compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
even more so - now (can't believe it's 6 years since)
that its official that Gaiam - IS
the new parent company of zaadz
so without further ado lets just -
First posted by Michael Grove @zaadz on August 17, 2007 at 11:30
As Homo sapiens sapiens emerged within the early human world approximately
40,000 years ago, it seems that Homo universalis – one who incarnates
the ever-unfolding Universe Story – is emerging now among us.
This emerging type of human is not a new religion, or a new ideology, but
the new being within each of us being called out precisely as the planet
reaches its limits to growth and hovers between evolution and extinction.
It is more important than ever for us to be together in resonance, in
the field of our own conscious evolution – especially while separated
consciousness wreaks havoc upon the ‘birth-torn’ Earth.
It is time to nurture this metamorphosis within ourselves, so that the
deeper reality of our emerging potential can express itself more
fully through us, as us, and as a new norm.
To use the butterfly analogy: we are ‘imaginal cells' crossing over
from the disintegrating body of the societal caterpillar, entering the
brief period of metamorphosis to become something never experienced
before on this Earth. In this “chaos window” we are recreating and
re-assembling ourselves, finding our new vocations and being
intuitively guided as to our emerging functions and structures.
One by one we are forming the still invisible new body, preparing
for our sudden appearance as members of a societal butterfly.
This is Real Time Evolution. Not about it, but AS [IT]
Inclusion
Our pilot programme is focusing on twinning, bringing together grass roots communities and working in partnership with a wide range of specialists in both local and international development. The principles behind Penny On transcend politics and religion, they resonate with people at an emotive and humanitarian level. Common goals call for common sense and collective intelligence. There is an old saying … none of us are as smart as all of us !
Community
The young people get to see first hand the scale of the challenge, seeing for themselves the most effective strategies and become involved in building awareness, raising funds and getting to the heart of the problems that affect their community. By twinning grass roots communities we foster peer to peer relationships between ordinary people who are often “in the problem” they know first hand through their lives about the reality of deprivation and exclusion. These heroic people are the experts who hold the key to eliminating poverty from the grass roots up.
Environment
Nature sustains us, it feeds us, protects us and nourishes us. When we work with nature we can create solutions to poverty that empower people, that support life, economy and community. Working with nature means encouraging bio-diversity, thinking beyond the current accepted norms and towards greener, self sufficient and abundant environments. Here’s how 5,000 people benefited from natures solutions.
Mitchell High School was originally Hanley High School which the designer
of the Spitfire, R.J. Mitchell attended. At the age of 16 years he gained an
apprenticeship at Kerr Stuart & Co. of Fenton, a locomotive engineering
works - at the end of which he worked in the drawing office at Kerr Stuart
and studied engineering and mathematics at night school. In 1917 he
joined the Supermarine Aviation Works at Southampton, and the rest
is history, so to speak. Hanley High School was renamed Mitchell High
School, in honour of its connection with its illustrious student.
Mitchell High School and Penny-On
This note aims to address two questions of particular relevance to the
Penny-On project, and is based on a recent visit to Mitchell High School.
The two questions are:
1. What’s so special about what’s happened at Mitchell High School
during the last five years?
2. What value can the Penny-On team bring to the Mitchell project and the wider community of Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme?
What’s So Special About Mitchell High School?
Six years ago, before the arrival of Debbie Sanderson, Mitchell High School
was a fairly typical “failing school”. Situated on the edge of the
Bentilee community, near Stoke-on-Trent, the school draws from a
catchment area that has many unpromising features, including high
levels of long-term unemployment, crime and drug use.
In the five years since Debbie’s arrival (in 2002), the school has made enormous strides, including the following key features:
• High levels of engagement with the local community;
• Provision of adult learning services to well over a thousand people;
• Extraordinarily sophisticated information systems, including the deployment
of over 150 “thin client” terminals to pupils’ homes in the community;
• Achievement of special status as a Business and Enterprise Academy.
An Epicentre for Education and Enterprise
The key to Mitchell’s success is that it has established itself as an epicentre for education and enterprise, not only for the pupils but also for the
wider community. This is all the more extraordinary, given that many
of the families from which the pupils are drawn have experienced
several generations of unemployment.
