Blog Action Day 2008 – Poverty

Raul — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:05:34 +0000

Poverty is one of the societal illnesses that occupies my mind on a regular basis. Not because I live a rather frugal life and I’m on a budget. I’m actually talking about REAL poverty.

Photo credit: DTES.people on Flickr.

While I realize that there are many measurements and definitions of poverty, I was kind of shocked to find out that the World Bank doesn’t have specific pages to analyze poverty in North America. Is the belief that poverty does not exist in North America (USA and Canada, as Mexico is included in their Latin America dataset) so prevalent that US and Canada don’t warrant their own country pages?

Anyone who knows me even a little bit and who has taken the time to read the more serious, less fluffy posts in my blog will know that I’m a big fan and promoter of social activism, particularly in issues of homelessness, poverty alleviation, sustainability and HIV prevention/treatment. This time, I’d like to draw your attention to Blog Action Day 2008′s theme – Poverty.

What is Blog Action Day?

Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently.[Blog Action Day site, About Page]

Last year, I participated in Blog Action Day 2007, as the topic was sustainability. This year, I am even more motivated to participate given that my readership has increased, I am much more socially connected (through Twitter and many other Web 2.0 methods) and therefore, my blog may be able to make more of a difference.

So, how can you get involved? You can check the Frequently Asked Questions section of their site. In my case, I will be doing 1/4 of a Blogathon (e.g. only 12 posts) but all of them will be focused on issues of poverty. You are more than welcome to guest post if you feel like it, or link to any of my posts should you want to, but more than anything, do something. Get involved.

I don’t think I should try to coerce people into promoting Blog Action Day or doing something about it, but I am passionate about poverty alleviation, so if you could spread the word, that would be super awesome. Even better… if you can engage in doing something to alleviate poverty, that would be even more awesome.

Thank you.

Upcoming event – Podcasting for Social Change (Net Tuesday)

Raul — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:10:30 +0000

So, remember when I said that I was going to only attend 6 events all month? Scratch that. It’s going to be 5. Green Drinks is colliding with WordCamp Fraser Valley, which means, I can’t do Green Drinks YET AGAIN. Ooops. But on the good news front, I will be going to Net Tuesday, and I want to promote my friend and mentor Dave O’s upcoming event, with the topic “Podcasting For Social Change”. You know you want to go, because he’s got a very fine line-up of speakers, including John Bollwitt, Roland Tanglao, Rob Cottingham, and Dave Olson as a moderator (you’ll NEVER get another chance to spend this much time with these many awesome people at the same time, unless you do Northern Voice 2009… and even then!).

So, mark your calendars – Wednesday July 8th, 5:30pm, WorkSpace. More details? Check Dave O’s blog.

I took the liberty of using DaveO’s YouTube promotional…

Hummingbird604.com » social change

Blog Action Day 2008 – Poverty

Upcoming event – Podcasting for Social Change (Net Tuesday)