Designing for the Circular Economy
What do you do with a toaster when you no longer want it? Until recently, no one thought about that question until the toaster was ready for the scrap heap. Today, designers at the London-based Agency of Design are turning that practice on its head. As advocates of a circular economy, they believe that the best time to address end-of-life issues is when a product is first being designed and that i... posted on Apr 24 2017, 16,253 reads

Broadway Theater Gives Troubled Teens a Second Act
When we transform troubled youth, we change their futures and our our own. But how to reach them? Stargate Theater in New York City has a novel approach: it pays court-involved and at-risk youth to script and stage performance pieces. This process gives youths the opportunity to express themselves while aiming to reduce recidivism, teach literacy, and provide valuable work experience for their res... posted on Apr 23 2017, 7,884 reads

Earth Guardians: Responding to Global Crisis
Since he was a kid, indigenous environmental activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez understood that all life is sacred and "each and every one of us is deeply connected not only to each other but to the world around us." At 6 years old, he saw Leonardo DiCaprio's documentary "The 11th Hour" and recognized that climate change is happening and that he has to do more. Now a teenager, Xiuthezcatl is the Youth ... posted on Apr 22 2017, 2,990 reads

Yoga Shala West: Moving From Transaction to Trust
Pranidhi Varshney founded Yoga Shala West (YSW) "to create an environment for practice that was inclusive to all people, regardless of financial barriers." She aimed to move away from the transactional and image-driven nature of contemporary yoga, opting instead for an alternative fee structure and community-based social enterprise model. At YSW, "each student is not paying for his or her own pr... posted on Apr 21 2017, 10,121 reads

Thu Nguyen: The Creative Act of Healing
Thu Nguyen's life trajectory has far from predictable. Her father left before she was born. As a child she relocated with her mother from Vietnam to Canada as a refugee. She won an engineering scholarship, landed a prestigious career in high tech. Then, not once, but twice, a sobering health diagnosis would force her to take stock and shift gears. The first time it was diabetes, and her quest for ... posted on Apr 20 2017, 13,632 reads

The Newscaster Who Wouldn't Give Up On A Foster Child
For 25 years, retiring newscaster Gloria Campos has profiled foster children who were waiting to be adopted in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on the "Wednesday's Child" television segment at WFAA-TV. Campos estimates that, over the years, she has featured more than 350 children, 75 percent of whom were adopted thanks to her reporting. But of all those children, there was one young boy whose story she ... posted on Apr 19 2017, 17,774 reads

Spotlight on Earth Day
Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day marks a global celebration of Earth and the concept of peace. It presents an opportunity to demonstrate support for environmental protection. From lush rain forests to arid deserts, thundering waterfalls to serene ponds, majestic glaciers to craggy mountains and teeming coral reefs, Earth is a complex, interconnected planet, filled with diversity and abundanc... posted on Apr 18 2017, 11,726 reads

Love Your Enemies. What Does It Mean? Can It Be Done?
Love comes in a variety of forms. We can love our families, our friends, our work, our home... but have we been able to fully embrace the possibility of loving our enemies? Here Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast translates this idealistic-sounding notion into a real world, every day context. Brother David proposes that so long as we have rigid convictions, we make ourselves 'enemies' of ... posted on Apr 17 2017, 15,985 reads

He Quit His Corporate Job to Help His City's Needy
How much of a difference can one person possibly make? Here's a great example. Five years ago, Goutham Kumar decided to walk away from a successful career and commit to helping others full time in his hometown of Hyderabad, India. It wasn't enough to be a passion; he wanted it to be his profession. First he started Save a Life, which aims at rescuing and rehabilitating the homeless. Then he starte... posted on Apr 16 2017, 18,896 reads

Billy Barr: The Snow Guardian
Who is Billy Barr and how has he single-handedly produced remarkable evidence of climate change? For the past four decades, Barr has lived alone in a cabin in the remote, ghost town of Gothic, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains, one of the United State's coldest locations. With no external incentives, or formal training in the field, he began keeping meticulous snowfall records to escape boredom duri... posted on Apr 15 2017, 4,213 reads