Urban Reinspiration
J.L. Hooymayers and his neighbors worried that their Rotterdam inner city neighborhood was going to the dogs. Everyone complained most about how the litter wasn’t being picked up, blaming the city government. Hooymayers, however, had a different approach to fixing the problems: he started to clean up the mess himself.... posted on Jul 30, 1256 reads

Mosaic Music
Rick Sperling started the Mosaic Youth Theatre in 1992 to offer young people 12 to 18 years-old free training in theatre, vocal music and stage craft. The theatre delivers opportunity, with less than half of Detroit's high school students finishing school, more than 95 percent of the kids who perform with the Mosaic Youth Theatre end up in college.... posted on Aug 4, 1230 reads

Organic Farming
Organic farms are better for wildlife than those run conventionally, according to a study covering 180 farms in England. The organic farms were found to contain 85% more plant species, 33% more bats, 17% more spiders and 5% more birds. ... posted on Aug 6, 1582 reads

Fairy Godmother
Shannon Engelbrecht, a.k.a the fairy godmother of real estate, is in the business of helping families purchase homes in San Francisco's high-priced market. After cashing in her stock options at the technology company she worked for, she decided to invest her small fortune in a way that was socially conciouss. By purchasing the buildings herself, and then providing her tenants with a lease-to-own ... posted on Aug 9, 1753 reads

Human Touch
Turns out that hugging is good for the heart in more ways than one. Researchers from the University of North Carolina found that hugs increased levels of oxytocin, a "bonding" hormone, and reduced blood pressure - which cuts the risk of heart disease. ... posted on Aug 11, 1750 reads

Warped Perception
For the last 300 years, the whole basis of science has relied on our observational senses; but our senses are the least reliable test of what we call reality. Your senses tell you that the ground you are sitting on is stationary and yet we know it is spinning at a dizzying speed, hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour. Your senses also tell you that, from where your are standing, the... posted on Aug 12, 1584 reads

Neighbor
The BBC series Tales from the Green Valley follows historians and archaeologists for a year as they recreate Welsh farm life from the 17th Century. One of the most lessons learned from the experiment that is applicable to modern life was, know your neighbor. The more your willing to help others the more they would be prepared to help you in times of need. ... posted on Aug 23, 1288 reads

Alchemy
Having spent his childhood losing friend after friend to guns in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood, John Ricker has organized a series of events called Gun Bakes. Usually taken place at the site of a gun related death, the community gathers to participate in the melting of donated assault rifles and handguns that are transformed into pieces of public art. ... posted on Aug 24, 1406 reads

Recording Africa
Michael Fay, the man who slogged 2,000 miles on foot documenting the central African forests on his 2001 "Megatransect", has just finished another African project, the “Megaflyover”. In a small Cessna plane flying only a few hundred feet about the ground, he shot more than 100,000 images over 60,000 miles from South Africa to Morocco. His conclusion? “Overall, I was more impressed than depre... posted on Aug 25, 1543 reads

Holistic Health
Can a pulled hamstring be caused by a skewed jaw? Can gum disease increase the risk of a heart attack? Absolutely, according to a new crop of dentists that are breaking away from the traditional view that the health of the teeth is somehow separate from the health of the body. Holistic dentistry, one of the fastest-growing health-care fields, treats the mouth in relation person's physical and psyc... posted on Aug 27, 1256 reads

The Artist Within
Akiane Kramarik, a nine-year-old from a small town in Idaho, is drawing raves for her artwork. At the age of six, this painting prodigy was introduced to pastels, and she's been at the easel ever since. To date, she's completed 40 paintings, some of which have sold for as much as $25,000!... posted on Aug 30, 1684 reads

Solar Power
Europe is beginning to grow giant elephant grass as a productive "energy crop" to be burnt in power stations to generate electricity. As the plant grows it draws carbon dioxide out of the air, and when burned the carbon dioxide is released back, so the net effect on atmospheric CO2 is zero.... posted on Sep 13, 1409 reads

Born to Run
Budhia Singh of Bhubaneswar India runs seven hours at a stretch, sometimes as much as 30 miles on a daily basis. Not bad, for a three and a half years old boy. ... posted on Sep 21, 1874 reads

