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.