LOANS THAT CHANGE LIVES!

Do you REALLY want to help put an end to third world poverty?
Why not help someone start up a business to ensure future financial stability.
There is a new website doing exactly this. For a little as $25 you can help fund a business loan in some of the most impoverished countries in the world. check them out at http://www.kiva.org/about/press/

What better way to help someone than this?

World Vision 10,000 sponsors appeal

4819 Sponsors so far!!
This is FABULOUS.
Why not join in and sponsor now, your heart will thank you for it!

Change the life of a childThe best way to change a child's life is to change the world in which they live.
By sponsoring a child, you will help to bring about long-term benefits to the child, their family and community for just $43 per month. Your support will help to fund vital development work in the child's community, such as digging wells, improving sanitation and building health clinics.
This work ensures that the community will be able to provide the children with the basics they need, which helps them to grow up in a healthy environment and have the chance for a better future.
In addition to helping your sponsored child and community directly, a small proportion (up to 3%) of your sponsorship payment will be used to address the underlying reasons for poverty. This may include public influence in Australia, engaging with governments on foreign aid, trade and other development issues as well as activities aimed at protecting children in developing countries from exploitation.

Do something TODAY!

What have you done lately to show the world you care?

Why not take action TODAY!
Write an email, sign a petition?? there are so many ways to help make a noise and join millions of other seeking social justice.
Below are just a few ways you can help NOW.

Take action now
» Tell Starbucks "fair is fair"
» Help create the world’s longest banner
» Write to Minister for Foreign Affairs
» Prove consumers care
» Buy Fairtrade coffee
» Make Poverty History - sign the petition
Sign a petition
» NikeWatch
» Make Poverty History
» Send us your sportswear receipts
Write a letter
» Write to the ALP
» Write to Minister for Foreign Affairs
» to the Prime Minister : poverty
» to Nike : factory wages
» to Minister Downer : AIDS, TB & Malaria
Become active locally
» Send an e-Card
» Raise awareness in your community
» Start a local Fairtrade group

National Close the Gap day

The national day of action – Tuesday 18 September 2007 – will give Australians across the nation the opportunity to come together and show their support for closing the 17-year life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians.
We are asking you to organise a small-scale fun event in your workplace, school, home, church or community group – maybe over a cup of tea or coffee.
Wear black and white clothes
Wear a Close the Gap wristband
Screen the 5 minute Close the Gap DVD that we’ll provide you (either as a DVD or via the web)
Get your gathering to symbolically come together in a circle to pledge their support to Close the Gap
Send a postcard or e-card to your local politician and your friends. You can make your own e-card online to send with a photo of your gathering
Take a photo of your event and place it on the online map of Australia and see what other events are taking place around the country
Make a blog entry
Spell out Close the Gap in an imaginative way
Do anything else that could show your concern and be fun
Register today
Register now and we’ll be in contact with information and your DVD.
Order Close the Gap campaign materials.
Other events
We will also be organising events in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane – we’ll keep you informed about these. If you’d like to organise an event for the national day of action get in contact your state community campaigner.

Northern Territory social crisis

Revelations that there are deep social problems in many of our Indigenous communities are not new. Indigenous leaders have been warning for the past decade that a social crisis would emerge if federal, state and territory governments failed to provide Indigenous Australians with the opportunities and basic services other Australians take for granted: policing, primary health care, education, housing and real employment opportunities. We are now reaping what we have sown through the failure of successive governments to address the root causes of this crisis.
Now that this issue is finally on the national political agenda, immediate action is required to protect communities – and children in particular – while also addressing the underlying factors contributing to the cycle of abuse.
The Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory (CAO) has come up with such a plan and we are asking the federal and Northern Territory governments to adopt this plan as a matter of urgency.

Actions you can take
This issue is more important than party politics. We need a bi-partisan and long term approach to this issue:
Write to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs expressing your support for the CAO plan and asking the Government to work with Aboriginal communities and organisations in the Northern Territory to implement this plan.
Write to the Opposition leader and Shadow spokesperson expressing your support for the CAO plan and asking the Government to work with Aboriginal communities and organisations in the Northern Territory to implement this plan.

SAD SUDAN

The sad state of Sudan..

United Nations figures estimate that 200,000 people have been killed and two million people have been driven into temporary camps as a result of the ongoing conflict between armed groups in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. The conflict is now entering into its fourth year and has been described by the United Nations as the worlds worst humanitarian disaster.

