Mahatma Gandhi and Florence Nightingale noticed huge problems that seemed to have no solutions. Yet, they devoted their lives to making incremental changes that eventually encouraged more people to follow them and use techniques that they pioneered. What these “world-changers” have in common is a belief that each of us can make a difference in the world.
This adventurous British woman decides to protest China's occupation of Tibet in London's streets. But she soon realizes that this is not promoting change fast enough, so she travels to Tibet to fight injustice. Through tenacity and inventiveness she meets with the Dalai Lama and the Chinese ambassador, proving that one determined person can make a difference.
In conversations with a close friend, Bono describes his journey from rock star to international spokesman for third world humanitarian causes. He's worked with Greenpeace and Amnesty International and collected millions along the way through his Live Aid and Conspiracy of Hope tours.
"More girls have been killed in the last fifty years than men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century," according to this husband-and-wife writing team. They examine human rights abuses against females, highlighting programs that provide third-world women and girls with education and employment.
In the tradition of Gandhi and Florence Nightingale, these nine activists from South Africa to Australia set up programs promoting better health care, college access, and rural electrification. Bornstein finds the common techniques that make these do-gooders successful in changing lives.
This rare child activist, a Pakistani rug-weaver, organized his fellow workers who had been made slaves because of their parents' debt. After receiving an award in the United States, Iqbal was murdered, and children around the world continued to promote his cause via the Internet.
Former M*A*S*H* star Farrell records his odyssey from TV star to promoter of human rights. His quest to help the "invisible people who live a quiet live of misery" is inspiring. He pushed for death penalty reform, gay rights, winning without war, plus did humanitarian work in many countries.
A Michigan woman moves to Afghanistan and helps women there by setting up the first modern beauty salon and training school. Besides becoming a social hub for the neighborhood women, Miss Debbie's school teaches the ladies important occupational skills so they can make their own livelihoods.
Told by a friend that if he climbed high enough in the Himalayas, he would not be able to hear his boss's yelling anymore, this business school grad decided to give up his highly-paid tech career to make a real difference in people's lives. He created Room to Read, a nonprofit organization that gave away several million books, and started over a thousand libraries and over two hundred schools.
A biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist and practitioner, who has fought hard to bring medical aid to the poor in Haiti, to "the underdogs of the underdogs." Kidder, who has won a Pulitzer and a National Book Award, shares this inspiring story about the founder of Partners in Health and documents Farmer's extraordinary life of self-sacrifice and commitment.
From her college dorm room, this enterprising young woman launched a program that would improve education by encouraging talented college graduates to enter the field of education. Since that time, over 24,000 Americans have served as teachers in predominately low-income neighborhoods.
Nafisi, a professor in Iran, invites seven promising female students to her own home to discuss some banned works of Western literature. At great risk to herself, the author promotes the education of women. Together, the women discuss important ideas that change their lives.
An American woman in her 30s decides that she must help solve the problem of African illiteracy. However, despite Fiona Sweeney's good intentions, she does not understand the Kenyan culture so her camel-powered bookmobile creates a rift in her new community. A novel about idealism meeting reality set in a foreign culture.
A Palestine returns to visit his old stone home in Ramla, formerly in Palestine, but now part of Israel. He discovers that Israeli immigrants, survivors of the Holocaust from Bulgaria, now live there. They forge an unlikely friendship and begin a four-decade long dialogue. Finally, they gather a group of Palestinian and Israeli children and plant lemon seeds from an old tree in the house's back yard.
Zoya's parents were murdered by the Taliban. After living with her grandmother in Pakistan, this fearless woman in her 20s returns to her Afghani homeland and arranges literacy classes for girls—forbidden by the Taliban. She also secretly films stonings and cruel amputations, and works to improve the lives of refugees. A story of a brave young person who risks everything to make changes in women's lives.