The irony, of course, is that the Stoke-on-Trent area has a long history of extraordinary commercial activity, itself being enormously influential in the development of the pottery industry during the industrial revolution. However the last hundred years have not been kind to the area, with dramatic declines in both the pottery and coal industries.
If Mitchell High School can provide the catalyst for a new generation of entrepreneurs in the area, its service to the wider community will go way beyond that of any normal school. It has the opportunity to spark a transformation across the entire Stoke/Newcastle conurbation.
The Role of the Penny-On Trust
This last point introduces one of the opportunities for the Penny-On team to
make a big difference in the Stoke/Newcastle area, which is to
publicise and propagate the success of Mitchell High School. If we can
capture and then disseminate the key lessons from Mitchell, to other
schools that face similar challenges, we can play an invaluable role in
ensuring that Mitchell is viewed by other schools as a valuable
resource and a beacon, to be engaged and learned from, rather than
viewed with suspicion and resentment for “making them look bad”.
Work has already begun to engage young people from other parts of
Stoke/Newcastle, with a view to sharing the lessons from Mitchell with
them. Martin Dewhurst has met with a group from a youth club in Chesterton, and a similar initiative is underway in Trentham.
A key point about Penny-On is the way in which it calls on young people to adopt a “giving” orientation to the world, rather than a “getting” orientation. Young people gain an understanding that there are people in the world who are much less fortunate than themselves, and that, by their
efforts, they can make a big difference
to the lives of those people. This is a world away from the
“entitlement mentality” that can all too easily affect a community such
as Bentilee, which has experienced relatively severe economic
conditions during the 20th Century.
Community-Level Engagement is Key
One of the principles of Penny-On is the principle of connecting communities. Any money raised by Penny-On will always be spent either in the local community or in another specific, known community in the developing world. It will never disappear into a general pot, its destination and purpose to be determined by an unknown bureaucrat.
The implication of this is that the people in the community that raises the money will always have sight of where that money goes, ensuring that they retain psychological ownership of the outcomes, whether those are in the UK or elsewhere.
From the standpoint of the community in the developing world that receives the funds, there is also a big positive impact. This is money that comes with love, from a specific group of people,
giving the recipient community a clear message that they are known and
cared for, by a group of people they’ve never even met.
.
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I can also act in ways that I believe are compassionate to the people right in front of me, and you might think, “Isn’t that compassion for others?” But really, it’s compassion for myself in another form.
It’s another self-compassion method.
Imagine the pain you feel when you see someone else suffering — the suffering you feel is real suffering, just as the other person is suffering. Yet, most people don’t actually ease that suffering in themselves.
So, how do you ease that suffering in yourself when you see someone else suffering?
You reach out, empathise, make a connection, and look for a way to reduce the other person’s suffering, and your own. If the other person opens up, that’s great. If not, that’s OK, because you’ve reached out and let thesm know that you too suffer when you see them suffer.
That’s a powerful thing.
And so you ease your own suffering, and it’s a selfish sort of compassion. BUT that’s the only kind there is.
Severn
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I believe ”poverty” to be a global illness that knows no boundaries. We have poverty of spirit as well as poverty in the body and mind, and this illness
affects the rich as well as the poor.
Nishta
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Mohandas K. Gandhi said “Poverty is the worst form of violence” - and TIME always referred to him in terms of his enlightened leadership & philosophy of non-violence.
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Michael, how doe penny on work?
jenni
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Hi Jenni,
Michael kindly invited me here to answer this one …
Penny On works by inviting you as you shop to simply add 1 penny to the things you buy.
Can you imagine everyone who could do so making that choice?
It uses all existing technology
It creates a new social fund for use in the community
It empowers, informs and educates people about the power of collective action
It shares its publically collected funds 50% Local 50% International on projects that empower people
It works through education to build social responsibility into the curriculum
Right now it's being piloted and led by young people in an area affected by poverty
They are building the campaign outwards from their community to other communities
Penny On has the annual potential to tackle the issue of hunger 6 times over
I hope that paints an inspiring picture Jenni and I look forward to sharing news of the arrival of Penny On on your shores.
