Children Who Shine From Within
In this moving tribute to her daughter, Rachel Macy Stafford reminds us to look for the light within all children. "And it's that time -- time for back-to-school outfits, team tryouts, classroom assessments, and after school clubs. The Butterflies will be noticed. So brilliant. So colorful. Their talents so obvious. But let us not forget the Fireflies. Their triumphs are quiet and unsuspecting. Th... posted on Oct 04 2015, 32,339 reads

Vegetable Seller to Reputed Oncologist
Dr. Vijayalakshmi Deshmane is one of India's most reputed oncologists who dedicates her life to service through medicine. But, when she was just a child, born into a "backward caste" and a socio-economically disadvantaged family living in the slums of India, with little access to food and basic amenities, leave alone educational opportunities, it was not obvious she would have such an illustrious... posted on Oct 03 2015, 6,130 reads

The People Who Make Last Wishes Come True
Kees Veldboer and his wife Ineke, a nurse, started Stichting Ambulance Wens or the Ambulance Wish Foundation to fulfill last wishes of terminally ill patients. Eight years later with 230 volunteers, six ambulances and a holiday home, the service has fulfilled almost 7,000 last wishes. ... posted on Oct 02 2015, 6,523 reads

Walking the World at Three Miles an Hour
Polly Letofsky is the only woman to have walked across the world. She started in 1999 and took over five years. She tells, in an amazing interview, how you need to walk across at least four continents, cover at least 14,000 miles, and get signatures along the way of people who see you walk every day. She got into the Guinness Book of World Records but her own personal motivation was "to discover t... posted on Oct 01 2015, 9,892 reads

7200 Kites Flying for Peace and Dignity
This short excerpt from the feature documentary film, Flying Paper, is an uplifting story of Palestinian children in Gaza engaged in the age-old tradition of kite making and flying. The driving narrative of the film centers on a remarkable quest, but showcases the determination and artistic expression of the youth that come together to achieve a shared goal. This quest is a beautiful form of creat... posted on Sep 30 2015, 2,669 reads

Homes for the Homeless
Homelessness is a fluid state. While the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development counted 578,424 homeless in January 2014, some advocacy groups say more than 3 million Americans experience an episode of homelessness each year: a night, a week or a month in a motel, in a recreation vehicle or on a friend's couch...but a few organizations like Housing First are trying to change the odds.... posted on Sep 29 2015, 5,703 reads

The Science of Stress
Maria Popova explores her own experience of stress and PTSD, pointing out that long before scientists began shedding light on how our minds and bodies actually affect one another, an intuitive understanding of this dialogue between the body and the emotions, or feelings permeated our very language. Ancient Greek, Roman, and Indian Ayurvedic physicians all enlisted the theory of the four humors -- ... posted on Sep 28 2015, 17,473 reads

Understanding The People We Serve
While there is a huge appetite in development agencies for quantitative data on objective things like health, wealth and education, data on what people actually think lags far behind. And when the United Nations and the Overseas Development Institute finally asked 7.5 million people around the world about their priorities for themselves and their families., more than 80 per cent felt that what hap... posted on Sep 27 2015, 5,491 reads

Nicholas Kristof's Path to More Effective Giving
When deciding how to use your time and money to address the worlds problems, you may struggle with how to use those resources for the greater good. Exploring that challenge is the subject of the book A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity, written by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn. This thoughtful interview with Kristof shares more.... posted on Sep 26 2015, 12,143 reads

Stretching Identity: A Conversation with Gabriel Meyer
"The first time I met a Palestinian Sufi Sheikh, I went to his house. The person who introduced me, my friend, he said, Listen, this is the third Israeli he meets, so be careful. You know, go slowly. So I sat; we were all very formal, Salaam. We sat down, it was very serious, and all of a sudden, I just took out my drum and starting singing, Allahu, Allahu, Allahu. His son came out from the kitche... posted on Sep 25 2015, 3,493 reads