Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

Today I am one of about 10,000 bloggers participating in Blog Action Day. This year we are focusing on poverty. What do I mean by focusing? I am talking about reconsidering your priorities, if only for a day.

Every time someone talks about poverty, it seems like the word is a signifier for an abstract concept that not many of my readers have experienced first hand. This is the reason I am asking YOU, today, to make a difference. I have no answers to the problem, but I am positive that everyone can do something, even if it seems like it is too little to make a difference. Just think, my little action plus your little action, plus your friend's little action, plus her friend's and family's and you have a movement!

Following is a list of the actions I take, you can use them as inspiration, join, or just help spread the word. You can also visit the Blog Action Day homepage for other ideas.

The ONE campaign. I have been involved since its beginning and I take action whenever I can. I add my voice to the thousands of others out there. Right now, ONE is asking the European Union to support a proposal to give € 1 billion left over from the 2008 budget - lots of it unspent agricultural subsidy money, to African farmers. You can take action here.

Donate to causes you care about. We support The Girl Effect. An organization helping girls living in poverty to get education and with it, a way to raise the standard of living for themselves and their families. Simple, right? Donate here.

We invest our money in ethical funds. You know, your 401K, your 529, etc. I feel much better knowing that our investment is going into funds that balance social responsibility with financial return - showing businesses that social responsibility is profitable. Now more than ever we need to tell the market that ethics are important to us.

We buy local, we support small business, and we buy Fairtrade whenever possible. You might think that this has nothing to do with poverty, but everything is connected. Your actions today, what you use and CONSUME today, have repercussions all over. I am adding a link to the Story of Stuff video, take some time to watch it, with the kids, with your friends, with anyone who is willing to listen.


Thank you for reading, and now, get busy following some of these links!

In case you didn't know...

The nice folks from expat interviews asked me to answer some questions for their site. This is a handy resource for people thinking about moving to another country. Here you can find real answer to practical questions, as well as personal blogs by expats all over the world.

My regular visitors know a lot about me, but if you are curious, you can find more about what I think here.

100th post giveaway and blog action in one!

Here at Suitcase Contents we are celebrating the big ONE O O. Please, come on in, have a glass of wine, eat some "salatine," get comfortable, and let's start the conversation and the gift giving.

As far as the conversation goes, I am going to get a little serious first, but I promise we will carry on with the party. Some of you might remember my post about the problem that is electronic waste. When I wrote about it, I mentioned that I was going to design a button that we could post on our blogs, which will be a reminder and a pledge to safely recycle our own computers. It took me a while to figure it all out, but I did it! This is the image:



Now, if you click on it, it will take you to the information page, where you can learn a lot about the solutions to e-waste, AND get the code for the button.

When thinking of a giveaway for this post I decided that I wanted a computer related gift, as I am celebrating the joy of blogging and its community. Bloggers not only use computers, you know, for blogging, work, and keeping in touch with family and friends, but we LOVE the silly things. We take them everywhere we go, and we personalize them as much as we can. (We love them so much, we won't let them end up in a landfill.)
So, what to give? I definitely think that a Unique Skin will be a fantastic addition to any laptop, don't you? I first saw this product at Design Sponge and I decided I had to make one of my own. OK, what if you do not own a laptop? The creative minds behind Unique Skins have created all kinds of products, from skins for your cell phone to your MP3 player and beyond. These skins (adhesive-backed vinyl pieces pre-cut to fit your electronic device) are as original as you want them to be. If you are the creative type, you can design your OWN skin, upload the image to the site, and truly personalize your gadget! They also have a fantastic library full of images ranging from nature shots, to patterns, to flags and solid colors for those of you who focus your creativity in your writing. These folks are so nice, that they have donated a custom laptop skin, shipped anywhere in the world, to one of my readers.

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post. I will choose one winner from all comments on Friday, June 6, at 8:00 AM (Italian time GMT+2), comments will be open until then.

Before I let you go, I want to share with you one gift that I got recently from the wonderful Nonizamboni at Peacock blue. If you have a moment, take a break and enjoy the wonderful world that Noni creates at her blog, with its eclectic mix of great writing, beautiful images, and random thoughts.

Now it's time for the party favors, and I am more than happy to award the excellence in blogging award to:

The creative Amaretto Girl, a fellow artist, and wonderful spirit. You will be inspired, I promise.

Bethany, excellent writer and fellow expat that brings a smile to my face every time I visit her, while making me think about big and little things.

And my new discovered blog pal Becca and her well written blog, full of insight into everyday life. Worth a visit!

Art, earth and apologies

Apologies first, I went away to Germany on holiday and I did not even leave a note for you! Now I am back and I have a lot to tell, so I will make up for my absence.

My friend and neighbor Debby from Bee in Italy told me about this amazing event in which Earth, mother earth, our earth is going to be honored for an hour. Just an hour? you say. Yes an hour, but what an hour! 60 whole minutes without lights all over the world, at 8:00 PM (your local time) on March 29th. You can read all about it here. See the difference that you can make!

Our trip included a visit to the "Pinakothek der moderne" or the Museum of Modern Art in Munich, I was inspired by a temporary exhibition made by students and teachers, using self-locking plastic strings (you know the ones that look like little belts, and once you engage one end with the other are stuck for ever.) It took 52 people a total of 16,870 hours and 1'292,300 plastic strips. A lot of fun and creativity, enjoy the pictures...

Ultimate Blog Party

The party is on! I am fashionably late for it but I am ready to have fun and meet new people! Our host, 5minutesformom succesfully hosted another blog party a year ago, and almost a thousand bloggers showed up for it. I did not even know what a blog was a year ago!
So if you are blog-hopping and this is your first time visiting, please get confortable and let's get to know each other. Leave a comment and I will visit you too.
I am Beatriz, the note writer, picture taker, journalist of my life and that of my husband Fernando and my son Nicolas.
This blog of mine started as a way to keep in touch with our friends and family when we moved to beautiful Italy from gorgeous California. I am Colombian, and yes Colombia is magnificent and breathtaking. I am a visual artist, and I am always in search of the particular, the original, the inspiring. This blog is not about art, but it feeds my creativity. I write about simple things, our everyday experiences, the learning process of change, the words in our mouths and the thoughts in our minds, not all in the same language. The writing is mostly in English, a few Italian and Spanish words find their way here though.
Please make yourself at home and take some time to look around, I will be serving lots of desserts from La Cucina di Nicola and will have some Colombian coffee to go with it.

Great charity website

freerice

While browsing at other expat blogs, I found this game/charity at Bleeding Espresso. It will be worth your time to play the game at freerice, and you will find that you can have a lot of fun with words. For each word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.It just makes you feel smart and generous at the same time. What can be better than that?