The Zrelak family shares their story of how a cancer diagnosis brought them into another family…BASE Camp. A Central Florida Children’s Cancer Foundation, which provides a series of year-round programs for children and families facing the challenge of living with cancer, and other life-threatening related illnesses.
To find out more about BASE Camp click here:
We thought sharing NPR‘s favorite, most inspiring stories of 2016, would be a nice Christmas present. Inspiring you to remain hopeful after the (insert catastrophic phrase of your own here) year we just shared together. These stories certainly helped shape our New Year’s Resolution. Not gym membership, seeing the doctor more often, or adding more travel commitments (although, we’ll do those things). But also our determination to raise our voices a little louder…get involved just a little bit more.
So let’s all have ourselves a wonderful holiday season…and get some rest! We’ve got work to do in 2017.
Merry Christmas and a Happy (Happier) New Year to all of those committed to Just DO Something…Anything! to make a difference.
Clockwise from upper left: Dr. Forster Amponsah; a Malick Sidbe photo taken in Mali; a global garden of radio; Chewa the TB-sniffing rat; another Sidbe photo; Olympic medalist Fu Yuanhui of China; the New Mexico cave where a superhero bacterium lived; poverty fighter Sir Fazle Hasan Abed; calligrapher Sughra Hussainy; activist Loyce Maturu.
Jason Beaubien/NPR, Courtesy of Malick Sidibe and Jack Shainman Gallery, Katherine Streeter for NPR, Maarten Boersema/APOPO, Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images, Courtesy of Max Wisshak, Courtesy of BRAC, Ben de la Cruz and Toya Sarno Jordan/NPR
There was no shortage of sad news in 2016.
And because we’re a blog that covers global health and development, we covered a lot of those sobering stories: the toll of diseases like Zika, the bombing of hospitals in conflict zones, the suffering caused by poverty and by discrimination against women.
But we published a lot of hopeful stories as well. We asked our team at Goats and Soda to pick some of the stories from this year that inspired them the most. We hope you’re inspired too.
My favorite inspiring story from this year was about the Chinese Olympic swimmer Fu Yuanhui who made headlines for telling the world she was on her period. I love that woman — breaking boundaries and taboos effortlessly.
My favorite story that I wrote was the hero bug story. We forget that to fight antibiotic resistance we need the help of the bacteria. —Michaeleen Doucleff
My favorite piece on Goats and Soda in 2016 was “Chewa The Lab Rat Has A Great Job, Good Retirement Benefits.” African giant-pouched rats like Chewa are trained to detect TB — and they’re faster and cheaper than lab machines. You can tell from the photos that the lab technicians really love their helper rats. —Malaka Gharib
I love watching the video of Sughra Hussainy creating calligraphy. When she was a kid in Afghanistan, girls couldn’t go to school. That didn’t stand in her way. Today she’s a gifted artist with big dreams: “I just want to work hard at this. And of course, become world famous.”
A favorite story I wrote was an interview with Loyce Maturu, a 24-year-old from Zimbabwe who was an orphan, HIV positive and abused by a relative. And she had TB. And tried to kill herself at a low point. As the headline says, “She almost gave up — but didn’t.” —Marc Silver
Dr. Forster Amponsah has star power. You can see it as he walks the halls of the Koforidua Regional Hospital in Ghana. Interns’ and patients’ eyes track his movement. Amponsah through sheer force of will and against incredible challenges has built up a surgical department in his public hospital. The surgeries he’s performing would be considered routine in a U.S. hospital but some days in Ghana they appear as small miracles. —Jason Beaubien
Our story about Radio Garden, a website that lets you listen to stations around the world, was my favorite story. Just point your cursor at one of the thousands of green dots on a map of the globe. Listen to talk radio in Uganda, jazz in Morocco and punk rock in Hawaii. It’s a fun way to feel a connection to distant cultures. —Ben de la Cruz
This one is poignant given the extremism and political violence plaguing Mali, but I felt so uplifted reading Ofeibea Quist-Arcton’s tribute to the late Malian portrait photographer Malick Sidibe. His black and white images from the 1960s and ’70s captured dancing couples, pensive matriarchs and youngsters showing off their grooviest outfits — a reminder of a hopeful time when Mali was newly independent and, as Quist-Arcton put it, “relishing its freedom and having fun.”
