Saturday 9 April 2005

Pic of the day: Kids need books, just not like this. (Screenshot from the anime Mahou Sensei Negima, also known as "Magister Negi magi".)

Literacy site

I have in the past occasionally directed my readers to The Hungersite, where you can feed the hungry for free. Well, not truckloads of food, but a couple cups of food a day. Still, as recent experience has told me, two cups of food is a LOT more than zero cups of food. In their case, however, it is people who could eat if they only had the food. But because they are dirt poor and living in the wrong place, they don't have the food.

Of course, it would be even better for them not to be poor in the first place. And this is my message today, dear reader. Because whether you live here or there, one of the high roads out of poverty and into a meaningful, dignified human life is literacy. In our days, this often amounts to computer literacy. But literacy has to start somewhere, and more often than not it starts with children's books. That's probably why some people started The Literacy site, which is similar to the above but focuses on books for kids. You look at advertisements, without any obligation to buy (though that might help too) and the advertisers pay for books. Milk the cow of capitalism to help those in need.

Or not. As always, it is your choice. I just wanted you to know.