With love
Martin
PS Thank you Michael for being the visionary you are :-)
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PS
I should add this …
Why is Penny On different?
Penny On is a fund-raising brand that makes it easy for every individual to contribute, utilising modern technology in a new model for
fund-raising. More than that, Penny On is the brand for young people,
the consumers of today and the consumers of tomorrow. With a brand
message enshrined within the school curriculum, young people will drive
awareness throughout families and communities, through social
networking and mobile telecommunications. Imagine fund-raising through
EFTPOS, through pay per click, through text messaging and across global
boundaries. The opportunity to align with this global phenomenon and
drive awareness of CSR, for an organisation operating internationally,
through retail, online, within schools and local communities is huge.
Penny On is a strategy that is both compelling and sustainable.
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thank you for the information Martin. I had not heard of it before. I will look for it. jen
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penny on’s underpinning raison d’etre of …
1. establishing a “brand” committed to raising money – a penny at a time – through every consumer transaction on earth,
and
2. giving the children the responsibility and support to administer & manage such a project and BE the ones who decide where/how, the money raised
should be spent,
has the potential to establish penny on as THE lego building block template which could glue together all activities involved in the eradication of poverty, so often talked about by the ‘communities’ of politics, religion & science, in line with the UN Millennium Goals.
Zaadz IS a place of honesty.
Zaadz IS a place of integrity.
BUT above all Zaadz is a place of ACTION, walking the walk rather than WRITING or HAVING DISCUSSIONS about talking the talk - as exemplified by so much ACTION@zaadz
As the Rough Guide to a Better World and how YOU can make a difference says …
walking the walk is the ONLY way to address THE big target of the UN Millennium Goals –
ENDING POVERTY.
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Beautifully said. Power to the children! The world could not be in better hands. Thank you for teaching them about love in action, Martin and Michael.
Sending love and beautiful thoughts for Penny, across the Atlantic…Janie
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In the context of Michael Strong's concluding paragraph of his FLOW Principles statement, namely :-
But we believe there are reasons to consider expanding the realm of hip, cool entrepreneurial activity far beyond the politically correct boundaries that have been established through the
current gate-keepers of politically correct left-liberal orthodoxies.
Indeed, we believe that the most profound gains for humanity, in terms
of creating world peace, prosperity for all, and ever-deeper levels of
happiness and well-being for all, will be achieved by means of
questioning existing orthodoxies of left-liberal political correctness.
I can only respond - WHO better to question those orthodoxies, than the generation of children
who will inherit the produce of their own “seed sowing & growing” ….
in THE manner of walking the walk - which we experience at Mitchell High as a
'very fruitful day' - everyday.
There are many visionary one-liners in FLOW's - The Direction of FLOW - Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good - which are succinctly descriptive of the REAL TIME ACTION taking place at Mitchell High, which will undoubtedly establish the THE lego building block template which could glue together all activities involved in the eradication of poverty, so often talked about by the ‘communities’ of politics, religion & science, in line with the UN Millennium Goals.
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Gemma Clarke's brilliant summary of the campaign detailed by Martin above …
Why is Penny On different?
Penny On is a fund-raising brand that makes it easy for every individual to contribute, utilising modern technology in a new model for
fund-raising. More than that, Penny On is the brand for young people, the consumers of today and the consumers of tomorrow.
With a brand message enshrined within the school curriculum, young
people will drive awareness throughout families and communities,
through social networking and mobile telecommunications. Imagine
fund-raising through EFTPOS, through pay per click, through text
messaging and across global boundaries.
The opportunity to align with this global phenomenon and drive awareness of Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR), for an organisation operating
internationally, through retail, online, within schools and local
communities is huge.
Penny On is a community wide strategy that is both compelling and sustainable…
which I would say establishes the appropriate community mindset shift, required to establish the most potentially creative template jigsaw piece - from which THE most realistic Global Social Responsibility model can be assembled.
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The real challenge is to make international development a domestic issue.
Lynne Featherstone MP - Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary
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Hello OUT there - WHAT are WE DOING for THE GRANDCHILDREN ?
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Severin Suzuki's speech …thank you, Michael.
