Daniel Rubins is a musician and heartivist. He founded Hear Your Song, a non-profit organization that empowers children and teens with serious illnesses to make their voices heard through collaborative songwriting. It all started with a special school experience and a...
Human rights, dignity, & menstrual health: 3 women changing the world.
Millions of women and girls in the world have little or no sanitary protection. Lack of affordability or access to period products, together with cultural taboos, cause extreme distress leaving women with no choice but to use unhealthy, unhygienic, and potentially...
Polifacética: the Spanish voice of conscious activism
Poli Sotomayor is a Mexican activist, social media influencer, singer, writer and member of our global family of grassroots volunteer leaders. We first met Poli and learned of her project, Polifacética, in 2017. When Tessa Graham, then our Animal Advocacy Coordinator...
Ngọc-Trân Vũ: bringing a healing narrative in the Vietnamese-American community
My mind is PonderingMy heart is VietnameseMy soul is an ArtistMy conscience is a Healer - Ngọc-Trân Vũ Born in Vietnam, Ngọc-Trân Vũ came to the United States with her family as a political refugee and grew up in Dorchester and South Boston’s working-class...
Rodolfo Alvarez: Building ‘Eden’ in Guatemala
When Rodolfo was fifteen, he began volunteering at a summer camp called Viamistad. For the first time in his life, he was surrounded by people with disabilities, beginning to make many new friends and learning about their experiences. One of these new friends was...
Seeds of responsible citizenship
Active citizenship, community empowerment and volunteer experiences: how three Italian women are seeding the change and making responsible tourism bloom!The Pollination Project community is made of volunteer grassroots leaders who put their time and energy in service...
Women’s Day: Honoring our Changemakers
March 8th is International Women’s Day, and this week we are celebrating all our female changemakers. In the last seven years, 1,800 women and girls have joined the global community of Pollination Project changemakers. Coming from different countries and cultures,...
Hands of Honour: The Legacy of Paul Talliard
There are people who are born with a light inside, capable of illuminating the path of those who are lost in the labyrinth of life and cannot find a way out. Paul Talliard was one of these rare gems of humanity; a man who dedicated his life to helping those who had...
The Bree and Me Project: Camille Licate
“Bree is a rooster, but he is an intelligent, feeling Being that craves love and peace, just like all of us. Most children grow up loving animals. My hope is that by meeting Bree and learning more about compassionate food systems, children can learn to reflect their...
Jacob Cramer: From “Bingo Boy” to “Letter Boy”
When he was 10, Jacob Cramer lost one of his favorite people on earth: his grandfather. After the grief and pain began to subside, he thought of how many seniors just like his grandfather were isolated and alone. He decided to honor his grandfather by volunteering at...
Celebrating Black History Month: Five Changemakers to Know
This week, we want to use this space to amplify changemakers whose work has special relevance to Black History Month. Here are five changemakers in The Pollination Project community whose work educates, reframes, and uplifts historical Black voices. We encourage you...
Peace: Let it Begin With Me
“An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.” These inspiring words from a recent application capture the spirit of an exciting new effort blossoming here at The Pollination Project. This week’s “Changemaker of the Week” is not about just one person, but a group...
Songs & Smiles: Eric & Sheryl Kolb Bring Joy through Sing-Alongs
Eric and Sheryl Kolb lost Sheryl’s grandmother, Olive, to Alzheimer’s in 2006. Just two years later, Sheryl’s mother Trish began having trouble remembering words and recognizing familiar objects. For the next twelve years, the family went through all the joy, pain and...
Waging Peace: Mary Liepold and Eli McCarthy
In the midst of so much chaos and confusion that descended on America’s capitol last week, it brings us hope to know that The Pollination Project’s spirit of peace and kindness was also present on that day. In 2017, Mary Liepold and Eli McCarthy received seed funding...
A Hidden Ecosystem: Tamara Blazquez Haik
One day several years ago, photographer and animal activist Tamara Blazquez Haik was walking home when she came across a poisoned opossum lying dead on the sidewalk. Many people might have kept walking and not given this a second thought, but Tamara couldn’t help but...
