David

The global program will focus on supporting the 25 million people worldwide living with cancer, dispelling the misconceptions surrounding the disease, and urging world leaders to make cancer a greater priority.

Eight million people will die because of cancer this year. Deaths due to cancer outnumber those caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation, founded in 1997, has raised more than $260 million to fight cancer and supports projects for cancer prevention, access to cancer screening and care, cancer research, and quality of life for cancer survivors.

Millions of people worldwide are victims not only of cancer, but of social stigma and misinformation. Many are isolated from friends and family. Because of shame or fear they often refuse early detection services or treatment. About a third of cancers could be cured if detected early and treated.

LAF will work with world leaders and other international partners for cancer advocacy, research and data collection. The LAF will kick off this effort at the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Summit in Paris at the end of the 2009 Tour de France.

Additional information on donating, signing the World Cancer Declaration, and other details of the Foundation’s work can be found on their website.

Dr. David Breunning, after serving in Asia, Europe, India and Africa on Christian missions, decided to use his missionary connections across Africa as a means of delivering aid to children through ICF.

Countries served include Africa include Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Cameroon, Senegal and Zimbabwe.

Efforts are focused on protecting African children from starvation, disease and victimization.

ICF ships ocean containers of supplies and equipment that are donated from American individuals and businesses, or purchased with donated funds.

Specific types of items shipped include shoes, printing presses, medical supplies, medical equipment, clothing, computer equipment, building materials, school books and many other needed items. One interesting item is an inventory of 10,000 empty pill bottles. In the equatorial countries of Africa, the disposable pill bottle is the only effective means of keeping lifesaving medications from quickly losing their potency in tropical heat.

More information on ICF’s activities, including donation opportunities, can be found on their website.

More than 2 billion people live without electricity. PLP allows these people to create and own energy harvesting bags, blankets and clothing, using local materials and traditional weaving and sewing techniques in an open source model.

Some of the many benefits include:

* Families without electricity can have lighting at night to read, provide medical care, and do simple tasks that others with electricity take for granted.

* Incomes can be sustained by local businesses sewing and marketing these items.

* Lighting is based on ‘clean’ solar nano-technology.

A luminous PLP Reading Mat integrates high brightness solid state lighting and flexible photovoltaic solar cell technology that can produce up to 12 volts of DC electrical power and 160 lumens of light in 5 hours of charge time. By day, the Reading Mat gathers electrical energy from the sun. At night, the Reading Mat can provide about 4 hours of white, digital light.

Cell phones and other small electrical devices can be powered by the textiles. Linked units of textiles can also work together to provide greater power for larger community tasks.

PLP have been working in the Mexican Sierra Madre since 2005.

Other projects are underway in Nicaragua, and for the Brazilian and Venezuelan Amazonias, and South Africa.

More information on donation opportunities, product and program details can be found on their website.

TWP, founded in 1998, believes that natural resources are best protected when local people play an active role in their care and management, and preserving local trees, wetlands and watersheds is essential to the world’s social, economic and environmental health.

In Central America, more than 80% of the people cook their meals over open fires. This fire and smoke causes problems with deforestation, releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, burn risks, and medical problems such as respiratory infections and eye diseases.

TWP has helped develop several types of fuel-efficient stoves that use up to 70% less wood than traditional open fire stoves. TWP and local partners have built more than 20,000 fuel-efficient stoves in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The stoves are also being supplied to Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Haiti.

The stoves can be manufactured locally. TWP stoves include a chimney that vents toxic smoke to the outside of the home.

In Guatemala, a typical fuel-efficient stove from TWP gives an average family a cost savings of $10.50/month. With 70% of Guatemalans earning less than $2 per day, the savings is very important to the average family.

TWP has created community reforestation projects in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Since 1998, TWP has helped grow and plant almost 1,500,000 trees in Central America. The programs help local people protect their water supplies, replant degraded forests, increase their incomes and learn agroforestry techniques to preserve their soil.

Local entrepreners are also trained to operate sustainable tree nurseries.

