Day 14: Medical Care for Street Children in India

Today is my last day on my blog, and I decided to write about street children in India. There is an organization that provides medical care for Indian street children. This organization is called the Charities Advisory Trust. This British charity organization says that, "dedicated to finding practical methods of redesign inequalities and injustice, our method is to unleash a charity's entrepreneurial impulses and curb its excesses." The actual charity isn't really as important as the work they are doing.

In India, there are high levels of poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and a growing HIV/AIDS problem, just to name a few things. These detriments of the high Indian population have contributed to India's 18 million street children. According to the Child Health Site, "Among children with no safety net, no fixed address, and no money, infections, broken bones, and other simple, easily corrected health problems go unprevented and untreated." Basically, these street children face much more difficulty than they are currently facing when something bad happens to their health and/or well-being.

Luckily, your $10 donation to the Charities Advisory Trust through the Child Health Site will cover a child's medical coverage for a year. Please consider donating.

Personally, I am not very familiar with the cost of health care, but I'm positive that I have it, and if I didn't, and something happened to me, I would be in bad shape and it would be a serious financial hardship for my family to pay for my expenses, if we had to have something done to me. It is really important that these children can at least receive basic medical care. '

To donate, please click here. You will be taken to the donation site.

This is the last day that I'm writing an entry for my blog, and I would like to thank you personally for reading. It means a lot to me that you care enough to see what's going on in the world, and hopefully, I've inspired you to try to donate or spread awareness for these causes. I don't think that this project should be viewed as looking at the bad things in the world; I think that you should view this as a global community facing adversity together. Thank you for reading.

Day 13: Clean Water for Children

Today, while I was looking through GreaterGood.org, I came across a link to The Child Health Site that surrounded clean water for children around the world.

There is an organization called A Child's Right, that gives clean water to children everywhere. The mission statement claims that, "Our mission is simple: To change the lives of vulnerable children in impoverished urban areas by providing clean, safe drinking water to orphanages, schools, children’s hospitals, street shelters and rescue homes." According to the website of A Child's Right, 266,453 children are drinking safe water thanks to ACR's donors.

The Child Health Site claims that every day, 4,000 children die due to diseases caused by drinking filthy water. Fortunately, A Child's Right is giving hope to children everywhere. Your $35 donation to The Child Health Site to children in Cambodia, China, Nepal, Ethiopia, or where most needed (A Child's Right decides), gives water to 8-10 children in Cambodia, 2-4 Ethiopian children, 5 children in China, or 10 children in Nepal. Please consider donating.

Personally, I knew that children aren't given the proper amount of water in the world, from watching a UNICEF "Trick-or-Treat for Halloween" video every October. However, the fact that 4,000 children die every day, just because of the lack of clean water, is baffling. How many avoidable deaths occur in a day? What about in a week? I could imagine that the amount of people that die in a year that could have been saved is much higher than what I originally thought possible. One year, the Darfur TASC Force donated water to a camp in Darfur, so I am familiar with the difficult task of receiving clean water in certain areas.

To be taken to the donation site, please click here. I found the ACR official website rather interesting, so please, if possible, take a quick look. Thank you for reading!

Day 12: Lights for Students in Rural Africa

Today, I am continuing my theme of literacy. There is an organization, called Lights for Life International, that provides the opportunity for children in Rwanda to learn and prosper through reading.

The mission statement of Lights for Life states that, "Lights for Life (LFL) International is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing rechargeable lights to school-aged children in impoverished areas allowing them to read and study after dark."

When darkness falls in a place similar to Rwanda, the darkness is just about complete. the light sources are sometimes limited to fires, or kerosene lamps, which burn expensive fuel. These current lighting sources cause severe respiratory illness; the World Bank estimates that breathing kerosene fumes is the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes each day. For the students of the camps in Rwanda, the national exam is the only way out of poverty, so it's important that these kids are given as much time as they need to study, and without light, a student's chances of doing well are extremely limited.

