Awhile back at my other blog I was puzzling over whether or not to give various adult family members the gift of a donation to a charitable organization in their honor.

My husband and I talked it over for quite awhile and decided to donate to AHOPE in honor of 8 adults on our family Christmas giving list. To each person who got the AHOPE donation, we also gave a small gift: chocolate or nuts or something along those lines.

For some reason I was more comfortable about doing this with John's side of the family, probably because for years mostly we... more

Here's a notice for any Seattle-area readers. ______________________

PENNY LEGATE'S 1/2 hour documentary, called SEATTLE TO ETHIOPIA: BRIDGES OF HOPE, will air on Tuesday, December 19th at 9:30pm on KIRO Channel 7. This documentary includes a story on THE AHOPE ORPHANAGE, a model program in Africa. Please watch!

Seattle to Ethiopia: Bridges of Hope Dec. 19, 2006 9:30 PM KIRO 7 __________________________________

For those of you outside of the Seattle area interested in seeing AHope, check out this post at Fly... more

I wanted to briefly mention a website that someone shared with me. Ethiopia Reads is a grassroots non profit/non government organization geared toward bringing literacy and books to Ethiopian children. Right now if you order anything from Amazon.com going through their website, a portion of the sale will go to provide children in Ethiopia with books. You can see some of their specially featured titles right here. So if you've got a little more shopping to do, you might think about buying via this site.

For those of you interested in AHope, the HIV+ orphanage, I thought I'd share some links with some good reading, as well as a video of five children from AHOPE who were recently given the opportunity to visit New York City and participate in a fund-raiser for AHOPE, showing contributors just how healthy kids can be when they get the antiretroviral drugs that they so badly need.

Please keep in mind that if you would like to make an AHOPE donation in someone's honor this Christmas, for $25 they will... more

Yesterday's New York Times ran this story: Sex Abuse of Girls Is Stubborn Scourge in Africa

The number of abuse cases is rising in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone and other African countries, statistics show. Whether that means more children are being victimized or more are coming forward — or both — is impossible to determine, experts say.

Researchers cite various reasons that abuse is so common: poverty, which makes it harder for parents to keep children safe; a legacy of violent, oppressed societies, and... more

I found an interesting article on the New York Times the other day about a company that is working on developing an affordable laptop that can be given to African children to give them access to the internet that the amazing resources there. Here's a snippet from the article

A former Intel chip designer found a way to modify conventional laptop displays, cutting the screen’s manufacturing cost to $40 while reducing its power consumption by more than 80 percent. As a bonus, the display is clearly visible in sunlight.

That advance and others have... more

Today is World AIDS Day. Here are some links to various places around the Web that are doing different things to commemorate the day.

Here's a blog where an African woman named Mshairi wrote a poem to remember AIDS victims.

This blog post by my friend Brianna talks about how her family has been affected by HIV.

A BBC News Report shows how HIV has affected... more

I just got this email from Oxfam. It looks like they got quite a few people to respond to their initial plea to put pressure on Starbucks to give Ethiopian farmers a fair price for their coffee. (My initial post is here if you missed it.)

If you haven't yet signed and are interested in helping to improve the lives of Ethiopian coffee farmers, please click on one of the below links and add your support to this campaign.

Thanks!!

*****************

Dear Mary,

More than 70,000 Oxfam supporters like you have urged Starbucks to recognize Ethiopia's ownership... more

There's an opportunity on the Oxfam website to speak up for Ethiopian coffee farmers. Oxfam America is a non-profit organization that works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities, and campaigning for change.

With as many as 15 million Ethiopians dependent on coffee, Ethiopia has decided to get its farmers more of what they deserve. The country's government has asked Starbucks to sign a licensing agreement that will allow Ethiopia to control the names of its coffees. That way, Ethiopia can help determine an export price that makes sure farmers see a larger share of the profits enabling them to feed... more

Click here How to make an Ethiopian quilt to read about a quilt raffle to benefit a family working on bringing home the biological sibling of their already-adopted Ethiopian child. Beautiful quilt. Great cause. Go check it out!!