Peg Kerr's Journal

What I did this year to decrease worldsuck:

( January )

( February )

( March )

( April )

( May )

( June )

( July )

New loan, to Miriam Andia of Bolivia, to buy feed for her cows. My ninth loan.

Please don't forget jemyl who still needs to sell jewelry to keep her head above water. Specifically, she needs to sell enough jewelry before February 6 to keep her site domain registration. Anyone need to check off some decrease worldsuck today?

It's great that we gave her some orders and some hope earlier. But the need doesn't go away.

Can any of you cross-post?

What I did this year to decrease worldsuck:

( January )

( February )

( March )

( April )

( May )

( June )

( July )

( August )

( September )

( October )

( November )

( December )

I love the HP Alliance. Have I mentioned that I love the HP Alliance?

You may remember the post I did last month about their Deathly Hallows Campaign. The Horcrux last month was the Starvation Horcrux, and the campaign was a push to get Warner Brothers to use Fair Trade chocolate in all of their products.

Now they have announced the next Horcrux, and this campaign is near and dear to my heart:

All of us know the "dementor horcrux" first hand: that awful voice within that tells us that we suck. Mean and predictable, this "dementor horcrux" will always try to convince us that we’re horrible for the way we look, think, feel, act, etc. Like Harry, who was sensitive to dementor attacks, many of us may feel debilitated by the dementor-like experiences of anxiety, depression, low body image, and lots of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that knock us off balance.

Though the Dementor tries to make us feel alone so that we’ll stay within its grip, the reality is that we are surrounded by people going through similar challenges to us as well as those who have gone through dark and difficult times, feelings, and experiences. Together we can go beyond the Muggle Mindset and tap into the magic of our power and creativity. And so the HPA is working together as a community to cast Patronuses. Each of us was with Harry and members of Dumbledore’s Army when they cast a glowing corporeal Patronus of such light, such beauty, and such fierce power that it sent the dementors running, and each of us has the same breathtaking power within.

How to Participate
In partnership with Reachout.com, we’re asking you to create individual Patronuses in the form of writing, photos, drawings, paintings, videos, songs- basically any piece of art that expresses an element of your Patronus. You can submit you Patronus through the submissions page on our tumblr or by emailing it to us at deathlyhallows@thehpalliance.org Check out Tumblr every day for more updates.

We want as many Patronuses created as possible. Once they are all made, we’ll be taking many of them to create a collective Patronus that we will send as a message of our community’s hope and inner-power to a group who needs that message (the specific group is to be determined).

Please make sure to follow our ground rules and also PLEASE keep in mind that:

- No one here is a substitute for a professional mental health counselor.
- Internal emotional/mental change normally happens slowly. A month long campaign is here to lay positive seeds but is by no means a solution for everything.
- The Internet is a public space and please respect yourself and remember that.
- This is a sensitive issue for most of us and we ask that people are positive and supportive as we focus less on the Dementors that bother us and more on the Patronuses.
- Please read more here

Thank you all and Expecto Patronum!

I have submitted my own patronus, which I created a couple years ago as part of my soul collage deck. I will also send them an email about my Decrease Worldsuck project.

Expecto Patronum - Council Suit

Expecto Patronum - Council Suit am the One created from the magic that springs from the happiest memory, who shines in the darkness and protects against that which would destroy the soul. I am a shining silver shield of hope against encroaching darkness, despair and evil, and I can communicate with the souls of others. My form is beautiful, a reflection of the true self within. I am the embodiment of Light in dark places.

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

This post caught my eye on my friends list on Livejournal this week. jemyl has been on my friends list for years although she doesn't post very often. Ellen is a very kind, generous and warm-hearted woman in her late 60s living in Hawthorne, Florida, who describes herself as follows:

I am a grandmother and became both a widow and an orphan in December of 2005 with the deaths of my mother on the sixth and my husband, Bill, on the thirtieth. I am a diabetic as were they. I have 2 natural and 4 acquired children, all grown with 10 grandchildren. I am a bit of a geek, enjoy reading, websurfing, writing poetry and reading mystery novels. I like crosswords and puzzles, cats and dogs too. We live in the country in northeastern Florida near the University of Florida. That makes me a gator fan. My husband was bed and wheelchair bound for the last five years of his life so I am not used to being out much. I also like to crochet and do counted cross stitch when my arthritis and eyes permit.

Right now, Ellen is going through an extraordinarily difficult time, and her family is not able to give her much support or help. She is in poor health, presently struggling with an eye injury and sinus infection and she is recovering from back surgery. Her financial situation has become truly dire, and she is facing the possibility of homelessness. I was so impressed by her faithful and loving work as a caretaker when she nursed her husband and her mother through their last illnesses, but now she has no one to help take care of her.

She has done her best for herself, but her most recent post alarmed me. She says that she doesn't believe in suicide, but she feels abandoned and lonely. All she has to keep her going, she says, are her three kitties, and she will lose them if she loses her home. Her post ended:

"I give up. It feels like no one cares and I just can't do it all all by myself any more. Please, God, send me a miracle or take me home. Amen."