Dorcas Apoore: Hope by the Basketful
Dorcas Apoore grew up in Northern Ghana, in a remote village so small that it isn’t even on a map. Her mother was married at a young age and never got to finish school, a cycle that Dorcas saw repeated for a great many girls in her village. Most often, this is an...
Birthing a New Dream of Equality
When she became pregnant at 18, Maria del Mar Jaramillo felt her dreams come crashing down around her. She spent her pregnancy full of worry, wondering if the life she had envisioned for herself would still be possible. With the loving support of her husband and...
Save the Food, Feed the People
In a shed in downtown Merced, California, there is a random refrigerator overflowing with an ever-changing bounty of persimmons, lettuce, celery, and other locally sourced whole fruits and vegetables. Everything in the fridge is free; twenty-four hours a day, anyone can visit to pick up what they might need. “The People’s Fridge” is a volunteer labor of love, organized by Erin Meyer and Steve Roussos.
Going the Social Distance
Growing up, Jenna Bardroff’s best friend was a potbellied pig named Arnie. When she made the connection between what her parents were putting on her plate and her love for Arnie, she became a vegetarian at the age of five. She started college at the age of fourteen,...
The Vilka Chess Club
Sohibjamol Rakamova is an unlikely chess champion. In her native Tajikistan, chess is a game of status and nobility. Many children are enrolled in chess training at the same time they go to nursery school, but this wasn’t the case for Sohibjamol. She grew up in the...
Immunity Gardens: The Painting That Came to Life
Nearly ten years ago, Bethany Fancher packed her bags and flew to Hyderabad, India, and then continued into the countryside to the village of Chandrakal. She didn’t know what to expect; only that the orphanage where she had agreed to teach art was home to about sixty...
Raoul & Jali: Keepers of Memory
This is a story of brotherhood. Raoul Vecchio is an architect and engineer. One day in his native Italy, Raoul had a chance encounter with an artist named Jali Diabate. As they talked, a synergy emerged that would meaningfully shape both their lives. Jali is part of...
Friendship Blooms Eternal
When the pandemic came, some people drank about it, some people wrote about it — and some people planted potatoes about it. In the heart of South San José, next to a housing project for low-income seniors, is a small community garden on land belonging to St. Stephen’s...
Tiffany Kirk: Building Community for the Formerly Incarcerated
Before she was a banker, Tiffany Kirk was an elementary school teacher. She never really stopped being an educator, but her classroom looks very different today. These days, Tiffany spends a lot of her free time teaching financial literacy in the community. Her work...
Gratitude Goes Big: Laura Lavigne
Earlier this year, Laura Lavigne awoke from a vivid dream about contagious red hearts. In the dream, anyone who received a red heart was filled with a deep sense of peace. The hearts were spreading quickly throughout the world. This vision of something that “went...
A “to-do” list, not a wish list: Fontoh Desmond Abinwi
Fontoh Desmond Abinwi did not grow up in a home or country that had great material wealth, yet he knew that the rich biodiversity in his native Cameroon was something much more valuable. Cameroon is home to plants and animals seen nowhere else in the world; the black...
Compassion Made Visible: Animal House
Jessica Gonzalez Castro is a reader. One book in particular has shaped the trajectory of her life. After reading “Animal Liberation” by Peter Singer, Jessica was moved to learn how she could be a more effective activist for animal rights. So it was with great...
Racheal Inegbedion: Building A More Inclusive Nigeria
Racheal Inegbedion was visiting a home for people with disabilities when she saw something that changed her life. “When someone visits, the residents sing a welcome song and share in a prayer with their guests,” remembers Racheal. “One of the young women, who had a...
Malak Yacout: Beirut’s “The Volunteer Circle”
The evening of August 4th was like any other for Beirut-based Malak Yacout. Then, buildings around her began to shake, pink smoke filled the sky, and a deafening explosion felt more than 270 kilometers away rocked the city. Instantly, 300,000 people became homeless,...
“Embrace Her:” Microfinance in Zambia
One day, Chimwemwe Chitambala heard a knock on her door. She was living in a student hostel, studying business and economics at the University of Zambia. Chimwemwe opened the door, and found a woman selling fruits and vegetables. These traders, known as “UNZA Veg” in...
