More than 1.6 million Americans have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of August 1, 2007, 67,000 of them had been killed or wounded. In addition, more than 250,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans had been treated at Veterans Administrations hospitals since their return home from combat.

KPFA launched this website in an effort to put a human face on the conflict. Only by truly listening to the stories of soldiers who've come home, can we appreciate the realities of war and what we can do to help.

FreePledge is a young for-profit social venture that aims to help nonprofits tap into the Internet and technologies.
FreePledge has leveraged the power of growing e-commerce market to empower nonprofit organizations.

Users go through FreePledge for their online shopping, they pay exactly the same price as they would otherwise and a percentage of their purchases is donated to the nonprofit of their choice at no cost to them (or to the nonprofit).

Partnered online stores include Amazon, Ebay, Orbitz, shop.com, Target, BestBuy, Apple and many more.

Since 1998, Knowbility's AIR (Accessibility Internet Rally) program has introduced tech professionals to the concept of making applications accessible to everyone - including people with disabilities.  Using tech sector networks and listserves, Knowbility issues a challenge to the local technology community in cities throughout the country:  

Create a team of 4 - 6 people.  Come take our classes about how and why technology can and must be made accessible.  Then, have the chance to win glory for your team when you demonstrate your new skills in a web design contest. 

While this challenging message is distributed in the community, the AIR program teaches small local nonprofit organziations how to think about putting relevant parts of their mission-based work online. NPOs are prepared to be effective clients and to communicate their needs to their tech team. After Web 101 training for the NPOs and successive accessibility training for the tech pros, each team is assigned to their NPO "client" for one high-energy work day in a local tech center.

The result: 

• Dozens of nonprofit organziations that serve the arts, health, human service, environmental needs of local communities receive professionally designed web sites that they could otherwise not afford; 
• People with disabilities experience improved access to online resources and nonprofit servics, because the sites are designed to be accessible.
• Tech pros learn useful accessible design techniques that they can incorporate into their daily work, improving accessibility throughout the greater Web
• Everyone understands more about how and why to make technology accessible
• Relationships are forged throughout the city between the tech sector and the nonprofit community.
• Everyone has a meaningful volunteer experience, using skills in which they are expert.

AIR is a unique community collaboration that produces benefits far beyond the basic goal of raising awareness of technology access issues for people with disabilities.  It has been recognized for excellence and innovation by the Peter Drucker Foundation, the US Department of Labor and many, many others.  To bring AIR to your city, contact Knowbility at knowbility.org.

MobileActive is a global network of organizations, technologists, organizers, and activists who are using mobile phones in their social change work.

Mobile phones have emerged as a campaign organizing tool across traditional socio-economic and cultural boundaries. Mobile phone campaigns have swung elections through innovative get-out-the-vote activities, have been used to ensure impartial elections through monitoring, have resulted in massive collective action to free political prisoners, and are being used in public health strategies.

Yet, while there is significant innovation all over the world, there is little aggregation of lessons learned from these campaigns and activities that is being collected and aggregated by civil society practitioners for their peers.

MobileActive seeks to better understand the strengths and limits of the medium, available technologies for campaigners, share lessons learned, feature campaign examples and tech tools so to increase activists’ ability to organize our constituencies with this new technology.

MobileActive 2005 convened in Toronto to bring together, for the first time, activists from around the world to explore the use of mobile phones in civic action campaigns. The MobileActive community and web site is an aggregation of the learnings from this convergence, stories from participants and their projects, and resources for activists interested in using mobiles in their campaigns.

MobileActive is now growing the network of mobile activists, to share knowledge and skills, and to provide a peer network, training, and resources to those interested in exploring mobile phones in their civic engagagement, mobilization, and civic action campaigns.

If you used mobiles in your campaign, please share your story at http://www.mobileactive.org! If you need resources, let us know! And if you want to join this growing network of activists from around the globe, profile yourself: http://www.mobileactive.org/profile

Welcome to MobileActive - http://www.mobileactive.org

Arts Engine, Inc. supports, produces, and distributes independent media of consequence and promotes the use of independent media by advocates, educators and the general public. By fostering the production and use of independent film, video and new media, Arts Engine connects media makers and active audiences in order to spur critical consideration of pressing social issues.

