Bono and Africa, Diana and landmines, Geldof and poverty - now Daniel and dunnies

05 December 2007

Not every great movement started with a celebrity. Small people can make big changes.
 

Tulsi Tanti - a businessman from India - got his cosmic nudge from an electricity bill. One month his manufacturing company made a good profit - exactly the total of the bill. So he switched to wind power, and is now one of the largest producers of wind turbine generators on the planet. And of course, with Global Warming...

Hammer Simwinga - a Zambian, dramatically reduced poaching by offering the poachers a better way of living. Simple, huh, just like Daniel's Quest. Not high-tech, but damn effective. Hammer started up various small businesses and now has jobs for 35,000 people in 64 villages. When he began, only 20% of these people ate three meals a day. Now that sits at 80%. A Government would be trumpeting such a feat - he's just one humble little man.

Wangari Maathai from Kenya got a small group of women together and started planting trees. She's up to 40 million. One woman = 40 million. Two women... 80 million. Three women... and we get to Everett Dirksen, US Congressman: "A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money." [Can you believe he actually said that? With just US$10,000 we will add water and sewerage to every home, get every kid to the dentist AND have them speaking English - in the next twelve months.] Wangari went on to be the first environmentalist - and first African woman - to win the Nobel Prize.

Benjamin Kahn from Israel dived in his youth along the Red Sea Reef, which had possessed the greatest variety of coral and undersea life on earth. Just three years ago he returned to discover it was mostly dead, victim of nearby giant fish farms polluting the water. He lobbied to close those, and now runs a program where after a storm broken pieces of coral are collected, and nurtured by 5,000 children in classrooms in the region. After several months divers carefully glue the coral back. The Reef is on its way to health again.

There are hundreds of examples like this across the planet, so don't imagine that Daniel can't make a difference. Watch this space! Through fotos, videos and this blog we will show you it all happening.

By the way, from the title: a "dunny" is Australian for toilet [Daniel was rescued from the street by an Aussie] - and Daniel plans, of course, to put a dunny in every house in this community!

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