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“A balm for the soul”
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global citizenship

Are kids born with a sense of right and wrong?

Or is that something we develop along the way?

I certainly spent much of my childhood selfishly yelling, "Finders keepers, losers weepers!" or "It's mine, I found it first!" — anything to claim victory before my sister beat me to it. And I'm sure I wasn't the only little kid who wanted to keep things for myself no matter the cost. (Right, guys?)


In an utterly adorable social experiment, the Japanese Red Cross put little kids' kindness to the test.

Hey kid. I see you seeing that. All GIFs via Japanese Red Cross.

Here's what they were testing: When kids are by themselves and a stranger next to them drops a wallet, what will the kids do? Will they take the wallet, leave it, or let the person know?

And it's not just about the wallet. It's about helping others. It's about what's morally right and wrong. And it's about young kids who are all just figuring it out as they go.

The way these kids reacted gave me loads of hope for our future.

When each kid saw a wallet dropped next to them, they hesitated for a second.

WHAT A LOOK. Ha-ha!

Some looked around or quietly tried to alert the stranger whose wallet was dropped.

It almost worked!

But they all eventually broke through their shyness and uncertainty to do the thing they knew was right: They alerted the stranger to the dropped wallet. Every. Single. Kid.

Ahhh, I love it.

The kindness of little kids has even been proven by science.

According to research conducted at Yale University's Infant Cognition Center, babies can identify mean behavior (in puppets) when they're just three months old. Not only that, but when given the choice, they'd rather hang out with the, um, puppets with nicer behavior.

Babies have morals? Holy crap.

This experiment is a heartwarming and beautiful display of what happens when we look out not only for ourselves, but for each other.

Doing the right thing can have such a huge impact — no matter how big or small the situation may seem. Heck, it might even be the natural thing to do!

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Thanks to Yao Ming, killing sharks for their fins is down 50%. And he's just getting started.

After a successful campaign to raise awareness about the dangerous of shark fin soup, Yao Ming is now working to fight poaching.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for retirement. I have delicious dreams to do nothing in my fancy beachside home as I grow old, soak up some sun, and read and write at my leisure. And I was totally OK with my goals of supreme lazydom ... until I saw what Yao Ming's been doing since retiring from the NBA.

Yao Ming is not on a beach drinking things with tiny umbrellas in them. Yao Ming is saving the sharks.


It's a tough goal, but Yao is up to the task. Photo by Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images.

In his home country of China, shark fin soup had become so popular that the country became the largest market for shark fin. While there isn't much meat in the fin itself, the dish was considered something of a status symbol. As more people were able to afford to order shark fin soup, our sharky friends paid the price — with their lives.

A shocking 1 in 4 shark species is now endangered.

The number of sharks in our seas has been steadily decreasing for decades. About 100 million sharks a year are killed — 73% of those are targeted for their fins, which are usually cut off before the shark is left to die.

That's why Yao teamed up with the conservation nonprofit WildAid to spread the word that shark fin soup is bad news bears. Since launching with the slogan "When the buying stops, the killing can too," a huge shift has occurred. The campaign has been credited with cutting the number of sharks killed for their fins by 50 percent.

So, yeah ... Yao Ming's retirement work definitely puts my plan to shame.

Thanks to Yao's campaign with WildAid, support for a shark fin soup ban has skyrocketed in China.

Until recently, many Chinese didn't even know that shark fin soup came from sharks. (The Mandarin translation is "fish wing soup.") Now, surveys show that a whopping 91% support a nationwide ban of shark fin consumption. While the ban hasn't happened yet, the Chinese government has banned shark fin soup at its state dinners.

Now that's some news to dance about!

"Don't eat us, please!" GIF via Discovery.

Thanks to the shark fin campaign's success, Ming is looking to bring his awareness-raising powers to more members of the animal kingdom.

Ming recently visited Kenyato raise awareness about the dangers of poaching elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns. His journey is documented on the Emmy-nominated "Saving Africa's Giants with Yao Ming" by Animal Planet.

