Category: Positive News

Positive News

When we open newspapers or watch the news on television it is easy to feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of negative news that is the media’s focus.

And yet, throughout the world, there are many “points of light” – people and organizations who labour hard and tirelessly to make this world one that is brighter, more equitable, and responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable among us. These are the types of inspiring stories this new section will include – they can’t help but bless!

Choices, choices …

Pierre Pradervand in his book, 365 Blessings to Heal Myself and the World, says he starts his day by saying “Yes, thank you” at least seven or eight times as he gets out of bed. The idea–whatever comes his way that day he will not only be appreciative of, but he will also be flexible…

The world’s first “sand battery”

capable of storing green power for months at a time, is up and running in Finland.  One obstacle to year-round renewable power is the difficulty of capturing and storing energy when intermittent sources like wind or solar energy are unavailable. Finnish engineers at Polar Night Energy have employed a solution in a simple material: low-grade…

Angola

Angola remains one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, with over 73 million square meters of land contaminated and over 1,100 known and suspected minefields. Millions of landmines and other unexploded bombs are still scattered throughout the country – the legacy of over 40 years of conflict.  MAG has been working in…

Shine some light!

Our positive news this month is an Excerpt from an article by Elizabeth Gilbert, an American author best known for her memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who…

Medical bills cancelled

Soon after giving birth to a daughter two months premature, Terri Logan received a bill from the hospital. She recoiled from the string of numbers separated by commas.  Her daughter is now 13. Then a few months ago … Logan received some bright yellow envelopes in the mail. They were from a nonprofit group [RIP…

Helping the Rich Let Go

By Chuck Collins (excerpts from the original article. Read the full article here. Over the next 20 years, a minimum of $35 trillion, and up to $70 trillion, in wealth will transfer from the post-World War II generation to the next younger generation. Most of that wealth will flow in the upper canopy of the…

How a radical humanitarianism slayed a soulless corporate giant

The following is an excerpt from Marianne Williamson’s Transform article and interview. It’s an inspiring story of how one person can make a difference in building a world that works for all! In April of 2022, a young man named Christian Smalls led a powerful unionization drive at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York. An…

Amid war and disease, World Happiness Report shows bright spot

In this troubled time of war and pandemic, the World Happiness Report 2022 shows a bright light in dark times. According to the team of international researchers, including McGill University Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh, the pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence. “COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we’ve…

Gleaning: the ancient right that is making a comeback in Cornwall

An idea dating to biblical times that could be replicated elsewhere! The Cornwall Gleaning network was started in early 2020 after its founder, Holly Whitelaw watched a Simon Reeve documentary about Cornwall, its hidden poverty and challenges being faced by its inhabitants.After some shocking conversations with desperate individuals on the front line of the food…

Smile!

A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive it, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is too poor that he cannot give it…

Amazon of Europe

UNESCO has designated a 4,876-square-mile area around the Mura, Drava, and Danube rivers the first biosphere reserve to span five countries.  Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovenia have been campaigning for recognition of a biosphere reserve – dubbed the “Amazon of Europe” – for years. Europe has degraded up to 90% of its flood plains,…

Choose Love Movement

On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the town of Newton, Connecticut and shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members. The incident is the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school in U.S. history. As first responders arrived,…

Compassion Through Song at Life’s Thresholds

There’s no time Kate Munger can remember that her mother wasn’t singing. Every night, Kate and her four siblings would be graced with lullabies at their bedsides. The physical proximity of the vibrations of her mother’s body would activate the cells in Kate. Now, Kate brings that gift of voice and vibration in service to…

Madrid building a huge urban forest in a bid to combat climate change

By Jaime Velázquez  •  Updated: 19/07/2021 To combat climate change and pollution, Madrid is building a green wall around the city. A 75-kilometre urban forest with nearly half a million new trees. “What we want to do is to improve the air quality in the whole city,” says Mariano Fuentes, Madrid’s councillor for the environment and urban development. “To…

About honeybees and other pollinators!

Beehive deliveries keep New Yorkers buzzing on rooftops, backyards Bustling New York City may not seem a bee-friendly place, but its high-rise rooftops and tiny gardens are buzzing with honeymakers threatened by pesticides in rural areas. About 2.4 million Italian honeybees waited in a white van to be taken to their new homes on a…

Progress Report

Governments from Australia to Rwanda, from Sweden to Brazil, and from Kenya to Belarus have devised policy solutions to bolster the health, well-being, and basic functioning of their societies, sometimes at the urging of grassroots organizers. And while no country is a utopia, even nations with long histories of inequality and violence carry lessons for…

Behind prison walls, cats and inmates rehabilitate each other through animal care program

October 19, 2020, Indianapolis Star (A leading newspaper of Indianapolis)https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/indianapolis/2020/10/19/cats-inmates-rehabilitate… Cats are unable to distinguish between street clothes and prison uniforms – and that’s exactly what makes the relationship between the men at Pendleton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison outside of Indianapolis, and the cats that live there, so special. For six hours a day, seven days…

On repurposing cell phones in Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru

