Found this link at Twitter today, a collection of photographs submitted to the New York Times that illustrate the importance of educating girls and empowering women. Accompanying article is here.

One of the photos led me to the website Wiser Girls, which tells the story of a remarkable international partnership which has just opened the first secondary education boarding school for girls in Muhuru Bay, Kenya.

In Muhuru Bay, only 5% of girls finish secondary school. WISER works to provide educational expertise and financial resources so more girls, particularly orphans, can realize their potential as individuals and live with respect and dignity without having to struggle alone.

WISER’s initial project is in Muhuru Bay on Lake Victoria in Nyanza Province. The 2007 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey lists the HIV prevalence rate in Nyanza at 15%, the highest in the country. The National AIDS Control Council as well as local leaders report that the prevalence in Muhuru Bay is at least 38%, most likely due to its location on Lake Victoria. Coastal and fishing communities account for a significant part of the HIV cases in Kenya due to high rates of transactional sex associated with the fishing industry and culture. The majority of these transactional sex events involve adolescent or pre-adolescent girls who are in need of sugar daddies. The girls themselves talk openly about the need to ‘make friends’ with either fishermen or teachers to get by and are often encouraged to do so by their parents in order to receive funds, school books, or supplies. As one secondary school said about studying, “When you ask a girl to light the lamp, she tells you she is tired. If we cannot light the lamp, we just sit. (But) if you become friends, you can do so many things.”

In the last nineteen years, not a single girl who has attended high school in Muhuru Bay has qualified for college entrance exams, while boys meet the requirements every year. Primary school in Kenya is free as of 2003, but most families in Muhuru have trouble paying for secondary school. In the few instances where families can afford it, boys are usually given first priority. At the existing Rabwao Secondary school, only 40 out of 250 spots were filled by girls. Many girls seeking a secondary education are forced to have sex with teachers, fishermen from Lake Victoria and others in the community in order to get the money for school fees. Selesia, a fifteen year old at Rabwao told us, "If I stop having sex with my male teacher he will stop paying my school fees." Beatrice, a sixteen year old, complained, “Boys and men take my private parts as their toys." Because of the enormous risks girls take to get an education in Muhuru, a full generation of women has failed to graduate and go on to university.

Through multiple programs WISER is addressing the egregious social and emotional burdens on girls and women, while also working to involve male stakeholders in valuing gender parity.

This inspirational video about the school's opening, after five years of planning, brought tears to my eyes. I've syndicated feeds for the school's blog, wisergirls at Livejournal and wisergirls_feed at Dreamwidth. You can donate to help send a girl to school here.

I feel like I've been off my stride on the Decrease Worldsuck Project (sorry for those of you who wince at that name, but I'm sticking with it for now). I haven't recorded anything for an embarrassingly long time. Now I've found another woman's project which raised my embarrassment level even higher. I feel like a real slacker in comparison.

Her name is Betty Londergan (@blondergan on Twitter--why on earth doesn't she have more followers??) and she's started a blog called What Gives (which I've syndicated at Livejournal as whatgives365 and at Dreamwidth as whatgives365_feed where she blogs about the project she's doing this year: she's going to give away $100 a day for a year, choosing to promote projects that make the world a better place.

Yesterday, for example, she highlighted a project call Global Cycle Solutions (on Twitter as @GlobalCycleSoln. The concept behind Global Cycle Solutions is to take the 1 billion bicycles in the world and put them to work for something besides pedaling around. Started in Cambridge, Massachusetts by a group of MIT engineers and brainiacs, GCS’s blinding flash of brilliance was to design a universal adaptor that allows bikes to do anything from processing agricultural food to running home appliances to charging batteries. (I found this iniative to be interesting, too, and syndicated their blog as well: globalcycle at Livejournal and globalcyclesolutions_feed at Dreamwidth.

Because Betty Londergan, like me, is apparently doing research to help her find ideas that make the world a better place, she ran across the contest put on by the Unreasonable Institute (follow them on Twitter at @beunreasonable. Global Cycle Solutions is one of the finalists of their contest; Betty is sponsoring ten of the finalists herself. See the video below. Here's something you can do to decrease worldsuck today: take a look at some of the finalists' entries and find one to help sponsor.




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Who doesn't love a good letter? Well, if not good, at least an interesting one. Or moving. Or perhaps even chilling.

Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience: Letters of Note.

Syndicated at lettersofnote and lettersofnote_feed

Here's a Decrease Worldsuck idea I've found this week (through It Starts With Us) that I found intriguing. It was started by a woman named Caitlin, who came up with a mission to end, as she calls it, "Fat Talk."

Caitlin's right. "Fat talk" is epidemic in our culture, and although I've had a pretty good relationship with my body throughout my life, I'm occasionally guilty of this myself. It is certainly something I've worried about, in the context of trying to raise two beautiful daughters that I hope will have positive relationships with their own bodies. And the unrelenting pressure from the media is no help:



Caitlin has now launched a website, which she calls "Operation Beautiful" (syndicated at operationbeautiful_feed and opbeauty) The idea is really a simple one:

One of my biggest personal crusades is ending Fat Talk. If my little blog only does one productive thing, I hope it helps readers realize how truly toxic fat talk is — it hurts you emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I want to reach as many people as possible with my End the Fat Talk message. If you’ve never read my Fat Talk page, check it out here on Healthy Tipping Point.