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With the clearly established requirement to do more to achieve the UN Millenium Goals - there is a desperate need to evolve to a “walk the walk initiative” rather than being satisfied with a walk the talk advancement of talking the talk.
I believe that the most appropriate solution would be an all-inclusive
solution which harnesses the strengths of our global diversity. A
solution which would establish at its core, a thinking environment based on the interconnected and fully integrated values of education & training, enterprise and the community.
A solution which would encourage those less fortunate than ourselves, to
discover their own natural greatness, as a result of helping them to
think for themselves, rather than just being trained to be good.
A solution which can be characterised by focus, appreciation, trust,
delegation & a financial strategy based on an absolute necessity to
establish, from the outset, a model of conscious capitalist stakeholder
values. An ALL inclusive, conscious capitalist solution based on the very best business practices originally espoused & enacted by Josiah Wedgwood in Stoke-on-Trent, which if good enough to act as a model for Henry Ford's initiative, should be of equally appropriate value to Penny On.
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Yes!
Feel your heart…
Walk the walk…
Think the thought…
Mold the clay…
Drive the car….
Share the pennies!….
Love + action = the solution
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LOVE + ACTION = THE SOLUTION = BUILDING COMMUNITIES = BUILDING LOVE =
ERADICATION OF POVERTY before our children GET AS OLD AS WE ARE !
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Awesome video Mick. :)
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The one message that we are trying to promote all the time, that poverty in the world is an artificial creation. It doesn't belong to human
civilization, and we can change that, we can make people come out of
poverty and have the real state of affairs. So the only thing we have
to do is to redesign our institutions and policies,
and there will be no people who will be suffering from poverty. So I
would hope that this award will make this message heard many times, and
in a kind of forceful way, so that people start believing that we can
create a poverty-free world. That's what I would like to do.
Muhammad Yunus
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Great inspiration! Thank you for finding and sharing this Michael.
Samme
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Love the picture and additions, Michael.
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Loved all the positive inspiring posts here Michael except puzzled by this???
For WHATEVER reason, Sexy Integral Models IS NO LONGER available @YouTUBE Please accept my appologies because IT IS well worth watching in the context of Steve McIntosh's work. I do
not thing that image raises consciousness in anyway….there is a good
reason Youtube took it off I think. I like to hear your perspective
Michael.
The reason for mass poverty in developing countries and the great accumulation of wealth in developed countries is the way our
Temples of Capitalism namely banking and financial system evolved since
coonial times following Bank of England & Rome.
see my pod or “google deep conscious capitalism”
mita
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WHATEVER is linked to my Don't KILL the Messenger zBlog, which, as IS the case with ALL my other zBlogs, ever evolving.
I have seen, more recently, that Stephanie Dowrick and LandmarkEducation have become sponsors of zaadz@gaia. For what purpose they have done so,
I could not possibly comment, other than to quote the words of Robert
Bellarmine, Galileo's Jesuit Cardinal Prosecutor …
”To assert that earth revolves around the sun is as
erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin.”
Stephanie Dowrick's book title “Choosing Happiness” lacks commitment, care or compassion for “others”, as does LandmarkEducation's “Live a Life You Love”
For those @zaadz who really understand michael grove's definitions of LOVE & EVIL
I would assert that IT IS ONLY - I, WE, IT - in truth, beauty and goodness, in collaboration as ONE, in communication as LOVE, in collective MIND-SET as consciousness supreme, which will ensure the survival of planet earth, including it's trading & monetary systems, and secure the qualitative advancement of the evolutionary process.
The Sexy Integral Models YouTUBE video was ABSOLUTELY IN FACT the SELF SAME
The Pattern That Connects Holons - AQUAL to Spiral Dynamics - but with JUST ONE KEY frame “sexy image” added to attract I would suspect, in combination with the revised title Sexy Integral Models, AS MANY PEOPLE IN CYBERSPACE WHATSOEVER, to a video which exemplifies
the concept of “raising consciousness” which IS SO very important in
the context of Steve Mcintosh's own concept of GLOBAL GOVERNANCE.
