Werd.

Social Networking, media, however you want to define it can be a wonderful thing. You can connect with your friends and or family on Facebook, and see numerous photos or messages about each other, to stay in touch even more than before.

You can use Twitter for the same, but I see it used as most people’s momentary issues, or interesting links that you find. Retweeting, and spreading the word of someone elses post that you feel your followers can see is outstanding to spread virally.

However, I find it disturbing that I can post something about a sporting event, and or funny youtube videos, and get far more response out of it, then if I posted something for a non profit. Now, let me explain as that I don’t condone posting wonderful things outside of the non profit realm, because the fact is we love to indulge in sports, television, and other material things and thats fine. However, unless a large event happens such as the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or the devastating earthquake in Haiti, we don’t pay much attention to the other travesties that are going on around us.

I tend to post a lot of news that refers to homelessness and the current non-profit I work for, 21st Paradigm. Homelessness strikes me alot, not because I have ever been in that dire of a situation, but because of when I had hard times in the life of my own family, it does make me feel for others that are out there hurting. As mentioned in my last post, seeing children in homeless situations is completely inexcusable for our society to not pay more attention to. Per the last report on CNN, there are approximately 1/2 a million children in the United States that are living in poverty and homeless. Although I admire some of the good stories that come from the strength of some of those kids, it just simply isn’t enough. We have to do more, even if its donating clothes, baby items, or your time. In the past, I have personally donated car seats, because a friend of mine that works for a shelter, simply needed to be able to transport children that were homeless, and was difficult to do so without.

I am not asking for everyone to jump off a couch and support every non profit organization, activist, or unfortunate circumstance that you come across. A simple forward of a message of these types of people, would help though.

The new film from 21st Paradigm entitled ‘Lost Dogs‘, is another situation that I like to talk about a lot. The plight of the animals in Chile, being left homeless, and there sterilization that has not occurred has caused the numbers of unfortunate dogs to escalate in to the 100′s of thousands. I have heard people leave messages like: “Well, thats great and all, but why can’t we do that closer to home”, and to that sort of response, I would agree. However, I don’t believe that we can only focus on that sort of issue on our own soil alone. I don’t believe that these animals should be condemned because of what piece of land they were born on. I am in no way saying we should try and fix the issues throughout the world alone by ourselves, but we can educate, and do something to help what we can, and give people the tools and knowledge to help themselves as well.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to adopt yet, but we are planning in the near future. If we can save 1 life, and you can save 1 life, and we continue to spread the message of spaying and neutering, and sterilizing populations, then we can make a difference. I think its fantastic that California has just announced a new special license plate plan to support the effort to spay and neuter animals, and the money that is earned extra from those plate sales will go directly to animal shelters.

I have seen my wife post tons of links to heinous acts going on around the world that deals with Sex Trade, specifically in Cambodia. Females young and older being used and abused for sex, and its incredibly popular because of tourists. The United States aren’t excluded from this trend, as it is said that especially United States tourists are getting involved and becoming perpetrators in these disgusting acts of violence. Fortunately, there are people trying to get involved, but it is a very dangerous to try and break up these sort of rings, let alone report on it. Groups that are trying to help, I find are trying to rehabilitate women that have been trapped in these situations, and try to get them back on their feet and show them the ability of courage to sustain their life. It is truly heart breaking to watch and or read any of it, especially when it comes to minors. Again, being a father, it strikes a nerve deeper, and I am happy to see my wife getting more involved in wanting to help bring these issues to light.

We may not be able to save the world, but we can at least try.

Or at least a retweet.