LFL gives small, clean, rechargeable lights to students in the camps. Each LED provides 37 hours of light after just 20 minutes of charging. Up to 5 lights can be recharged at the same time with a pedal generator.

Personally, I don't think that this small problem should be able to hold a student back form being able to succeed in life; if a student has enough ambition to dare to get out of one of these camps, I think that child at least deserves a somewhat fair chance. I don't think I've actually ever thought about how nice it is that I can turn on my bedside lamp whenever I want to. Maybe that shows how sheltered I am, or maybe that shows how bad the kids in Rwanda have it. It's probably part of both, but I doubt you've ever been grateful for having a light at night, either. It actually seems very simple; if a student wants to learn, every effort possible should be made towards helping that student succeed, especially when the student is facing as much difficult as he/she already is.

To donate, please visit this page on the Literacy Site. Thanks for reading!

Day 11: Give Books to US Children in Need

Today, I was reading Catching Fire, the second installment of the very popular Hunger Games series. While I was reading, I realized just how much I enjoy reading my book. I realized that reading is a gift, and that's why I decided to do today's cause about books.

There is an organization called First Book. According to their website, "First Book provides access to new books for children in need. To date, First Book has distributed more than 85 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout the United States and Canada. First Book is transforming the lives of children in need and elevating the quality of education by making new, high-quality books available on an ongoing basis." It's pretty amazing that the hard workers from First Book have done so much to help children acquire a desire/habit of reading. A $10 donation to the Literacy Site gives 10 books to children in need. It seems like a small price to pay for something that could potentially get a future President of the United States on their way to success.

According to First Book, "While children from middle-class U.S. families have engaged in an average of 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one reading time, children from low-income families have been exposed to an average of only 25 hours.And while in middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children." For more statistics surrounding reading in low income families, you can visit First Book's Impact.

Personally, I know the value of books; they can change someone's day, as well as someone's view on life. If I hadn't been motivated by reading Catching Fire, I wouldn't have written about the topic of reading in the United States. I think I finally learned the worth of books, and the value of the simplicity a good book can bring to your life.

To donate, please click here. Thanks for reading!

Day 10: Teach a Woman in Darfur to Read & Write

Today, I found a charity that helps Darfurian women learn to read and write. On the Darfur Peace and Development Organization's website, the charity states, "Darfur Peace & Development is a non-profit, non-sectarian organization with headquarters in Washington, DC and offices in Khartoum and El Fasher Sudan. DPDO works to foster reconciliation, to facilitate just governance and to enable Darfurians to rebuild their homeland in effective, sustainable ways. DPDO also promotes awareness of the crisis in the United States."

The site associated with the DPDO, the Literacy Site, which I found through GreaterGood.org, offers a $30 donation to pay for the tools that a woman needs for a 6-month literacy training program, including textbooks, school supplies, and a literacy teacher. According to the Literacy Site, Women and children comprise approximately 80% of the displaced population encamped throughout Darfur and Eastern Chad. They have suffered loss of homes, livelihoods and possessions. As a matter of survival for themselves and their children, economic recovery is a primary concern of the displaced women. Farming has been their traditional livelihood, but they currently have no access to their lands. They have lost husbands and brothers who were income earners. Now they must support their surviving children and, in many cases, parents. Few opportunities to earn income exist in the camps." It is extremely difficult for a woman that can read and write find a job or source of a living in Darfur, and it's nearly impossible to find a job while being illiterate.

For three years now, I've been involved in helping the people of Darfur through the Darfur TASC Force, a section of The Agents of Social Change, or TASC, an organization run by 6th, 7th and 8th graders in my school. Last year, I was a "co-clerk" or co-leader of the Darfur TASC Force, and this year, I am a co-clerk of TASC in it's entirety. It's a lot of recess that I have to spend inside, but I enjoy it, and it's an honor to be able to help serve the Darfur Human Rights Organization, and Darfurians in general. It would mean a lot if you donated or if you supported one of our upcoming events.

To donate, please click here. It's a relatively small donation that completely changes a life. Thanks for reading!

