Tag Archives: Charity

Day 364

Change can never happen until a decision is made – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 7: 55 PM on day 364 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, learn how to write by hand– it was on my to-do list (see pictures below) –push myself almost to the bathroom to brush my teeth again–I have to brush my teeth twice in the morning because my mom insists on helping me the first time around before she leaves for work – watch TV, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign –no luck other then the second donation Brain (@steelerbrian) made yesterday – thanks again Brian 🙂 – feed myself chicken biryani for lunch, watch some more TV, feed myself for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

This morning while I was in the bathroom I realized that every time I asked my mother to do something for me that I knew I could myself I was taking one more towards living with them – my parents – for the rest of my life and a hundred steps away from achieving my dreams – becoming a published author, travelling across Europe, making a difference in every corner of the globe etc – in that moment it’s like a switched flipped inside my head and I decided that I would work every hour of every day from today onwards to get to where I need to be to achieve ALL my dreams. Have you decided to change or do you just want to change?

Me learning how to write by hand

The end result 🙂

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 361

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Faith is a passionate intuition. – William Wordsworth

It’s 8: 13 PM on day 361 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself oranges for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign –no luck I fell asleep while I was doing it LOL – go to physiotherapy– I was worried that there was something wrong with my breast and my physiotherapist said I had a muscle strain what a relief – go to visit my grandma at my uncle’s house –the poor thing she’s does not make sense at all – feed myself McChicken for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Yesterday I wrote in my diary (Note: This is only an excerpt) God I feel so lonely right now my parents don’t treat me like a human being – I can’t remember the last time they spoke to me about anything important – Neethu and Kevin – my sister and brother – have their own lives and there’s me the one nobody expects anything from and although this is a pretty sad situation I KNOW that I will live a long and healthy life and that I will have everything my heart desires – health, independence, financial freedom and love – so I’m not at all worried about the future 🙂 and looking back on it now although I still feel the same I realize that I’m either really naive or I know something about myself that the world doesn’t know courtesy of God. Have you ever had this feeling deep down in your gut that you are meant to be greater than you are?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 360

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I have found that the imagination does not work to its full potential when we are lying on the couch doing nothing, but when we are with like-minded people. – David DeNotaris

It’s 7: 53 PM on day 360 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, compile a post for Youth Voices–a section of NorthFork Collective Voices headed by my friend, Mark McKinney –prepare my Kid of the Week feature for Sunday, tweet and Facebook about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck other than the donation Heather (@TMNQueenMum) made two days ago –thanks Heather 🙂 – I got a battering from a Facebook group creator saying although my campaign might be real he didn’t feel like playing lawyer again this week this is what you get for trying to make a difference – feed myself a bread and butter sandwich for breakfast, watch TV, tweet about my campaign some more–still no luck everybody’s waiting for somebody else to fix the world’s problems and frankly I’m sick of it! – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch some more TV, feed myself steamed vegetables for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Yesterday evening I was on Twitter searching for something I didn’t what until I stumbled onto this profile The Blogunteer (@TheBlogunteer): The Blogunteer profiles non-profit organizations and volunteers with a mission to inspire volunteerism! Tweets by @stacy_pearson http://blogunteer.wordpress.com and logged onto blog what I love most about The Blogunteer is that they, like me, have a passion for giving philanthropists a platform which is why I asked to be profiled why am I telling you this to remind you that no matter how influential you think you might me on your own it never hurts to ask for help from people you know understand you. Is your imagination working to its full potential?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 359

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All things worth having only double when you share it – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 6: 12 PM on day 359 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself chicken nuggets for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself an avocado sandwich for lunch, watch TV and feed myself grilled chicken for dinner.

As most of you know even before I had a cent to my name I committed to giving twenty-five percent of it to charity and today I am going to list all the charities I donated to – from first to last – not as a means of being boastful but rather to inspire you to share however little or much you have with those who have less than you. Take a look:

Organizations and people that inspired me to put my money where my mouth is

Donating to Kids Caring 4 Kids was a full-circle moment for me because Kendall – the founder of Kids Caring 4 Kids – was the one who inspired me to start giving – refer to Who I Am if you have no idea what I’m talking about.