Common Ground
Common Ground, a health clinic in Algiers New Orleans, that has grown from the compassion of strangers determined to help a community largely overlooked in Katrina's wake, is putting down roots. Responding to activist and founder Maluque Rahim's call for help, people with medical skills from all over the country have responded which means Algeirs residents no longer have to travel far to see a d... posted on Sep 23, 1244 reads

Gandhi of Sri Lanka
In the spirit of Martin Luther King, he has led peace marches and meditations with millions of poor people. In the mold of Mahatma Gandhi, he has quieted angry masses through his personal example. Like the Dalai Lama, he has an impressive ability to rally ordinary citizens to see the spiritual wisdom of looking beyond their own salvation to help ensure the salvation of others. He is Dr. A.T. Ariy... posted on Sep 28, 1103 reads

Good News
Are you tired of media channels pumping news of what is going terribly wrong in our world? Tap into HappyNews.com for some positive news stories, and see how it changes your outlook. ... posted on Sep 29, 1792 reads

Turtle Talks
At eleven years old, Zander Srodes started a non-profit in his hometown of Placidia, Florida to save the Loggerhead Sea Turtles from extinction. Zander started speaking to K-6 graders about what they can do to help protect these ancient reptiles. Armed with a wealth of turtle knowledge, and wearing a sea turtle costume, Zander urges the kids to clean up after themselves on the beach so that the tu... posted on Oct 3, 1108 reads

Food Force
Not a single bullet is fired and no buildings go up in flames, yet a new computer game is growing in popularity among young people. Food Force, the brainchild of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), is a dynamic videogame intended to teach kids in the developed world about global hunger.... posted on Oct 13, 1583 reads

Make Poverty History
In July 2005, while eight men representing the major industrialised nations of the world met in Scotland for the G8 summit, Gideon Mendel of The Guardian profiled eight African women whose lives have been profoundly affected by the issues the G8 has the power to control; HIV treatment, water privatisation, debt relief, and trade. While these women come from divergent backgrounds, they all want to ... posted on Oct 19, 936 reads

Love Life
Tired of working? Consider that 102-year-old Dr. Russell Clark, America's oldest worker, started working in real estate development at 83 after retiring his sixty-year career as a physician. What’s his secret? A positive attitude, staying physically active, and being involved in the community.... posted on Oct 21, 1831 reads

Legacy of Freedom
While Rosa Parks spent most of her life campaigning for civil rights, it was her famous refusal to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man that led to the rise of an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King Jr., that moved her entire community to boycott city buses for 13 months, that outlawed the segregation of city buses by the US Supreme Court, that sparked the civil rights movement in ... posted on Oct 26, 1127 reads

Generating Power
After Dannachadh McCarthy addressed his neighbors' mistaken concerns about pets being harmed, the Southwark city council approved a wind turbine for his South London home. These domestic turbine's low cost and easy maintenance, along with the energy independence they provide, will probably make them common fixtures in the urban skyline in the not so distant future. ... posted on Oct 27, 1086 reads

Renewable Retail
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced that over the next three years he wants to get 100 percent of Wal-Mart's energy from renewable sources. If Wal-Mart was a city, it would be No. 5 in the country, meaning the mega-retailer could have a huge impact not only on their buildings and trucks, but on their suppliers as well. ... posted on Nov 10, 1470 reads

Population Growth
Despite many dire warnings about overpopulation, the world's population growth rate seems to have steadily decreased over the past 15 years. The biggest contributing factors seem to be education of women and the mass migration of people to cities. ... posted on Nov 15, 1250 reads

Cerebral Calasthenics
Research suggests that meditation may slow brain deterioration related to aging. The recent study of 20 lay people revealed that the cerebral cortex, the brain region associated with decision making, memory, and brain-body interactions, was thicker in the sample group that meditated. ... posted on Nov 22, 2862 reads

One Laptop for Every Child
The UN revealed a prototype for the $100 laptop for children in impoverished countries. Dubbed the "Green Machine", the lime green laptops are powered with a wind-up crank, have very low power consumption and will let children interact with each other while learning.... posted on Nov 19, 2559 reads

