Lighting the Way in Slums

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July 30, 2011 a project of CharityFocus Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself. - Desiderius Erasmus - Lighting the Way in Slums Plastic bottles jut from the roofs in a Manila slum neighborhood. But these bottles have an important purpose: they contain bleach and water and are placed snugly into a purpose-built hole in the roof. Designed by students at MIT, they reflect sunlight, spreading 360 degrees of 55-watt-light through the room beneath. Using the simplest of technologies, these bottles brighten dim and dreary shanties, emitting clear light for about five years. The invention is part of a project called "Isang Litrong Liwanag," which means A Litre of Light, and helps some of the poorest Philippines residents save money and live better -- in a renewable way. { read more } Submitted by: j Be The Change Check out the website for the project, which aims to bring these Solar Bottle Bulbs to communities around the Phillipines. { more } COMMENT | RATE               Related Good News 10 Worst Listening Habits -- and Their Cure Kids on Love Kindness Goes Around, and Comes Around An Experiment in Generosity DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers "good news" to 107,091 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here. Other CharityFocus projects include: HelpOthers  //  CF Sites  //  KarmaTube  //  Conversations  //  More

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Using Soccer to Turn it Around

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July 29, 2011 a project of CharityFocus Turn your wounds into wisdom. - Oprah Winfrey - Using Soccer to Turn it Around Lisa Wrightsman used soccer to turn her life around, and now she's using it to help others do the same. Wrightsman was in a semipro league, but later succumbed to drugs, alcohol, homelessness and jail. Last year, however, she entered a Volunteers of America recovery program and discovered their street soccer program. With soccer as her pivot, she made a big shift in her own life, and then saw the potential of street soccer as a movement to help others also get off the street. "I saw she changed. I wanted what worked for her to work for me," said Christina Sanchez, 31, who is now part of the team. With Wrightman's leadership, for the first time, Sacramento will send a women's Mohawks homeless soccer team to the national tournament this summer. { read more } Be The Change Consider challenges you've gone through which position you uniquely to serve others. COMMENT | RATE               Related Good News A 15-Year-Old's Bucket List Goes Viral Change Your Life with a Thank-You Note A Blessing from A Homeless Man Family Finds $45K -- And Returns It DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers "good news" to 107,089 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here. Other CharityFocus projects include: HelpOthers  //  CF Sites  //  KarmaTube  //  Conversations  //  More

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Why Are Easy Decisions So Hard?

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July 28, 2011 a project of CharityFocus Indecision may or may not be my problem. - Jimmy Buffett - Why Are Easy Decisions So Hard? "Why do I squander so much mental energy on the mundane purchases of everyday life? I think I've found a good answer. Although I know that every floss will work well enough, sometimes I still can't help waste an embarrassing amount of time on the decision. What I believe happens is that instead of realizing that picking a floss is an easy decision, I confuse the array of options and excess of information with importance, which then leads my brain to conclude that this decision is worth lots of time and attention. Call it the drug store heuristic: A cluttered store shelf leads us to automatically assume that a choice must really matter, even if it doesn't." Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How We Decide" further describes some clever experiments that expose the cognitive illusion of seemingly important choices. { read more } Be The Change Observe your own decision making today. What factors contribute to hard decisions? What factors contribute to easy ones? COMMENT | RATE               Related Good News Simple Philosophy of the World's Oldest Man See Yourself in Six Billion Others Bill Moyers: Naomi Shihab Nye The Artist Who Gives It All Away DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers "good news" to 107,082 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here. Other CharityFocus projects include: HelpOthers  //  CF Sites  //  KarmaTube  //  Conversations  //  More

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Living Plastic Free

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July 27, 2011 a project of CharityFocus One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice. - Mary Oliver - Living Plastic Free Three years ago, Beth Terry, like many other Americans chose double plastic bags, threw the plastic bottles in the trash and ate frozen dinners -- generating about 100 lbs of plastic waste a year. But after seeing a photo of the sea being filled with plastic products, she resolved to live a plastic free life. From January to November 2010, she generated less than 2 pounds of plastic waste. And she went further. Beth discovered that Clorox's US Brita water filters are recycled in Europe. 7 months, 16,000 signatures and 600 filters later, Beth successfully petitioned Clorox. Beth asks, "What difference can one person make?" Most of all, one person who reduces their plastic waste is motivated to drive for systemic change. As Beth states in this TEDx video, "We have the power to change the menu that's offered to us." { read more } Be The Change Apply these 5 strategies for reducing plastic's environmental impact, and check out the 7 misconceptions about plastic recycling. { more } COMMENT | RATE               Related Good News 100 Places to Go Before They Disappear Out of Ice, Comes Music Phone Booths Find New Lives Two Brothers, Two Buckets, and World Hunger DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers "good news" to 107,053 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here. Other CharityFocus projects include: HelpOthers  //  CF Sites  //  KarmaTube  //  Conversations  //  More

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A Low Electron Diet

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July 26, 2011 a project of CharityFocus Time = Life. Therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life. - Alan Lakein - A Low Electron Diet Author Shannon Hayes turns her computer off every morning around 9 am, once her workday is complete. Then she tunes out the rest of the world and tunes into her family, home, and farm. Very often the telephone gets turned off, too. So does the radio. "I shut out the wide world to tend to my immediate world." Hayes continues: "Radical homemakers are not one-person wonders, single-handedly capable of heroic feats of self-reliance. Rather, we have some meta-skills that work the real magic: savvy functioning within a life-serving economy, an ability to self-teach and overcome fears, realistic expectations, an understanding of what gives us deep pleasure, and, most importantly, relationship skills. I don't do it all. I am in an interdependent relationship with my family and my closest friends, and together, we get stuff done." { read more } Be The Change Try an experiment of turning off your technology for a set period of time each day for a week. COMMENT | RATE               Related Good News How a Wandering Mind Affects Your Mood The Science of Self-Control The Mathematics of Being Nice Does Thinking Make it So? DailyGood is a volunteer-run initiative that delivers "good news" to 107,031 subscribers. There are many ways to help. To unsubscribe, click here. Other CharityFocus projects include: HelpOthers  //  CF Sites  //  KarmaTube  //  Conversations  //  More

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