Doctors Without Borders was founded in 1971 in France. Primarily known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)it’s know world wide as a humanitarian organization staffed by doctors / burses / journalists / and many other support personal.

MSF is currently working on projects in 60 countries and they speak out on conditions so the world might get a better look and hopefully help.

Their main website is at: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

I stumbled onto an organization website that I was unfamiliar with and it was a nice surprise. Healthy Child Healthy World. Here is a charity that focuses on protecting people and particularly children from harmful chemicals. They refer officially to the chemicals as “harmful environmental exposures”. With that in mind they give advice on how to shop healthy and how to eat healthy avoiding problematic products.

Here is a good video they made about waking up to the fact that consumers can avoid eating dangerous pesticides which are present in many store bought foods.

A good friend of our families just told me how his daughter had a series of mini-strokes before she was 30 and one of the alarming things her doctors found out was that she had very high levels of mercury in her body. She had eated a lot of canned tuna for her entire life and that was the only thing they could all think of that had potentially elevated her levels of this dangerous chemical.

For me, I was concerned that our entire environment was over the top with dangerous chemicals (my “Wake Up”) when the bee colonies in the US started disappearing at an alarming rate. One of the things researchers found was that the average bee colony had an average of 127 different pesticides present in their hives and in fact on each bee in some cases. I know chemical testing with a few chemicals mixed together is done sometimes but with a staggering amount of chemicals mixed in our environment who knows what can happen.

We need organizations like this one to keep an eye on dangerous chemicals entering our bodies. I always say “follow the money trail” and unfortunately it leads to greedy people out there just to make money at the expense of everyone else in the world. This organization has a very high rating from Charity Navigator and with their 11 million dollar budget based solely on donations, they do a good job helping educate us on this important issue.

In the early 1990′s I exchanged some emails with a lady named Le Ly Hayslip. She along with countless others was a friend of Joe Bangert, the guy who first toured me around Hanoi Vietnam in 1993. Joe has been a friend of mine for almost 20 years now. Le Ly Hayslip you might remember was the subject of the Oliver Stone Film “Heaven and Earth“. The movie was based on her book of course which was called When Heaven and Earth Changed Places.

Le Ly Hayslip founded the East Meets West Foundation in 1988 and she also founded The Global Village Foundation. The organization is non-political and non-profit and it seeks to help the people of Vietnam to become more self-sufficient and to get better health care and education. Only 15% of the groups funding goes toward administration so it’s very lean and very well organized and run. In fact the Charity Navigator gives this group a 4 Star evaluation.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=5207

This is another great charity organization and an opportunity for you to contribute in the spirit of Nelson Mandela. Take peaceful action by donating to a good charity or volunteer your time. Either way, you will be helping to make the world a better place peacefully.

This is a totally non-political non-profit organization registered both in the UK and the US. They specialize in removing land mines and other horrible remnants of war such as unexploded ordinance and assault rifles. There are more than 8,000 workers employed by the HALO Trust in numerous regions all over the world where wars left these dangers behind. In my own experience in Vietnam from 1993 to 2001, I was afraid to ride on public buses because of the dangers of passengers digging up unexploded ordinance and taking buses to market to sell them. It was not too infrequent to hear of public buses blowing up from unexploded ordinance that was being taken to market to sell as scrap metal. So my understanding is that the HALO Trust not only removes ordinance they educate local people to discourage foragers. Their website lists activity in these areas:

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• Sri Lanka
• Mozambique
• Angola
• Somaliland
• Georgia
• Nagorno Karabakh
• Kosovo
• Colombia

On October 15, there was a tremendous concert to celebrate the Clinton Foundation’s “Decade of Difference”. Bono and Lady Gaga were among the performers and numerous celebrities from Hollywood were in attendance like Barbara Streisand.

I know I featured the Clinton – Bush Haiti Fund previously but I saw this video on Clinton’s Foundation website and I had to write a post on it. There’s a brief endorsement from Mr. Mandela at the end of the video clip. We don’t see a lot of public appearances from Nelson Mandela now that he’s in retirement so I thought I would help get a little more exposure for the cause he is supporting in this case.

Mr. Clinton offered to personally match donations up to $100,000 USD before the end of 2010. Wow !! He has tried with his foundation to tackle some very difficult situations all over teh world and I have to give him credit and respect. He helped a lot of people.

For me personally, I was in Vietnam in 1993 before the embargo was lifted and I saw with my own eyes the difference it made in people’s lives over there when Bill Clinton lifted the embargo in early 1994. It was like turning on a light in a room that had been dark for a very long time. It instantly gave the average Vietnamese citizen hope for the future. Sometimes that’s all we need to keep going through rough times. It helps when someone is out there cheering for your team and in this case it was a lone President of the United States who saw through all the smoke and lies and he reached out to lend a hand. Most people just don’t realize that Vietnam was a great friend with the US after World War II and fell victim to French and American greed and stupidity starting in 1947. That was when the “allies” gave Vietnam back to France as a “possession” because France threatened to not join NATO unless we gave them Vietnam and Cambodia back.

