The $5 philanthropist

This morning I walked a mile in Women's shoes in my hometown of Victoria, BC. The walk was in support of Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre and it was a smashing success!

I'm just short of $2,500 in donations made and still half-way there to having to shave my beard but I'm keeping my fundraising page open for a few more days. I've shaved my legs, pedicured my feet, walked a mile and had cat-calls from passers-by in my hometown. Isn't that worth $20 or $50? Click here to make a donation and show your support.

On my fundraising page, I also have a number of other photos from today's event.

And, if you know any woman who wears a size ten medium, she might want to bid for the shoes I wore in today's event. I placed them for sale on eBay in hopes that someone might want to buy my beautiful shoes.

Thanks to everyone who supported me. I'll be posting video from the event early this week.

Labels: charity, fundraising, victoria, vwsac, walkamileinhershoes, women, womensrights

Here is a picture of the shoes I bought tonight for my 1 mile walk in women's shoes in Victoria this Saturday in support of Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.

If you haven't donated yet, maybe this picture will compel you do so.

The pair of shoes I bought tonight are a sexy size-10 stiletto's. I'm either going to donate the shoes after the event to a women's shelter or sell them on eBay... Any one who can fit a size 10, email me if you want to place your bids today.

Labels: charity, fundraising, philanthropy, victoria, walkamileinhershoes, womensrights

As many of you know, I've had my beard for quite a while. In Entebbe, a vendor said it was the (and I'm quoting exactly) "most glorious beard" he had "ever seen" and asked me to promise him never to shave it. In exchange, he gave me a slight deal on the replacement digital camera that I bought at his store.

Though I am remiss to break my word to this man, I am willing to quite literally sell-out. For a price.

I've decided to walk a mile in women's shoes (literally) in support of a Victoria, BC based charity called Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre.

I've created a fundraising page (at GiveMeaning, naturally!) to collect donations and if I raise $5,000, the beard comes off.

I'm sure that if my wife or my mum had an extra $5,000 to spare, they would gladly give the whole amount. But the whole point of a GiveMeaning page is about pooling together small donations to accomplish the bigger goal.

So, if you want to see my face again, click here and give generously!

I'll keep y'all posted.

Labels: charity, fundraiser, givemeaning, sexualviolence, victoria, walkamileinhershoes, womensrights

From Pig-e-Banks to Abortion in Uganda. I just found this interesting article online and I thought it would be interesting to get readers comments on it.

If you're a "lurker" on this blog, I'd really like to hear from you.

While in Uganda, I read in New Vision (a local newspaper in Uganda and the source of the article I have linked to), that the Uganda parliament was debating whether to legalize abortion in Uganda.

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to "reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio" in the world. Given that most all agree that a significant contributor to Maternal mortality is complications that stem from crude abortions.

This New Vision article I read tonight quotes a consultant gynecologist at Mulago hospital who said that "775,000 Ugandan women aged between 15 and 49 have unintended pregnancies every year and 297,000 have induced abortions." That number could be much higher given the primitive means of self-administered or crude intervention abortions that lead to severe injury and death to the woman that never receive medical attention and thus might never be counted as part of that statistic.

The Ugandan government is divided on whether to legalize and in what scenarios legalization occurs. In the same article, the gynecologist is quoted as saying "abortion was morally bad but because of the many deaths involved, it had to be thought about seriously and interventions made."

Clearly, reducing maternal mortality is a worthy goal. And, it stands to reason that one of the contributing causes of maternal mortality is death from crude abortions.

Should Uganda legalize abortion? Would legalizing it actually make a difference to those who need it most, the poor, rural women who will otherwise try to abort using crude techniques?

Would a medical NGO (especially one with US ties) dare to carry out proper abortions as part of a plan to reduce maternal mortality?

Does the "right to life" argument hold as true if the life in question is doomed to absolute impoverishment?

I want to hear from you.

Labels: abortion, africa, international, politics, uganda, womensrights