I’ve already written something for Blog Action Day over at my FCO blog. But I feel should give it a go here too.

I hadn’t given much thought to what I was going to write. In fact, I’ve just written and deleted a thoroughly depressing draft looking at progress – or not – at feeding the world in the very nearly 24 years since Band Aid first asked us to do exactly that.

I found myself sitting on my comfy sofa in my warm flat, with my laptop that costs more than however-many-percent of the world make in a year, asking myself what the point of Blog Action Day really was. Am I really going to tell my kids in years to come (or tomorrow) that yes, Daddy helped end poverty and injustice – by blogging about it?

Then I decided to check out some of the other posts, from 11,509 sites and counting, who’ve contributed.

If you read one of them, please check out this from David Griner.

David has created a team at Kiva called ‘Social Media for Change’. Kiva, if you haven’t heard of it (I had, vaguely, but never done anything about it), lets you lend – interest free – to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

I like the idea – if you’re becoming disillusioned with top-down development, give bottom-up microfinance a go.

I especially like the mission statement David has written for the Lending Team:

We are bloggers, Twitterers, lifestreamers, networkers, podcasters and more. Some of us do it for money, others for fun. What connects us is our interest in being connected — and maybe helping change the world for the better in the process.

I’m in. And I will badger relentlessly my social media friends to come on board too. Maybe Blog Action Day can change something after all.

Here‘s the link.

Here it is again, in case you missed it.

It’s here, people.

PS it’s Global Handwashing Day, too.

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