Equally, in defference to what the children have to say on this subject, the
“single image” in combination with the revised title IS really quite
amusing, when one considers the content of the video. Perhaps we should ask “Ken Wilber's soul-mate” ?
Much as I ABSOLUTELY RESPECT and applaud ALL your perspectives, Susmita, and totally agree with your comment - IS IT NOT THE CASE that we are already experiencing the early signs of
collapse of those Temples of Capitalism ? and once this finally happens
what will we have to put in their place IF we DO NOT have a system of
global governance which allows soveriegnty at nation state level whilst
BEING able to legislate, police, indite, convict and punish at
INDIVIDUAL level ?
The wise soul IS NOT the one who gives the right answers but the ONE who asks the right questions so please ask
another question, as IS your want.
LOVE
michael
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Thankyou michael, I agree the right question will lead to right answer or goal.
If the temples of Capitalism is Declining, how is the Temple of Global Governance going to redeem us? All goverments need finance
Ends and means must be in harmony, beauty and integrity and it cannot be
imposed from outside. So I feel it is a bad taste and poor judgement to
put cheap cover on stuff of substance. I greatly respect Wilber's deep
thinking. Yet no matter how great an idea is, small group of people
need not and should not make decision for whole society or planet
because there are great diversity of language culture and beliefs. Yet our basic human needs and humanitarian values are same.
Our biggest challenge is to find new sustainable currency based
cooperative partnership based economic alternatives to corrupt
capitalism, which is creating myriad problems with mushrooming debt and
poverty in one hand and massive accumulation of wealth in few hands.
Just my two cents
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Bryan found this link today and is interviewing Ayman on his radio show.
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Ayman has been quoted as having said …
Revered as a spiritual path, commerce emerged as a tool to advance mankind.
In the context of Martin's …
I see us standing as a circle of friends, our circle grows each and every day as we open our arms to bring in more and more friends, floating
above us all is our individual and collective higher purpose. This is
our bond, this is our reason for being.
IT IS apparent that the “duality split” of our species, Homo Sapiens
sapiens, has already encircled our planet twice in the last 20,000
years. The first time when the Europeans moving west met and interbred
with the Asians moving east, to deepen the global gene-pool and the
second time when the Asians moving west met and shared their knowledge
of ideas with the Europeans moving east, to eventually establish a
global internetwork of networks of shared information. IT now remains
TO BE seen IF ALL 6.7 billion souls alive on our planet, as
individuals, can collectively ”join hands” as the next Buddha.
EVER cogniscant that ZEN is dependent on TAO & BUDDHA as ONE
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Here's the philosophy of liberty, a link from another zaadzster Big'O
http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.html
However, it is not just the government, it is the control of currency by few private commercial banks under centralized banks like FED, which
is actually a private corporation with government sounding name and
appearence (see Ron paul exposing FED). There goes the fraud part of
free market pushed by banking cartel and their economists.
Google “deep conscious capitalism”.
cheers
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Having listened to the children ….
about the simplicity of the Penny On message and its potential to lead by example, in
ALL THINGS, and despite the need for absolute perseverence and a watchful eye, in
the face of having to come to terms with SO MANY restrictions, Janie & I have continuously striven to provide Martin with an understanding that WE ARE ALL imperfect and still learning to learn, to consequently allow HIS OWN goodness to shine through and for the Penny On venture to know its place.
ALAS TPOT has now ABSOLUTELY REJECTED the opportunity to avail themselves of the positive energy of support, which both Janie and I have so tenaciously offered, to restore balance and harmony to the Penny On initiative.
NO THING is born,
NO THING is destroyed
AWAY with your dualism
YOUR likes and dislikes
EVERY single THING IS just ONE MIND
CONSCIOUSNESS SUPREME IT SELF
When YOU, Martin, have perceived THIS
YOU will have mounted the chariot of the Buddha's
and left ALL concept of a Trojan Rabbit Hole behind.
SO BE IT
Thank YOU for your best wishes and greetings of love,
& good luck with the realisation of your own journey to
truly understand The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth
Merchants of LOVE “united”
michael
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We are all here to listen….and learn…and…to the children. The children should be running the board rooms on this planet, and attending all
meetings of importance for their future. These things must be placed in
those companies hands who are willing to take on these new strategies,
to an active level. It cannot be any other way. The universe will
demand it one way or the other. I humbly bow to it's wisdom of knowing
men, women and children must work together in balance, to start a new
beginning. Old paradigms must wither, like a rose cut from the vine.
