This post contains a few reflections on Poverty from my own experience (I’ve also posted a more photographic exploration of the topic of poverty here). It has little to do with blogging – please forgive the diversion – but it is an issue close to my heart and one that I’d like to reflect upon.

As I ponder the topic of Poverty my mind is drawn back to numerous times where I’ve been confronted by it.

Thailand 1990

As an 18 year old (half a lifetime ago now) I was fortunate to spend two weeks in Thailand. I was traveling with a small group of young adults from our church to visit a number of aid projects there. We spent the 14 days traveling around Bangkok, visiting Slums, Prisons, Rural Villages, Schools, Aids Hospices and more. We largely observed the work but at times were able to lend a hand where we could. This was the first time in my life that I’d seen poverty first hand – it was confronting, depressing, confusing and yet somehow inspiring.

Thailand 1992

I was so impacted by what I’d seen and experiences that I decided to return two years later to spend 6 weeks living in one of the Bangkok slums that we’d briefly visited on the first trip. This second trip changed my life as I lived in a small community house that at night housed 8 men with Aids and provided child care for 40-50 children during the days. The centre was built of discarded building materials and stood on stilts over raw sewage that was inhabited by snakes, rats and who knows what else.

While there I was confronted by things I’d never have imagined in my previous middle class existence. Children wandering the streets while their parents worked on rubbish dumps scrounging for food and things that they could sell, women forced into prostitution, drug addiction, watching a woman learn that she had Aids, taking a child to visit his drug addicted father in a Thai jail, seeing the impact of a flood on a place built over sewerage….

Yet while there I was also confronted by things I’d not expected to find including JOYFUL people who appreciated and focused more upon what they did have than what they didn’t, HUMOR (I’ve never seen people laugh as much as the night that community tricked me into eating Bulls testicles), GENEROSITY (I was fed like a king in that place and lavished with gifts before leaving), COMMUNITY (these people came together in ways that were inspiring and make the petty fights that we sometimes have as bloggers look embarrassing), HOPE, FAITH, LIFE and much more.

I returned home from that trip and changed the course of my life in many ways. I received much much more in those 6 weeks than I was able to give.

Philippines 2001

A few years later and ironically just before I got married (a day that I probably spent more money on myself than any other) I helped lead another team of young Australians on a short trip to the Philippines – this time to visit an organization called International Needs who operate out of Manilla but who work in rural areas also. We spent time on that trip again observing and working in a number of aid projects.

A number of images continue to haunt me from that trip.

One was spending a day at a city rubbish dump where thousands of families lived and worked on massive piles of rubbish. They built their little shanty homes on rubbish that periodically would collapse and swallow people. Children worked and played in the filth – it was one of the saddest things I’ve seen.

On another day we traveled for 5-6 hours in the back of a van to a small fishing village where a pastor had started a feeding program for the village’s many children. The children were malnourished – their hair had even begun to change color from the lack of nutrition.

The desperation I saw that day was quite heart breaking. We had brought bread to the village that day to give to the pastor to distribute through his program. Unfortunately someone in the back of the van let the bread be seen by one of the children outside – the word got out that we had food and the van quickly became surrounded by a desperate crowd of people hoping to get just a small share of the bread.

Once again – the memories from this trip are a mix of heart breaking ones an those that give me hope.

One such hopeful memory was seeing a project where money was loaned to families to start their own businesses. A family would by a ‘pedicab’ (a three wheel bike with seats on the back, like a rickshaw/bike taxi) with the loaned money and then over time would pay back the loan while also earning a living for their family. Once the loan was repaid the family would have an ongoing income source and the money would be loaned to another family with the process continuing. This micro-business is all about breaking the cycle of poverty. I actually did a 24 hour blogathon to raise money to be able to seed some of these loans back in 2004.

Today

Today as I ponder the topic of Poverty a lot of these memories continue to cycle through my mind (in fact they do so on almost a daily basis – even years later).

My constant reminder to myself is to not just let these experiences be ‘memories’ have or ‘stories’ that I tell – but to let them be motivation to live a life that makes a difference.

I’m not in the business of sharing how V (my wife) and I ‘give’ to projects like some that I’ve mentioned above but one way that I think many of us making money online can make a difference is by being generous with our earnings. Just this week V and I have been able to find a way to reconnect again with the feeding program in the Fishing Village that I mentioned above and we’re looking at ways that we can use some of what we’ve been given to share into that community. I don’t share this to big note myself – I could give a lot more than I do and am feeling somewhat challenged to do so today – but wanted to mention it in the hope that others might be challenged to examine how they might make a difference also.