Conditions in Sudan’s Darfur region have deteriorated despite a peace deal that was signed in May 2006 and a recent upsurge in violence has restricted humanitarian aid reaching suffering populations. Hundreds of thousands have been left without help. Nearly four million people in Darfur currently depend on international aid for food, shelter and medical treatment.

There are many organisations currently working in Sudan to relieve the crisis such as World Vision.
You can help.
For ways to give aid click here.

Worldwide Appeal

Mark Wilkerson has been imprisoned solely for his conscientious objection to participating in war.

Mark Wilkerson was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment for refusing to go on a second tour of duty in Iraq in 2005, by a US court martial in February. He was also discharged from the army for bad conduct for going absent without leave (AWOL). AI considers Mark Wilkerson to be a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for his conscientious objection to participating in the war in Iraq.

When Mark Wilkerson was in Iraq from March 2003 to March 2004, he refused to return fire on a man who was shooting at him, because, he says, “there were so many people around him; I did not want to kill innocents.”

Returning to the USA in March 2004, he immediately applied for conscientious objector status. While this was being processed, he learned that his unit would be returning to Iraq in January 2005. In November 2004, his application was refused on the grounds that he did not present clear and convincing evidence that he was opposed to all wars. US army regulations stipulate that applicants for conscientious objector status must be opposed to war in any form.

He was told that an appeal could not be re-considered until his return from a second tour of duty in Iraq, more than a year later. At this point he decided he had no option but to go AWOL. He finally turned himself in to the military authorities in August 2006.

To help!!
Send appeals to:
The Honorable Peter Geren,
Acting Secretary of the Army
102 Army Pentagon
Room 3E588
Washington DC 20310-0102
USA
Fax: +1 703 697 0720
Salutation: Dear Secretary

Somalis denied refuge

Thousands of Somali asylum-seekers and refugees have been left stranded by Kenya's decision to close the border with its war-torn neighbour. The decision has put asylum-seekers and refugees at risk of grave human rights violations.

Kenya closed its border with Somalia on 3 January 2007, citing "security concerns" in the wake of the resurgence of Somalia's armed conflict. On the same day, at least 420 Somalis, who had already crossed into Kenya and were waiting at the transit centre in Liboi, were forcibly returned to Somalia by Kenyan authorities.

Since then, thousands more Somali asylum-seekers have been unable to cross the border into Kenya and exercise their right to seek refuge from the violence that has soared since June 2006.
For the estimated 2,000 asylum-seekers who have managed to cross the border, there are additional risks and hardship along the way. Hiking through the bush exposes families to the threat of killings, rape and torture by armed groups. Those who make it to the Kenyan refugee camps in Dadaab live in fear of being sent back, if it is discovered they arrived after the border closure.

Among those trying to escape Somalia on the day of the closure was Khadija, a 24-year-old mother of four.

She told Amnesty International: "We were driven back to Somalia and dropped in the middle of nowhere. Some of us decided to come back to Kenya illegally, through the bush."

When her group encountered a low-flying helicopter, thought to be Kenyan security forces: "There was confusion and panic and everyone started running to hide. I lost all my children and have not been able to trace any of them," said Khadija, who also lost contact with her husband since he went in search of their children.

The right to seek international protection in another country is enshrined in international law. Kenya's refusal to allow Somalis through its border is a violation of its international obligations, including a breach of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention to which Kenya is a state party. The Kenyan government must re-open the border immediately and ensure that all individuals seeking refuge in the country have access to proper and effective protection.

Arms transfers to Sudan fuel serious human rights violations

Arms, ammunition and related equipment are still being transferred to Darfur in the west of Sudan for military operations. Extremely serious violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law are being committed by the Sudanese government, the government-backed Janjawid militias and armed opposition groups in these operations.

In a report published today, Amnesty International (AI) describes the arming process and its effects on the people of Darfur and neighbouring eastern Chad, many of whom have been forcibly displaced. It describes violations of the United Nations arms embargo on Darfur by parties to the conflict that occurred during January to March 2007.

Amongst other things, it shows how the Government of Sudan violates the UN arms embargo and disguises some of its military logistics operations in Darfur. It details what types of arms supplied to Sudan from China and Russia -- two Permanent Members of the Security Council -- have been used by the government of Sudan for violations of the Security Council’s own mandatory arms embargo.

Read the full report

The stupid life!

Ok a winge!
Do you feel stupid?
Do you watch the western world and wonder why?

I do....

I wonder are we any better off?
I mean of course we are but our families are now second to our jobs, second to the new house or car, second to what people think of us.