Additional information on donation or volunteer opportunities and other program details can be found on their website.

RISE was founded in 2001 under the leadership of the Cole family. Don and Naomi Cole served as missionaries in Angola for 18 years. RISE’s vision is to “work together to rebuild lives and communities, reflecting Jesus’ charge to love others as we love ourselves.”

Angola has been ravaged by 27 years of civil war. Two thirds of the people have no access to drinking water. The average life expectancy is 41 years. Rural schools have virtually disappeared, with an entire generation growing up unable to read or write. In April, 2002, the fighting ended, refugees have returned home, and there is a great opportunity to rebuild local communities.

RISE provides designs and plans for building schools, uses local leadership teams to oversee the construction, funds the cost of construction materials, enhances teacher training and provides school supplies.

The Ministry of Education of Angola provides textbooks, desks, maintenance, administration and funds teacher salaries.

The local churches and communities supply the land, volunteer labor, and secure the permits for construction and operation of the schools.

Teams of RISE volunteers travel to Angolan school sites to conduct workshops, training programs and classes. Adult education and community meetings are also held at the schools.

Additional information on donating, participating, and other program details can be found on their website.

RAN has helped to protect millions of acres of forests in Canada, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile and other countries.

Protecting habitat for plants and animals, reducing global warming, protecting human rights of those living in or near ecosystems, energy conservation and green energy, and sustainable businesses using green practices are focus issues for RAN.

Specific campaigns target:
* America’s oil addiction.
* Reducing America’s reliance on coal.
* Global finance campaign to challenge large banks to stop funding the world’s most destructive industries and start funding renewable energy.
* Companies and industries that engage in outdated, destructive logging.
* Challenging industrial agriculture that threatens tropical rainforests.

The growing demand for biofuels has caused many businesses to establish soy and palm oil operations in tropical forests around the world. Palm oil plantations alone are expanding at a rate of 2.5 million acres per year in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. Soy production has become a major contributor to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

RAN shares information and works with environmental and human rights groups in 60 countries.

Marketing campaigns are conducted to align the policies of multinational businesses with widespread public support for environmental protection. “We believe that logging ancient forests for copy paper or destroying an endangered ecosystem for a week’s worth of oil is not just destructive, but outdated and unnecessary.”

RAN has helped convince corporations such as Home Depot, Citigroup, Boise Cascade, and Goldman Sachs to change their practices, and has congratulated those that have taken positive steps in preserving the rain forests.

RAN convened the first international rainforest conference that was attended by activists from 35 organizations. Additional international conferences have helped unite the growing worldwide rainforest movement.

Additional information on donating, learning about the issues, or participating in programs can be found on their website.

Since 1979, thirteen HTC chapters across the USA have provided services to over 146,000 patients in countries such as Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Croatia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and many other countries, including many countries in South America and Caribbean.

HTC also helps American children who have no access to medical care.

One of the programs of HTC involves bringing children who need specialized medical care to the USA for the services of volunteer doctors and medical professionals. HTC arranges for medical screenings, immigration documentation, transportation, host family support, donated medical care, and return of the child to his or her native country.

Volunteer medical and surgical professionals also travel overseas on HTC medical trips, which typically last 8 to 10 days. Patients are treated in their home country or screened for treatment in the USA, and local health professionals cooperate and learn from the American volunteers. Other volunteers assist with unpacking, preparing equipment, providing transportation, organizing patients, documenting the activities and other services.

Medical specialties include plastic and maxillofacial surgery, dental services, ear, nose and throat services, ophthalmologic, neurosurgical, urological, general surgical and orthopedic services.

More information on volunteering, donating, joining a chapter, and other program details can be found on their website.

Too much … according to the Happy Planet Index study measuring how effectively the world’s finite resources are being consumed in comparison to their happiness in 178 countries around the world. The study was conducted by London-based New Economics Foundation.

How effectively do countries convert their environmental resources into happiness? The basic formula computes life satisfaction (happiness) and life expectancy (how many years you live) and divides this total figure by the ecological footprint. The answer is your Happy Planet Index.

