Check out our blog below and our “Cool People Doing Cool Things” links and then come back lots to see what’s new…

The Rift and Philanthrokidz would like to wish everyone out there an awesome holiday season! Here’s to snowmen and eggnog, the parties and festivities, and the time spent with family and friends! Hope you enjoy every minute!

Check out how the Rifters are celebrating, and what they have been up to in “Lily’s Blog” at our pre-beta site www.therift.ca! And keep checking back here, in the New Year, for more exciting Philanthrokidz news and updates! We’ll keep you posted!

Getting cold outside? We’ve got a care package straight from the warm, sunny Rift just waiting to be sent, and a dodo bird eager to deliver it! Have you ever seen an impatient dodo bird?!? It’s pretty funny!

If you want to be the one to get this awesome Rift package, all you have to do is check out http://therift.ca/?p=163 read Flavia’s awesome Rift poem, and post your own poem about absolutly anything!

Can’t wait to read them!!

Check out the latest from The Rift!

With everything from “natural anomalies” to crazy delivery birds to epic soccer games and incredible T-shirt machines, there is never a dull moment on The Rift! And you can read about it all, as it happens, on Lily’s Awesome Blog!

Go see for youself at http://therift.ca/?cat=5

The first Philanthrokidz project, The Rift, is about to launch!! It’s gonna be the coolest place online… where Play = Power!

Check out The Rift video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrFzERupvYk

Go get a sneek peak, and join the movement at www.therift.ca

Keep an eye out because…  Here it comes!!

Watching the news and reading statistics on the state of our planet can leave one feeling pretty overwhelmed and helpless. We try to come up with grand solutions which often flop, leaving us even more disheartened and feeling that we have no power to change anything at all. But we really don’t need to tackle the whole problem at once! It’s more effective to just take little steps, one at a time, and just keep stepping. As they say at We Are What We Do, “small actions x lots of people = big change!”

Don’t know where to start, or what changes you can make? Check out http://www.wearewhatwedo.org/ for endless ideas, and then check off and track your actions on the site’s Action Tracker! So far there have been 4,810,275 actions completed, and counting! Read comments, post your own ideas and start changing the world! One step at a time!

This month we’ve been noticing how much Music is used as a method of Doing Good While Having Fun! Music is an incredible expression of feeling and a universal and ancient part of the human experience. Music is defined by dictionary.com as “an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color”. Song is an indispensible and common part of being human, so it makes sense that it is being harnessed to establish peace and connection between people of every background and culture, and to do good in the world.

Take for example the Green Music Group. The GMG is a green team of “musicians, industry leaders and music fans using our collective power to bring about widespread environmental change within the music industry and around the globe”. The GMG has built an intrepid community of music lovers around the world, and are facilitating the movement towards environmental consciousness and sustainability in the music industry. They also provide environmental non-profits with a music-based network and a venue to raise awareness. They are hard to miss, with partners such as Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow and many other big artists. This summer marked the beginning of the Green Music Group Challenge. Every two weeks a GMG artist challenges the public to make an “eco-friendly change” and announces an opportunity to enter a contest, with some pretty cool prizes. Check it out, and take the challenge at http://challenge.greenmusicgroup.org/ 

Another musician doing good is PKZ favourite, Jason Mraz. He has been chosen by the SIMA Humanitarian Foundation as “SIMA Humanitarian of the Year”. Mraz is well known for being dedicated to giving back, and is involved with organizations such as; Save the Music, Musicares, Free the Children, and various arts programs in his hometown. Through his music and performances he promotes the organization Life Rolls On- a foundation that uses sport to improve the life of children with spinal cord injuries. Jason is the example of doing what you love, and Doing Good while Having Fun!! Check out http://www.sima.com/events/liquid-nation-ball/humanitarian-of-the-year.aspx

Our friends at DREAM Project in the Domincan Republic have been busy this summer! July 5^th marked the start of the Guzmán Ariza Summer Camp and School. The summer camp offers at-risk youth a chance to extend their learning into the summer months, as well as to learn job skills by participating in the Apprentice Program. Children can also participate in health and safety courses, and spend their days playing sports, swimming, dancing and making art and music. In July Philanthrokidz CEO, Tina Venema, travelled to the Dominican Republic and had the opportunity to help at the Guzmán Ariza Summer Camp. She was thrilled to work with the students and campers, teaching an art class. The Suitcases of Canuck Love tradition, started by Tina on the first trip to Cabarete this winter, was once again a huge success. Tina was able to bring much-needed supplies (such as school and art supplies, toys and clothing) provided by both individual donors and local businesses, to not only the school but also to the entire community of Callejon de la Loma. Philanthrokidz is so proud to have been a part of this incredible program, offering kids an unbelievable learning experience as well as a memorable summer spent playing and making new friends. For more info visit http://www.dominicandream.org/pressnews.html

