Direct Action

Big Hearts Help Ship Fire Trucks

- Adam Clare

This is a heartwarming story of a group of people in the USA who had old fire trucks and shipped it to a place that could make good use of it. This is a great way to reuse equipment and make the world better! Thanks to Evan for finding this!

“Well, the town of Plymouth was able to scrounge up a few spare fire trucks, used, but in good working order; so why not ship them to Guinea-Bissau, along with an ambulance, and give the former Portuguese colony some peace of mind?
And that’s what is going to happen.

The country’s fire chief, Malam Djaura, will receive the keys to the equipment and training in how to operate them from Plymouth firefighters before the trucks and ambulance are shipped from New Jersey to West Africa.

These things, as improbable as they may seem, don’t happen in a vacuum. A Plymouth resident, David Applefield, who is a reporter for a newspaper in Guinea-Bissau, told his father, Jerry, about the fire. Jerry, in turn, mentioned it to state Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth. DeMacedo’s brother, Olavo bought one truck, and Jerry Applefield bought the other truck and ambulance, and Plymouth and Hanson fire officials threw in a bunch of hoses, connectors and other equipment. Olavo deMacedo even had one truck lettered and decorated with the Guinea-Bissau flag.”

Aid Workers Network Relaunches

- Adam Clare

AWN The Aid Workers Network is “tired of re-inventing the wheel” and have decided to do something about it. AWN is a place for aid workers to share ideas, concerns, and help each other. It’s also a place to help people interested in working in the aid field.

Members can update their profile and have a blog on the site. It’s an online community for people around the world who want to save the world. The redesign got support from Oxfam and Red Cross and have helped the AWN focus their site to what aid workers need most from the site.

Red Alert!

- Agasel

Red: the colour of love, anger … and now a symbol for an exciting product line, aiming to help people in Africa with AIDS.  (Product) Red contains items from various companies, including Gap Inc., Apple Computer Inc., and Emporio Armani.  Some of the eye-catching products include: a red MotoRazr from Motorola, vibrant red shirts from Gap, and a cute red iPod nano. A portion of profits will go to Global Fund, an organization that fights AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. 

Doug Piwinski, a spokesman for (Product) Red, says the initiative has raised more than $12 million for African AIDS programs, since starting last spring in Britain.

The (Product) Red website also features a gift registry.  What a great way to let people know what you want for Christmas, and give to charity at the same time!

Walmart pays workers $78 million

- Nikki Slabbert

Friday the 13th turned out to be very lucky for Michelle Braun and Dolores Hummel, both former employees of the popular Wal-Mart Inc. chain. The two workers sued the chain after they were forced to work during their break times. The jury found in favour of current and former employees in Pennsylvania to the tune of $78 million for wages lost between March of 1998 and May of 2006.

This was a blow to Wal-Mart’s already tarnished image. The chain has been accused of treating and paying employees poorly. Mike Donovan, attorney for the two workers, was thrilled with the outcome: “The message of today’s verdict to large retailers is that they can’t say one thing to their employees and do another.”

This is not the first time Wal-Mart has been in hot water, in December a Wal-Mart branch in  Bentonville, Arkansas was ordered to pay $172 million to employees who were denied meal breaks.

Dial-a-Meal

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Over at OneWorld South Asia they are running this neat story about a dial-a-meal program:

“Hunger Helpline allows hungry in Gujarat to dial-a-meal. Poor and hungry and living in Gujarat? A meal is just a phone call away, if the state’s food and civil supplies department, which is launching a Hunger Helpline, is to be believed

A novel Hunger Helpline in Gujarat, initiated by the state government in collaboration with civil society organisations (CSOs), aims to connect poor people in need of a meal with food donors through the telephone.

The brainchild of the state’s food and civil supplies department, this first-of-its-kind service aims to ensure than no person in the state goes hungry, either during a natural calamity or even on an ordinary day.”

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