One of my favorite interviews was with “the most influential poverty fighter you’ve never heard of” — Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and head of BRAC, the anti-poverty group. BRAC helped pioneer a program that gives extremely poor families an asset like a cow or a goat. It’s an approach that has likely improved the lives of millions. —Nurith Aizenman
From: The Huffington Post
When straight-A student Taylor Rosenthal isn’t in school or playing baseball, he’s busy doing something foreign to most 14-year-olds: He’s running his own successful business.
Rosenthal is a freshman at Opelika High School in Alabama. Last year, while in eighth grade, he was assigned the task of coming up with a business idea for an entrepreneurship class. His pitch went on to win first place.
The teen’s idea? A computerized vending machine that would inexpensively and conveniently dispense first-aid kits.
“Have you ever been to an amusement park and your child falls to the ground and scrapes their knee?” Rosenthal said in the original pitch. “Then, you had to walk all the way to the front of the park to get a Band-Aid?”
Rosenthal told ABC News that the idea for the machine was sparked by his experience playing baseball.
“No one could find a Band-Aid when someone got hurt,” he said.
Since the birth of his idea, which he developed with the help of his parents, who both work in the medical profession, Rosenthal has been hurtling toward success. By the end of 2015, he’d developed a working prototype and was granted a patent. His company, RecMed, was also accepted into an incubation program at The Round House Startup Space in Opelika.
According to Kyle Sandler, Rosenthal’s mentor at Round House, the teen was the youngest entrepreneur in the program.
“We had to kick him out of here on Christmas Eve to spend time with his family, and you best believe that every minute of fall break he was here at the Round House,” Sandler told the Opelika-Auburn News. “When he’s not in school or playing baseball, he’s here working on anything from customer discovery to lead generation to where he can put his product.”
In January, Rosenthal won second place in the Techstars competition at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He will be featured this week at TechCrunch Disrupt, a startup conference in New York. He’s reportedly the youngest person ever to present at the event.
To date, Rosenthal has earned a total of $100,000 in investments, CNN Money reported. He’s also turned down a $30 million offer from a “large national healthcare company” for his vending machine idea, though he couldn’t discuss the deal due to a nondisclosure agreement.
“[The company] contacted us and said we feel the idea is worth this, would you like to sit down and talk? It’s his company. He declined because he wants to at least get it started and see how it goes,” Rosenthal’s father, Terry, told the Opelika-Auburn News.
RecMed vending machines stock both prepackaged first-aid kits (which cost between $5.99 and $15.95) for ailments like sunburns, blisters, bee stings and cuts, and individual supplies like Band-Aids, rubber gloves and gauze pads, ranging in price from $6 to $20.
The machines, which are slated to be deployed in the fall, are best suited for “high-traffic areas for kids” like amusement parks, beaches and stadiums, Rosenthal told CNN Money. He’s already received an order for 100 machines from Six Flags.
“It has been amazing watching Taylor grow over the past year into this confident and amazing businessman,” Clarinda Jones, one of Rosenthal’s teachers, told CNN Money. “Even with all of his success, he remains humble and ready to help others. He’s just 14. Bill Gates should be worried.”
This year in Central Florida, an estimated 400 teenagers in foster care will turn 18, while the state ends its assistance. Without help and guidance many of these kids will face a lifetime of dependency; welfare, jail, and homelessness.
The Faine House, in conjunction with Children’s Home Society of Florida, exists to combat these problems.
Our story above explains why they do what they do, how they do it, and how everyone benefits.
To get involved or learn more about The Faine House click here: https://www.thefainehouse.org
2,500 people from over 30 countries, along with representatives from the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and more than 50 cardiac arrest survivors, marched through the streets of downtown San Diego last week to help raise awareness and educate communities on the importance of CPR and AED devices. The march was the highlight of the week long ECCU 2015 Conference. Which has been, for over three decades, THE place to go for learning, inspiration and networking with resuscitation professionals, instructors, practitioners and researchers.
The goal for the first-ever ‘CPR Saves Lives March‘ was to, “shed light on the hundreds of thousands of Sudden Cardiac Arrest victims who could survive each year if communities provided more CPR training, better care and a greater number of AEDs,” said Mary Newman, president of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation.
Tom P. Aufderheide, M.D., president of Citizen CPR Foundation and faculty member of the Medical College of Wisconsin, praised the host city as a, “a shining example of how communities can come together to improve survival rates.”
Citizen CPR Foundation, holds its International ECCU conference every two years. They are comprised of four primary co-sponsors: the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Together, these organizations have been strengthening the chain of survival by educating lay rescuers and experienced medical professionals on the current CPR guidelines since 1987. One of the most talked about changes in resuscitation guidelines at ECCU 2015, was Compression Only CPR.
