It is the beginning of a new year and a new decade, making it a good opportunity to look over the past year or so that this blog has been in existence. This continues to be a personal experiment in how to use Web 2.0 for positive affect both personally and globally. This is not where I expected to end up when I started.
My first post was on 24 July 2008 End Poverty 2015 - Millennium Development Goals. This effort grew from what I was doing with My Pathways to New Paradigms blog. Initially, I was only thinking of ways to organize websites solely for my personal use (I had no idea about del.icio.us or diigo). The power of collaborative endeavors made possible by the the Internet not only applied to Web 2.0 but also to the efforts of change-agent (a term borrowed from Seth Godin, an important source of my looking at new paradigms) organizations doing their part to change the world for the better. Back on December 30, 2007, I was posting on a Los Angeles Times article on the Gates Foundation's Best Intentions Unintended Consequences (it was also the post that provided the inspiration to create this blog, due to a comment form Aditi). A couple of months later another post announced that Now, LA Times Recognizes That Africa's Anti-malaria Campaign Is Showing Results.
Recently, I received an even more positive update from fellow ONE member Melinda French Gates, who had visited Tsion, a hard-working young woman in the Ethiopia government's Health Extension Program.
Trained to tend to pregnant mothers, who otherwise would rely on traditional attendants unable to stop internal bleeding or resuscitate newborns, Tsion helped take the terror and fear of death out of childbirth for hundreds of women.
Bill and Melinda Gates are self-declared "Impatient Optimists" and their message was to celebrate successes in global health and especially when it comes to U.S.-funded global health initiatives through their online presentation titled "Living Proof: Why we are Impatient Optimists."
Thanks to 30,000 trained health extension workers like Tsion, access to health care in rural areas is rapidly expanding. And the health of Ethiopian children and women is improving.That's why, when it comes to global health, Bill and I are optimists—but we're impatient optimists. We need to build on this success now, by expanding it to even more women in Ethiopia and helping families in other countries benefit from what Ethiopia has learned.
Sharing success stories is one of the most important things we can do to motivate and inspire others in the fight against global poverty and disease.
That is what this blog is all about. While the intent was to create something that sought to be transformative in promoting the Millennium Development Goals, its greatest impact has undoubtedly been on myself.
