Feel Good Friday - Shot@Life

August is National Immunization Awareness Month, a nationwide observance dedicated to the vaccines that protect people at every stage of life, and there's no better week to spotlight Shot@Life.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., Shot@Life is a United Nations Foundation campaign working to ensure everyone in the world has access to lifesaving vaccines and all children have a shot at life. Despite decades of medical progress, one in five children worldwide still lacks access to routine immunizations, and pneumonia alone kills more than 800,000 kids every year, a death toll that's almost entirely preventable with a vaccine that costs just a few dollars.

Shot@Life tackles this gap through education, advocacy, and partnership. Its flagship program trains everyday Americans to become Shot@Life Champions, volunteer advocates who meet with their members of Congress to push for continued U.S. investment in global immunization programs. Champions come from every state and every walk of life, and this February nearly 100 of them gathered in Washington for the campaign's first-ever National Advocacy Summit, held jointly with its sister campaign, United to Beat Malaria, for a day of meetings on Capitol Hill. Shot@Life also partners directly with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, channeling private funding and public pressure toward the on-the-ground work of vaccinating children in the hardest-to-reach communities.

Since launching in 2012, Shot@Life has had a big impact. They’ve helped secure more than $5.7 billion in U.S. government funding for global vaccine programs and supported the delivery of over 120 million vaccines to children through private partners and donors, all while training more than 4,000 Americans to become vaccine equity advocates.

If you believe that people should have access to vaccines, there are several ways to support Shot@Life and their push for #VaccinesForAll. Become a Shot@Life Champion! It’s a meaningful way to get hands-on with advocacy if you're curious about meeting with your own representatives. You can also amplify their message on social media. Follow Shot@Life on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Happy National Immunization Awareness Month! 

Feel Good Friday - Girl Up

I learned about today's Feel Good Friday group because of the Spice Girls. The Spice Girls and NPR you guys. Stop laughing. Focus on NPR.

The story I heard was about how the UN created a new video version of the Spice Girls' song Wannabe as a call to action for the Global Goals campaign promoting the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. You can read the article, see the video and learn all about that initiative here.

What I got out of that story, in addition to an ear worm, was an introduction to Girl Up. As they explain on their website, "We're the leading global community of passionate advocates changing policies and raising funds to support United Nations programs that help the hardest to reach girls living in places where it is hardest to be a girl."

Why girls? A quick look at the website should convince you. 75% of HIV infected youth between the ages of 15-24 are girls and complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the second most common cause of death for girls 15-19. With some help, girls can make big changes. "Every year of schooling increases a girls future earnings 10-20%."

Just this week the 2016 Girl Up Leadership Summit took place in Washington DC, bringing together 300 girl advocates from around the world to "participate in leadership training, learn from influential speakers, engage in skills-based workshops, and lead an official lobby day on Capitol Hill."

What's the impact of all this girl power, you ask? In the 5 years since Girl Up's creation, they've raised $5,600,000 "for programs working to improve the lives of adolescent girls." Current countries Girl Up focuses on are Guatemala, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, India and Uganda.

Specific programs vary from basic education and health service training in Malawi to increasing the legal age of marriage to 18 in Guatemala. You can read about these and other initiatives here or watch a 2 minute video celebrating 5 years of impact.

Now that you're all fired up and inspired, you can support the work of Girl Up by becoming an advocate, making a donation or spreading the word by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @GirlUp. Sisterhood IS powerful!

Feel Good Friday - Free Rice

It's Feel Good Friday and you want to relax by playing a game on your phone. I get it. Today, instead of crushing candy, connecting dots or killing zombies with bok choy, may I suggest Free Rice?

Free Rice is an online trivia game with a twist. As they explain, "For each answer you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice through the World Food Programme to help end hunger." Their goals are to "provide education to everyone for free" and to "help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free."

Topics include humanities, math, language learning, sciences, English, chemistry, geography and SAT prep. The categories can be challenging if you pick the right one and, thanks to the sponsors who advertise on the site, every correct answer translates to a donation of 10 grains of rice through the World Food Programme (WFP)! Want to learn more about the WFP so you can feel good about wasting time playing games? Of course you do.

"The United Nations World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian agency on the front lines against hunger." (You can tell it's an international organization because the of the extra "me" in program.) As stated on their website, "The World Food Programme's mission is to save lives and livelihoods, and to improve the nutrition, food security and self-reliance of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people."

Their work involves responding to emergencies, preventing hunger by distributing school meals and meals to people living with HIV and AIDS as well as promoting women's empowerment "as a key to improving food security for all." They work all around the world and in 2015, 76.7 million people in 81 countries were assisted directly by WFP. Of all these people, 82% were women and children.

You can read more info from their year in review here or browse their collection of stories. They really are living up to their motto of "fighting hunger worldwide".

To support the work of WFP, you can make a direct donation then stay in the loop by liking both the Free Rice Facebook page and the World Food Programme Facebook page. In addition, you can also follow both groups on Twitter @Freerice and @WFP respectively.

While I encourage you to do all of the above, I admit that the most fun way to fight hunger around the world is by going to Free Rice and answering trivia questions. You'll be surprised just how quickly you can put together a bowl of rice. Now get out there and rice up!

Feel Good Friday - UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency

These days there is a lot of news of refugees from Syria and other countries trying to make their way towards Europe and meeting with varied amounts of resistance and success. Since it's Feel Good Friday, we're going to take a closer look at the The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more commonly known as UNHCR.

As explained in the "About Us" section of their website, UNHCR "was established December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people."

While they may be most well known for their emergency preparedness and assistance to people fleeing wars - they have teams of people and stockpiles of food ready to be deployed at a moments notice - this is just one of many services they offer. Others include advocacy on behalf of refugees, providing alternatives to camps and guidance for countries accepting asylum seekers and migrants, and helping refugees with repatriation and resettlement.

Violence and economic hardship are not the only reasons people put their lives at risk to relocate. "In 2013, 22 million people were displaced by disasters brought on by natural hazard events." That's why the UNHCR also focuses on climate change and minimizing the environmental impact of refugee operations.

Being such a well-established organization, their website is full of statistics, resources and videos. They post new videos on their website every few days and most are under 3 minutes long. If you want to see something inspiring, rather than depressing, watch this video of immigrants being welcomed in Austria.

If you want to make a difference, there are various ways you can get involved - donating money, volunteering time or supporting UNHCR online by liking their Facebook page and following them on Twitter @Refugees.