Day party, write a love letter to #146 and mail it to Love 146, and giving a Love 146 donation and e-card in your sweetheart’s honor. Click here for the full list of ideas on the Love 146 web site.

Bead for Life: Support Ugandan Women This Valentine's Day

Through Bead for Life (http://www.beadforlife.org/), you can buy bracelets and necklaces made by Ugandan women and help a nation of people devastated by war and poverty.

Watch MSNBC's coverage of Bead for Life to check out how they're impacting Uganda: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/1874437...

These make beautiful and thoughtful Valentine's Day gifts, showing your love not just for another, but for the entire world. Check our blog again next week for more ways to show your love on Valentine's Day.

You can purchase Bead for Life jewelry here: http://www.beadforlifestore.com/servlet/StoreFront.

"Outside My World" By Caroline D.: A Creative Piece About Nigeria (Guest Blogger)

In eighth grade, Caroline D. traveled to Nigeria with her family, and she wrote about the moments that left a lasting impression on her in “Outside My World.” The smell of Nigeria reminds Caroline of the sorrow there, but even amidst destruction, beauty always emerges when people open their hearts to help.

This week I want to give Caroline the opportunity to share her memories with you as a guest blogger. She wrote "Outside My World" after watching the Invisible Children movie. Make a difference by reading her piece and sharing it with your friends and family, and then channel your compassion into action. Please feel free to leave comments, share your own experiences in other countries, and let us know what you're thinking or how you are taking action.

Outside My World
By: Caroline D.

Sometimes, when I smell Nigeria, I get sick to my stomach.

Nigeria smells like burning leather and dry heat. It is very hard to associate these smells with anything happy. It smells like a lot of people who can hardly buy food, let alone frivolities like deodorant. It smells like meager meals being cooked in a giant pot in the backyard, framed by garbage, meant to feed a group of fifteen. It smells like so much dust and sand in the air that it’s often difficult to breathe.

When I think of this smell, I remember the airport we flew in and out of, with signs posted all over the walls prohibiting the use of cameras within the area. I think of the fear these kinds of warnings invoke.

When I think of this smell, I think of stopping at a gas station, surrounded by children with bags of nuts, children with warm sodas, children with wilting vegetables, thrusting anything they could in the windows and begging for money so their families could survive. I remember watching as we bought five sodas from one child, and the rest were left with nothing. As we drove away, I turned around in my seat and saw two of the little girls return empty-handed to take the arm of a woman who stared after me with eyes fogged over by thick cataracts.

When I think of this smell, I think of driving over a creek with trash piled up so high that it found its way onto the bridge. I remember seeing women gather that water for their homes, and watching children drink from it.

I think of so many people wearing one large strip of cloth tied into a dress. And hearing my father ask a woman if this was a tribal dress, or something traditional, and hearing her one-word response: “Poverty.”

I recall women and children by the side of the road breaking rocks into gravel with only their hands and other rocks, and being paid less than a dollar a day to do this.

I see children who were older than I was, but looked half my age because of malnutrition.

I picture the shells of buildings which were bombed just days before.

I think of waiting for my mother to come home until late into the night and early that morning—and not knowing and fearing and pacing and crying and imagining the bombs going off, the men pacing the streets with machine guns, the groups that hate us for living—and wonder what it must be like to live all the time with that fear, and to live all the time not knowing.

When I think of this smell, I think of large walls surrounding every building, and the barbed wire or broken glass attached to the top of each of these walls.

I remember the running water inevitably failing for any given amount of time, and then gathering buckets of water to be able to shower and flush the toilet.

I think of not being able to drive down a street without bribing someone to let you pass, and of men trying to sell me a stray cat that was not theirs because they needed the money so much.

When I think of this smell, I think that my house and my school and my friends are in the same world as these things, and I am not sure I believe it.

3 Ways to Rescue Kids in Kenya

Many of you have heard about the recent violence in Kenya, including a church burning in Eldoret, and 300,000 people displaced (according to Kenya Children's Fund). Here are three ways you can help the Kenyan people during this time of crisis.

1. World Vision: Donate to emergency aid disaster response. World Vision is an excellent humanitarian and child sponsorship organization.

2. Kenya Children’s Fund: Donate or sponsor a child. Kenya Children’s Fund is an excellent child sponsorship organization located in Kinyago-Dandora in Nairobi, Kenya--one of the regions affected by the recent violence.

I sponsor 18-year-old Faizo through this organization. I’d like to share some quotes from his letters with you. He wants to be a doctor, which he considers "a marvelous career." His role models are his teachers, who "are sharpening my mind to be full of knowledge, so that one day I could help my society in rebuilding it." He also writes, "I don’t know how I can express my gratitute to you but I’m really happy and glad."

When my violin teacher went to Kenya with Kenya Children’s Fund, she introduced music to their schools and ran a photojournal project. The children took photos with disposable cameras, and then wrote why they took those particular photos. What really struck a chord with me was that they were so thankful for everything--their parents, health, and many other things I tend to take for granted (one thing Faizo writes that he’s thankful for is the "fresh air in the atmosphere.") Please feel free to share your child sponsorship stories with me also.

Read the Kenya Children’s Fund web site for information on their organization during this time of crisis. Many teachers and kids are taking refuge from the violence in their homes, without enough food/water.

3. Raising Awareness: Repost this bulletin, and make a goal of telling five other people about the violence in Kenya and how they can help, too.




Thanks for supporting us and keep changing the world!

Fall Out Boy and Invisible Children

If you haven't already, take a moment to watch Fall Out Boy's new music video "Me and You," filmed in Northern Uganda with Invisible Children.

Now, read about the war in Northern Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army in Grace Akallo's personal story from Ignite Your Faith magazine and DeNeen L. Brown's article about Akallo from the Washington Post.

Finally, check out the Invisible Children web site, especially their Schools for Schools Campaign. You can organize an Invisible Children club at your high school, ask Invisible Children roadies to come to your school (or other place in your area) to play the Invisible Children movie, and much more.

Update from Kenya Children's Fund and World Vision

For those of you who sponsor a child through Kenya Children's Fund, or just like to keep up with them, read their update on the violence in Kenya here.

World Vision also has an update.

Violence in Kenya

Read about it here.

Please take a moment to think about these people, honor those who were harmed or are suffering or afraid right now, and reflect.