With Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, many of my friends and I are thinking of ways to give back to society the blessings that we have received throughout the year. Personally, I have just finished setting up a website for a charitable organization and would soon use it as a vehicle for donation drives. Yet some of us will be donating some cash to orphanages but I have been thinking that no matter how much we donate, our impact will not be too big because of our small outreach.

And then early this morning, I read about this 12-year-old boy Bilaal Rajan who realized the power of making change, starting with himself and canvassing the help of children around the world.

Reading about Bilaal Rajan, I feel a sense of shame. As a working adult in the modern world, I, like many other people, have been too busy chasing after one material item after another and I salute a boy like Bilaal Rajan for teaching me selflessness of that level. People say that charity should begin at home but that should not necessary be the case, right?

I am amazed by Bilaal’s untiring effort to help make the world a better place for children in other parts of the world. If you would like to support his cause, you could buy his book or make a direct donation via this webpage: http://www.bilaalrajan.com/donations.html

Do you think this is possible? Well, I never thought that it was until I was told of this online store called I AM Shaman. Like the word “shaman” in the name of this online store suggests, I am Shaman, which you can access at www.iamshaman.com deals with organic herbs.

However, you need to be careful because unless they specifically say so in the description, everything product sold at IAmShaman.com is not to be consumed! And you may want to check if it’s legal in your country!

I had an amazing time going through their products. I did not know that there are so many different species of organic herbs and to think that buying these through IAmShaman.com would enable us to give back to the needy communities is like killing two birds with one stone.

As a blogger, I know how empowering it is to be able to earn from blogging. A friend of mine commented that $5 per post is a small amount of money BUT I tell him that it all adds up at the end of the month.

Just now, I got to know of this program called Bloggers For Hope. I do not know if there are other similar charities but what this program does is to help underprivileged young people earn money from blogging.

According to the website, these young people will be provided with training and internet access and taught how to blog so that they would be sponsored to blog and point their posts to their sponsors.

It is actually a win-win situation where these bloggers will be paid and these sponsors will receive links pointing to their sites, which is important to Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and advertising. This is a very good program for companies to run their advertising campaigns. They get to help underprivileged young people from poorer countries and empower them through blogging!

If you are a regular FaceBooker, I am sure you would have noticed the advertisement on going on a volunteering trip abroad. I checked out the site and we have to pay in order to be in the program. I did not like the programs offered but that gave me an idea to look for similar volunteer programme abroad.

Work and Volunteer is a website that I chanced upon that also offers similar volunteer programs. There are a few different programs that we can enrol in namely funded internships, paid internships and vacation language courses.

I think that it is great that there are such programmes made readily available for people to participate in. It is actually a win-win formula for both parties involved. One person gets to learn a new language or almost-free travel while the other party gets a volunteer.

I actually wanted to look for a volunteer program when I left school but we did not have the internet back then and there was no way I could look for such a volunteer program to participate in.

Most programmes on Work and Volunteer are for citizens of a European Union country but living in the United Kingdom who are above 18 years old. While for some programmes, the participant has to pay to join, some even will pay the volunteer an allowance.

I think this provides a wonderful opportunity for people, especially new graduates, a chance to see the world!

The other day, I wrote about the website FreeRice.com, well, have you tried it out yet and donated rice? I find this concept absolutely great and I have been to the site to play a little more and donated a little more. I love it that I unwittingly get to improve on my vocabulary, even though at times I just tembaked like hell 😀 but even so, I do try to remember the words that I am unfamiliar with.

If you have a little spare time, GO and donate some rice. I am trying to set a side a little time every day to play, to learn and to do a little charity.

Now, I was asked if this site will really donate rice and what do they gain. I don’t know. Do it even if it only makes you feel good. Chalking up good karma points by doing charity doesn’t depend solely on FreeRice.com, right??