Jose Bright's Saturday School When Jose Bright arrived in South Africa in 1994, he felt daunted by the task ahead. After all, as director for regional affairs for the mayor of Washington, D.C., he had been asked by South Africa to help transform its schools, designed to benefit the white minority of 4 million, into a system to educate the 40 million black majority as well. Nobody would have blamed him if he'd simply declared victory, turned, and run.But after several short-term projects here, Mr. Bright stayed. He has dipped into his own pocket and donated his free time to ensure that a handful of poor but promising South African middle-school students make it through high school. Bright's nickname is Teboho, the Sotho word for "gift." Awarded to him by local elders, it means, "thank you God for giving us this person" -- a gift.... posted on Nov 21 2009, 0 cmts
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Cleaning Shoes, Making A Difference Greg Woodburn spends a lot of time cleaning sneakers. Some of them once belonged to him; some belonged to his friends. But soon the shoes will have new owners: underprivileged children in the United States and 20 other countries, thanks to Woodburn's Share Our Soles (S.O.S.) charity. It all began when Woodburn, a high school track star, was sidelined for months with knee and hip injuries. "I started thinking about all the things I got from running -- the health benefits, the friendships, the confidence," he says. "And I realized there are children who don't even have shoes." To date, S.O.S. has collected and donated more than 3,000 pairs. And Woodburn has cleaned almost all of them. "People think of it as dirty work," he says. "But I like doing it. It's inspiring."... posted on Nov 20 2009, 4 cmts
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The Victory of the Commons Over many decades, Elinor Ostrom has documented how various communities manage common resources -- grazing lands, forests, irrigation waters, fisheries -- equitably and sustainably over the long term. The Nobel Committee's recognition of her work effectively debunks popular theories about the Tragedy of the Commons, which hold that private property is the only effective method to prevent finite resources from being ruined or depleted.... posted on Nov 19 2009, 2 cmts
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A Hospital's Sacrifice It wasn't the kind of meeting the management looks forward to, but this time it was going to play out uniquely. "I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I'd like to get your reaction to it," Paul Levy, President of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center began. "I'd like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don't want to put an additional burden on them. "Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice," he continued. "It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits." He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Sherman Auditorium erupted in applause. Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause. The lump had barely left his throat when Paul Levy started getting e-mails.... posted on Nov 18 2009, 1 cmts
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Triumph Of A Dreamer "Of all the people earning university degrees this year, perhaps the most remarkable story belongs to Tererai (pronounced TEH-reh-rye), a middle-aged woman who is one of my heroes. She is celebrating a personal triumph, but she's also a monument to the aid organizations and individuals who helped her. When you hear that foreign-aid groups just squander money or build dependency, remember that by all odds Tererai should be an illiterate, battered cattle-herd in Zimbabwe and instead -- ah, but I'm getting ahead of my story." This NY Times article shares more.... posted on Nov 17 2009, 13 cmts
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Nanny & CNN Hero: Marie da Silva Having suffered enormous personal losses due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Malawi, Marie Da Silva, a nanny working in Los Angeles decided to set up the Jacaranda Foundation. The Foundation, run on Marie's personal earnings, donations & volunteer support, endeavours to provide education & food to the children of Malawi, most of whom have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS.... posted on Nov 16 2009, 2 cmts
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No Vacation Nation Last year, fewer than half of all Americans took a week off or less for vacation. Compared with the five weeks of paid vacation Europeans get, Americans seem woefully overworked and under-rested. Doctors have been researching the ill effects of too much work, and some claim that a lack of vacation can have real health consequences. Dr. Sarah Speck calls the stress from too much work the new tobacco and says that vacations are an important way to reduce stress and burnout. While a recession may seem like an odd time to push for more vacation time, many experts in the field point to a variety of benefits of vacation. ... posted on Nov 15 2009, 2 cmts
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Saving Lives, One Click at a Time For a decade now, Khushroo Poacha has stood by the sole belief that to do good work you don't need money. Poacha runs indianblooddonors.com, a site that lets over 50,000 blood donors and patients in need of blood connect with each other almost instantaneously -- all without cash donations. His site is perhaps a classic example of what the Internet is truly capable of, but more importantly, it is a reflection of a single human being's desire to make a difference to this world. Last year Poacha responded to venture capitalists who argued that it wasn't possible to sustain an endeavor without money: "I pointed out that Mother Teresa had no revenue model when she started the Missionaries of Charity. If you want to do good work, you simply do it."... posted on Nov 14 2009, 4 cmts
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Greatness: Nature or Nurture? "What makes Tiger Woods great? What made Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett the world's premier investor? We think we know: Each was a natural who came into the world with a gift for doing exactly what he ended up doing. As Buffett told Fortune not long ago, he was "wired at birth to allocate capital." It's a one-in-a-million thing. You've got it - or you don't. Well, folks, it's not so simple. For one thing, you do not possess a natural gift for a certain job, because targeted natural gifts don't exist. (Sorry, Warren.) You are not a born CEO or investor or chess grandmaster. You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that's demanding and painful." This CNN article shares further.... posted on Nov 13 2009, 5 cmts
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Wired To Wonder Our brains are hardwired for worry -- and there's good reason why. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to keep an eye out for danger at every turn: If I eat those plants, will I get sick? Yet it was only when our ancestors ventured off beyond the boundaries of what was known that they could add to their knowledge and skills. They had to discover absolutely everything for themselves. In other words, they had to be curious.... posted on Nov 12 2009, 0 cmts