According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, every year, approximately 300,000 men, women and children in the United States die from Sudden Cardiac Arrest. Almost 80 percent of those occur at home and many are witnessed by a family member. Less than eight percent of victims survive.
“By learning to recognize SCA, calling 9-1-1 and starting CPR, citizens can save those who would otherwise die without immediate help,” said Vinay M. Nadkarni, M.D., president-elect of Citizen CPR Foundation and Endowed Chair of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Joining the march was one of the most influential PhD’s in medical research history. In 1958, Dr.Guy Knickerbocker (pictured at left with his wife and a CPR supporter) mentioned to two of his research team members, an observation he had while conducting defibrillation experiments. Dr. Knickerbocker had detected a brief, temporary rise in blood pressure when the heavy copper electrodes they were using were applied to the chest wall of a dog whose heart had stopped beating. Dr. Jude, one of his team members, immediately recognized the significance. It was external cardiac massage – the birth of CPR. To date, more than 2 million lives have been saved by CPR.
Just DO Something…Anything! helps connect people to unique social organizations around the world. Here are a few we met this past week:
BuddyCPR:
BuddyCPR was inspired by Rick and Jennifer Chap’s story of survival. Their beloved cat “Buddy” alerted Jennifer that something was terribly wrong—she found Rick in sudden cardiac arrest. Buddy’s alert allowed her to activate 911 and perform CPR on Rick until EMS arrived and used their AED to restore life. BuddyCPR honors Buddy’s memory and heroic actions that will continue to save more lives. Rick and Jennifer are CPR advocates and AHA certified CPR instructors. Their wish is to pay forward Rick’s gift of life by inspiring others to learn about SCA, CPR & AEDs with the goal of empowering the bystander to take action to save a life.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation:
The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation is a national community benefit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to raising awareness about sudden cardiac arrest and saving lives. Programs include educational campaigns for secondary schools and colleges and the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Network, an online community that provides peer support and opportunities for survivors and family members to participate in awareness, advocacy, and research initiatives.
Emergency Cardiovascular Care Update:
ECCU showcases the latest science, concepts, ideas and strategies to improve clinical performance, teaching methodology and community response to sudden cardiac arrest. ECCU is the only conference that brings together all members of the Cardiac Chain of Survival – including physicians, nurses, CPR and ECC educators, EMS providers, ECC advocates and survivors.
CPR – Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation
AED – Automatic External Defibrillator
SCA – Sudden Cardiac Arrest – a medical condition that occurs when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. As a result, blood is no longer pumping through the body. The victim suddenly loses consciousness, is not breathing, is non responsive and appears lifeless. Some victims also experience abnormal gasping and seizure-like activity. Death occurs within minutes without immediate CPR and use of an AED. SCA is different from a heart attack. While the heart attack victim is awake and the heart is beating, the Sudden Cardiac Arrest victim is not awake and the heart is not beating.
JDSA (Just DO Something…Anything!) and Strategic Artifex Research, Inc. was proud to have helped StrataVerve conduct a baseline research study on the awareness of Sudden Cardiac Arrest, CPR, and AED’s. The results, of which, were presented at the ECCU 2015 Conference.
Follow ECCU 2015 on Facebook and Twitter @citizencprf
JDSA recently partnered with the Florida Department of Children and Families, coordinating a project designed to create awareness and educate Central Florida teens about the dangers of Human Trafficking.
Just DO Something…Anything! funded and assisted Appleton Creative in the design of the campaign: a series of 4 colorfully designed posters, each depicting the dangers of modern day slavery, and distributed to every middle and high school in Central Florida.
Created with the youth audience in mind, the posters feature strong graphics, bold text and eye-catching call-to-actions. The campaign will effectively help make human trafficking top-of-mind and remind students of their value and where to go for help.
Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) is the 11th largest school district in the United States, where the posters are now being distributed to over 100 schools, reaching nearly 200,000 students in Orange, Osceola and Seminole County.
Last week, Crimeline displayed the posters at a joint forum at Valencia College Criminal Justice Institute.
While Lake and Brevard County schools were expressing interest in displaying the posters, news of our project reached the Governor’s office in Tallahassee, where the Florida Department of Education has asked to initiate an extension of our campaign: organizing distribution of the posters to all public schools statewide – reaching more than 2 million students in over 4,200 schools.
