…and I shall not keep it to myself any longer. Would you like a little hint? Here you go…

Yes, you will need your ears. and I need to take a deep breath and make myself a stiff drink. It’s coming up next…

PS perhaps you need to pour yourself a glass of something too, let me know what you’re having and I’ll have the same. In fact, make it a double…

Thank you to all of you who were inspired to post your thoughts about poverty yesterday. It was wonderful to click around the blogosphere and read your posts, I could barely keep up with them rolling in. Please click on each others names in the comment section of the post below to check out more of the posts, there are many fabulous ones still to read.

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Katie wrote a rather poignant comment that I’d like to share with you all…

“…I do some days feel down by people I see who feel they can do nothing and thus don’t. We all have something to give. We don’t have to fork out millions and donate funds like some of your fellow bloggers, or volunteer innumerable hours, like me, but we can share the voice, we can be mindful and thoughtful and we can make a difference in all those small actions…”

She nailed it: “we all have something to give”. Think outside the box. Look around your immediate surroundings, look around your extended surroundings, open your eyes. Use what you have. Just like we all started seeing hearts wandering all over the place when it was brought to our attention – those tiny little hearts were there all along. And so is yours. The more you give (whether it be time, love, clothes, thought, or money), the bigger your heart gets.

Image by Anna from Heartland, submitted for My Heart Wanders.

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I have spent many years researching, analysing, and observing our global Human Rights issues, privately. I have been plagued by the question all my life, “what can I do?”. One of my biggest discoveries was the affects of money – when I gave money, I wasn’t able to see the direct results of that money and I found it very frustrating. And then I would receive more newsletters saying the problem is getting worse. How can it be getting worse when I, and so many other people, are continually giving money? Where is it going?

Then one day, being the rebellious girl that I can be at times, I decided to by-pass all those various charity organisations that were not answering my questions, and found a way to send my money directly to a person I wanted to help in India. He was a young Tibetan school teacher and was so very dedicated to his pupils, so many of them orphans, having lost their parents from the hardships of poverty in their occupied homeland. I had visions of my new friend buying his students the pens they needed, the textbooks they were craving. He kept me up-to-date as often as he could with emails and letters, and I spoke to him on the phone a number of times. With his broken English we somehow managed to communicate about deep, profound issues. Then he told me, rather shyly, that a boy had arrived at the school the day before, and he had come all the way from Tibet, without his parents or any family member. He said this boy was so skinny and dirty, and he had no shoes. His only pair of shoes had turned to rags on his 15 day trek across the Himalayas. I could only imagine the state of this young boys feet. My friend apologised profusely, he said “i’m so sorry, but with some of your money I bought him some shoes, I’m sorry, I know you wanted the money to go toward the books but I just had to buy him shoes”. My heart lifted – I had just helped to buy this young boy shoes!!!

Image courtesy of the Art of Peace Foundation.

I could hear the birds singing outside and i asked him to describe his surroundings. I could hear an instrument being played, he told me it was a man sitting by the roadside with a guitar. I had never met this man, my new friend that I was talking to, and I have never ever been to his exiled home. But there I was, in Australia, talking to a teacher in India, and I could feel the power of our communication, together we would be able to make a difference.

My friend had decided that he wanted to start a magazine for his students with the money I was sending. The magazine was to be called THURSTE, and it would be a means for his students to let out their emotional feelings through writing. He explained that most of the students did not have any parents at all, or the parents were in Tibet, now a place they would never be able to return. He said “…they really need a place to express their feelings.” I thought this was such a wonderful idea, and I couldn’t wait to see the first issue and read these students thoughts, feelings, and drawings. I knew this would be a wonderful project because I knew how much writing and creating had, and continues to help me to express my emotions. My friend had had such a horrific experience himself, of being pressured to leave his family in Tibet who were living in extreme poverty, to try to make a better life for himself in a foreign land, and he missed his mother so much but he was too scared to go back to Tibet as he knew the consequences for him and his family.

The first issue of the magazine THURSTE was never published: My friend was found hanging from his tiny room’s ceiling just a few months later.

Image courtesy of the Art of Peace Foundation.

The state of his poverty, and the state of his people and his land, was just all too much for him to bare. It is very, very unusual for a Tibetan to commit suicide. My heart bled.

This was about 6 years ago, and this is the first time I have ever written about it. I had absolutely no intention to write this today, or any day. But when I titled this post ‘final thoughts’, this is what came out. It seems it was meant to be shared today.

It is my belief that communication + education is the key towards a world without poverty. Every one of you who posted about poverty yesterday are huge contributors to the communication part of the equation. And you brought awareness to the fact that poverty is everywhere – in our own homelands, not just ‘far away’. Educating the Western World on the importance of everyone having the right to Basic Human Needs and teaching ways to how this can be achieved, and helping to provide education in the Third World make up the second part of the equation. Please think about this.

Some of the highlights from posts yesterday, as well as my own personal research toward our plight of poverty are below…

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Thanks guys, for taking the time to read this. And for those of you who do not feel that poverty is an issue close enough to home to worry about, please, think again.

Thank you to everyone who reacted to the post I wrote last week about Blog Action Day, and posted about poverty today. Your thoughts, your actions, and the time you have taken to write your posts has made a wonderful, positive impact toward our plight of poverty. Here are your posts thus far, please take the time to read and comment on each other’s blogs…

Katie (aka Ms. Crackernuts) writes about her first glimpse of real poverty as a Girl Guide in Bangladesh, read her post here.

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Allison tells us about an old bearded stranger who came knocking on her door yesterday, and the importance of connecting with each other to help eradicate poverty. Beautiful post Allison. Click here to read.

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Oliveaux tells us about Nakuru Baby Orphanage in Kenya, founded by an Australian couple who sold their home in Australia to start the orphanage. They now look after 35 babies and children. Click here to read more.

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Charlie from So Lovely and My Sister’s in Darfur has written a few fabulous posts spread across her blogs. Read them here and here.

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Corine from Hidden In France talks about her fear of poverty in her own life, and has been blogging her little heart out for Blog Action Day for the last 48 hours. Read her awesome posts here. You go girl!!

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Sofia writes this: “Don’t let poverty become our landscape”. Read her post here.

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Josephine from Red Thread starts her thread on poverty with this beautiful image from Dorothea Lange. Her eloquent post says it all, read it here.

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Nadia from La Porte Rouge made this beautiful picture for the day.

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Bricks + Cartwheels wrote about the very brilliant Global Studio. Check out their full post here.

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and Courtney from Under a Paper Moon has written two informative and inspiring posts right here.

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So get clicking everyone!! There is no time better than the present to comment on each other’s posts and make a super loud echo vibrate through the blogosphere. Shake it up now, I wanna hear the rumble! A world without poverty is what we want!

I said, what do we want?

A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY.

What was that? say it again!