No country scored near the top in all 3 categories - happiness, life expectancy and ecological footprint.

On a scale of 0 to 100, the highest score was 68.2 by the Pacific island of Vanuatu. Vanuatu’s lowest factor was a moderate level of life expectancy at 69 years.

The lowest score was Zimbabwe in Africa with 16.6

The USA ranked 150 out of 178, and the countries most similar to the USA were Moldova, Burkina Faso, Lithuania, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

The USA ranked very high in life expectancy and happiness, but was among the highest in the world in terms of consumption of environmental resources, or ecological footprint. The United Arab Emirates was the only country that ranked statistically higher than the USA in the ecological footprint category (Kuwait and Qatar matched the USA).

Germany and the USA were very similar in life expectancy and life satisfaction, but Germany’s ecological footprint was about half of the USA. So Germany was ranked 81, compared to the USA at 150. You might conclude Germany was twice as efficient with natural resources in generating the same amount of happiness.

Island nations generally scored well all over the world … perhaps being more aware of their environmental limits. The top 5 ratings in Africa were all island nations. Malta was the highest rated in the Western world.

You can also compute your own Happy Planet Index on their website.

Below are some of the ratings for the 178 countries in the survey (ranking from best to worst).

1. Vanuatu 68.2
2. Colombia 67.2
3. Costa Rica 66.0
4. Dominica 64.5
5. Panama 63.5
6. Cuba 61.9

31. China 56.0
38. Mexico 54.4

62. India 48.7
66. Italy 48.3
67. Iran 47.2

81. Germany 43.8
89. Saudi Arabia 42.7
95. Japan 41.7

108. United Kingdom 40.3
111. Canada 39.8
129. France 36.4
139. Australia 34.1

147. Moldova 31.1
148. Burkina Faso 30.1
149. Lithuania 29.3
150. U.S.A. 28.8
151. Cote d’Ivoire 28.8
152. Rwanda 28.3
153. Sierra Leone 28.2

172. Russian Federation 22.8
173. Estonia 22.7
174. Ukraine 22.2
175. Democratic Republic of the Congo 20.7
176. Burundi 19.0
177. Swaziland 18.4
178. Zimbabwe 16.6

The New Economics Foundation, which conducts this survey, makes recommendations on each component of the Happy Planet

Index and promotes solutions to governments, individuals, organizations, businesses and academia around the world.

A segment of the article revealing their findings are shown below:

Contrary to the common assumption that Muslims view globalization as a threat to their society, a new poll of Muslim countries finds that globalization is generally viewed positively.  The poll was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org in six nations with predominantly Muslim populations in different regions of the world including Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Indonesia, and the Palestinian Territories, plus the Muslim population of Nigeria.

Asked about “globalization, especially the increasing connections of our economy with others around the world,” majorities in six of the seven nations polled say that it is “mostly good” for their country.  Approval is highest among Egyptians and Nigerian Muslims (79% and 78% saying mostly good, respectively).   Sixty-three percent of Azerbaijanis, 61 percent of both Iranians and Indonesians, and 58 percent of Palestinians see globalization as mostly good.  While support in Turkey does not reach a
majority, a plurality still calls globalization mostly good (39% to 28%).

On average across all seven publics, 63 percent say that globalization is good for their own countries.  Only 25 percent think it is mostly bad.

The poll of 5,216 respondents was conducted January 12 - February 23, 2008 by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative research project involving research centers from around the world and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. Not all questions were asked in every country. Margins of error range from +/- 3.2 to 4.1
percent.

The poll finds that most respondents also view international trade as good for their countries and themselves.  At the same time, many are concerned about trade’s effects on workers and the environment.

However most express interest in addressing these effects, not through protectionism but through an international, cooperative effort integrating labor and environmental standards into agreements on international trade.

Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org comments, “These findings run counter to the widespread assumption that people in the Muslim world are anxious and hostile about the prospect of integration into the global economy.”