Will you Sponsor Me to Help Bring Clean Drinking Water to the Needy?

In various ways, I’ve advocated from a very young age to improve the lot of blind people – a tiny minority often misunderstood and discriminated against. But seeking to better your situation need not, and indeed should not, preclude you from being thankful for all you have.

I wrote my first blog post here on the Mosen Consulting blog almost a year ago, on 1 May 2013. It was a time of enormous professional and personal change and challenge. During those times of doubt and difficulty, I required myself to write down at least three things for which I was thankful. My family, my health, food and shelter were right up there.

It’s said that the brain thinks as many as 50,000 thoughts every day. In the end, the nature of those thoughts is our choice. Stuff happens, some of it beyond our control, but what is within our control is how we interpret the data, and whether we cling unduly to the data. We may not always write our personal news, but we do write our story.

It’s been an amazing year, a year that has delivered me peace and a connection with my authentic self that I’ve craved. I wanted in some way to celebrate that, and to give something back.

Recently, I learned about a project that couldn’t have been better timed, given that it starts on the first birthday of Mosen Consulting. Not only is the timing perfect, but so is the project’s nature and purpose.

I’ve signed up to participate in Mindful in May for 2014. Mindful in May challenges participants to practice meditation for 10 minutes each day in May, providing resources to participants to assist them to become more mindful.

Here’s where I’m hoping you’ll come in! I’m looking for sponsors. Mindful in May is raising money for Charity: Water, a non-profit organisation providing access to clean water for people in developing countries. Their staffing costs are funded from private donors, so 100% of what you donate goes directly to those in need. The wells they build are verified with photos taken and GPS co-ordinates published.

800 million people, that’s one in nine people on the planet, don’t have access to clean drinking water. It’s one of those things that is so ubiquitous to most of us reading this, that we seldom give pause to be thankful for the fact that we have it. But boy, when they switch it off for a short time for maintenance, we suddenly appreciate just how reliant we are on it. Imagine, just for a moment, how different your life would be if you didn’t have access to clean water on a regular basis.

I have a fraction under 3,000 followers on Twitter. I know it’s a pipe dream, but if each follower even donated a buck, imagine the real difference we could all make to people’s lives.

It’s amazing how doing a good deed makes you feel good. If you have a little to spare, I’m happy to take up the challenge of doing the meditation for every day in May, and together, we’ll make the world just a wee bit better.

Mosen Consulting is also going to put its money where its mouth is, so to speak, and donate 20% of all revenue generated in May to Mindful in May.

Thanks, everyone, for everything. I’m grateful.