Spark*Blog

At about 5:30 am this morning, my colleagues and I (and my dog, Josie!) packed up our things and left the Echoing Green offices after a marathon all-nighter during which we had the difficult task of winnowing down the ninety-nine top-ranked applications to the twenty-three finalist organizations we’ll invite to the 2009 Echoing Green Fellowship selection weekend at the beginning of May. (This is no small feat and began with an initial pool of close to 1,000 applicants from all over the world.)

Maya Ajmera and her amazing organization, Global Fund for Children, have authored and published over twenty children’s books. I just received a copy of their latest release, Faith, and I must share it with you. Faith explores world religions through themes of hope, worship, and peace while highlighting the practices that make each faith unique.

We got word this week that musician and philanthropist Peter Buffet and R&B/pop star Akon are releasing a new track titled “Blood Into Gold” this Wednesday, March 25th. The song was written to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It will be performed live at the United Nation’s General Assembly Hall on Wednesday night.

Be sure to check out ThinkChange India, a blog focused on social innovation and social entrepreneurship in India. One of their features is a regular column entitled TC-I Changemakers, which highlights “organizations and people doing some remarkable work to change the world and change India.” Their latest interviewee?  Echoing Green President Cheryl Dorsey.

When I talk to young people about to embark on a career in social change, I often tell them I have never had a dull day. Literally, I can state with utmost confidence that I have NEVER been bored in all my work years; there’s never a lack of interesting things to do EVER. Well, yesterday is a perfect example of this.

Are you into looking good while doing good?

So are we.  That’s why we’re introducing Echoing Green’s first t-shirt design contest. But it’s not any old design contest... we're crowdsourcing it with our friends over at crowdSPRING.com.  Each entry in the contest is made public on their website, and if you sign up for an account, you can help us decide by voting for your favorites. 

One does not have go much further than learning of a patent called “Method of swinging on a swing” to realize that something is terribly wrong with the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Luckily, reformers like Echoing Green Fellow, Daniel Ravicher, featured in last week’s Christian Science Monitor, push the PTO to limit granting patents that are undeserving.

We always knew that Echoing Green Fellows had strong points of view, but recently, they’ve been spreading the word. Two fellows were in the news in the past week with opinion articles in the New York Times and the Huffington Post.

The film Slumdog Millionaire is not only drawing attention for its cinematic value; it is also raising awareness about poverty-stricken children in India and around the world. In a recent interview on NPR’s Tell Me More, 1993 Echoing Green Fellow Maya Ajmera discusses the plight of children living in slums and how her organization, The Global Fund for Children, is working to solve these deeply rooted problems, such as poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and trafficking.

Congratulations to 1994 Echoing Green Fellow Van Jones on his recent appointment to the White House Council on Environmental Quality as a special adviser.  The news hit the wires yesterday and has been covered today by The New York Times, U.S.