The dream is reality my friend

Keep dreaming that it can't be reality if you wish, but there are at least 30,000 neighborhoods globally where this pattern of sustainable development is starting to take shape.

It's a shame that so many in the world cannot fathom a dream to ever be real....

As I have said in threads in the past here, by 2021, there will not be a person on earth who is not aware, or is actually part of, this pattern of sustainable community advancement

Kam

I would give every American a large dose on tolerance.

Sorry Laurie, John and Balducci but you Canadians already have plenty of tolerance.

And the rest of the world if you have any left.

Matt Damon is the spokesperson for an organization trying to do that very thing. Info here: thewaterproject.org


For $5,000 you can underwrite a well in a 3rd world country. Make your $50,000 check out to The Water Project or to Matt, I'm sure he'll pass it on.

I remember one of the most eventful days of my life was attending the funeral of a friend whom I hadn't known for very long. His name was Ian and his path touched the lives of so many that he inspired me and still does to this day.

We met when I saw an ad in the newspaper asking gardeners if they'd like to donate plants for an upcoming fundraiser for the SPCA. I brought in some from my garden and when dropping them off I was asked if I could help with the sale on the weekend. I agreed and that's where I met Ian. Ian was an older gentleman who had a very caring nature and he invited the six of us "gardeners to his home the following Sunday for "tea". We were seated in his beautiful yard and desert served on his best china. So started the weekly ritual until I was informed that Ian had terminal cancer. I was devestated and some of my most memorable conversations came from Ian as we often worked in his garden and he spoke candidly of his impending death of his living will.

I attended his funeral which was held in a Jewish High school. He wasn't Jewish, but he had taught at the school until his retirement several years before. The hallways leading to the Gym were lite up by hundreds of candles.

I looked around and saw members of the Aboriginal Community (he wasn't Aboriginal), I saw people from the business community dressed in suits and ties, I saw others dressed as he had, in what I referred to as his probably past hippie days, I saw a numerous young men and woman who I found out were his past students some who were still attending school and others who had graduated many years before. There were members from a Human Rights Coalition - I found out he had won several awards for his Humanitarism, and there were many members of the gay community and this was when it still wasn't as politically correct as it is today.

Each group took turns telling the others of Ian's merits and his life's work. I only knew my friend as a fellow gardener! I had no idea of his depth, but it didn't suprise me. I often think back on that event and hope that at the end of my days I can even come close to what he achieved. They were his friends no doubt, but that he touched so many and made a difference and achieved this in his lifetime was something to emulate. I only hope to come close to a fraction of what he was able to do. I wish I had more time to know him but he's left an impact on me forever.

Beautiful quote Pakar!

If I had one wish, I would wish for everybody a wish,

and then they could wish for three more wishes.

Tom

Thanks Chrystal.

Thanks. I will check that out.

Magnus,

Clean water and the building of wells.

That is one of the gifts that would probably have more impact on the world, resulting from the trickle down effect if a well was built in a village.

Just yesterday, I listened to a speaker connected with Save the Children and listened to the stats given. Examples of how women and children in some villages in Uganda have to walk 3 hours each way to collect water for their families. Access to clean water would not only have an impact on their health and safety but free up time for the children to go to school, resulting in all the villagers benefiting from clean water.

The biggest problem is aid agencies......no aid agency has succeeded ever, according to this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM

....and I tend to agree with him. What is required is sustainable accompaniment to enhance capacity for indigenous populations to take ownership for their own socio-economic development, based on their own superior knowledge on what is and what is not required in their village, then will progress occur....

I've heard stories of villages developing disharmony because aid agencies waltz in, thinking they know it all, build a water well, and go home thinking they've done their good deed for the day, only to later realise that the entire social structure of the village is built on the women having that "3 hour walk"

Food for thought......

Kam

Call me ethnocentric, but there's just got to be a viable social structure that doesn't revolve around having to walk three hours to get water.

Yes there is Lobo, but its not for me to go out there and tell them what it is.

Sure, I can go there and create a space for the community to come together and I can facilitate the constructive consultation for this solution to be found, but the solution lies entirely in the hands of the indigenous residents, not me.

I can even go there and be the source for the diffusion of knowledge ("hey guys, this is whats out there"), but again, what they do with this knowledge is completely in their hands. This creates sustainability and ownership for development.

Its the only sustainable way, and I can vouch, personally that it works, whether you are doing development work in so called "developed" countries or the so-called "third world" countries

Kam

That depends.

Could I do it without getting caught?

I would make a strong effort to no longer fart in public places.

At our age who can trust a fart?

I'd like people to find better ways of coping with the seed reasons for their avarice.

I'd like people to see that other people's Children have the same hopes as their own.

I'd like people to feel free to be their highest self (which can be scary).

I like the idea of fruit trees in general.

I'd ask people to do less chemical treatments to maintain yards. A few weeds and bugs (especially pollinators) are good for the world.

I'd hope that people see that our bio-sphere is our Mother and family.

-Mary Mowder

The first step to improving the world is realizing that it's not really a hypothetical question.

Now we're talking!