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Removing Stigma One Idli At A Time A small idli shop in south Tamil Nadu, India, is the talk of the town. At daybreak, people crowd around to buy idlis and dosas from two women who are HIV positive. Despite the stigma of HIV/AIDS in their town, the customers are aware of their condition and continue to patronize their shop. With community support, Vijayarani and Sumathy have overcome the devastating news, "look as healthy as any... posted on Feb 08 2011, 2,339 reads
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Generous Vegetable Seller After the morning hustle, a lone lamp shines on a vegetable stall. With head bowed, Chen Shu-Chu is the first to arrive in the market and the last to leave. She earns marginal profits. Yet, her frugality has allowed her to donate NT$10 million (about 350,000 US $) towards various charitable causes, including schools, orphanages and poor children. The generosity of a woman with such a humble income... posted on Feb 07 2011, 2,851 reads
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Children Show They Can Make a Difference Parents want their kids and teens to care about others - whether at school, in their community, or in need a continent away. The good news is that children "are sort of hard-wired" to want to help others, says Michael Ungar, author of "The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids." "They want to take on responsibility." From a second grade environmentalist to a 21-year-old peacemaker, here... posted on Feb 05 2011, 4,757 reads
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Mall Shoppers Get a Surprise Shopping can be exhausting, whether or not it's the holiday season. Enjoying a meal of pizza and Coke in the food court one afternoon, mall shoppers were also served an unsuspecting and generous reminder of life's spontaneous miracles.... posted on Feb 04 2011, 9,886 reads
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Not Without My Daughters Pharmacologist and medical researcher Vimala Seshadri lives with 10 girls between the ages of 4 and 20 who come from underprivileged backgrounds. "We're an all-women household," says Vimala, who has brought up the girls as her own daughters in a small home in India for the past nine years. The girls live with her through the year and visit their parents during holidays. "We go back for a while, bu... posted on Jan 30 2011, 1,464 reads
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Fairness Driven By Culture, Not Genes Human behaviors are often explained as hard-wired evolutionary leftovers of life on the savannah or during the Stone Age. But a study of one very modern behavior, fairness toward total strangers one will never meet again, suggests it evolved recently, and is rooted in culture rather than biology. In a series of behavioral tests given to 2,100 people in societies around the world (from hunter-gathe... posted on Jan 29 2011, 3,251 reads
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The Blanket of Laughter Cure About two years ago, LuAnn Kessi started a group called Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting. The Harlan resident has three aunts who are cancer survivors, and all had been making things to sell to raise money for cancer research. But she felt moved to do more. "You knew that you were doing something good, but we just wanted to help in a more personal way," she said. So she decided... posted on Jan 27 2011, 2,756 reads
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Jogging for a Smile Lots of people jog for exercise. And as long as you're going for a run, why not run an errand for someone who needs the help at the same time? That's the idea behind The Good Gym, an organization that matches runners with elderly and less mobile people in their neighborhood who need groceries, errands, or just some friendly human connection. On top of runner's high, The Good Gym volunteers finish ... posted on Jan 23 2011, 1,684 reads
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The Wisdom of Old Ted "I placed Ted's ashes in the ocean and watched as they made a rainbow before dissolving into the sea." So begins the story of an unlikely friendship between Jimpa, a monk, and Ted, a hobo in his 80s who lives in freedom and dignity in a homeless camp. The friendship started when Ted saw Jimpa and said: "I'm hungry can you feed me?" It was to become a sweet refrain from a dear friend. Jimpa fed Ted... posted on Jan 21 2011, 4,388 reads
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Dance Class Helps Parkinson's Patients An unusual dance class takes place in Kirkland: one taught by professional dancers and offered free of charge for people with Parkinson's disease and their caregivers. It's one of a small but growing number of such classes worldwide. At this dance class, the students walk in slowly, some rigidly or with a bit of a tremor. They take their places, not at a ballet barre or on the dance floor, but sit... posted on Jan 18 2011, 3,007 reads
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