Personal

On May 14th, the UN sought to remind peo­ple that the Con­go remains world’s dead­liest cat­a­stro­phe. The prob­lem is, who in the world even knows that 1,200 peo­ple are dying there every day, or that three months ago the Unit­ed Nations launched an appeal for $682 mil­lion to pro­vide the need­ed water, food, med­ical assis­tance, shel­ter and pro­tec­tion? Yes, we’re all dis­tract­ed. Yes, there are oth­er crises to tend to in Africa and else­where around the world. But let’s face it, there are coun­tries in the world who can, and should, step up. The peo­ple of the Con­go have suf­fered long enough.

Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah was born in Ghana with­out the tib­ia in his right leg, leav­ing it deformed and use­less. His father aban­doned him. His moth­er was told to kill him. That is just what it means to be dis­abled in Ghana.

For­tu­nate­ly, his moth­er was strong, and raised Yeboah to have high expec­ta­tions for him­self, even if nobody else did. In 2002, at the age of 25, he rode a donat­ed bicy­cle 360 miles across Ghana – with one leg – and showed his entire coun­try that the dis­abled could be very able indeed. His sto­ry became a movie that con­tin­ues to inspire.

When I heard Emmanuel’s sto­ry, I too was inspired by his incred­i­ble tri­umph. I was enraged by the plight of the dis­abled in Ghana. But even more, I won­dered what caus­es all those dis­abil­i­ties in the first place? Could they be pre­vent­ed, and if so, what effects would that have on Ghana­ian society?

The March of Dimes Glob­al Report on Birth Defects might offer some answers, and will hope­ful­ly spark some pos­i­tive change. Accord­ing to a March of Dimes press release about the report:

“…it is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that atten­tion to birth defects will draw fund­ing from oth­er pri­or­i­ty pub­lic health efforts — when, in fact, increased efforts to reduce birth defects in chil­dren con­tributes to the health of the entire population.

Expe­ri­ence from high-income coun­tries shows that over­all mor­tal­i­ty and dis­abil­i­ty from birth defects could be reduced by up to 70 per­cent if the rec­om­men­da­tions in this report were broad­ly implemented…

Among the inter­ven­tions that would have imme­di­ate impact are:

1. folic acid sup­ple­men­ta­tion to pre­vent neur­al tube defects; 
2. iod­i­na­tion of salt to pre­vent severe con­gen­i­tal hypothy­roidism; and 
3. rubel­la immu­niza­tion to pre­vent con­gen­i­tal rubel­la syndrome.”

I think it’s a great place to start. If you agree, go to http://www.marchofdimes.com/howtohelp/howtohelp.asp.

If you ever find your­self search­ing for inspi­ra­tion about the fea­si­bil­i­ty of attempt­ing to change the world, then you must read Moun­tains Beyond Moun­tains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tra­cy Kid­der. It is about the efforts of Dr. Farmer to bring health care to the poor­est of the poor, most­ly in Haiti, through his orga­ni­za­tion Part­ners in Health. While he focus­es on the needs of his indi­vid­ual patients, Dr. Farmer has achieved and con­tin­ues to work for true glob­al change. Tra­cy Kid­der shows that Dr. Farmer is an extra­or­di­nary human being, but is nonethe­less extra­or­di­nar­i­ly human.

I first learned about the Rid­ers for Health orga­ni­za­tion on PBS’ Rx for Sur­vival tele­vi­sion series. The con­cept is sim­ple: give motor­cy­cles to Africa’s health work­ers and train them to ride and repair them them­selves. With this trans­porta­tion, they can effec­tive­ly dis­trib­ute aid and admin­is­ter basic health care to remote vil­lages. The impact is noth­ing short of revolutionary. 

Time mag­a­zine’s Chris­tine Gor­man blogs about the lat­est inter­na­tion­al health news on the TIME.com Glob­al Health Blog (and yes, it has an RSS feed).

What does one of the world’s most famous rock stars know about pover­ty? Plen­ty. Bono not only makes great music, he is mak­ing big changes in the world as well. In 2002, Bono found­ed DATA, Debt AIDS Trade Africa. He now influ­ences pop­u­lar cul­ture AND the world’s most pow­er­ful lead­ers. In recog­ni­tion of his achieve­ments, TIME mag­a­zine named him one of 2005’s Per­sons of the Year.

Over the past few years, I’ve been doing an increas­ing amount of research about social entre­peneurs, non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and local and glob­al chal­lenges. Because I believe it’s my respon­si­bil­i­ty and priv­i­lege to share the knowl­edge that I col­lect, I’m launch­ing a new blog for my find­ings and thoughts on how we can change the world for the bet­ter. You can find it at http://changemaking.blogspot.com.

There’s not much there yet, but please stay tuned for more.
[2008–10-29: Note–the Change Mak­ing blog now lives in this cat­e­go­ry here at lauriethompson.com.]

The book that start­ed all of this for me was How to Change the World: Social Entre­pre­neurs and the Pow­er of New Ideas by David Born­stein. He pro­files peo­ple who have made a change in their world, focus­ing on nine indi­vid­u­als who were select­ed for fel­low­ships by an orga­ni­za­tion called Ashoka. Ashoka’s mis­sion is “to shape a cit­i­zen sec­tor that is entre­pre­neur­ial, pro­duc­tive and glob­al­ly inte­grat­ed, and to devel­op the pro­fes­sion of social entre­pre­neur­ship around the world.”

I found each of the indi­vid­u­al’s sto­ries to be an inspi­ra­tion. The things that they accom­plished were indeed extra­or­di­nary, yet the peo­ple them­selves did not seem to be that much dif­fer­ent from any­one else that I know. What made them stand out was their con­vic­tion, deter­mi­na­tion, and per­se­ver­ance. Maybe we don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need to be smarter, rich­er, or bet­ter con­nect­ed to make a dif­fer­ence. Maybe we just need to try.

Over the past few years, I’ve been increas­ing­ly drawn to social entre­peneur­ship and the pow­er to change the world that has been demon­strat­ed by indi­vid­u­als. With the rise of tech­nol­o­gy, glob­al­iza­tion, and wealth, the pow­er to cre­ate pos­i­tive change in the world is ever-increas­ing. Still, there are seri­ous glob­al chal­lenges that human­i­ty must face. This blog will high­light indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions who are solv­ing prob­lems, not just treat­ing them, in new and inter­est­ing ways. It is my hope to inform and inspire oth­ers to rise to the chal­lenge and cre­ate an upward spi­ral of change mak­ing through­out the world.

Unite for Chil­dren, Unite against AIDS is a glob­al Cam­paign to alert the world to the fact that chil­dren are miss­ing from the glob­al AIDS agen­da. It pro­vides a plat­form for urgent and sus­tained pro­grams, advo­ca­cy and fundrais­ing to lim­it the impact of HIV/AIDS on chil­dren and help halt the spread of the dis­ease. Pol­i­cy­mak­ers and the glob­al pub­lic must become aware that AIDS not only affect adults, but is hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing affect on chil­dren through­out the world. Please find out more at http://www.unicef.org/uniteforchildren/index.html.