Our projects include:

Big Mouth Films
Big Mouth Films produces feature-length, social issue documentaries independently and in collaboration with numerous companies and organizations. Big Mouth is best known for the Emmy-nominated film Deadline, a compelling exploration of the events surrounding governor George Ryan's commutation of 167 death sentences in Illinois.
www.artsengine.net/projects

MediaRights.org
MediaRights helps media makers, educators, librarians, nonprofits, and activists use documentaries and shorts to encourage action and inspire dialogue on contemporary social issues.
www.mediarights.org

Media That Matters Film Festival
The Media That Matters Film Festival brings high-impact shorts and Take Action tools to audiences around the country all year long through distribution of a DVD with all sixteen films, Web streaming, broadcasts and community screenings.
www.mediathatmattersfest.org

YMDi
The Youth Media Distribution Initiative (YMDi.org) is a comprehensive series of online and offline programs that boost the distribution and impact of youth-made films.
www.YMDi.org

"Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org promotes the protection, preservation and propagation of gorillas. Project Koko, a primary focus of TGF/Koko.org, involves teaching a modified form of American  Sign Language to two lowland gorillas, Koko and Michael. In addition, TGF/Koko.org is developing a unique preserve for gorillas on the island of Maui, Hawaii."

For a full project description, along with additional screenshots and content samples, see www.kiwanja.net/wildlive!.htm

Founded in 1988, the North-East Centre for Popular Medicine is a Brazilian NGO which trains, organizes, and structures community-based groups to be more effective in advocating for a public health policy, through programmes in:

• Food Security
• Health and Social Accountability
• Youth Health and Participation

"The story of the Northeastern Centre for the Peoples’ Medicines (CNMP) begins in 1979, when the founders, Celerino Carriconde and Diana Mores, began to reinvigorate the use of medicinal plants amongst the inhabitants of Casa Amarela, a district within city of Recife.

At this time, there were high levels of infant malnutrition, women’s ill-health, cancers, food insecurity and a series of social ills which were existing side by side with the de-humanising queues at the National Institute of Social Welfare; this discriminatory and exclusionary system considered those with low income to be less deserving. So, after collecting together 100 of the medicinal plants most used by the populace, the couple searched in a scientific manner to record this knowledge of thousands of years, using these plants clinically at their neighbourhood clinic, and publishing facts later in the bulletin “De Volta às Raízes” (Return to the Roots)." more

Fundado em 1988, o Centro Nordestino de Medicina Popular é uma ONG que desenvolve um trabalho de educação popular na área da saúde. O Centro vem se firmando como mobilizador das forças populares, desenvolvendo um trabalho de formação, organização e articulação de grupos comunitários para a efetivação das políticas públicas de saúde, através dos programas de:

• Segurança Alimentar
• Saúde e controle social
• Juventude: Saúde e participação

"A história do Centro Nordestino de Medicina Popular (CNMP) teve inicio em 1979, quando os fundadores Celerino Carriconde e Diana Mores começaram a resgatar a utilização das plantas medicinais (matos) pela população do Bairro de Casa Amarela, no Recife.

Nesta época, os altos índices de desnutrição infantil, a vulnerabilidade da saúde da mulher, o câncer, a precariedade alimentar e uma série de mazelas sociais andavam lado a lado às desumanas filas do INPS (Instituto Nacional de Previdência Social), um sistema discriminatório e excludente que considerava indigentes os cidadãos economicamente desfavorecidos." mas

Tupiniquim is a Portugeuse-language blog that raises awareness about the plight of the indigenous population in Brazil, other Central and South America. The content is primarily a reposting and translation of Brazilian and international news articles.

You can read a (rough) translation of the current content using Google's translation service by clicking here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Findios.blogspot.com...

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Tupiniquim é um blog Portugeuse que aumente a consciência sobre a população indígena de Brasil e de outros países de americano central e sul. O índice é primeiramente dos noticias brasileiro e outra notícias internacionaes traduzidos em Portugeuse.

"The Institute delivers reliable analysis, data and solutions to institutions and individuals to spark new collaborations and foster new initiatives, policies and programs to better understand and address homelessness and poverty."