“Ruthless Kindness” Offers Compassion to Human & Non-Human Animals
On a warm night in late July, Sarah Reidenbach and Kate Kuzminski got into “Clifford,” their big red mobile veterinary unit, and headed to the parking lot of a hotel in Sonoma County. It was long past office hours for most professionals, but Sarah and Kate aren’t...
Darel Scott Sees an “Earth in Color”
From Darel Scott’s desire to make both nature and the environmental movement more inclusive, Earth in Color was born. Earth in Color started as an art festival on a farm to celebrate people of color and their cultural connections to the natural world. That day under the spring sun—filled with art, food, music, and connection—highlighted the importance of people of color being able to see themselves through this lens of health and sustainability.
Miracle Adesina: COVID-19 Public Health Information for Indigenous People
Like many of us, Miracle Adesina watched the COVID-19 pandemic spread through the lens of social media. As a healthcare professional, what he saw coming through his social feeds gave him great cause for concern. Part of the problem, Miracle felt, was that critical health messages were not available in many of the 70+ indigenous languages throughout Africa. The Pollination Project supported Miracle’s translation project with a seed grant.
Lucas Akol: Protecting the Most Vulnerable Children During COVID-19
Lucas Akol’s son, who has sickle cell disease, inspired him to become a community educator and support for other families. During COVID-19, Lucas is providing these at-risk children and families with food and hygiene supplies to stay safe.
You Can’t Be What You Can’t See: The Minnesota Black Community Project
In some ways, the story of the Minnesota Black Community Project is a tale of two men named Walter Scott. Only one of them has had their story told.
Eric Miller’s ‘The Lawn Academy’ Changes Lives in Detroit
For Eric Miller, the path to a young person’s potential runs through the yard of a neighbor in need. “My mother’s name was Deloris Miller. She was a special ed teacher who always said every young person had the capacity to learn, but we all learn through different...
Jennifer Myers Has a “Way With Words”
Jennifer Rae Myers learned the power of words from her father, Raymond Banks. A writer himself, Raymond raised Jennifer to value the art of communication. He took her to the library after school, encouraged her to read, and showed her through example how to advocate for historically disadvantaged people through language. In third grade, her essay on Harriet Tubman won a writing contest on American heroes, a moment she still recalls as the point in which she realized the gift her father’s encouragement had offered her.
Assi Flaviurs’ Health and WASH Project Creates a Safer Future for the Children of Cameroon
For the 180 children and 10 staff members who constitute Bome Primary School in Bamenda in the North West Region of Cameroon, going to the bathroom safely and privately is a luxury. As they do not have access to safe and private toilets, for the past 5 years, they instead have had to rely on an old, open dilapidated tent next to their school.
A Heart of Compassion: Donatella Gelli’s Wildlife Sanctuary Takes in Animals Abandoned Due to COVID-19
The force that moves me is compassion,” said Gelli, a TPP changemaker whose sanctuary—which, in part, rescues domestic animals who were abandoned because their owners feared they could carry the coronavirus–was awarded funding by TPP’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund. “I cannot see any living thing suffering. I cannot. I’m not able to pass by if I see someone or an animal suffering.
Ponselvan Thanapal Battles India’s Caste-Based Discrimination in the Time of COVID-19
She only had enough food left to feed her family for one week. This 35-year-old widowed woman, let’s call her Amara, and her family live in Dharavi, India. You may know Dharavi—it was the slum featured in the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” This woman lost her husband due to alcoholism a few years back, and since then she has had full responsibility for the caregiving and support of her three children.
Life-Saving Liquid: How Sandip Sankar Ghosh Mobilized Young People to Create Hand Sanitizer in India’s Poorest Slums
Ghosh knew he had the opportunity to use his specialized knowledge to help the communities he had worked with for so long. His ingenious plan? Using the WHO’s gold standard recipe, he created his own hand sanitizer by mobilizing the youth in the Kolkata slums to help him.
Discover Our Youngest Changemaker: Cavanaugh Bell Protects Senior Citizens through the LOVE Pantry
Cavanaugh Bell has spent the last two years giving back to his community of Gaithersburg, Maryland, a significant amount of time for anyone, but even more so when you consider his age–which is 7. You read that right. Bell first began leading a host of care pack initiatives to help the homeless in his community when he was just 5 years old.
