Lofty Matters

Wishing you all a great weekend! Enjoy these uplifting and good news current events!

Venezuelan Businessman Turns Thieves Into Employees

Alberto Vollmer is a handsome heir of one of Venezuela’s richest families. This US-educated businessman has created two very successful programs that provide the poor with land and job opportunities, and he has also figured out how to earn the respect of the government at the same time.

In 2000, he was faced with what other land owners have also been confronted with – poor squatters. When 500 poor families invaded a stretch of Vollmer’s 18,300-acre hacienda, he didn’t fight them – he welcomed them. Vollmer entered into negotiations with their leader. The result was that Vollmer would provide land and design houses for 100 of the families. The rest would receive homes somewhere else with the state’s help. Officials would provide mortgages. The families would also participate in job-training programs sponsored by Vollmer’s distillery.

Today, this neighborhood, with its colorful homes and groups of happy of children, is a success.

“We had to be much more ambitious and think, ‘How are you going to change the reality of these people, so they’re productive for themselves?’ ” Vollmer said. “It’s not a handout. It’s to give something sustainable.”

Chain of Giving

When Bill Coram needed a kidney, his friend Tim Shain offered to give him one. Unfortunately, Shain’s kidney was not a match for Coram. Not long ago that would have been that.

Now, however, there is a program called paired donation making it possible for a living donor to give a kidney to a stranger. Then in return, another stranger donates a kidney to the person the donor wanted to help in the first place. The actual chain of donations turns out to be a little more complicated but basically this is what Shain did.

The Alliance for Paired Donation enables member medical centers to search for potential donors throughout the alliance.

In this case, arrangements were made through medical centers associated with the University of Toledo and with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This enabled Shain to become part of a chain of donated kidneys. Because of Shain’s donation of a kidney to a stranger, Coram received a kidney from another stranger.

It’s a pay-it-forward or never-ending chain. The process has also been called domino transplants.

Olympians Donate Sportswear to Inspire Refugees

A new UN campaign is giving all Olympians a chance to be winners in the eyes of refugees.

The “Giving is Winning” program is trying to encourage athletes to donate their surplus sportswear to refugees in Asia.

Sportswear being gifted from Olympic athletes around the globe helps to inspire refugees and connects them to the world of sports.

In the time to the Olympic Games beginning last night, approximately 50,000 articles of clothing were collected and distributed to refugees in Rwanda, Tanzania, Chad, Moldova, Georgia and Panama.

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