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!
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,”...
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...
Arab And Jewish Hospital Medics Worked In Solidarity Near Gaza during the May hostilities
Amid rocket fire and Arab-Jewish violence on the streets, doctors and nurses at Assuta Hospital in Ashdod, Israel, have treated 111 people affected by the violence. Due to the hospital's 15-mile proximity to the Gaza border, medics of both Arab and Jewish faiths staff...
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...
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...
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...
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...
This City Makes Sure No One Goes Hungry—Even During COVID
A waiter serves soda to a man at the open-air restaurant installed at Praça da Estação. About 3,000 meals are being distributed every Friday, in addition to food, fruit, and water. Nestled on a wide plateau surrounded by the Espinhaço Mountains in southeastern Brazil...
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...
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,...
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...
Indian State Bans All Pesticides. Wildlife, Crop Yields and Tourism Flourish.
Governments around the world are looking to the Indian state of Sikkim to see if going organic is viable. So far, all signs are pointing to yes. The state banned the import of all pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers and GMOs in 2003, becoming the world’s...
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...
‘Literally A Miracle’: Rival Gangs in South Africa Call Truce To Help People During Pandemic
Around the globe, as uncertainty still looms over us, people are continuing to step up their compassion -- in unprecedented ways. This story is one of many in the Karunavirus.org newsletter of April 23 (Karuna is Sanskrit for Compassion) Warring gangs in South Africa...
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...
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...
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...