h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having found your space and journal entry, I was hoping for some interesting conversation, or at least, an interesting intro for a conversation. Perhaps because I am also interested in world-changing and realise that from my lowly position, by degrees is the only way I have available.

It seems that the entry appears quite recent. Does this mean you are currently working on your entry, or that you paused before completing the entry? Either way, it is a shame.

Hi Mirror,

Good to hear from you...you are right that 360 is in very early stages. I'm one of the people helping to set it up - and we are slowly but surely putting all these proposals together before the site is launched. Hopefully some more people will find this (still rather hidden) section and start up a conversation!

We also hope that h2g2 members will suggest some projects which we could cover. We really want the new 360 site to become a community which is dedicated to finding solutions and applying them - with people telling us what is out there and what's being done/not being done. Particularly we want to hear about/from people who are doing something positive to make the world work better.

Have you got any ideas? 360 will be your site as much as h2g2. If you'd like to join we'll let you (and everyone else at h2g2) know when the 360 site is up and running and you'll be most welcome.

And there's something you can do right now....Are there any places or people you know of who are doing a great job? Individuals or groups - whichever. What we would like to focus on is individuals who get up and do something! If you have a great idea, put it up here and we'll take a look.

Thanks!

MaggyW

Hi Maggie, thanks for the input. I have now had the opportunity to read the whole project and would love to be a part of it.

Also, many of my friends would like to suggest stuff, I am sure. Is there a way of sending the whole blurb by e-mail to all my pals or do I have to copy it out word for word?

In the meantime, I have seen the reports of those poor Afghan people who have been walking for days and days, without food, and end up in a bitterly cold and windy desert in winter in tents. I have been writing in various places in h2g2 hoping to get some warm dry housing organised for them. What follows is my journal entry:

Glass fibre mud huts (3 Weeks Ago)
While talking to a friend recently about the homeless people of Afghanistan living in tents in the bitterly cold and windy desert, I remembered a couple of programmes on TV in the dim and distant past that related to instant housing.

One, was a way of spraying an instant dome 'mud hut' made from, if I remember correctly, mud and glass or carbon fibre sprayed over a form. Trouble is, it must have been over a decade since I saw the programme and cannot now remember much about it.

The other idea I think I have a bead on, was cardboard survival huts used in the arctic. Everything was made from cardboard including the beds, tables and chairs. The only problem my friend could foresee was that the cardboard may not stand up to the weather in Afghanistan or Pakistan as the arctic is so cold there is little external humidity.

I was wondering if anyone out in h2g2 land thought these possibilities were a) feasible and b) could recall the programme or the inventor or anyone connected with it, in order to come up with a reasonably warm and dry alternative to tents and or bombed homes.

Strictly speaking it doesn't fit within the four key challenges as it does not directly relate to poverty. Nonetheless, there are agencies out there dealing with food, what they need now is instant houses.

Dear Mirror,

Thanks for your posting - I'm so please that you are involved - and your journal is exactly the kind of thing we are looking for. Would you be kind enough to post it on the 360 shell-site? As you'll see we've updated it again (and that will go on for weeks until it's ready to 'go live') and there's a section called 'Become a 360 Researcher' with a discussion forum. If you'd just put your journal stuff there it would be great. Thanks.

Also, I've copied a Round Robin email that I'm sending to friends and colleagues at the end of this posting. Do feel free to cut and paste it and forward it to anyone you think might be interested (and that goes for anyone else who may be reading this too). The more people know, the more we can do....and we will soon be coming up with stories which will get good publicity - and may even end up as TV or radio programmes. We're very happy with that idea as it raises the profile of the people who are trying to do something to change the world by degrees.

Best wishes,

Maggy

Dear Everyone,

Apologies that this is a Round Robin....

360 - Changing the World by Degrees is a new BBC website which I am helping to produce. It will be launched in the new year. Our brief is Kofi Annan's four goals for the United Nations - the eradication of poverty, disease and war and protecting the environment.

A rather large challenge, you may think! - but what a wonderful goal (and what a wonderful job!)

What '360' will do is to highlight what people are already doing for good throughout the world. We are seeking out under-reported stories about people and organisations which are doing everything they can to change the world for the better. Those stories can be entered onto our web-site and will be kept there together with photographs or even video of the project. The best will go forward to become television documentaries, others will inspire press coverage. At the very least we will be building a world-wide community which focuses on hope and inspiration.

If you know of ANYTHING good going on...or about to go on...or which has gone on...ANYWHERE then please let us know. The way to do that is to log onto the 'set-up' of the site, which can be accessed on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/U146519

You can then select 'Become a 360 Researcher' and write your story...it doesn't matter if you've only got sketchy details, we can follow it up for you. By all means give us phone numbers or web site addresses.

It's small moves to start with - but this is an important project and it has the full backing of the BBC.

The catch? The only one is that you will have to register on the h2g2 site (which is where we are 'camping' until our own site is finished at the end of the month). This won't take a minute - and it won't mean you get any junk mail or anything like that. It's currently the only way onto our prototype site. The h2g2 site was the brainchild of the author, Douglas Adams and it's basically 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Earth' - an interactive site where people act as researchers about everything that happens on this 'mostly harmless' planet.

Douglas was a fervent campaigner for the environment - which was our route in to getting the Beeb to support 360. We are also backed by the United Nations Environment Programme.

