Stand Up and Speak Out

On May 13, 2007, the UN World Food Program had a world walk to help end child hunger. Their goal is to end world hunger by 2015. You can find their website at http://www.fighthunger.org

On October 16-17, there is a walk or Stand Up and Speak Out event in Second Life (SL). One of the posters at the event in Second Life says: "Why Stand Up And Speak Out? In 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals, a global commitment to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Yet, every day, 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between rich and poor is getting wider. We need you to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT to make governments honour their commitments on more and better aid, debt relief, trade justice, gender equality and public accountability. It will not happen without all of us taking a stand." You can visit their website at http://www.standagainstpoverty.org (The picture above is a snapshot of me as Polgara Paine at the Stand Up and Speak Out event.)
Now you may be asking what Second Life is. It's a virtual world where people have a physical presence (an avatar) and interact with the environment and with other people. It's much like the real world (RL) in that there are both good and bad. Having money there is nice, but it's not absolutely necessary because there are so many free things. You can get free food and drink even though you don't need food or drink. There is so little you need in SL, but you can meet people from all over the world—people like you and people not like you—which makes SL a very interesting place.

In SL you can also find many nonprofit groups such as FightHunger.Org and you can join the ones that interest you. This is an important one because it addresses a serious accessibility issue—the access to food. I know there are hundreds of important causes, but access to food is a basic human right. Why is it we don't do more to help assure that people have the food they need—not just enough to survive, but enough to thrive. I've joined FightHunger in SL and made a contribution in SL that can be converted into real money in RL. I encourage you to either join me in SL and make a contribution or make a contribution in Real Life.

Your contribution doesn't have to be hundreds of dollars. Just contribute the amount you would spend on a cup of designer coffee or a glass of wine or a beer or a pack of cigarettes. Deprive yourself of one thing you don't really need to survive to help someone who could put that money to good use buying food for someone who does not have the food needed to survive.

Would you let your own child or that of a neighbor starve while you enjoyed a glass of wine or a cigarette? I pray your answer was no. These children are our neighbors whether they live in the next apartment or they are half way around the world. Stand up and be counted.

What If...

What if for just one day everyone in the world saw everything from someone else's point of view? What if people at war saw the world from the perspective of someone they considered an enemy? What if someone with plenty of food saw the world through the eyes of a child who was starving? What if someone who was planning to be a suicide bomber saw from the perspective of a mother who was grieving from the loss of a son killed by a suicide bomber or from the perspective of someone who had a traumatic brain injury caused by that same suicide bomber? What if some people who could see lost their sight and someone without sight gained it? What if someone who was confined to a wheelchair could walk and someone who took walking for granted was confined to a wheelchair? What if someone who was an exceptional reader suddenly couldn't make sense of the printed word and someone who struggled with reading suddenly read with ease? What if a student who was great at math suddenly couldn't add a column of figures and someone who struggled with math suddenly understood how to add multiple columns of figures with ease? What if the people with the money and the power saw the world from the eyes of the people who were poor and powerless?

What if for just one day everyone walked in someone else's pair of shoes whether they wanted to or not?

What would the world be like the next day?