From the Ashes: TPP Changemaker Jenny Lowrey Battles COVID-19 in Her California Community, Ravaged by Fire Just One Year Earlier
But then, once again, the unthinkable happened—a pandemic swept through the nation, with California being one of the hardest hit states. All of a sudden, Lowrey was thrust again into emergency mode. “[Our family, friends, and neighbors] have survived the nightmare of the fire and had just gotten back to work. They were finally feeling hopeful again … and then COVID-19 happened. We are now hit with a second disaster before we have recovered from the first.”
Seventeen & Saving Lives: Sam Suchin Combats COVID-19 with 3D Printings
When the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, Sam Suchin knew he had to do something. “In the past few weeks, people all over the world have started to brainstorm creative solutions to keep people safe during the outbreak,” says Suchin. “Hope3D has joined the movement.” Enter Project Shield: a project which aims to crowdsource 3D printed face shields for healthcare workers.
Seventeen & Saving Lives: Sam Suchin Combats COVID-19 with 3D Printings
When the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, Sam Suchin knew he had to do something. “In the past few weeks, people all over the world have started to brainstorm creative solutions to keep people safe during the outbreak,” says Suchin. “Hope3D has joined the movement.” Enter Project Shield: a project which aims to crowdsource 3D printed face shields for healthcare workers.
Changemaker Warren Campbell Responds Swiftly to COVID-19; Offers Vital Funds to Those Under COVID-19 Treatment
As the founder of AFFORDABLE, a software-based nonprofit dedicated to reducing barriers to healthcare access, Warren Campbell, a TPP changemaker, realized COVID-19 could be a potential health hazard in the US as early as February. Then, something unexpected happened that hit close to home: the grandparents of one of his developers were on the Queen Diamond cruise ship when COVID-19 was identified.
Great Strides for Children on the Move: Danielle De La Fuente’s Work with Refugee Children through the Amal Alliance
When you’re at the United Nations and a Minister of Education requests your advice, you know you must be doing something right.
But it took Danielle De La Fuente, founder of the Amal Alliance, a lot of hard work and dedication to get to that moment.
The Difference One Person Can Make: Dickson Oketch and His Work with Girls in Siaya, Kenya
With such sensational stories bombarding our hearts and minds, it is easy to succumb to fear—or, worse, apathy. But at The Pollination Project, we strive to provide an antidote to apathy by uplifting the voices of those changemakers who are making a positive difference in the world—changemakers like Mr. Dickson Oketch
A Voice for the Voiceless: Sameeksha Bhattarai Advocates for Compassion Toward All Animals in Kathmandu, Nepal
Sameeksha Bhattarai, founder of Project Compassionate Nepal, says that veganism—and her quest to help others in her community of Kathmandu choose a plant-based lifestyle–has been one of the biggest battles of her life. Despite the hardship, however, she refuses to shy away from the effort.
Seventeen Year Old Aadya Joshi Pioneers Education and Action Toward a More Biodiverse India
Aadya Joshi remembers being disappointed that she could never find the birds of which her grandparents spoke–not for lack of trying, but because the birds simply didn’t live there anymore…
“The Spark That Ignites”: Cameron Deal Brings Music to Under-Resourced Children in Peoria, Arizona
When someone has as much passion as Cameron Deal, you can’t help but get swept away by their emotions.
Shoshana Akabas Welcomes Refugees in New York through Her Family-Match Program, New Neighbors Clothing Partnership
I want to make sure New York remains a haven for refugees,” says Akabas. “So many people in New York want to help their new neighbors but don’t know how. My initiative forges connections between New Yorkers that might not have otherwise met…
Desire Johnson-Forte Brings the Spirit of Travel to Young Black Men in Oakland through #Passport2Freedom
For Desire Johnson-Forte, travel is the ultimate expression of self-liberation. Especially since, growing up in Oakland, CA, travel of any kind seemed like an unrealistic luxury.
Debbie Goncalves Dreams Big for Her Special Needs Actors in TA-DA Productions
“It brought chills to my body and tears to my eyes to know that this program worked for them then and worked for them now,” said Goncalves.
Kansiime Honest Nurtures the Leaders of Tomorrow with Girls to Lead Africa Program
For Kansiime Honest, her life-changing moment was when the Ugandan government passed a policy for universal education.