Day 9: Protect Children from Malaria in Rwanda

Today, as I was looking through the "Children's Health and Well-Being" section of GreaterGood.org, I came across an organization that helps prevent children form being infected with malaria in Rwanda.

Partners in Health, the organization that helps the children in Rwanda, states that, "At its root, our mission is both medical and moral. It is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone. When a person in Peru, or Siberia, or rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at our disposal to make them well—from pressuring drug manufacturers, to lobbying policy makers, to providing medical care and social services.Whatever it takes. Just as we would do if a member of our own family—or we ourselves—were ill." Clearly, PIH is there to help for these people.

Malaria, a disease carried by mosquitoes, kills more than one million people a year, mostly African children. The Child Health Site, the donation organization, says that, "Insecticide-treated bednets are a proven, cost-effective way of saving lives, yet in Rwanda, one of the poorest nations in Africa, they are far beyond the reach of the overwhelming number of families, who struggle simply to survive in the face of malnutrition, AIDS, a shattered economy, and the legacy of civil war and genocide." It is not very expensive to purchase a bednet, and it saves a child from an almost inevitable disease without one. A $40 donation provides enough anti-malarial bednets to protect ten needy Rwandan families from malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

During the course of this blog project, I've seen a lot of major problems in this world that could be stopped easily with a donation. It's not like this is global warming, a much more difficult problem, due to the usage of gasoline from cars around the world; this is a disease that can be easily avoided with a cheap net. It almost seems ridiculous that these people haven't been taken care of, since malaria is so easily avoidable. This disease almost only attacks people that are poor, because for the rich, this is a somewhat easy disease to avoid, with the rich having homes to sleep in and roofs above their heads. I've learned that a poverty-ridden life, like one in Rwanda, is really tough, in more ways than most people realize. I don't think I've ever worried about getting malaria. I definitely have never had a problem finding clean water to drink. The only problems I've ever had going to school regard getting up earlier to go on the bus. I hadn't ever thought about all of the difficulties in life that I don't have to deal with.

To donate, please visit this website. Thank you for reading.

Day 8: Send a Girl to School in Africa

Today, I found an organization that helps African girls receive proper educations. The Campaign for Female Education fights poverty and AIDS in rural communities in Africa by educating girls and empowering women to become leaders of change.

According to Camfed, "when you educate a girl in Africa, everything changes. She'll be three times less likely to get HIV/AIDS, earn 25 percent more income and have a smaller, healthier family." Everyone knows that in almost all instances, it's better if you have an education, and this information from Camfed shows that an education is even more important for girls in Africa. According to the Hunger Site, "poverty forces many girls in Sub-Saharan Africa to drop out of school before they gain the knowledge and skills they need to improve their future life options. This problem is greatest in rural areas. The girls and their parents know the importance of education, but cannot afford the costs of school uniforms, tuition fees, and school supplies." Clearly, these girls are yearning for an education, to make their lives better, but obviously, it's not as easy as just working hard; it has a lot to do with being more fortunate than others.

Personally, I used to think that an education was a right, and even though I still believe this, I know that an education is impossible to receive for many children around the world. Hearing about how much these children want to be educated makes me feel sorry for complaining about any schoolwork that I'm assigned at all; these girls would do absolutely anything to go to school, and they would work hard and do well in their studies, but for them, it isn't that simple.

Please consider donating. $10 provides one girl with a year's supply of notebooks, pens and pencils, to support her learning and build towards a better life. $25 outfits one girl with sturdy shoes for school, protecting her feet for the long walk to and from school, giving her the opportunity to learn and build a better life. $40 outfits one girl with school clothes, also serving to invigorate the local economy as many of the uniforms Camfed buys are made by local women's cooperatives. $75 provides a three-month scholarship, giving one girl everything she needs--from uniform to school to supplies to athletic and exam fees--to attend school for three months. $150 provides a six-month scholarship. To donate, please click here.

Think about it: is an education really a privilege?