Blogging is built on principles of sharing, generosity, creativity and community – my hope is that we continue to explore how it might be used as a medium to not only benefit ourselves (something it does) but those less fortunate than ourselves.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Reflections on Poverty – Blog Action Day 2008

I’m excited to announce today that World Vision Australia and more specifically their blog Learn About Poverty (a blog that they have specifically set up for Blog Action Day which contains some fantastic resources for all bloggers wanting to participate in that very worthwhile project) are offering one Australian ProBlogger reader the chance to travel to Sydney on 29th October for an amazing day of Digital Training. This prize is quite amazing and I’m actually quite disappointed I can’t win it myself!

Please don’t just read the prize details – also read the rules to put yourself in the running to win!

The Prize

The prize includes multiple parts of a day of digital training on 29th October.

1. Flights to and from Sydney from your nearest capital city (you need to get to the airport yourself), accomodation overnight and transport on the day are all provided for you. I’m sure they’ll probably buy you lunch somewhere along the way too :-)

2. 4 ‘classes’ of digital training. The classes are:

Class 1 (10:30am-11:30am) Microsoft Surface

Spend an hour with the only Microsoft surface machine and experts in Australia.

Class 2 (11:45-1pm) Digital Strategy & Creative

Learn about the trends and attitudes that drive the one of the premier digital agencies in Asia Pacific: Amnesia.

Class 3 (2pm-3pm) Yahoo!7 SEO Training

Tutorial with Yahoo! 7′s SEO and SEM expert.

Class 4 (3:30pm-5pm) Google Australia

Finish off the day at Google’s Sydney office. Dialogue session with the digital experts at Google Australia.

3. It’s important to note here that World Vision has been able to provide this incredible prize through the generosity of the organisations providing the associated prizes. They have not needed to spend a dollar, and these organisations should be congratulated for their involvement.

The Rules

To put yourself in the running to win you need to do the following:

• Be in Australia and be willing to get yourself to a capital city (or major airport).
• Leave a comment below in this post that helps about how World Vision Australia can develop a better blogging and social media strategy. I’ve included some more information from World Vision below to help you with this.
• The winner will be chosen by World Vision based upon your comments. So make them as helpful as possible and make sure you look over what they’re already doing and what their goals are (see below).
• Entries need to be received by 5pm Melbourne time on Thursday 16th October. The winner will be announced in the days that follow.
• Please confirm that you live in Australia in your comment.
• Please use the word ‘poverty’ in your comment – this will help us make sure comments don’t get filtered into our spam filter

Information About World Vision Australia and Learn About Poverty to help you in your entry

The blog Learn About Poverty has been specifically set up for Blog Action Day (happening later this month). It is one of World Vision’s first blogging efforts and is being developed to give bloggers video and other types of resources to help them with their posting on Blog Action Day.

Here is some information provided by World Vision Australia that might help you in giving them the most helpful advice in your comment:

Goals as an organisation: We’re really trying to help ignite a social movement. Poverty is such a massive issue, that no one product or campaign will solve it, so our focus is very much becoming how we can help create/participate in the momentum already happening in society. This is a key for us moving forwards.

General direction of online: We’re moving towards a place where we can better tell our stories with anyone out there. We have a huge number of latent stories and information that circles around World Vision – literally, we walk past people in our office how are changing the world. We’re trying to come up with how we, as a large organisation, can begin to show people more of the amazing stuff we do. I’d be keen to hear how your readers think we might be able to do this and still remain authentic at the same time.

What kind of ideas: We would love ideas on how World Vision could implement more blogging and social media activities. Blogging for us could be tricky, as in some cases we can’t talk openly about our work for fear of putting governments where some of our staff and stakeholders work off-side, bringing about obvious safety issues. This has been especially tough with Learn About Poverty. But we realise we need to be much more connected with the public, in order to better communicate the urgency of the issue of global poverty. We’re really keen to hear from the probloggers our there how we could tailor a social media/blog strategy to help ignite a social movement that acknowledges this.

There you have it – please let me know if you have questions and good luck to my fellow Aussies!

update: This competition is now closed. I’ll post the winner once the team at Learn About Poverty shoot me a note with who they have selected. Thanks for everyone who entered!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Win an Ultimate Digital Training Day Prize [AUSTRALIAN RESIDENTS ONLY]

I hope you’ll consider joining me in this year’s Blog Action Day – The topic This year is Poverty.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Join me in Blog Action Day – 15 October 2008