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Waiting on the World to Change
Stop talking; start doing
By Lia Manning
The trick is finding creative ways to budget our time and charities that create change while incurring less financial burden.
With the November election approaching, every news station and paper is giving us all the bad news we can stomach. The stock market is plummeting, education is terrible, costs are up and profits are down, jobs are disappearing and there is no end in sight. What will we, as the American people, do about it? Wait. Just wait.
We’re supposed to wait around to see if our next President can clean up the mess and cure what ails us, but what does waiting do for anyone? Why not do something to make this world a little bit better right now?
How many of us actively engage in activities that better our world on a regular basis? I know we have plenty of excuses. And until recently I also used them to escape any responsibility. Like most of you, I am in college and also in the workforce. I am incredibly busy and also strapped for cash. I value my time away from school and work and try to use it having fun. Also, the spare money I have goes toward amusing pursuits, such as purchasing Rock Band (though in retrospect it was an investment in developing my drummer alter-ego) or seeing a movie.
Now I’m not trying to say that valuing your free time or using your spare cash for fun is wrong. Neither pursuit is bad in theory. What is wrong is ignoring our ability to create change with what we have. The trick is finding creative ways to budget our time and charities that create change while incurring less financial burden.
We’ll start with what we can do around our own campus. It can start small with something that costs you nothing and takes a relatively slight amount of time. It is the first blood drive of the fall semester, and it’s happening in the Union Ballroom this Wednesday Oct. 8 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. It may cause a bit of discomfort, but not only do you get juice and cookies, you also potentially save a life. The blood you donate directly helps someone in need. Is there anything easier than that?
For some of you going under the needle may not be an option, so I offer alternative opportunities that involve no physical pain.
For the price of two ham-and-cheese melts at the Terrace Café you can save a life. That’s right folks, for only $10 you can save a man, woman or child in Africa. At www.nothingbutnets.net you can buy an African citizen a mosquito net which helps to prevent malaria, the number one killer of children in Africa. It’s such a simple concept: mosquitoes and other insects carry malaria, and nets prevent the insects from reaching those they would infect. It doesn’t get much simpler.
Oh wait, it actually does. For the price of just one of those ham-and-cheese melts you can purchase a chicken for a starving family. For just $5, Hope Without Borders (www.hwb-usa.org) will donate a chicken to 27-year old Elijah, who currently cares for 38 children orphaned by AIDS. Elijah and the children all live in Kenya. It was a local woman, 23-year old Jennifer Parve, who brought this desperate need for help to my attention. And while you are perusing the Hope Without Borders Web site, please click on the link to the LifeStraw, a device which costs only $15, or six Fiesta Burritos at Taco Bell, and provides clean water to a family of five for an entire year. Such a simple device is a breakthrough in the prevention of many waterborne diseases which affect nearly half of the world’s poor and kill 6,000 people a day.
Last but certainly not least, please check out www.Kiva.org, which assists struggling entrepreneurs in underdeveloped countries start their own companies. All it takes is a donation of $25 (less than five ultimate double Whoppers at Burger King) which gets paid back as the business you are sponsoring succeeds.
Why not help? It takes minutes to saves lives and livelihoods this way. Just skip fast food for one week and save a life, just once. You’ve made a difference already.
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