LifeStraw® Personal from Vestergaard Frandsen has been nominated by Time magazine as the best invention and by Forbes as one of the ten things that will change the way we live.
Half of the world’s poor suffer from waterborne disease, and nearly 6,000 people – mainly children – die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water. LifeStraw® Personal is a portable water purifier that can be carried around for easy access to safe and clean drinking water. It’s been around since 2005. It’s a lifesaver. Literally. I’m not sure which impoverished areas of this world are fortunate enough to benefit from LifeStraw® Personal, however there are opportunities to donate LifeStraw® Personal through several organizations. Here they are:
Donate through IMA
Your donation will supply LifeStraw® to help stem the spread of Cholera in eastern DRCongo
Donate through Rotary Club of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
(For US dollar donations)
Donate through Rotary Club of Menorca, Spain
(for International currency contribution)
I welcome all positive comments and suggestions of what peaceful actions we can to turn things around. Anything from everyone flying a Tibetan flag outside his or her home to putting a “Free Tibet” message at the bottom of every till slip your company dispenses, or on every letterhead, sending postcards around the world, putting the right message on a T-shirt, whatever. Let’s share in this and make a difference.
It’s a very simple value yet it is pivotal to the healthy continuation of any relationship, whether it is between two people, different races and/or religions, different species, or how we treat the planet itself. In fact, as a concept, I think it is more necessary than love or, at least, it’s the starting point of love. We don’t have to love everyone we meet but we can respect them, respect their differences, their opinions, their beliefs. If we respected the earth more and our very small place on it, we would not have abused it the way we have. And, deep down, if we respected ourselves more, and had reason to, the only crime that may exist would be petty – desperate people stealing for food or clothing. 
Of course, if our respect went further and stirred our nurturing, responsible souls, we would share what we have, temper our consumerist greed, see power as our ability to help, and so on. Because we all know deep down there’s enough to go around. (Although recently I have heard that disputed.) But hey, most of us are capitalist hedonists overly attached to our possessions (and goes for me and Apple invention I’m using to write this blog. The fact is, we can each do a lot more than we are. And I know all I’ve done here is come up with a line on a t-shirt, but if just one person reads that and is motivated to re-evaluate the way she or he behaves, then that’s something. I admit it, I’m not the soup kitchen type of person, or the protest marcher. I make t-shirts because I love them. And I write because it moves me. If I can combine the two to do some good and to also help pay my way in life, then I think I’ve struck a happy balance. I hope so.
