Healthy Child Healthy World — A Story of Heartbreak and Hope

“When a parent loses a child, there really are no words. There are no words to describe this grief, and there are no words to mend the broken heart that remains forever after. But my husband and I chose to try to make a difference,” said Nancy Chuda, referring to the death of their only child, Colette. “We said, let us take the remains of what would have been her life and, in her memory, establish something that would give benefit to countless millions. It fueled our passion. It was our pain that carried us through — from pain to passion — in building the network.”

I spoke with Nancy Chuda about Healthy Child Healthy World, the organization she and her husband, Jim, founded nearly twenty years ago in honor and memory of their daughter. This is her story.

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Solution to Conference Waste Is in the Bag

If you’ve been a registered participant at a conference or trade show, chances are you’ve walked away with a conference bag. Have you ever wondered what happens to the extra bags that no one picks up? Tens of thousands of conference bags are dumped in landfills every year, and most of us never give it a thought.

Not so for Jeff Johnson. In an email, Jeff shared with us a bit about his personal crusade to put conference bags to good use. We were so intrigued, we wanted to share his letter with our readers.

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There is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Her Country’s Children

Despite the overwhelming fear and prejudice of her neighbors toward those suffering from AIDS, Haregewoin Teferra, grieving from the deaths of her husband and daughter, gave up a comfortable, middle class lifestyle to take in dozens of children left orphaned by the virus. In There is No Me Without You, author Melissa Fay Greene humanizes the story of the millions of African AIDS orphans by introducing readers to some of these children whom no one else wanted.

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Children Raising Children: Documenting Africa’s AIDS Crisis

“Any human being who could look at these photos and not be moved would have to be lacking a heart,” I said, clicking through pictures of AIDS-orphaned children in Sub-Saharan Africa. “They are so beautiful. ”

“Yes,” said Karen Ande, the photographer. “That got to me, too.” Karen was at her home in San Francisco, California, when I called her for this interview. “From the first moment I saw the kids, I was taken. The children are all beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

Ande is a documentarian of the struggles of AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa. She supports various grassroots organizations working there, raising funds partially through the sale of her photographs.

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Tailgating for A Common Green Purpose

Did you watch the Bears play the Packers yesterday from the warmth of your home? Or maybe you were among the frozen fans braving 7-degree weather to root for your favorite team on the shores of Lake Michigan. Blue Planet Green Living was there, too, tailgating in the parking lot of the Adler Planetarium near Soldier Field.

So, go ahead, ask. What does the Bears/Packers game — and tailgating, for that matter — have to do with green living? It’s a fair question.

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Renewable Energy, a Tool for Social Equity

A dozen volunteers swarm the yard of the Villareal house on the east side of Austin, Texas. The atmosphere is jubilant, almost celebratory — a real coming together of people with a purpose. By the time the volunteers leave today, the home will have been retrofitted with energy-saving improvements that the family could not have afforded to make themselves.

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Love is Green

To us, and to other environmentally minded people, saving rain forests and sea turtles and song birds and whales and all of nature is important — essential, in fact. But we must not lose sight of the urgency of caring for our fellow humans.

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“We Don’t Have the Time to Wait”

What would bring 41 young adults outside for three hours on a bitingly cold weekend, when they had midterm exams to take and papers to write? For that matter, they had TV sports to watch, video games to play, or any number of other activities that wouldn’t require them to shiver in the wind. Yet, three students were attaching weather stripping, putting plastic on the windows, and adding a door sweep in the front entrance of Ben Ploof’s home in Coralville, Iowa.

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