I have a real love/hate relationship with technology. If you’re anything like me, somedays you want to rail against the intense impact that technology has had on our lives and our work. Even a decade ago, who would have thought that we’d all be living with battery-operated appendages that keep the work and the world flowing at us 24/7?
But wow! Technology also offers so many ways to make this world a better place… To share our opinions and voices. To lift voices and causes!
Don’t you just love how technology has expanded our capacity to learn about — and actively get involved with – a variety of social justice and democracy promoting causes?
Whether you make one specific issue your signature cause or are able to support many different change initiatives, isn’t it amazing how technology helps us lead forward toward social justice!
World Pulse: Girls Transform the World
I’m a week into World Pulse’s Girls Transform the World campaign as a volunteer listener ( http://worldpulse.com/ ). What a fulfilling way to elevate girls and women’s voices around the globe. I get to read and comment on stories, poems, essays and pieces that could later be published broadly.
Imagine, learning what a woman in Uganda thinks about sex education; how a Lebanese woman is living her dream by going to college late in life; and how one woman in Africa asks herself everyday, “What Kind of Woman Am I?” And, I get to directly tell them how courageous they are!
Women and girls are leaping forward…technology gives them chances to expand their world exponentially and gives me the abilty to support them in small ways. Get INSPIRED!
Live Below the Line: Live on $1.50 a Day
Can you live on $1.50 a day for 5 days? That is the challenge that Ben Affleck, along with many others in the U.S. and around the globe, are taking to gain authentic understanding of what living in extreme poverty is like — and raise awareness and money to combat poverty at the same time.
Live Below the Line https://www.livebelowtheline.com/us is a Global Poverty Project movement that’s challenging us all to to think about poverty. Ready to accept the challenge? Live Below the Line even offers a cookbook of recipes to help you keep to $1.50 a day: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/us-guidance/ .
Isn’t it amazing how technology offers us a way to connect, gain empathy and do something that makes a real difference in the world ! Get COMPASSIONATE!
Want U.S. Children to Get a Better Start in Life? Thank President Obama
The National Women’s Law Caucus is enlisting us to support President Obama’s historic proposed investment in U.S. early childhood education. If you’re in support of making sure our young children have enough affordable, high-quality early learning opportunities – NWLC gives you an easy way.
They want 10,000 letters to go to the President thanking him for making children a priority in his budget. When we’re so used to complaining about what’s happening in Washington, D.C., how about sending a thank you?
NWLC’s deadline is May 2: https://secure2.convio.net/nwlc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=917 . Get GRATEFUL !
Thank Everyday Heroes! Technology Not Needed…
Last week was a tough week in America — and it was a week where we saw heroism in action. How about making the time to thank one person in your life who shows you what courage is like? Miss Representation
http://www.missrepresentation.org/
emailed an awesome reminder:
take the time to thank one person in your life who exudes heroism.
Whether you know someone who sprang to action in a moment of crisis or a person in your life displays daily courage through the kindness of her interactions with you, let her/him and others know that they inspire you to be brave. Get HEROIC!
By celebrating our everyday heroes and spotlighting their acts of heartfelt courage, we can start to shift society away from the glorification of Hollywood hypermasculinity and towards the valuing of universally helpful human qualities like empathy, care and love. This is one small way we can all contribute to the healing our global community so desperately needs.”
Got More Leading Ideas? Share!
I’m no techno-whiz. In fact, if you’d have told me a year ago that I’d love connecting to people and causes through Twitter, my laughter would have chased you from the room.
Today, I feel grateful to other leaders (you know who you are) who suggested stripping away my ‘technology-negative thoughts’ to find what’s of value to me. I still believe we need to be careful not to rewire our brains with too much technology-driven multi-tasking, that we MUST purposely disconnect and focus on in-the-moment human interactions. But finding ways to use tools that expand our human greatness, our ability to impact social justice in the world – what could be better?
Got leading ideas? Love to hear them!