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A Lighthouse Keeper's Message In A Bottle Each year on her birthday, Ann Hernandez and her friend, Alan Tomaska, would settle on the rocky shore of Thacher Island and say a toast to the day. When the tide going out, Hernandez would tuck a handwritten message inside a bottle and Tomaska would hurl it over the rocks and into the crashing surf.Tomaska considered the ritual a lark. But for Hernandez, the messages in a bottle were a kind of personal driftwood -- a piece of her joining the sea and traveling with its currents to hoped-for far-flung locales. This article shares the fate of one of her messages.... posted on Nov 11 2009, 1 cmts
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The Biology of Leadership "The salient discovery is that certain things leaders do -- specifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to others' moods -- literally affect both their own brain chemistry and that of their followers. Indeed, researchers have found that the leader-follower dynamic is not a case of two (or more) independent brains reacting consciously or unconsciously to each other. Rather, the individual minds become, in a sense, fused into a single system. We believe that great leaders are those whose behavior powerfully leverages the system of brain interconnectedness." This Harvard Business Review article discusses brain studies that show leaders can improve group performance by understanding the biology of empathy.... posted on Nov 10 2009, 3 cmts
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The Fun Theory: Piano Stairs If stairs played musical notes when you walked on them, would you be more likely to take them? Volkswagen has launched a popular new campaign called "The Fun Theory" which is "dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people's behavior for the better." It turns out that 66% more commuters opted for stairs over the escalators! Take a look at this utterly clever (and fun!) idea.... posted on Nov 09 2009, 5 cmts
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A Town Rolls Up Its Sleeves Word travels quickly in the small fishing village of Port Washington, Wisconsin. So when Mardy McGarry wanted to build a playground for kids with special needs, she knew it wouldn't take long to generate interest in the project. But she never expected that 2,800 people -- a third of the town -- would roll up their sleeves and use their vacation days to bring her vision to life.... posted on Nov 08 2009, 1 cmts
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Taking In The Good Much as your body is built from the foods you eat, your mind is built from the experiences you have. The flow of experience gradually sculpts your brain, thus shaping your mind. Some of the results can be explicitly recalled: This is what I did last summer; that is how I felt when I was in love. But most of them remain forever unconscious. This is called implicit memory, and it helps form your expectations, models of relationships, emotional tendencies, and general outlook. In this Greater Good article psychologist Rick Hanson goes on to discuss how we can practice' taking in the good'.... posted on Nov 07 2009, 3 cmts
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Notes Left Behind by A Five-Year-Old After 5-year-old Elena Desserich was diagnosed with an inoperable kind of cancer, she managed to spread a message of hope and healing. Elena knew that every coming day would be a gift, not to be wasted, so she created a to-do list of sorts -- swim with dolphins, drive a car and more. During her nine-month battle with cancer, Elena was planning an even greater gift for her family. She was hiding notes around the house, hundreds of them tucked in every corner to be discovered after she was gone. ... posted on Nov 06 2009, 1 cmts
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Contagious Love Experiment Josh Stieber was in middle school on 9/11. He vowed to enlist in the army after graduating high school, and by 2007, he was deployed to Baghdad. By April 2009, he had left the army, and engaged on a bike ride to spread some love: "I want to take a negative and invest it into a positive. So that's what I've set out to do and I hope that that love is contagious." Conor was a Marine patrol leader. On his orders they went house to house, destroying houses and terrorizing the people. After one such incident, a middle-aged man came out of his now-destroyed house, served them tea and in perfect English, asked Conor about his life and how Iraq was treating him. He had no trace of bitterness or anger in his voice. That was the day Conor decided to leave the military.... posted on Nov 05 2009, 1 cmts
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Death by Information Overload Thanks to the Internet, a wealth of information is at our fingertips. We can access so much knowledge at speeds previously impossible. However, there is a downside to this information overload. Trying to keep up with the flurry of a constantly updated web world can leave us drained, and distract us from the important tasks of our jobs. Current research suggests that the surging volume of information, and its interruption of work, can adversely affect not only personal well-being but also decision making, innovation, and productivity. In one study, for example, people took an average of nearly 25 minutes to return to a work task after an e-mail interruption. However, researchers are finding ways to help curb the onslaught of information. From software to email techniques, controlling what information we get can save us the time and energy wasted trying to process it.... posted on Nov 04 2009, 4 cmts
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The New Orleans Musician's Clinic Eleven years ago, Bethany and her husband, Johann Bultman, decided the best way to keep the music alive was to keep the musicians healthy. "The reason we chose to target musicians in New Orleans is because they represent a pure American cultural form, jazz music," said Johann. Thanks to the Clinic's volunteer doctors, a grant from the federal government, and various charitable donations, the non-profit is able to provide much-needed services to over 1,800 New Orleans musicians each year.... posted on Nov 03 2009, 1 cmts
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The Burden of Genius Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love" was so successful that everyone worried if she'd ever be able to repeat that creative performance. The concern led Gilbert to investigate how past cultures and societies handled creative strokes of genius, and she discovered a rather curious insight from ancient Greek and Roman cultures -- that people aren't geniuses, but rather they have a genius. Funny, personal and surprisingly moving, this TED talk received a full standing ovation from the audience.... posted on Nov 02 2009, 3 cmts
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