This August DREAM Project is also a part of a fun, non-competitive event promoting women and ocean sports. This event was created by The Butterfly Effect, an organization whose aim is “to instill self-confidence and a love for the ocean in women”. Taking place August 7^th in the Dominican Republic, the Butterfly Effect hosted a silent auction and raffle to raise money for DREAM Project initiatives, and a beach clean-up in Cabarete. Check out the Butterfly Effect site at: http://www.betheeffect.com/

Its summertime and the livin’ is easy! We’ve been crazy busy here at Philanthrokidz this past month, but are enjoying the ride as we approach a fall beta launch. We couldn’t be more excited about the progress we’re making and about the upcoming launch- when we get to unveil the PKZ dream and all that we have accomplished.

Philanthrokidz CEO, Tina Venema, has recently returned from a trip to Cabarete, Dominican Republic. While there, she completed the next stage of discussion with DREAM Project leading up to our first Cabarete-based real world project. We at PKZ are thrilled to be sorting out the final details of the project, and are thoroughly enjoying working with the incredible people at DREAM Project Cabarete. The project is still Top Secret until Beta Launch this fall, but stay tuned for more details and information which will be released as we approach launch.

Keep checking in at http://philanthrokidz.com/ for more exciting news as we near the fall. Wishing everyone a happy summer!! Hope you’re enjoying it as much as we are!

June 11th marked the beginning of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and since then the excitement has spread around the entire world. It has been intense in the Philanthrokidz office with much team graffiti, yelling of score updates and live-streaming of games! Sporting events such as this, while competitive, can bring out the best in all of us and tend to inspire unity and provide opportunities for making a difference and doing good while having fun!

In honour of the World Cup, there has been a recent focus on sport as a way to make change in the world and bring light and fun into the lives of people everywhere. Sport is vital for people of all ages. It provides an opportunity to pick up valuable attributes- like the ability to work in a team setting, the discipline to push yourself, the skill of leadership and of knowing when to lead and when to follow. It promotes health, friendship and fun! Play is powerful!

Many organizations have realized this and are using sport as a tool to promote peace, health and unity. For example, over the last month Microsoft has teamed up with Right to Play to help establish sports programs “to improve the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world by using the power of sport and play” (http://www.kickitwithwindowsserver.com/). FIFA also has its own organization, Football for Hope, which was “created as a unique and global movement that uses the power of football to achieve sustainable social development”.
http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/worldwideprograms/footballforhope/index.html

Sport has also proved to be an inspiration for inventions that make a difference! For example, the sOccket! The sOccket is a soccer ball that serves as both a toy, and a generator. While being kicked around, the sOccket can generate and store enough energy to power an LED light or charge a small electrical device. The creators of the sOccket hope to use the energy generated to power LED lights that will replace kerosene lamps used in many developing countries. Burning kerosene has been proven to be very damaging to human health- when burned indoors they have the same effect as inhaling two packs of cigarettes a day! Check out the sOccket at http://www.soccket.com/

Play is truly more powerful than many realize! Sport is a tool that has incredible potential for making change and promoting peace, and has proved to be a great way to do good while having fun!

Room to read is an organization that believes “World Change Starts with Educated Children”. They seek to improve quality of education, and therefore quality of life, for children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. To accomplish this, Room to Read helps to build schools, establish libraries, publish local-language books, and provide holistic education to girls in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Room to Read has made, and continues to make, a huge difference in the lives of children around the world.

This year marks the “Year of Tens” for Room to Read. While celebrating their Tenth anniversary, they also celebrate their incredible accomplishments; 1000 schools opened, 10 000 girls on long-term scholarships throughout Asia and Africa and 10 000 libraries opened! Congratulations RtR!
http://www.roomtoread.org/yearoftens/index.html

As school wraps up this month, and summer holidays begin in many countries around the globe, the joy of summer-reading begins also! However in some places, like Tikamgarh- a district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, books are hard to come by when schools close. Children find it very difficult to keep reading and learning, and keep out of trouble, through the summer months. Room to Read is changing that with their Summer Library program. Summer Library is an amazing program, in which RtR staff members choose one child from every village to be a Summer Librarian, and provide them with books to stock their own home-library. Children from the village can come and borrow the books, and are provided with a source of learning and discovery at their fingertips! The Summer Librarians are also provided with a leadership opportunity and a chance to learn about management and responsibility. One librarian (who has had a story of her own published in a children’s magazine) goes door to door every day, distributing books. She says “I even go to those children’s houses who cannot read so that they at least learn to handle a book. I tell every child to handle the book very carefully.” The summer Library program gives children the opportunity to “keep the idea of reading books alive in the community year-round”!
http://blog.roomtoread.org/room-to-read/2010/06/schools-out-for-summer.html