One person CAN make a difference

Just heard an interview with an inspiring San Franciscan man, John Wood, a Microsoft Executive who went on a trekking holiday to Nepal in 1998, and whilst there visited a local school and was shocked at the poverty of opportunity for young Nepalese children. He vowed to do something about it and organised the collection of 3000 second hand children's books which he delivered to the local schools of Nepal. This first step was something so simple in the scheme of things and relatively easy to organise, however it took one man's determination to act upon his feelings rather than to just comment on the lack of resources in the schools.  

His commitment and vision has changed the lives of those Nepalese children and since then he has continued to take education to the world's neediest communities in the form of books and has set up 'Room to Read', a nonprofit group that builds schools and libraries for children in Asia. "There are nearly 1 billion illiterate people in the world," says Wood. "My goal is to help 10 million children achieve literacy by 2010."

There are so many simple things each one of us can do in our own communities to make this world a more tolerable place for even just one needy person. Just imagine what could happen in this world, if a few thousand people followed John Wood's example.