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Like many, I contribute to some non-profit organizations, and have been a World Vision child sponsor for many years.  More recently, I realize the responsibility to go from easy act of giving to more thoughtful consideration to give where it creates impact I care about.

If you are interested in changing lives for the better including your own, you would love this book “A path appears” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

In this world of unequal opportunities contributed no less by the lottery of birth, the book offers, the best I have seen, a path on how to help those who lose at the birth draw.

With Cure-Violence to combat inner-city conflicts in the United States by applying principle of epidemiology; or organization which brings in older Americans to tutor students in public school across the country, it gives a catalog of opportunities to support babies to teens, from combating inner-city challenges to transforming slums in Kenya.  The true stories are riveting and convincing how small acts of individual can make life-changing impacts to others.

I love the refreshingly bold section that talks about challenges in managing non-profit organizations and at times competition among them.  Recently, I read about people stop donating to a non-profit organization as they consider the CEO got a high pay (when it was pretty low compared to the business world). There is expectation that people associated with non-profit initiatives should be sacrificial.  Such undermines abilities to attract best talent and create pressure to cut corners in the administration of non-profit organizations.  Should we judge instead the impacts the organization make or not make?

The third and last section sums up to “help others help ourselves”.  It echoes a childhood learning that helping is the origin of happiness.  If altruism has a mixed record of success, it has an almost perfect record of helping ourselves.

If you just want to spare a minute on the topic, the last page lists six steps to take in the next six minutes.

Another on my reading list: “Half the Sky” from the same authors.

On the summer reading list of President Obama, it raises enough curiosity to pick up this book on a foreign topic – the history of species evolution and extinction.

The author Elizabeth Kolbert draws her audience in this unusual topic and does a fantastic job in reporting about species evolution and extinction in this planet.  Elizabeth not only makes the topic interesting, it makes it relevant why we care about species diversity, about ocean acidification and about mega fauna extinction. In her journey, she visited different places that had made a mark in the species evolution or extinction.  Everywhere she goes – she reports the past, the present, the story and its adventures through first hand conversations and hands-on experience.

The book starts with the extinction of a few frog species; and in thirteen chapters, each tracks a species that is emblematic – the American mastodian, the great auk, an ammonite talks about extinct species; the increasingly fragmented Amazon rainforest, the ocean acidification and the endangered corals at Great Barrier Reef talk about the present landscape; plus many more around mammals and human.     If any of these is new to you, the author will carry you to these new territories.

In the chapter on theory of mega fauna extinction, it is mind boggling on how human arrival may correlate the closest the species extinction when human predators unintentionally disrupts their long reproductive cycle; and the species reduction triggers forest overgrowth, then climate change.  And how modern human species drive to extinction o
f its cousin such as Neanderthal; the uniqueness of human bring madness, creativity and at the same time its destructive power which drives species extinction and one day could be our own.

The book is educational and entertaining; it tells an unnatural history of species evolution and the evolving theory about it.  I love reading about the stories, and learn a lot more than expected.  It gives a deeper appreciation of what is going on in the planet; and why we want to sustain the species diversity.

If the above topics do not interest you, wait till you start reading the book.

It is not everyday scene to see an 18-year old teenager getting a standing ovation in a late night show.  She is the youngest-ever Nobel peace prize laureate.

‘I am Malala” covers her fifteen years of life in Pakistan, her families, her childhood, her schools and the global terrorism before she was almost shot to death.

Her father is not a traditional man.  He fell in love with his future wife and got married; in a culture which did not celebrate the arrival of a girl, he gave her whole heart to his daughter Malala when she was born.   Her father is a man with a dream to educate children. His dream led the family to Mingora, Swat Valley, to build schools.  There were years of hardship around building schools in Pakistan, not to mention that the schools were for both boys and girls.   Yet, through the eyes of Malala, there is the positivity and the belief in overcoming obstacles.

As her family “financial” situation improved and the school was established, the political situation in Pakistan deteriorated as Taliban started to penetrate to the Swat valley. It started with propaganda over radio which influenced minds and provided a platform to attack non-conformist.  As the influences increased, it spread terror through physical attack and increasingly powerful militants.  The commitment and competence of Pakistan regime to protect the territory from falling to Taliban were both questionable; for years, Malala’s family has been living through wars between the Taliban and the Pakistan military; and schools were being bombed often.   As the town went from bad to worse, her family became internally displaced, like refugees.

Through the turmoil, Malala lives through her childhood, with tons of family love, friends, and her fair share of teenager worries.   Like many children, she loves learning, she is concerned about grades, she loves to be the top student in her class; she has friends, and occasional arguments with friends; she is a typical elder sister with sibling rivalries.   She has concern about her height and wish diligence could get herself an inch taller.

What is inspirational is her love of learning and her belief of education against terrorism.  Malala has pursued her education at risk of her personal safety; she relentlessly advocates for education through her blog, her speech and her bravery.  When her family became internally displaced, the thing she missed the most was her books.  When she recovered in the hospital, she wanted her books, and she missed the school examinations.  Malala’s love of learning and school is a lesson for all the kids in many countries, where education is taken for granted.

This is a story of a girl, a family and a country through the eyes of Malala, with unusual clarity of thought, passion and strength; yet without the sophistication of premature adulthood.