"Deep Thoughts"

Can Change Come From The Outside?

Date: March 19th, 2007 |

One of the non-profit blogs I follow – based in a country where English is not the language - recently had a comment from a person from that country which essentially said “why is there so much English on this blog?” The assumption being that if it were a true local effort, with the [read more]

What Is Volunteering?

Date: March 12th, 2007 |

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Visiting different websites, some of them categorized as or claiming to offer volunteer opportunities, it strikes me that it’s not always totally clear what counts as volunteering.
The obvious answer would be something like “it’s work that’s done for the benefit of others without pay” – and this may in fact be the best description of [read more]

Big Brother Contestant Off To India To Apologize

Date: March 1st, 2007 |

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Jade Goody, the British woman who reportedly “racially abused” fellow Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood actress, has apparently traveled to India and committed to donate her earnings from the show to “charities for poor Indian children”. She has also “apologised to Indians who had been hurt by her behaviour.”
I’ll admit to [read more]

The Starfish Theory

Date: February 22nd, 2007 |

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One of the stories or legends that often comes up in connection to volunteering is the Legend of the Starfish (Author Unknown); I’ve linked to the page of an animal welfare group here because they provide a version of this story…okay, I also like dogs a lot but that’s not the main reason.
Just what is [read more]

Born Into Brothels: Documentary

Date: February 14th, 2007 |

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Image courtesy of
Kids with Cameras

I happened to get the very last ticket to the showing of the documentary Born Into Brothels at the 2004 Sarajevo Film Festival – it was just prior ot my own trip to India and it has influenced my perspective in a number of ways. Incidentally, it won the [read more]

“We’re Not Stupid, We’re Just Poor”

Date: March 16th, 2007 |

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The title of this post is the title of a chapter in Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, which is an excellent, if involved, read. Without going into detail about the story, I recall this sentence – and put it into somewhat of a new context - because I think it illustrates an important point [read more]

A New Addition To Angelina Jolie’s Family

Date: March 3rd, 2007 |

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Angelina Jolie is reported to have filed papers to adopt a Vietnamese Child. Her family already consists of a five-year old son, adopted from Cambodia, a two-year old daughter, adopted from Ethiopia, and a biological daughter born to Jolie and Brad Pitt in May 2006.
I’ll admit that my first thought upon reading this was [read more]

More On The Starfish Theory

Date: February 24th, 2007 |

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The Starfish Theory a nice story and has an important message: you can’t do everything, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do what you can. Or, what you do, even if it only helps one person, makes a world of difference to that person.
To me, the danger of using this story too often is [read more]

The Pros And Cons Of Longer Term Volunteering

Date: February 16th, 2007 |

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Putting aside for now the question of what exactly counts as longer term volunteering in contrast to short term volunteering, here are some of the pros and cons in general terms:
Pros

You have longer to use your skills to make some kind of impact. There is often plenty of longer term volunteering – such as sharing [read more]

From The Headlines:Interesting Donation

Date: February 14th, 2007 |

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Widow’s estate creates $4M windfall for Texas town describes how the town of Grandville, Texas, came into a large amount of money: Wynonia Pallmeyer, whose husband had been a resident of a nursing home (which will receive $2 million of the donation) in the town, passed away in June of 2005 and left instructions only [read more]

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