Google Books
Imagine a world where all the world’s books are available at your fingertips. This is Google’s vision, to digitize millions of books and make them available on the net. ... posted on Nov 23, 2771 reads

PhotoVoice
PhotoVoice empowers refugees, street children, orphans, HIV/ AIDS sufferers and special needs groups around the world with photographic skills so that they can transform their lives. Through establishing in-field photojournalism workshops its projects enable those who are traditionally the subjects of photography to become its creator. ... posted on Dec 5, 1100 reads

Harvest of Love
When tragedy hit the family of farmer Richard Winger in the small town in Indiana, the community wasted no time in extending a helping hand. On a mid-October morning, as the Wingers worried about how they would get the 700 acres of their fall crop harvested, 40 neighbors showed up with their combines, trucks and grain carts to bring 87 semi-tractor trailer loads of corn to market.... posted on Dec 14, 1097 reads

Mother Wright
Twenty-five years ago Mary Ann “Mother” Wright woke up screaming with a vision to feed the hungry. Then 63 years old and with 12 children of her own, Mother Wright started a food program with just one meal a week prepared in her home with food purchased with her Social Security checks. Today, the Mary Ann Wright Foundation feeds more than 450 people a day on a shoestring budget of $137,000 a y... posted on Dec 21, 1713 reads

The Woman Who Gave Away College Educations
Oral Lee Brown is on a mission to get Oakland kids into college. It's a commitment she made on the spur of the moment two decades ago."I don't know where it came from, but in my wildest imagination I would never have been involved with kids," says Brown. In 1987 on the spur of the moment she promised a first grade class of 23 students a free college education. Brown isn't the only person to send k... posted on Oct 5, 2699 reads

Tsunami Service
This time last year, Andy Brash had just finished his carpentry apprenticeship in Scotland, Patricia Byron was living in south London with the youngest of her eight children and Aaron Sangster was backpacking in Australia. But that was before the tsunami. Now all three are living in Thailand, each giving what they can to rebuild the devastated resort town of Khao Lak.... posted on Dec 26, 1520 reads

Heart of the Matter
The heart produces an electric field 60 times stronger than that produced by the brain, and it's electromagnetic field is 5000 stronger than the field generated by the brain. This is why the quality of the variation of the heart beat can also subtly influence people who are in our proximity. ... posted on Dec 29, 1821 reads

Helping The Children Left Behind
While mentoring and inspiring elementary kids in a low income neighborhood of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Harvard Law student Earl Phalen learned the hard truth about how far behind these kids were academically. Out of his living room he set out to change that by launching BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), a rigorous after-school program that now serves 7,000 kids in four cities. The results,... posted on Dec 30, 1071 reads

Year Up
As a Big Brother volunteer while working on Wall Street, Gerald Chertavian, 39, "saw that urban young adults, who are wonderfully talented, supersmart and capable, didn't have a path into the mainstream." For his business school essay, he wrote about starting a school that would fix that. In 1999 Gerald turned that essay into a reality with Year Up, a school that provides 18-24 adult from disadva... posted on Jan 3, 1585 reads

Social Capitalists
How long has it been since you were surprised by hope? As you browsed the morning newspaper, when did you last feel a sense that the world was becoming a better place? That the forces propelling the future were on the right track? That the power of imagination was serving those with healing ideals rather than those with darker agendas? Wait no more. Fast Company's 2006 Social Capitalist Award hi... posted on Jan 5, 1932 reads

Women in Politics
The world witnessed some major political achievements for women in 2005, which included the election of Africa's first female president and Germany's first woman chancellor. Last year also saw the highest percentage of female members of parliament worldwide, 16.1%, up from 11.7% eight years ago. ... posted on Jan 6, 1435 reads

Applying Technology to a Good Cause
Hamish Fraser, Partners In Health's Director of Informatics and Telemedicine, has earned a new title – "do-gooder." Fraser was one of a half-dozen people singled out by Red Herring magazine in early January for a cover story featuring "Six Who’ve Applied Tech to a Good Cause." ... posted on Mar 1, 1277 reads

Banking Change
When Dutch artist Van den Baar needed a loan for a new space to live and work, he faced a lot of furrowed brows among the bankers who considered his loan too risky. Van den Baar finally found his mortgage in a bank that didn’t see artists so much as financial risks but important players in the effort to create a sustainable society. For the past 25 years, Triodos Bank, a $1.2 billion institutio... posted on Jan 14, 1510 reads

