Dr. Kshama Metre is making a difference. She is contributing to the alleviation of poverty in the developing world. She leads an organization called CORD, or the Chinmaya Organisation for Rural Development, which works in rural India. Dr. Metre is an example of what just one individual can do to make others’ lives better. A pediatrician, Dr. Metre has set […]

Want to give a bit of joy? It might only cost you 60 cents. And that joy will bring a brand new smile. Check out Operation Smile. What do they do? In their words: “Operation Smile provides free surgeries to repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities for children around the globe.” More […]

The Womanity Foundation is “accelerating progress for women and their communities”. Currently, the independent philanthropic foundation and Radio NISAA FM, the first all-women commercial radio station in the Palestinian territories, are producing a radio program in Arabic called “Worth 100 Men” on the role of women in society. The story illustrates the trials and tribulations […]

Rita Pierson is an educator in Houston, Texas. She believes strongly in the power she and other teachers have to influence children and young people. Her impact is illustrated in a story she tells about a boy’s reaction after doing poorly on a quiz. The student missed 18 out of 20 questions, but Pierson graded the test a +2 and drew […]

The Good Times has already reported on the sustained efforts of Friends of India, but more good news has ensued from the non-profit charity. Despite hard times, an anonymous donation of 100,000 Swiss francs is helping the organization achieve its goals. What are Friends of India’s achievements? Through the Richard Walsh Music Project, for example, Friends […]

Who creates jobs? It’s a controversial subject, but a recent Economist article suggests that immigrants do. The article states, “few realise that foreign-born entrepreneurs create jobs for locals.”  The piece describes a new campaign that reveals the number of people US companies with at lease one immigrant boss have hired. It is Innovate for America, which […]

“How would you run a whole country without oil?” That’s what Shai Agassi is asking. Agassi is the founder of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for using electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel technology (see The Good Times story of August 2011). His answer is to convert an entire country (in […]

Here’s a message from Bonnie Fatio, creator of AgeEsteem:   As spring bursts forth does your life seem to be whizzing by too rapidly? Or do you feel like you are dragging yourself out of winter at a slow crawl? If you are like me, at every age there are periods when you experience each of […]

Here’s a practical way to help end global poverty: join the efforts of the Global Poverty Project. No joke! Its vision is: “a world without extreme poverty within a generation. Our mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to end extreme poverty. The Global Poverty Project is an educational and […]

According to John W. McArthur, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution who from 2002-2006 was Manager and Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Project, “the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] have mobilized government and business leaders to donate tens of billions of dollars to life-saving tools, such as antiretroviral drugs and modern mosquito nets. […]