Recently, I stumbled upon the Gives Me Hope website, and I was inspired to start my own random act of kindness crusade — Operation Beautiful.

Operation Beautiful is simple: all you need is a pen and a piece of paper.

I’ve begun leaving positive messages on the mirrors of public restrooms — at work, at the gym, at the grocery store. I scribble down whatever comes to mind — “You are beautiful!” or “You are amazing just the way you are!”

My goal is to leave as many Operation Beautiful notes as I can. Maybe some people read them and just smile, but I bet some people are truly touched by the effort of a random stranger.

If you want to join the mission, send me an e-mail at seebriderun@gmail.com with a photograph of your Operation Beautiful note or a description of your experience, and I’ll post it on my blog and on this page! And feel free to spread the word on your blog as well!

Here are some of the notes that people have emailed to Caitlin, set to the Operation Beautiful's theme song, "So Beautiful" by the group Superchick:

A blog which reviews wizard rock albums has just been started, Wizard Rock Review. The woman writing it is here on Twitter. Friend wrockreview_feed at Dreamwidth or wrockreview at Livejournal to follow along. It just started at the end of July. Reviewed so far: The Whomping Willows, The Remus Lupins, and now she's starting on Draco and the Malfoys.

haddayr posted a link in passing on her journal to the Powderhorn 365 Project, where photographers in the Powderhorn area post a beautiful photograph every day of people and places in that neighborhood. I've syndicated it as a feed: friend powderhorn365 to have a lovely Minneapolis picture appear on your friends page.

I'm really quite intrigued by this project and considering doing it in my own neighborhood (Standish-Ericsson) next year. I quite enjoyed doing the day in the life photo meme last summer. I emailed my own neighborhood association, and they were interested in the idea, too, and asked if I knew any other photographers in my neighborhood. It looks as though the Powderhorn group has a rotating group of seven photographers (with the occasional guest fill in) so it would mean a commitment of taking one good photograph a week.

Anyone else in Standish Ericsson interested?

Jennifer McCann, who writes the Vegan Lunchbox (veganlunchbox) has started a new blog, This is Why You're Thin. I've set up a syndicated feed for it, whyyourethin.

The goal of this site will be to encourage exercise and the consumption of healthy plant-based foods through fun, intriguing, and beautiful images that will inspire us all. I’m looking for inspiring photos or video links of the things you do for health: pictures of fresh fruits and vegetables ... beautiful bean soups or hearty wholegrain bread ... people running, climbing, swimming, stretching ... smiling kids drinking smoothies and picking strawberries.

Edited to add: The entire reason for the name of the journal is that it is a response to a different journal, This is Why You're Fat.

Edited to add again: How to put this nicely. All right, I won't.

Look. I was just Syndicating. The. Fricking. Feed. And then informing you about it, as a courtesy. I have disabled further comments on this post. If anyone has any further sniffy comments they want to make about what Jennifer McCann chooses to title her new blog, take them up with Jennifer McCann. Not with me. I am definitely not in my Happy Place today and I cannot stomach any further righteous indignation today. And if you have issues with THAT, tough. Come back in forty-eight hours and hopefully by then I will have absorbed enough chocolate and coffee and Ibuprophen for the cramps and Obama will have fixed the economy. You might find a more sweet and tractable Peg then. Until then, BUZZ OFF.

I decided to splurge and actually eat dinner out tonight. I ate at the Birchwood Cafe, always a favorite place, and although the dinner was very modest and healthy (a small cup of turkey/azuki bean chili and a deli serving of broccoli/peanut salad), it was entirely satisfying. Eating out, even a meal that cost under $8, feels like a big deal, given our financial situation. And I had graphic proof tonight that those little day to day decisions I make, along with everyone else, is having a ripple effect.

After finishing dinner, I thought I'd get a dessert, too. I'm trying to really cut back on my intake of refined sugar, but figured I could allow myself a dessert once a week on Fridays, my traditional night out (even though I haven't been going out much lately). The Birchwood has excellent desserts, but by that point the line up for the cashier was very long, and I decided to swing by the Cliquot Club on my way home--it's on the way, and they have good desserts, too.

Or they did. The doors were shut and the lights out. I got out of my car and went to read the notice on the door, which was an announcement by the owners that this neighborhood restaurant/bistro, which opened three years ago, was forced to close for good, due to the economy.

It makes me so sad. So many people, losing their jobs, giving up the hopeful dreams they had when they launched new businesses, now viciously undercut by the tanking economy.

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Add the syndicated feed: whitehouseblog

People may be interested in friending an RSS feed I've set up to Hank Green's blog Ecogeek (Hank being one of the two Vlogging brothers who founded the Nerdfighters) about using technology to solve environmental problems: ecogeek_green