A surveillance system made from repurposed cellphones is helping deter illegal logging in the Amazon. From 2001 to 2018, Brazil lost more than 100 million acres of tree cover. Instead of relying on park rangers to wander the forest and pick out sounds of logging among the natural clamor, the nonprofit Rainforest Connection is using old…

Two encouraging stories

More and more countries are realizing that measures must be taken to combat pollution and climate change. Here are two examples – Mexico City’s ban on most single-use plastics came into effect in January after more than a year of preparation.  In 2020, Mexico City’s environmental agency said the capital produced roughly 13,000 tons of garbage per…

This City Makes Sure No One Goes Hungry—Even During COVID

Nestled on a wide plateau surrounded by the Espinhaço Mountains in southeastern Brazil is the city of Belo Horizonte, roughly 275 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. The city of 2.5 million is an industrial and technological hub, which had historically led to stark socioeconomic divisions, including high rates of poverty. But while other similarly…

Reforestation project

Researchers say the world’s largest reforestation project – the 2011 Bonn Challenge – has beaten its 2020 target. Launched nearly a decade ago by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Germany, the challenge aimed to have 371 million acres of degraded forest under restoration by the end of 2020. According to a recent…

Sentenced to Serving the Good Life in Norway

On Bastoy, an island 46 miles south of Oslo, [125] residents live in brightly colored wooden chalets, spread over one square mile of forest and gently sloping hills. They go horseback riding and throw barbecues, and have access to a movie theater, tanning bed and, during winter, two ski jumps. Despite all its trappings, Bastoy…

Fighting stigma with ice cream at Sikia Cafe

Jinja, Uganda By Caleb Okereke Contributor to the CS Monitor Shadia and Imran Nakueira rented the space for a restaurant in the dreamy, lakeside town of Jinja, Uganda, before they knew exactly what they were going to do with it.  They knew one thing though: They wanted to work alongside people with disabilities.  When customers first enter…

The Irish are sending relief to Native Americans –

– inspired by a donation from a tribe during the Great Famine Excerpts from an article by By Harmeet Kaur, CNN May 6 2020 People in Ireland inspired by an act of generosity committed more than 170 years ago are paying it forward. In 1847, the Choctaw people collected $170 to send to people in Ireland…

A spiritual purpose behind everything that happens

Chicago Sun-Times Editor’s note: A supposed “open letter from Bill Gates,” the tech billionaire and philanthropist, has been bouncing all over the internet since at least March 23. The letter — titled “What is the Corona/Covid-19 virus really teaching us?” — is a fake. Gates did not write it. But there’s a reason it has…

Saving whales helps save the planet

By Chloé Gurdjian, February 18th, 2020, Shared from https://www.7sky.life/ Would whales be much more efficient than trees at absorbing CO2? The result of this study may come as a surprise, and yet it is all the more serious. Whales would be powerful allies in the fight against global warming. As the fight against global warming…

Landfill Harmonic: Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra

A music teacher helps children living by a Paraguay landfill site to reach stardom with instruments made from rubbish. “To have nothing is not an excuse for doing nothing,” says Favio Chavez. On the edges of the Cateura landfill near Paraguay’s capital, he teaches a group of children to play violins, cellos, saxophones, flutes and…

Help for the homeless in Lyon, France

In Lyon, France, “L’Entreprise des possibles” helps the homeless. Some 3,000 people sleep every night in the streets of Lyon. A daily tragedy that a local entrepreneur wants to end. His idea? Mobilize all the companies in the region and pool their resources so that everyone can find a roof over their heads.  A powerful…

The soft power of mothers: Fighting extremism begins at home

What if you could actually train mothers to turn their compassion and connection into the first line of defense against terrorism? In Germany and 15 other countries, it’s happening. Their sons were dropping out of school, joining radical mosques, and breaking off contact. Hundreds of mothers had told Edit Schlaffer such stories when the Austrian…

Advances in reforestation!

Danish telethon raises cash to plant a million trees Danes donated around 2.4 million euro (£2.6 million) for the planting of trees, in a Telethon event on September 14 described as the world’s first to focus on the climate. For every donation of 20 Danish kroner (about $3 or 2.7 euros), one tree will be…

Canada has officially banned dolphin and whale captivity

Elias Marat Canada will no longer allow whales, dolphins and porpoises to be bred and held in captivity for the purpose of entertainment. In a big win for animal rights advocates, Canada will no longer allow whales, dolphins and porpoises to be bred and held in captivity for the purpose of entertainment. The Ending the…

‘Feels like home’: Israeli school for migrant kids wins by bridging worlds

Bialik-Rogozin school

Israeli government plans last year for a mass deportation of African asylum-seekers created a public outcry and remain on hold. But migrant families and their children live in a painful state of uncertainty. Yet in an impoverished neighborhood in Tel Aviv is a school dedicated to helping migrant children thrive educationally and emotionally, teaching students…

Why is Cuba having the healthiest bees?

Bee

A Blessing for Bees (Excerpts) Many of us are aware that bees are facing possibly the most critical period of their existence on earth. Some years ago, in one region in China, the excessive use of pesticides had totally eliminated the bees  and trees were pollinated by hand. Yet more than 80% of plants –…