Invisible Children Global Night Commute April 29, 2006

The Global Night Commute is a worldwide event organized by the Invisible Children Inc. organization. The Night Commute which will take place on April 29, 2006, will feature people from around the world converging on urban centers in solidarity with displaced Ugandan children attempting to avoid capture by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), as is prominantley displayed in the film "Invisible Children". The Global Night Commute will involve a trek of thousands of men, women, and children from around the world into major cities where they will mimic the nightly commute of the Ugandan children by marching en masse from one point to another and sleeping at their final destination for the entire night. The Commute is scheduled to occur in most major cities in the United States, as well as other locations throughout the world. The goal of this movement is to raise awareness and ultimately end Africa's longest running conflict by facilitating a change in the polices of the United States government in regard to the situation.
On April 29, 2006, join over 41,000 people who have already signed up to take part in this event. To sign up or for more information regarding the Global Night Commute and Invisible Children please visit http://www.invisiblechildren.com/

If you live in the Orange County area there is a Commute taking place in Costa Mesa at Orange Coast College. There will also be Commutes taking place in Long Beach at City Hall, as well as in the Los Angeles area in Santa Monica at City Hall.

Youth Against Poverty

"Be the change you wish to see in this world."

-Gandhi

Youth Against Poverty is an organzation that devotes its time to spreading awareness about child poverty. The organization's hope is that by spreading the word about child poverty people will feel empowered to do something. Knowledge is power and we can use this power to change the world. Child poverty isn't just a problem in developing nations, it is also a problem in our own country. Children are the future, but first we must give them a chance at having a future. These innocent children don't have a voice, so please lend them your voice and spread the word about child poverty. By helping to eradicate child poverty we will be giving these children a first chance at having a life. Read the facts below and be aware of the world around you. One person really can change the world, but we must also unite and work together to makes these changes last forever. Give a child a chance and spread the word.

Global Facts:

- About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five. (United Nations)

- Every year nearly 11 million children die before their fifth birthday. (Millennium Campaign)

- Every 30 seconds an African child dies of malaria - more than one million child deaths a year. (UN Millennium Project)

- Every year more than 10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases - that's over 30,000 per day and one every 3 seconds. (Millennium Campaign)

- More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day...300 million are children. Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency. (UN Millennium Project)

- Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation and the large majority are children under the age of 5. (UN Millennium Project)

- Five million people, mostly children, die each year from water-borne diseases. (UN Millennium Project)

- 600 million children live in absolute poverty. (Millennium Campaign)

- 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year. (Unicef)

- Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion. Number in poverty: 1 billion (every second child) (Global Issues)

- 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy) (Global Issues)

- 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. (Global Issues)

- 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized. (Global Issues)

- 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom) (Global Issues)

- More than 10 percent of children in developing countries die before the age of five. (CARE)

- Around 270 million children have no access to healthcare services. (World Vision New Zealand)

- In impoverished communities, children who are born with disabilities or disfigurements are often rejected, abandoned or abused. (World Vision New Zealand)

- The number of youth in the world surviving on less than a dollar a day in 2000 was an estimated 238 million, almost a quarter (22.5 per cent) of the worlds total youth population. (United Nations Population Fund)

- South Asia has the largest concentration of young people in extreme poverty (106 million), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (60 million), East Asia and the Pacific (51 million) and Latin America and the Caribbean (15 million). (United Nations Population Fund)

- Each day, 5,000 children become refugees, and one in every 230 persons in the world is a child or adolescent who has been forced to flee his or her home. (United Nations Population Fund)

- In 2000, an estimated 300,000 soldiers under the age of 18 were involved in 30 conflicts around the world. (United Nations Population Fund)

- Global estimates of street children vary from 100 million (half of them in Latin America) to 250 million, and their numbers are rapidly increasing. (United Nations Population Fund)

- Worldwide, an estimated 352 million children between ages 5 and 17 were economically active in 2000, over 246 million of them working illegally and nearly 171 million in hazardous conditions. (United Nations Population Fund)

- In sub-Saharan Africa, child mortality averages 173 deaths per 1,000 live births. (Unicef)

United States Facts:

- About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line. (Hearts & Minds)

- Poverty affects all ages, but an astonishing 48 percent of its victims are children. (Hearts & Minds)

- 22f Americans under the age of 18 -- and 25 under age 12 -- are hungry or at the risk of being hungry. (Hearts & Minds)

- Everyday 2,660 children are born into poverty; 27 die because of it. (Hearts & Minds)

- Children and families are the fastest growing group in the homeless population, representing 40(Hearts & Minds)

- There are more than 73 million children in the United States. 40.2 million live in low-income families. 18.5 million live in poor families. (National Center for Children in Poverty)

- A U.S. child is more than five times as likely to be poor as a child in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden. (Poor Kids in a Rich Country)

We Have The Resources:

- The net wealth of the 10 richest billionaires is $133 billion, more than 1.5 times the total national income of the least developed countries.

- The cost of eradicating poverty is 1% global income.

- Effective debt relief to the 20 poorest countries would cost $5.5 billion - equivalent to the cost of building EuroDisney.

- Providing universal access to basic social services and transfers to alleviate income poverty would cost $80 billion, less than the net worth of the seven richest men in the world.

- Six countries can spend $700 million in nine days on dog and cat food.

- Todays world spend $92 billion on junkfood, $66 billion on cosmetics and nearly $800 billion in 1995 for defence expenditure.

For more information on child poverty and how you can get involved please visit http://www.youthagainstpoverty.org/

Creating Yourself

Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
~Unknown

I have often wondered what it is that I would do with my life. As a little kid you have all these wonderful, imaginative dreams of what you want to be when you grow up. And then you grow up having realized none of those dreams. We grow up in a world that seems so obsessed with success that we often forget about our true identity. There is so much pressure from the world around me to know exactly what I want to do with my life. I have always felt so lost and often thought I was the only person who did not know who she was. I desperately wanted to be that person who knows exactly who they are and what they want to do with their life. I guess I always felt that life would be so much easier if I knew exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to have to go out into the world and find myself.

So I was at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf one day getting my usual ice blended pure chocolate and then something caught my eye. I noticed some coffee mugs with quotes on them and decided to give them a quick read. I have always loved quotes, especially the ones that make you think, reflect, or inspire you. I came across the quote above and had this amazing moment of clarity. I was going about my life all wrong. Trying to find myself, it's crazy. I know where I am. I'm right here in this moment. So that's what life is about, creating yourself. It's so simply. I can't believe it took me so long to realize this. I have always believed that we create our own destiny, so how could I not know that I had the power to create myself.

So I guess in reality I have always known who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. I just needed some inspirational words to help me realize what I already know. I am just a girl who is about to embark on a new chapter in her life. I am about to graduate college in a few months, not knowing what career I will pursue. But that is who I am. I am someone who doesn't like or need to know what tomorrow holds. I live in this moment. I do have dreams. I want to change the world. I feel so blessed to be a young woman growing up in the United States of America. I can't imagine my life in a country that doesn't allow me the same rights as men. For this I feel extremely lucky. I have two loving parents who would do anything for me, and an incredible family. I am healthy. I am loved. I am alive. So I do know that I want to give back to a world that has given me so much. That is what my life is going to be about. I want to be a writer. I want to use my words to tell stories that inspire others. Someday I want people to be able to read my words in a novel or hear them recited on a movie screen.

There is no need to find me. I already exist. I have created myself and will continue to create myself everyday.