: Sophie Brown

Sophie Brown is a 15-year-old girl from the UK who after visiting Uganda with her mom decided that she would return to Uganda this summer with enough money to build a classroom for village children in South-West Uganda and the reason I decided to help her (Note: Her fundraiser is now over) was because I knew how hard she worked – she tweeted everybody she thought could help – and I could relate to that because there have been days when I’ve asked hundreds of people to make donations to my campaign only to get an I’ll think about it.

When I saw and heard about what was going on in Somalia on the news there was NO WAY I could sit back and do nothing and the reason I chose World Food Programme was because they rely solely on voluntary donations which means if we don’t donate people don’t eat.

Last but not least I donated to my campaign because I am the kind of person who walks the talk – I can’t expect you to donate if I’m not willing to 🙂

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 357

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Sometimes the questions you ask are more important than the answers – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 7: 49 PM on day 357 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, fill in forms to make donations on behalf of Iris Fischer and Betsy Cross–(thanks you guys) they made donation to my campaign via Paypal (I filled in most of the page and decided to wait for my father to complete the payments because I didn’t know his credit card number only after a few hours the webpage expired so I had to do it all over again a few hours later) – pay my dad back all the money he donated on behalf of every Paypal donor I’ve ever had – I hate feeling like I owe anybody anything father or not so now we are all square – tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself a chicken nugget sandwich and an avocado sandwich for breakfast, watch TV, tweet about my campaign some more–still no luck other than the donations I made on behalf of my Paypal donors and the $6.50 I personally made I figured I couldn’t ask you to do something I wasn’t willing to do :)– feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch some more TV, feed myself oranges steamed vegetables for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Yesterday I was doing something – I don’t remember what it was – and I thought to myself I wonder what would happen if everybody said – to each other – how can I help you because I swear it really makes a difference – if you don’t believe me try it out for a month ask not what can you do for me but rather what can I do for you and see if you don’t feel good about yourself afterwards – my primary aim when I interact with people is to serve them in any which way I can and I think they can sense that which makes all my human interactions all the more enjoyable. Have you ever asked yourself a question that has changed your life?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 332

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It is not good to know more unless we do more with what we already know. – Bergethon, R. K

It’s 7: 49 PM on day 332 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, watch and donate to the telethon held to raise money for the people of Somalia – I already made my donation to the World Food Programme but I didn’t tell my father that and coaxed him into making anotther donation because I wanted to teach my sister the joy of giving anyway coming back to the telethon 1.2 million rand was raised I am SO proud to be South African today 🙂 – feed myself banana for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – visit my favourite blogs Love That Max, Chasing Rainbows and Bird on the Street, feed myself rice and fried fish for lunch, watch TV, feed myself pasta and fried chicken for dinner, brush my teeth once more and help my brother act out the play that he wrote.

Yesterday as I was writing a post publicizing the telethon that took place this morning (if you have no idea what I’m talking about refer to Day 331) I realized that the SABC – South African Broadcasting Corporation – although had the best intentions in wanting to raise money for the people of Somalia were a bit lacking in the knowledge of how to use the internet to publicize the upcoming telethon – I spent hours online looking for the telethon phone number eventually giving up and deciding to wait until the telethon was going on to add the number to my post – so today I am going to give you some tips on how to make the internet work for the philanthropist in you because I believe that knowledge is most powerful when it is shared. Take a look:

How to use the internet to raise awareness and money for your favorite charity: Things I wish someone had told me before I entered the world of philanthropy

Make sure that the charity you support is registered – most charities will display a tax/EIN number on their respective websites if they don’t email them and ask for it

Find out whether your charity is linked to a fundraising website e.g. Firstgiving, Justgiving, My Charity Page – the advantage of using a fundraising page to raise money for charity is that you as the fundraiser don’t have to do anything – it’s fully automated – and there’s the added benefit of being able to receive donations from all over the world twenty-four hours a day with the only disadvantage being that the fundraising website gets to keep a small percentage of whatever you raise

Set up social media accounts e.g. Twitter, Facebook and connect with people who can identify with you – you will often find me asking people who have been affected by disability to make donations to my campaign because I know that they know how hard my life is.