I felt very badly when I realized that her post had been up for two days but not a single person had responded. Ellen has been trying to sell some handmade jewelry online but has not gotten many takers. She mentions her paypal account; you will find her paypal email address as a comment to the post. Can you stop by and leave her an encouraging note, maybe even buy some jewelry from her and/or leave a donation? Is there anyone on my friends list near Hawthorne, Florida who can give Ellen some practical help (like cutting the lawn, or whatever other help she needs), or do you know of someone? Can you suggest any other resources for Ellen?

How about doing this, right here, right now, as your contribution to fighting worldsuck? Please do what you can do, whether an encouraging message, money or practical help to help my friend feel less alone in the world and despairing. I would appreciate your boosting the signal on this, too. Thank you.

( What I did today to help make the world a better place )

Boosting signal in response to a request from one of my readers:

The United Nations has designated the first Monday in October as annual World Habitat Day.

On Oct. 4, 2010, in recognition of World Habitat Day, Habitat for Humanity will raise awareness of the need for improved shelter and highlight Habitat’s priorities: the worldwide connection between human health and housing, and, in the United States, neighborhood revitalization. These themes echo the United Nations’ chosen theme for 2010 for events in the host city of Shanghai, China and the rest of the world: “Better City, Better Life.”

Every week, more than a million people are born in, or move to, cities in the developing world. As a result, the urban population of developing countries will double from 2 billion to 4 billion in the next 30 years.

By the year 2030, an additional 3 billion people, about 40 percent of the world’s population, will need access to housing. This translates into a demand for 96,150 new affordable units every day and 4,000 every hour. (UN-HABITAT: 2005)

Habitat for Humanity hopes that by raising awareness and advocating for universal decent housing we can dismantle and alter the systems that allow for poverty housing and make an affordable, decent place to live a reality for all.

Habitat for Humanity World Habitat Day events

Around the world, many Habitat for Humanity local offices have organized World Habitat Day events. Habitat for Humanity’s 27th annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project is a World Habitat Day event this year. It will be held Oct. 4 – 8 in six cities in the United States. Held in a different location each year, Habitat’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project is an annual, internationally-recognized week of building that brings attention to the need for simple, decent and affordable housing. This year, the Carters will work alongside volunteers in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore and Annapolis, Md.; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.; and Birmingham, Ala. to build, rehabilitate and improve 86 homes.

* To see a list of other Habitat World Habitat Day events, click here.
* To view online resources available for download, click here.
* To join Habitat's World Habitat Day Photo Wall, click here.

To learn more, click here.

I've worked on Habitat for Humanity sites. It's a good cause. Please spread the word. Thanks.

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

A long time reader of my journal, cloudscudding, let me know about this, and so I'm sending the word out to you:

"The Circus of Brass and Bone" is a crowdfunded steampunk serial story that follows a circus traveling through the collapse of civilization. Read online or download the podcast to get your apocalypse fix!





All donations go to pay for my mother's cancer treatment and related costs. She was recently diagnosed with stage 3c ovarian and endometrial cancer, which is very serious but treatable--though the odds are not in her favor. She was working at a school in India at the time of diagnosis, so she doesn't have health insurance. My parents came back to the U.S. for treatment, so they've both given up their jobs. And they've spent much of their lives working to help others--working with farmers in Africa and teaching in India--so they don't really have anything in the way of a savings cushion. The situation is pretty dire.

I love the imagination here in taking a terrible situation and using it as an opportunity to make something creative. I know there are some steampunk fans on my friends list. And I hope there are even more Decrease Worldsuck people on it, too. So how about checking it out, making a donation and spreading the word...and drop an encouraging word to cloudscudding while you're at it. Thanks.

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

Astounding.

Katie Spotz, like me, wants to raise money to give people clean water to drink. So what did she do to bring attention to the cause?

She rowed ALONE across the Atlantic Ocean, the first woman and the youngest person to do so.

$75,000 raised so far. Awesome.



See her interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper here.

MyCharityWater Campaign Report:

$5,000 CAMPAIGN GOAL
$1001 RAISED SO FAR
50 people served
28 donations
62 days left

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

I like reading the blog and following the Twitter feed for Afrigadget (The Twitter feed is @Afrigadget). It has great stories of scrappy people using their ingenuity to make their lives better. Today's story was about a woman named Jane who dreamed of being a surgeon, but she was too poor. But using a sewing machine she obtained through microcredit lending, she's managed to provide a decent life for herself and her children. Read Jane's story here.

It made me think about checking my Kiva portfolio to see whether I had enough money accumulated to make another loan. Sure enough, with just a few dollars added, I could make another loan. So, in honor of Jane from Nairobi, I made a loan to another woman, Elizabeth James, this time in Nigeria, who has a business selling fruits and vegetables in her local market.

What have you done today to make the world a better place?

Thanks so much to those of you who responded to my appeal and donated to my MyCharityWater campaign yesterday! I've reached 10% of my goal. I'm running a little behind, though, as we're 16% through the length of the fundraising campaign.

MyCharityWater Campaign Report:

$5,000 CAMPAIGN GOAL
$560 RAISED SO FAR
28 people served
17 donations
78 days left

( What I did today to make the world a better place )