I haven't given up on this blog.. things just got a bit stale for a while and i only want to post stuff that inspires me.

In good news.. the carpets for communities project (http://www.carpetsforcommunities.org) is going really well. 42 Families and 154 kids in school.

I got an award at the AIESEC International Congress last year for the project and we've just run two successful fundraisers to help expand to even more families.

Here's a presentation on Population and Development that i really liked. Perhaps i can combine my work on poverty and passion for sustainability after all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg - Hans Rosling on Population and Development

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip

THE Climate Change animation.. Explains why we are so close to the "tipping point" / point of no return / mass extinction. This one brings it all together...

It explains the different feedback systems and how they interact. Digg it, pass it on.. maybe we can make a difference...

The Carpet Project

www.carpetsforcommunities.org

Something I started working on in 2003 while I was living in Thailand gained momentum and shape in 2004 when first one friend, Jay and then another, Leigh joined in. In 2005 we took on Andrea, an American volunteer looking to help out for three months or so, since then we haven't looked back. Under Andrea as the Project manager from Feb 2005 to Feb 2007 the project has grown to include 17 families (over 50 children back to school) and we now export two types of carpets to Thailand and Australia. We employ 3 full time local staff and have solicited over $100,000 AUD in in-kind and cash support for the project.

This year if all goes to plan we will increase our local staff by 5 people, hire a local Director, set up a local Board of Advisors and register as a local NGO. We will have an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) do marketing for us for 12 months, have an Australian Business Volunteer (ABV) help us plan our growth to be sustainable and smooth for 3-6 months, have an Australian Volunteer for International Development (ViDA) help manage and develop our programs for 18 months. But most importantly we will increase the number of families we work with from 18 to 50 by the end of the year and develop better programs to support them.

Highlights in do-gooding

It's difficult not to fall back on the typical Aussie self mockery when talking about yourself but i'm going to take a solid crack at it and try and keep to the ideal of "unashamed optimism and idealism" that i started out with.

So here are a couple of websites that highlight my recent adventure in Washington D.C thanks to the International Youth Foundation.

Look! Someone quoted something i said:
http://www.iyfnet.org/document.cfm/839

And here's my face on someone elses website: http//:www.mobilize.org

As part of the Award we received from the International Youth Foundation they chose a few of our projects to make a video. We were also interviewed by a reporter from asap and you can see the results from both at the link below.

http://asap.ap.org/data/interactives/_lifestyles/worldchangers/
or
http://asap.ap.org/stories/1085008.s

An award for my project in Cambodia!

In 2003 i started a project in Cambodia (www.carpetsforcommunities.org and http://cambodiaproject.blogspot.com).

A few weeks ago i got an award for doing this. I feel a bit guilty that i'm not the one who has put in most of the work in and that for the last year an a half it ahve been our fantastic project manger (Andrea) who has been running the show, with us (Jay, Leigh and I - the founders) mainly just giving feedback making suggestions and doing some fundraising.

But that aside i'm getting flown to Washington for a weeks training in November!

Check out the websites:

http://www.iyfnet.org/
http://www.youthactionnet.org/
http://www.youthactionnet.org/yan_awards/awardwinner.cfm?awid=94 (project profile)

Award letter upoaded.

Intentions

Here i intend to write with unashamed optimism and idealism. This is were i want to tell the story of my adventures in making the world a better place. It is a journey of discovering potential and how to realise it in myself and anyone and everyone else. Encouraging comments only please.