Create a chain – mingle with the people that your donors interact with and tell them about what your trying to do chances are that they will donate too and when that happens you have to start the process up again and so on and so on

Don’t pester people – if someone says that they can’t donate to your cause for whatever reason accept that with grace and move on don’t keep sending them Facebook messages/tweets they will get very irritated with you and unfriend/unfollow you

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 331

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And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place. – Christiane Amanpour

It’s 7: 51 PM on day 331 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself an avocado sandwich for brunch, tweet about my campaign some more–outcome pending – and watch TV.

This morning I heard on Morning Live – South Africa’s premier breakfast show – that they are going to be holding a three hour telethon tomorrow to raise money for the people of Somalia –if you live in South Africa call 083 9133 555 to make a pledge or text SABC to 38722 (one text costs R10) (Note: Lines only open tomorrow so if you call or text today it would just be a waste – and I would like to thank reporter Vauldi Carelse and cameraman Herbert Mamela for the staler work that they did because I believe that had it not been for them the SABC – South Africa Broadcasting Corporation – wouldn’t have been moved to get involved. Have you witnessed good journalism making the world a better place?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 330

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Kids notice things that we overlook – that what I learned today 🙂

It’s 8: 29 PM on day 330 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself toast, scrambled eggs and sausages for brunch, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – Debbie (@MissShuganah) made a donation yesterday and my aunty and uncle made a second donation today only $1 912.10 more to raise to reach my goal I am SO happy 🙂 – watch TV, feed myself steamed vegetables for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Last night my siblings and I were watching the seven o’ clock news on which they featured a story about the good work that doctors were doing in Somalia and my brother (who just turned eleven yesterday) said something along the lines of how come they always mention the doctors what about his team what about the nurses the nurses who took care of me (he was in hospital a couple of days ago) weren’t that bad and because I know that what he said was (and still is) so true I would like to say to all the nurses out there I SO appreciate what you do particularly with today being Women’s Day in South Africa I know that most of you are overworked and underpaid but without the healthcare sector would be on its knees so please keep doing what you’re doing and know that your work has value. Have the words of a child made you more appreciative of the people around you?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 329

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Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. – John Allen

It’s 8: 09 PM on day 329 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself bread and scrambled eggs for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, tweet about my campaign some more–I worked most of the day and all I got is I’ll consider it it’s really disheartening if people knew (I’m not feeling sorry for myself) how heard it was for me to go from morning to night with a smile on my face I bet you they would be less flippant about it – start reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, watch TV and feed myself avocado sandwich for dinner.

In the early hours of Friday morning my grandma was rushed to the hospital – she was having seizures – and subsequently underwent a brain scan to discover that one of the blood vessels in her brain had burst as I write this – it is now 7: 25 AM – she is probably being prepped for surgery and although it pains me that I am not there right now – I didn’t go because I knew that my father would make a huge song and dance about taking me – he did the same thing when my brother was in the hospital although I did go on that occasion because he knew that I would trample over millions to be with my brother in his hour of need – and plus I didn’t want to get sick from all the germs in the hospital – I am not worried because I know that she’s going to be fine – she was bitten by snakes SEVEN times all seven times the snake met it’s end LOL so I highly doubt that a little brain surgery’s going to bring her down. Do you security because you can deal with uncertainty adequately?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 328

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The only courage you really need is the courage to stand by your actions– that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 8:41 PM on day 328 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself an avocado sandwich for breakfast, publish my Kid of the Week feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – read Little Wonders, A day in the life of Reagan and A New Kind of Perfect – all of the blogs although told different stories illustrated the triumph of the human spirit– feed myself spaghetti bolognese for lunch – it got a bit messy but I did it 🙂 – and continue reading Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer.

Last night my father found out that I posted a notice about my campaign on our community’s website (if you have no idea what I’m talking about refer to Day 301) and just as I expected he TOTALLY freaked going on like I murdered somebody saying now people are going think I am using you to collect money email them and ask them to take it down to which after I initially considered following his orders said I stand by my actions if you want them to take it down you’ve got to call and ask them to do it yourself – he did but the guy wasn’t there after which he reconsidered – and that I guess is my message to all of you guys if you know that you’re doing the right thing don’t let anybody make you apologize. Do you courageously stand by your actions because you know that you’re doing the right thing or say I’m sorry for doing that at the first sign of disapproval?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!