Honey Bee Network
Think of a honeybee: it collects its pollen from the flowers, but benefits them rather than improverishing them. Much in the same way, Anil Gupta -- a professor at Indian Institute of Management -- started the HoneyBee Network, a grassroot entrepreneurship program where ideas are produced by village entrepreneurs. Under Professor Gupta's inspiration, the network has captured thousands of inventi... posted on Jan 19, 1943 reads

Since Sliced Bread
What's your best idea since sliced bread, in 176 words or less? That's the question that SEIU asked to everyday folks. Winner gets $100,000 and two finalists get $50,000 each. Of the 22,000 folks that responded, 21 ideas were selected as finalists ... ranging from creating a Civil Work Corps to starting tax-free savings accounts at work for first-time homebuyers to providing free or low-cost w... posted on Jan 25, 1461 reads

Research Links Meditation With Compassion
Like athletes or musicians, people who practice meditation can enhance their ability to concentrate -- or even lower their blood pressure. They can also cultivate compassion, according to a new study. Specifically, concentrating on the loving kindness one feels toward one's family (and expanding that to include strangers) physically affects brain regions that play a role in empathy."There is such ... posted on Oct 26, 2799 reads

Paradox of Choice
A radio producer in Washington, D.C., got a promotion a few years ago on the grounds that he was a "good decision-maker." Self-deprecating to a fault, he reminded his bosses that many of the decisions he'd made since joining the station hadn't exactly worked out. They didn’t care. "Being a good decision-maker means you’re good at making decisions," one executive cheerily told him. "It doesn’... posted on Jan 29, 1727 reads

Infinite Worth
On the site of an old copper paint factory and whiskey warehouse in Baltimore, stands the eclectic American Visionary Art Museum. Founded by former psychiatric nurse, Rebecca Hoffberger, on the idea that each of us has unlimited creative potential, the museum trumpets the wonders of raw human creativity by featuring art work from self-taught individuals with no formal training. ... posted on Jan 31, 1424 reads

Dolphin Telepathy
Dolphins don't keep secrets. According a recent study, wild dolphins listen in on one another's echolocation clicks, which in addition to telling where food may be, also carries all sorts of complex information about whether a dolphin is pregnant, what mood it's in, and what's around it. This may be a contributing factor to the evolution of cooperative behavior in dolphins.... posted on Feb 5, 2346 reads

Cultural Capital
A child growing up in a family earning over $90,000 has a 1 in 2 chance of getting a college degree by age 24; a child in a family earning $35,000 to $61,000 has a 1 in 10 chance; a child in a family earning under $35,000 has a 1 in 17 chance. Yet the main problem is not that poor students can't afford college; nor is the main problem that these poorer students don't have access to college. The ... posted on Feb 11, 969 reads

Clean
A self-cleaning bathroom is on the way. Nanotechnology may yet rescue us from the drudgery of the weekly ritual of blitzing the bathroom. Scientists in Australia have developed an environmentally friendly coating containing special nanoparticles that could do the job of cleaning and disinfecting for us. ... posted on Feb 13, 1268 reads

Olympic Green
Organizers of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, promise that their games will be "the greenest ever." They have vowed to put together a "carbon neutral" event—meaning it will have no net impact on climate change—by investing in forestry, energy efficiency, and other measures to offset carbon dioxide emissions from the event. ... posted on Feb 15, 1187 reads

Jason McElwain
Jason McElwain, an autistic high school basketball team member in Rochester NY, served as the team manager and spirit coach for several years. On the final game of the season the coach let him finally put on a uniform with the rest of the team. What happened next you have to see to believe... ... posted on Feb 25, 9605 reads

A Path With Heart
Optimists seem less likely to die of heart disease or stroke than pessimistic people, a Dutch study says. The Delfland Institute of Mental Health study of 545 men found the most optimistic were about half as likely to die from cardiovascular disease. Researchers thought it was likely to be because optimists exercised more and were better at coping with adversity, the Archives of Internal Medicine... posted on Mar 2, 1725 reads