But those petals can be saved and used in prayer and meditations for
peace. And new seeds can be planted in light of hope. Our company will
take on this new approach, and the white rose of peace for all will
grow in the sunshine of the children. :) :) :) :)
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Penny On is my most life chinging insperation.
before penny on came into my life i was a noughty boy
i used to be up my local park with all the one a be gangsters drinking. I can admitt i was a drinker and at that point i thought i had no future.
that was untill all of my mates started with the Drugs and tryed to egg
me on to take them with them all, i felt inside i was stronger than
that and i thought inside i had somthing better, and that was to make a
diffrence in others lives as well as mine.
it took me about a week to dig deep inside my self to find the real me and what i wanted
to do with my self was make CHANGE. for years i was hanging around with
the people who were scared of change, i used to look around at my mates
and think ” are these really my friends?” i thought to my self yes
they are my friends i cant just give up on them just because they
started the drugs, emagine what they would be like in the future if
they had no one there to tell the NO.
well now my mates know what kind of person i am and they no that when they talk about drugs infront
of me they know i will tell them about how disapointed i am in them.
most of them stoped now because that was my challange/goal.
no one diserves to be left alone to drugs and bad habbits and thats why i
want to make a diffrence , its about “capturing hearts and minds” .
we start to change and we mean to go on. nelson mandela one said “once one
has climbed the highest mountain, he realises there are many more to
come”
i finally realised a goal dosnt get given to you with out hard work and with out hard work how can we ever expect that this world
will change?
well it will not :D
sorry if im boring everyone lol
im a 16 year old boy with a big dream of geting out of this place i live
in because bad things will happen soon. i could get my head kicked in
by the gang or somthing like that
i now have no other option but to join the army and i dont want to because i want peace, i am against
killing but things like that i would have to do to get away from here
the army is the only way i can get away from here because of money. for me
i still think i changed my silly ways to late and there is no second
chance but im on a mission to prove my SELF wrong and have a better
life.
i have writen a song and it goes like this:
One day that day this day
My story of life
One day I will reach the sky n
Think of all the people dieing
Over the world I watch you needing
Because I will never be your one
You peace
Your diamond
Or your sun
Its never!
Its never too late…
One day I'll fly
One day you'll fly
Then that day your luck is in
You've travelled the world
You've seen everything
Its crazy
Everyday I wonder why were here
How everyone
Lives a life of fear
Because change
Chang
Change
One day I'll fly
One day you'll fly
From this day on we'll all be great
Lets carry on
With out a life of fait
Its easy
Too easy
One day ill fly
One day you'll fly
We will all fly like a kite
And then
we'll all Shine O so bright
For freedom
And peace
This day has come and you have a child
You look around
The worlds gone wild
Like I told you
One day I will reach the sky n
Think of all the people dieing
Over the world I watch you needing
Because I will never be your one
You hope
Your peace
Or you're raising sun
One day we'll fly
One we'll fly together
Into a better worldit explains everything and one day i wish to get my song out to the whole world and that is some anbition of mine ;)
i am sitting in my room bord stiff so i thought i write this on be half of janie lakes and micheal grove
love you lotes
xxxjoshxxx
Name: josh cicatello
Age: 16
location: England
E-mail: sexychico_15@hotmail.co.uk
i put my details because if anyone wants a chat just email me i love to talk to people :D
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Don't go messing with our world … ABSOLUTELY
… and here WE ALL ARE 17 years of OPPORTUNITY to ACT later, still awaiting the outcome of meeting after meeting of our new masters of the globe, for any glimpse whatsoever of even a willingness to ASSUME the RESPONSIBILITY of APPROPRIATE ACTION that IS NOW ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED.
CONSIDER US indeed - and if you are 18 years or younger or know someone who IS - just get cracking and fill in your 20 words to save our world HERE !
As one child wrote: “IF the Earth doesn't survive, WHO WILL ?”