I am constantly aware of this and do not allow this to be so but how many people do you know who are a slave to work? a slave to the next big thing?

How many of us need the next new gadget or complain we are broke yet couldn't possible turn off pay tv?
We'd rather go to work for an extra hour to pay for the right to watch ridiculous Americanised tv shows which numb our brain and help us feel worthless.

Thrid world countries have NOTHING! yet they have the most amazing familie connections, their relationships are strong and they would do anything to help one another.

Surely we can take a leaf out of their book and slow down. Stop the chase for the all mighty dollar and reevaluate what is really important.
Why is that we need to get a disease to find out what it is we really care about?

I'd love for people to put family first, to stop the constant drive of consumerism and to enjoy the small things in life.

Learn to live in the moment and see the blessings around you.

Millenium Development Goals

?? What are they ??

In 2000 the member states of the United Nations set themselves the target of signifigantly reducincing world poverty by the year 2015.

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality by two thirds for children under five
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

These goals are unlikely to be met if governments do not uphold their end of the deal.
Governments MUST renew there resolve to meet the Millenium Development Goals by the year 2015 by tackling the global farming crisis and instituting fairer trade rules, along with more and better aid and debt relief.

Sugar Crisis

Sugar beet growers and refiners in the European Union receive subsidies totalling about $13 billion a year. As a result, far more sugar is produced in Europe than could ever be consumed there. The rest, over 5 million tonnes a year, is dumped onto international markets at below the cost of production. At the same time the European Union restricts the entry of sugar from other more efficient countries into its market (as does the United States).
Read More

MY NEW FRIENDS

I have actually written this post three times now as blogger was not posting properly.
Luckily i am passionate about the topic :-)

My new African friends are all settled in now and thriving. One family has been reunited with their Mother, Wife, Sister and Daughter. Can you imagine the emotions, being reunited after 10yrs of not only not seeing your wife or children but not even hearing of them, having no news as to wether they are dead or alive. Fantastic result anyway they are all ok and now safely here in Australia.

I'm happy to report the people in my community have been fantastic in welcoming the Africans and have gone out of their way to help. Aside from one nasty, narrow minded resident who wrote to the paper "an Australian should have been chosen to sing our national anthem at Australia day"
Yes this is true; i wish i could get my hands on him! Aside from that it has been a positive time for the new families.

I am still as mad as hell about the negative comment above which is what has inspired this post. What better person to have been singing OUR national anthem in such an amazing country, surrounded by old and new family and friends than a New Australian. Yes i say new as they are no longer refugees but Permanent Australian residents just like you and i with the same rights and more responsibility. These people are all in school, work or studying, gaining their licenses and looking to a very bright future in Australia. Yes they are African and yet Aussies too. Didn't we all originally come from some place else?
I for one could not have been prouder to hear such an inspiring, warm, loving Aussie sing to the world our national anthem and sing it with pride!

Having been through the worst kind of turmoil they are still open, happy, caring, faithful, caring people and i am so glad to have them here.

SMILE It's Xmas!

This xmas why not treat your loved ones to something special that touches families in need?
World Vision has a Smiles catalogue where you can buy gifts for families in need and send a gift card to your loved one telling them of your gift on their behalf.

This is a wonderful way to help and still spoil those you love.
Smiles is a fantastic way to get the kids involved and a fun way to inspire your family and friends to help.
From a $24 immunisation to $37 clean drinking water in Kenya there are many choises. For the truly generous why not buy clean water for a whole community $1,409 or a more achievable $89 eye surgery.
From Goats, Pig and seeds to cows, books, and first aid kits they have it all covered.

Spend more today on your loved one and help another in need.

Quick Actions

Ok by now you should all have The Hunger Site as your home page. If not why not? Every single day you could be doing something to help thousands of people by giving free food, what better way to help. It takes seconds, is free and painless. Do it now!

Now as you all know i am extremely passionate about Fair Trade.
I think it is ridiculous in this day and age the rich still rob from the poor. The multinational companies still make millions off the small farmers who sell their products at undermarket rates due to nessecity for survival.
Don't let it go on a day longer TAKE ACTION!

To learn more about fair trade coffee follow this link

Sign the petition here

Put a white band on your website.

These are just a few ways in which to help. All equally important and all only taking seconds to do. For more information check out any of these sites further or follow the links on the right. Get involved and help make poverty history!
We on the internet have the chance to do many quick actions that add up to thousands of people taking action on many topics, directed at the top level where it counts.

Do something today you can be proud of forever!