Anyway, my life was changed by Bill Clinton’s vision back in 1994 and I’ve kept an eye on his successes and failures ever since. This foundation is definitely a success and I encourage you to invest in a small donation if you can because the money is well spent and not wasted.

I hope everyone has a great year in 2011 and I can tell you from personal experience that giving your time or support in the form of a few dollars is good. I think that despite all the opposite and confused teachings of the many religions that have sprung up over the history of mankind, helping anyone who is less fortunate is one of the real central purposes of this life. Best Regards – from the editor Mal Milligan.

Pakistan was hit with some of the worst flooding in it’s history in July and August 2010. As a result there were almost 2,000 dead and 4 MILLION left homeless and 15 million refugees. Unfortunately the donations to help these victims were slow to get started. Reuters reported in mid August that there were close to 250 million USD pledged out of perhaps half a billion estimated needed for the cleanup. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T3RS20100818

The DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee) Pakistan Floods Relief is a good charity to donate to if you are looking to help. Please get involved in some way. Positive world change is often a result of helping those in most need.  Regards everyone !!

During my lifetime I’ve always felt sad about the conditions in Haiti but now it’s biblical level destruction and I had to help. I gave a contribution to the Clinton Foundation hours after the earthquake because they setup quickly and that fund gets a 95% rating from the Charity Navigator. Here is an offshoot of that original program that is called the

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

And you know there are a lot of funds but this one in particular will be well managed. It seems now 10 days after the initial disaster there are a lot of supplies on the way but not much on the ground yet. The level of human suffering is staggering and there is no poorer nation in the world that could use your help right now in some small way. I’m going to send a few bucks to this foundation as soon as I get my next paycheck.

Here is a list I got from Google for more places you can check out for Haiti Relief Organizatinos:

Care,

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund,

Direct Relief,

Doctors Without Borders,

Feed the Children,

Habitat for Humanity,

Lambi Fund,

Mayor’s Fund for NYC,

Meds & Food For Kids,

Mercy Corps,

Partners in Health,

Red Cross,

Save the Children,

The International Rescue Committee,

UNICEF,

World Food Program,

Yele Haiti,

The Vietnam Children’s Fund Builds Schools all over Vietnam and I know a number of people who have been involved. This is one of those charities that American soldiers who fought in Vietnam frequently participate in. It’s a great concept and each project is manageable. There are no grandiose goals but at the same time, what this charity accomplishes has had a significant positive impact on thousands of kids. I’d like to see the organization market itself a little better on the internet with pre-made charity banners and so forth. I’m going to write to them this week about getting some made and available on their website. Anyway check out the Vietnam Children’s Fund and look at all those smiling faces !!

I’ve been to Vietnam 10 times since 1993 and one of the greatest assets I’ve ever seen there is the smiles on the kid’s faces. I frequently hold up my hand and smile back shouting “Hello !” to groups of school kids and without exception they always return the gesture. These kids are genuinely happy to meet foreigners and they could use any help you could offer. I’m personally going to look more into the Vietnam Children’s Fund to see if I can help a bit on my next visit to Vietnam.

Everyone’s heard of the ASPCA and it’s been around for quite some time – almost 150 years now. This is certainly another deserving organization that is making positive change in the world. Human beings are indeed the top of the food chain on this planet but we are all very related to all animals – BECAUSE WE ARE ANIMALS. Humans are Mammals and that is scientific fact despite what many of the “Great Religions” say about the matter.

You know for every religion that claims God is a white guy or a brown guy or some kind of spirit, we know that there has never been a supernatural act ever that was recorded. There has never been a real miracle that was ever recorded. 10 billion people have lived and died and not one has ever come back from the dead with any proof that others could have seen. But we can all have hope that doing the right thing and helping others will make us better people and bring us closer to a higher power if there is one. The human mind is incredibly powerful – and there have been many cases of cancer remission and seemingly miraculous healing that may have been done by the persons mind and positive thinking. Did a higher power give us that? Maybe. I hope so and I live confidant that there is a strong possibility there could be something out there. Something good. So I hedge my bet and try to build up points on the plus side.

Cruelty toward animals is usually done by incredibly stupid unfortunates that feel superior God like power over their victims. Sometimes they are backed up by religions dogma that tries to make the uneducated masses feel they are made in the image of a God and all other animals are inferior. Educated and mature people realize all life on the planet is linked, and we are all on the same boat together. Lower species should be treated with dignity as all life should be. We will all find out soon enough if there is something past this life – and I hope there is. But until then we have to do our best to educate and stop cruelty toward animals whenever we can. Check out this organization and make a positive change.