JDSA was honored to have worked alongside the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force, their School Awareness Committee and Appleton Creative; an award-winning, full-service advertising agency with long-term ties to supporting community giving and bringing awareness to local causes. Throughout the years, Appleton has worked with many nonprofits such as Kids Beating Cancer, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando, shining light on their issues through public service campaigns and advertising.
In a similar fashion, Appleton works closely with the Zebra Coalition, a network of organizations that provides services to LGBT+ ages 13 – 24, creating an annual anti-bullying poster series that gets placed in over 100 Orange County public schools. Appleton is also responsible for Zebra’s branding, website, advertising and video work.
New York (CNN)
Maggie Doyne, a New Jersey woman who used her babysitting savings to change the lives of hundreds of Nepalese women and children, was named CNN’s 2015 Hero of the Year on Tuesday at a star-studded awards ceremony in New York.
A decade ago Doyne’s backpacking trip to Nepal transformed into a long-term commitment. Spending $5,000 in savings from her babysitting days, Doyne bought land and worked with the community to build a school, a women’s center and the Kopila Valley Children’s Home. Doyne’s BlinkNow Foundation supports these efforts.
“If you had told me when I turned 18 that I was going to be the mom of 50 kids, I would have told you that you were totally crazy. And I am. And to my kids, I love you so much. Don’t ever forget how much I love you,” Doyne said Tuesday. “And to the country of Nepal, thank you so much for loving me and accepting me as a daughter welcoming me into your country.
“And to all of you in this room and who are watching, please, please remember that we have the power to create the world that we want to live in, just as we want it. And that’s what all the Heroes here have done tonight.”
Doyne was chosen from this year’s Top 10 Heroes in an online vote by CNN’s audience. She’ll receive $100,000 for BlinkNow in addition to $10,000 that each Hero received for being named to the Top 10.
The “All-Star Tribute” honored all the Top 10 Heroes — everyday people who’ve made extraordinary contributions around the world. See more about this year’s Top 10 Heroes
Show presenters included Neil Patrick Harris, Taylor Schilling, Common, Kelly Ripa, Kathy Griffin, Sharon Stone, Chris Noth and Zachary Quinto.
During the ceremony, celebrity presenters joined each Top 10 Hero on stage as they shared the personal stories about what inspired them to give back to society. Musical performers included singer Andra Day, who performed her inspiring anthem “Rise Up.”
The event’s global premiere is set for December 6 on CNN.
Families picking out school supplies.
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Last week Just DO Something…Anything!, along with Century 21, helped sponsor it’s first Take Action! event at Barnett Park in Orlando, Florida. Nearly 400 residents showed up along with dozens of volunteers, who helped distribute over 3,000 back-to-school supplies: pens, backpacks, clothes, pencils, paper, and other items.
But the event wasn’t just about helping families get materials they need to start the school year. Take Action! was about doing just that … taking action against social injustice.
Finding just the right size.
JDSA, along with some of their Central Florida nonprofit partners: Harbor House, A Gift For Teaching, and Florida Abolitionist, spent the day talking with residents about the importance of what they do and how they do it!
Also on hand was the Orlando Rowing Club, Orlando Dragon Boat Club, and Dueling Dragons boat team. Dragon’s “Cops and Kids” program is a unique partnership teaming Orlando police officers with at-risk teens, who compete in boat races across the country. Their story was recently featured on The Today Show.
Orlando Rowing Club President, Johnny Hood and Chairperson, Chris Luciano brought a “skull boat” and an “Erg,” or indoor rowing machine for residents to try out.
Making a difference with hand prints & finger paint.
Before the kids picked up their items they were asked to “make their mark” with paint! “Taking Action!” by writing out – next to their imprint – exactly, what they’re going to do to help make the world a better place.
Clean the World, an Orlando nonprofit, cleaned off the paint with donated soap. Clean the World and the Global Soap project have distributed over 25 million bars of soap to 99 countries!
“We gave away about 75% of all the donated items. What’s left is going to Haiti for those in need … thanks to Divine Way Ministries.” says Take Action! event coordinator, Anastacha Constant. Not only did Divine Way help with donated items, they also took care of all the food and drinks.
Affordable Document Service lent their support to those in need. LA Fitness talked with residents about the importance of exercise and nutrition. And Orange County Fire/Rescue brought a firetruck. Where kids (and a few adults) climbed inside and learned about fire safety and injury prevention.
Ideas for next year’s Take Action! Event are already underway…
Kids get an inside look!
Fire truck on display.
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Taking Action! with pens, markers, and paint!
SOCIAL DISCUSSION 