Even if you can't think of any projects, please log on anyway and post your views on what we are doing so far. Let us know whatever you think we can add....and help us to make this a wonderful site.

Please do feel free to forward this to anyone you think might help

Many thanks.

Best wishes,

Maggy Whitehouse
360 - Changing the World by Degrees

Maggie, I think I've done what you meant me to do, if not, just post another message here and I will post it where you tell me to!!!

Thank you for the round robin, it will be going off to my friends and acquaintances and hopefully we will be able to contribute to your 360 degree site.

Mirror

Hey Mirror!

That was brilliant! Just what we want. More power to your elbow....Keep in touch.

Maggy

Maggy, sorry to be bothering you again, but I may have another suggestion for the site. Before I post on the site about it, I would like to be sure that the company and the work it does is legit (not that I am suspicious or anything, but ....).

Have you heard of CHOCaid? I recently purchased a box of their chocolates from a supermarket for a friend. Like BandAid and LiveAid, the company sells chocolates and a THIRD of the purchase price goes to worthy projects all round the world. The recipient can log on to the CHOCaid webiste and choose from a list of charity projects to send the donation to.

Their blurb is as follows:

Chocolates that make a difference

* £1400 gives the 15 families in Bahia, a remote Brazilian village, the opportunity to buy land and goats - long term food security

* £2600 gives 10 widows and their children in Wonji, Ethiopia, cows and start up money to support themselves for the future.

Samples from the 20+ projects you can fund with CHOCaid.com

CHOCaid.com produces high quality chocolate treats, and works in partnership with developing world charities to ensure sustainable food and water supplies are available to communicate who don't yet have these basics. Gorta, founded in Ireland in 1965, are CHOCaids' first project charity partner. They make it happen in the field.

How does CHOCaid.com work?

Firstly, the buyer of this gift has donated a full THIRD of their purchase price to help people in the developing countries provide themselves with food and water.

As the receiver of this gift, you have the satisfaction and fun of choosing which specific project should receive that donation. By keeping in touch, you can also watch your project funds grow.

Of course you also receive some great chocolate!

Tel: + 353 21 477 3013 Fax: + 353 21 477 3488

E-mail: [email protected] www.chocaid.com

That's the end of the blurb.

What trouble's me rather, is, what happens to all those THIRDS paid for if people DON'T log on and tell them which project to donate the money to?

Hi Mirror,

Yes, as far as I can see, this is legit - and it sounds wonderful! I logged on to the chocaid site and had a look and I loved their blurb -

'Here in Ireland we thought it would be wonderful (not to mention wonderfully ironic) if we could take one of the worlds' finest luxury products - hand-made Belgian chocolate and use it to help bring relief to the places in the world that suffer from the most desperate deprivation-where food and water are much more desireable than gourmet chocolate (even Belgian!)'

Hopefully if the charity isn't chosen, they'll put the money back into making more chocolate - but I guess they'd tell you if you asked them.

If you like, I can just cut and paste your email about them into the site - happy to do that.

As a self-confessed chocoholic and sister, daughter and girlfriend of other certified chocoholics, I shall certainly use this! (and the URL's on my home-page if anyone can't find it)


Best,

Maggy

Hi Mirror,

Yes, as far as I can see, this is legit - and it sounds wonderful! I logged on to the chocaid site and had a look and I loved their blurb -

'Here in Ireland we thought it would be wonderful (not to mention wonderfully ironic) if we could take one of the worlds' finest luxury products - hand-made Belgian chocolate and use it to help bring relief to the places in the world that suffer from the most desperate deprivation-where food and water are much more desireable than gourmet chocolate (even Belgian!)'

Hopefully if the charity isn't chosen, they'll put the money back into making more chocolate - but I guess they'd tell you if you asked them.

If you like, I can just cut and paste your email about them into the site - happy to do that.

As a self-confessed chocoholic and sister, daughter and girlfriend of other certified chocoholics, I shall certainly use this! (and the URL's on my home-page if anyone can't find it)


Best,

Maggy

PS I've just been back to the site and ordered a Belgian chocolate world. Yum. Can't wait!

Hi, again, Maggy!

Whatever have I started? Another chocoholic on the way to ruin!!!

By all means cut and paste the reference to the 360 degree site. All power to them for doing something useful in an unusually addictive way.

Actually, I have already e-mailed them to ask what happens to any thirds not attached to a project. I will let you know when and what they reply.

By the way, as promised, I contacted my e-penpals, and one sent me a blurb for WaterAid, which I sent to all my e-mail friends and will post on the 360 degree site.

Enjoy your belgian chocolate world.

Hi, again. You'll probably be sick of hearing from me before long.

Just to let you know that I received a reply from CHOCaid about the thirds not linked to projects and this is what they said:

'We have a nominated project of the month and that is where the donations go in this kind of instance.

You can see the nominated project designated in the projects section of the website.

Gwenn Clayton'

Hi Mirror,

I've replied to your personal space - but might as well put it here too! Choc Aid Chocolate is wonderful. Utterly delicious. And the motto on the card that comes with it is:

Eat Chocolate, Stop World Hunger.' I love it.

And when you get your choc, you have a project number so you go back to the website and click on the project you want. The 'project of the month' is highlighted first.

Hope you had a great Christmas.

eat chocolate and save the atlantic rain forrest.(worldwacthorg)ot sure if this is related or not.