A better life for a Honduran woman in many ways

I post most of the cool, socially-innovative things I find in my "Effective Society" blog. But this interview contained a story about how a group of dedicated friends really improved the life of a woman and her entire family, in not just one way but in many remarkable ways. What a gift! (FYI, that link will play only the 4 minutes of that story, so you don't have to listen to the whole podcast.)

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Do I know any of my neighbors well enough to offer this kind of encouragement and help? I'm afraid I don't interact with many of them long enough to hear their stories. Maybe I have a chance with the people at work. Hopefully I'll be listening and attentive if someone close by ever needs support from a dedicated friend.

Tender-hearted Children

A couple nights ago, a bird in our yard got injured by a dog. The kids were fascinated and tried to help it, and Tolman brought it home in a glove (because we've told them how dead animals can carry diseases). Unfortunately it was unable to move very well; it just sat, breathing, rarely opening it's eyes. I put it in the garage and put the kids to bed; I told them that I might have to put it down, but I would look one more time to see if it might survive. It was pretty broken up, and it seemed that it's legs were not going to work any more. I put it out of it's misery. (That was a horrible task that I hope I never, ever have to do again.)

I almost put it in the garbage, but I felt like it deserved more respect, so I buried it in the field in the back.

I went inside and told Tolman first. He was upset and started crying. He asked why, with a little bit of anger; I tried to explain about the bird being in pain and dying anyway, though I don't feel like I explained it very well. I spent a few minutes with him because he was very, very sad. He asked how I did it, and I told him.

The whole time I was talking with him, I was touched: he was extremely distraught over the loss of a small animal, one he had only known for a few moments. He valued that little life, and he deeply mourned it's passing with all his heart, even if only for a few minutes.

I then went into Ellie's room and told her. She sobbed, hard; seriously, it was like she put all her might into crying. She asked why as well, and I tried explaining again. She also asked me if I buried it; I'm so glad I was able to tell her that I did. She, too, asked how I did it; I didn't want to tell her, so I asked if she really wanted to know, and she said "no". I was surprised, but I'm so glad she had the presence of mind to say that. I would have told her if she really wanted, though I don't think it would have been good for her; I think that's something Tolman can handle better.

I spent a while with her as well; she cries over quite a few things, but it's rare that she'll cry so hard for so long. Again, I felt so gratified that the bird's life meant something to this child. I don't want too many experiences like this, but I'm so glad I went through it with them; it's so encouraging that they felt such concern for something meaningful.

A good dinner

Our youngest, 3-year-old Thomas, is our most difficult child because he is very willful and has an extremely short fuse; my sister-in-law has 6 children, and even she says that he's the hardest she's dealt with, so I know he's a special case. In every activity with us, he has at least one fit where he screams or throws a tantrum or actually throws something. He is getting much better with us (or vice versa) because there are times that we can pay direct attention to him and go through the steps of "please..." and then "I need you to..." and then a time-out, and he'll often come around. But it is incredibly frustrating to deal with someone who is constantly contrary.

So it was very surprising and rewarding last night that he came and sat down with us for dinner, and furthermore he didn't complain one time as we ate! When I asked him to move over to make room for someone, he said "OK" and did it right then. He talked to us calmly and said "only a little" as we gave him his salad, and he didn't yell or push away his plate when I put on the second fork-full. He ate all his dinner; he's an interesting one because he usually likes all his vegetables (and prefers them to meat), but he doesn't often eat everything like that.

I found myself pleasantly surprised that we had such a nice time together, and even now it is so gratifying that dinner last night was so... normal. Many good memories are emotional moments in unique situations; this one will be a treasure not because it was so remarkable but because it was such a departure from all our previous experience.

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I realize that I did not praise Thomas for his behavior. How many times do we have a normal interaction with someone and fail to recognize that blessing in the moment, much less fail to express appreciation for it? Yesterday at work, Gordon was remarking on how much pain we've had in the past when making large-scale improvements to our product, and now we reap the benefits and consider our current situation as normal but we hardly recall how much work it took to get to this point. Yes, I feel lucky right now to have the everyday life that I do.

Changing Lives by Teaching Children to Save

I am so impressed by Jeroo Billimoria's work! I heard about her on this podcast; one of her great accomplishments is the organization Aflatoun that successfully teaches children financial skills, especially in poor countries where nobody said it would work. Here are two impressive stories she told at the end of her interview:

"Let me start with a country like Zimbabwe, where everyone said you will never be able to get a single child to save because saving means that it's ... the money you save today is gone tomorrow with 1000% inflation. You know? So we said 'OK' but our pilot, and this came from the children in Zimbabwe, is they would save money and buy a pen. So they bought a lot of pens so that the money got invested in pens and when they wanted it back the pens got sold. Now that is really creative thinking of children, thinking, countering inflation, and still being able to get the money back to be able to pay for their school fees because otherwise they would have dropped out."

"We had a young girl, and we were doing this longitudinal study for 5 years, so she was in the program when we started, which was in 2001, and then we interviewed her in last year September and she said that, 'The best thing that happened to me was Aflatoun because it taught me about saving.' She was the first of 6 siblings, all of whom were girls. So her parents had sent her to school, but she was going to have to drop out because there were so many other children and the whole thing. So she started saving, and then those school fees were free she was able to pay for the little extra stuff from her savings. Today she is in 'standard 12'. All her sisters are saving and all of them have gone to school and she said this would never have happened if I had not managed to have Aflatoun because we would never have saved and that means we would never have had the bandwidth to afford this. So it's not just a child, it's been a whole family that has looked at it."

Thanks, Jeroo!

A blessing for a baby in pain

A good friend and neighbor of mine wrote the following article. I appreciate how he put these words together for us; whenever you can do anything to help relieve a child's suffering, it is a magnificent experience.

Sacred Words, by Edwin F Smith

My daughter Olivia gets seizures. I hope I can comfort her like this someday.

Oprah's Big Give: Eric & Stephen's first challenge

You've probably heard of Oprah's Big Give series; I recommend the whole thing. I must spotlight one effort: Eric and Stephen did an incredible job on their first challenge. After they met the widow they were to help, I thought, "I hope the contestants on this include some kind of personal touch in their gift." Sure enough, these two came through, both in the kinds of gifts and in their presentation. They gave the kids a shopping spree, they got the whole neighborhood together for the presentation, they got a local parish to set up the scholarship... it was impressive. Then came something incredibly thoughtful: they had the family members write a note to their Dad and send them up in balloons.

Wow.

In addition to all that, I believe the donations they gathered far eclipsed every other project; it was all the above plus mortgage money. Impressive. Thanks, guys.

(PostScript)

Give blood to strangers

I gave blood today. That in itself isn't particularly special; what was cool was the conversation I had with the girl who dd my work. She is majoring in piano performance; she works this job 10 hours a day with about 15 minutes for a break; she still has 2 years left at school. We simply had a fun little conversation.

Sometimes you can go for weeks (or months or longer) without making a connection with someone, especially with a total stranger. What a great treat it is when you can share a small moment like that.

If it's been a while, give blood.

Need more motivation? Read some stories from recipients.