#givesight
One of the great things about being the Lifestyle Editor for GBN is that I sometimes get to share positive stories about things that people and companies are doing purely for the betterment of society. When I heard about World Sight Day and TOMS I had to share.
From a fashion standpoint, I simply love the styles. I discovered TOMS had an eyewear line when my own eyesight started to de-crisp a few years back. Since no one wanted to read me food labels, pill bottles or menus anymore, I knew it was time for glasses to become a daily part of my life. But it wasn’t really that big of a deal because I had the privilege of going to the doctor, getting a prescription and driving the saleswomen completely nuts when I couldn’t decide which frames best flattered my face. I’m lucky. But what about the millions globally who can’t afford glasses or don’t have access to proper eye care? Everyone on the planet knows someone who is affected by some sort of visual impairment and TOMS wants to help out.
TOMS is asking a very important question: WHAT DOES SIGHT MEAN TO YOU? Every year, World Sight Day raises global awareness about blindness and visual impairment. This year, World Sight Day is on October 9 and TOMS is hosting an all-day event at the their Flagship store in Venice, California. TOMS is also supporting the day by encouraging fans to take to social media and contribute to an Instagram gallery with images of what sight means to you with the hashtag #givesight. The images collected with the designated hashtag will be curated online leading up to October 9, and select images will appear in TOMS stores around the world on World Sight Day.
Posts tagged as “Uganda”
Leonard Kwitonda’s life definitely hasn’t been a crystal stair. In 1994, his father was killed in the Rwanda genocide and he was left with just his mother and siblings. At 12-years-old, he traveled with the Rwanda Jr. Basketball Team, but while traveling in California. with the team, his uncle was killed and his family fled to Uganda. He was told to stay in the U.S because of safety issues.
When he was just 15-years-old, not able to speak English, he took a two day ride to Kentucky from California. He’s already lived with two foster families, but that hasn’t deterred him. Leonard excels not only academically, but is also a star athlete on the basketball team and soccer team. This year, he will graduate with honors.
Leornard says, “I think I’ve come a long way. I don’t like to think of myself as a person who has a lot of issues. There is a lot of people who have more than myself, than I have.” Jeffersonville Coach Matt Pait says Leonard’s story is inspirational, a teen who has overcome so many obstacles and adversity and is still successful. Pait says, “He brings a lot of energy, he’s always smiling. Immediately when he’s in the game, it’s constant energy and effort. He’s the kid who gives 100 percent at everything he does.”
Audrey Baines, his current foster mother couldn’t be more proud of Leonard. “Leonard, if you meet him once or you meet him a million times, he’s always going to have a smile on his face, something positive to say. He’s as much a part of Jeff. as anybody who has been here forever and he’s so much a part of my family, I can’t imagine not having him in my life.”
Leonard is planning to go to college and study international business. To see video of this inspirational teen, click here.
article via clutchmagonline.com
Award-winning entrepreneur Andrew Mupuya was just 16 years old when he decided to take on the world. That was back in 2008, when both of Mupuya’s parents had lost their jobs and could only afford to cover his school fees. “I had to get to meet my basic needs by myself,” remembers the Ugandan businessman. “I decided to face the world alone.”
Inadvertently, the government of Uganda came to Mupuya’s aid. At the time, officials in the country announced that they were considering a ban on plastic bags to curb environmental damage. Mupuya, who was still in secondary school, immediately saw this as an opportunity to launch a paper bag production company. “I conducted a feasibility study, market research around retail shops, kiosks, supermarkets around Kampala and discovered there is need and potential market for paper bags.”
To start out his small operation, Mupuya figured out he needed a capital of 36,000 Ugandan shillings ($14). He raised the first $11 from selling 70 kilos of used plastic bottles he’d collected over one week. Mupuya then borrowed the remaining $3 from his school teacher and embarked on his entrepreneurial journey producing paper bags on a small scale. Since then, the business has grown extensively and today, at the age of 21, Mupuya is the owner of Youth Entrepreneurial Link Investments (YELI), the first registered Ugandan company to make paper bags.
The African edition of Next Top Model recently came to a close and Ugandan beauty Stacie ‘Queen’ Aamito claimed the crown.
Aamito beat out 11 contestants from eight different countries—including three women from Nigeria and two from South Africa—to become Africa’s first-ever Top Model winner. The 20-year-old won a contract with New York-based agency DNA Model Management, an endorsement deal with P&G, a one-year contract as ambassador for South African Tourism, along with $50,000 in prize money.
After her win Aamito told reporters, “I would like to thank everybody for their support and for believing in me. It is a dream come true for me and it is truly awesome.”
Africa’s Next Top Model is the brainchild of supermodel Oluchi Onweagba. Onweagba, who’s married to Italian designer Luca Orlandi, has been in the business for over fifteen years, gracing runways for designers like Victoria Secret, Christian Dior, and Giorgio Armani, and snagging covers for publications like Italian Vogue, i-D, Elle, and Surface.
Africa’s Next Top Model was a hit with viewers and many are hopefully this will help catapult African models to international success.
article by Britni Danielle via clutchmagonline.com
Phiona Mutesi relishes her first victory at the 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia
(CNN) — She grew up in one of the poorest spots on earth. She couldn’t read or write. As a child, she scrounged for food each day for herself, her mother, and her brother. But a chance encounter with a chess coach turned her into a rising international chess star, the subject of a book — and the protagonist in a future Disney movie.
Ugandan teenager Phiona Mutesi is “the ultimate underdog,” her biographer says. Those who work with her believe she’s 16. But since her birthday is unclear, she might still only be 15, they say. Her father died from AIDS when Mutesi was around 3. “I thought the life I was living, that everyone was living that life,” the teenager told CNN, describing her childhood in Katwe, a slum in the Ugandan capital of Kampala.
“I was living a hard life, where I was sleeping on the streets, and you couldn’t have anything to eat at the streets. So that’s when I decided for my brother to get a cup of porridge.”
Robert Katende, a missionary and refugee of Uganda’s civil war, had started a chess program in Katwe. He offered a bowl of porridge to any child who would show up and learn.
Rony Delgarde immigrated to the United States from Haiti with only $5 and a Bible. The first thing he saw when he landed at Miami International Airport were all the colorfully-painted buildings. “People paint their house yellow, white, red, blue and I said, ‘Wow, there’s so much paint in this country!'” Delgarde says.” I said, ‘When I get money in this country, I’m going to buy paint and take paint back home.'”
From that idea, Global Paint for Charity was born. Delgarde, who is 38 and works as a health care consultant, states the mission: “to recycle leftover paint from businesses and residents, processes it and then donate it to vulnerable families in developing countries all around the world.”
Ugandan Olympic Gold medallist marathon champion Stephen Kiprotich, holding the Ugandan flag centre accompanied by Education and Sports Minister Jessica Alupo, centre left, inspect a guard of honor, at Entebbe International Airport 42 kms from the capital Kampala, Uganda, Wednesday Aug. 15, 2012. Kiprotich’s win has been deeply felt in Uganda, which had not won gold since the Munich Games in 1972. Lawmakers are considering a motion that declares Kiprotich a national hero, his employer has promised to promote him at work. (AP Photo/ Stephen Wandera)
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Uganda’s only medal winner at the London Olympics cried tears of joy as hundreds of people welcomed him home on Wednesday with celebrations of music and dance in honor of the African nation’s first gold since the 1972 games in Munich.