Looking for a way to make the world better?

I met this guy Don, and I think he is doing really solid work, mostly
financed out of his own money. If you are looking for a worthy
Christmas donation spot - I recommend this.
You can contact Karen at karen@karenschachtermsw.com

The note from Karen:

A number of you have expressed a wish to donate, or to know more about
Village Empowerment, so I wanted to follow up and invite all of you to
check out his website, www.VillageEmpowerment.com
. If you’d like to know more
about what he’s doing, be sure to sign up for his newsletter list and
you’ll get occasional updates. (They are sure to inspireJ)

Don’s work has been very meaningful to
me, primarily because I have seen, first-hand, his passion, his
commitment and his contribution.
I feel pulled to do more and to help him toward his goal of supporting the 200 villages throughout Africa
who are requesting his help to become self-sustaining.
Our family also plans to take a trip to Malawi later this year, if possible, to
see Don, and his work, in action, and to participate ourselves in the
change he is creating.

If you would like to contribute to Village Empowerment, and
specifically to our family’s goal of raising enough money to help
create self-sufficiency in a village ($10,000), please contact me.
I would like to send the gift to Don by the end of next week if possible. I am very grateful for your
generous support.
Any amount helps – Noah donated $38 of his
allowance, which is enough to feed a family of 4 for a month! Hannah
donated $10 which will buy clothes for 2 children!
So if you can give $10 or $20 or whatever your budget allows, that can do a world of
good in these communities!

theater methodologies for helping traumatized youth

I found this paper on the use of drama techniques for helping young people affected by trauma and violence.
There has been some discussion in the interim about how to use these methods safely, with professionals like Van der Kolk feeling they may re-expose and re-trigger if not done properly.

Keeping it Simple

Top Ten from Sandy Davis

Here are 10 tips that will help you keep your self-care activities simple and effective:

(1) Because you cannot give what you do not have, make it a daily habit to pay yourself first. Once you’ve done so, you’ll be able to pay others generously, compassionately, and continuously.

(2) To ensure that you pay yourself first, you may need to invert your priorities. As much as possible, make your daily self-care your first priority, and then schedule everything else in your day around that sacrosanct priority.

(3) As much as possible, turn your ongoing self-care activities into consistent daily routines. Make them unfailing habits.

(4) Make sure you set up self-care structures for yourself that are ecological and that work well for you. If you find a particular structure to be causing you more stress than it is relieving, redesign that structure.

(5) Chunk down your daily practices until they are manageable ongoing commitments—and then do them without fail. It’s better to aim just high enough to hit the target right in the center, than to aim way too high and miss the target completely.

(6) Remember to embrace your failures with honesty and humility. If something is broken, fix it.

(7) Remember also to joyfully celebrate all your successes—big, small, and even miniscule. Small successes beget big ones.

(8) Keep your sense of humor about you. A little bit of laughter goes a long way.

(9) Dare to imagine outrageously wonderful adventures and successes, and then pursue them with abiding courage, patience, and faith.

(10) Practice, practice, and practice some more.

Sandy Davis | (207) 563-7263
Sandy@ResilienceWorks.com | http://www.ResilienceCircle.com

Wrongly Pathologizing Populations

Vanessa Pupavac's article "Pathologizing Populations and Colonizing Minds: International Psychosocial Programs in Kosovo" appeared in Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 27, 2002.

It is worth a read: http://tr.im/BXxh

Pupavac correctly cautions against superimposing Western notions of how whole populations (e.g. refugees) get traumatized because it interferes with self-government potential (among other things).

"Superbrain yoga"

Click here to view a news clip on "superbrain yoga."

Better Health Care Depends on a Stronger Democracy

A Statement from Everyday Democracy, AmericaSpeaks, Demos, and Professor Archon
Fung of Harvard’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation
August 13, 2009

excerpts:
A key founding principle of our democracy is that the voice of the people should have an influence on public policy, at elections and in between them.
Beyond simply having a voice, people should have a chance to be informed, to hear each other, to work through tough decisions with each other and their elected officials, and to use democratic processes to figure out how to solve the problems that face us.
At a bare minimum, efforts to spread misinformation and to insult people who have different views and concerns harm our social fabric and weaken our democracy. We must find ways to move beyond stereotyping and preconceived notions of what “the others” believe and care about.
As critical as this is, we need to go further than encouraging more civil behavior. What we urgently need is a vibrant, inclusive democracy where people from different views and backgrounds can routinely meet, hear each other out in productive ways, and find ways to move forward.

22 ways to de-stress

Although it is annoying to have to click anew for each one, a very fragmenting reading experience, these 22 tips are great!