I think the baby elephant is on to something ... let's take Ming's lead. Image via Animal Planet's "Saving Africa's Giants."

The shark fin soup campaign's success proves that knowledge really is power.

Yao has been able to use his celebrity to make serious progress on an issue that came down to people just not being properly informed. I can't wait to see how his new efforts to save elephants and rhinos turn out.

Huge thanks to Yao Ming for his dedication to protecting our animal friends.

And setting a really high bar for post-career accomplishments during my retirement years.

Cheers! GIF via "Downton Abbey."

Who run the world? Girls.

Or girls and women to be exact, but who am I to argue with Queen B?

We women are busy running countries, leading companies, piloting technological and medical breakthroughs, dominating the world of sport, and in many cases, serving as primary caregivers for the next generation.



It's not easy being awesome, but somehow we manage. Right, Serena? Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images.

But a troublesome new video from Elle U.K. illustrates the disparity between men and women in places of power.

From politics to Hollywood, women are often represented by a single voice in the room. The numbers don't lie. Women are 37% of MBA graduates, but only 4.6% of Fortune 500 CEOs. And this phenomenon is all too easy to see when men are edited out of the photos.


All GIFs by Elle U.K.

Having representation in places of power and influence is the only way women will achieve equality on a global scale. Because as the saying goes, when you don't have a seat at the table, it usually means you're on the menu.

The video was created as part of Elle U.K.'s #morewomen initiative.

Too often, successful women are portrayed as one-offs or exceptions. They're the take-no-prisoners alpha females who only reach new heights by walking on the backs of other women. In reality, there are women taking charge and making a difference in an array of industries, and they're not getting there alone or by in-fighting and bullying.

One woman's success makes every woman stronger.

Elle U.K. hopes to change the narrative and encourage women to empower and support one another in the push for global equality. Because women represent just 14% of executive officers, and because there is plenty more room at the top.



Taylor Swift with her ever-growing squad of powerful women at the Video Music Awards. Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

It's more than a hashtag campaign, it's a commitment to a movement, complete with its own pledge:

"One woman's success makes EVERY WOMAN STRONGER. More women for #morewomen."

Even if you're not a political power player or celebrity, you can still take part in the #morewomen movement.

Whether you're running the room or working your way up in your field, there's a lot you can do to advance equality and make your community and the world better for women. Supporting projects and organizations like Let Girls Learn and Girl Effect are a great way to start.

And shopping at women-owned businesses is an easy way to invest in the success of other women right in your community. No act of support is too small.

The scales of justice are shifting toward equality, but there's still plenty of work to be done.

See a few of the women making it happen in this short video from Elle U.K.

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These 6 photos show what life is like in a Philippine refugee camp.

The Philippine native people have been forced out of their lands. Here's where they ended up.

They call it bulawan, the gold beneath their lands.

It's one of the many catalysts of a war that has displaced many people in the Philippines. Gold is one of the biggest reasons behind shadowy paramilitary killings, behind the millions who've left their homes, and behind the bullets that rain over the country's ancestral lands every day.

In 2011, Philippine President Noynoy Aquino started an operation he called Oplan Bayanihan.

It was a counterinsurgency plan to provide peace, hopefully by fighting against the New People's Army, an armed revolutionary group.


The president also hoped to offer an easier route for local and international companies that wished to log and mine in the country's ancestral lands, the same lands where the New People's Army was said to be camping.

These were also the same lands that a group of indigenous Philippines, the Lumads, had been protecting for generations.

As a result of this operation, the Lumads found themselves in the midst of a hellish war.

Women, even young ones, were accused of being wives to rebels. Men who stayed too long on their farms were accused of farming for the rebels. The Lumads even said that militaries identified their schools as NPA-supervised schools and forced them to close down. Now, they say they have little chance of being educated.

After decades of evacuation, the Lumads are getting fed up.

Usually they hide in forests, waiting for a temporary ceasefire. But now, even those forests are being watched by the military. So they're leaving their lands and walking miles to a refugee camp in Davao City, hoping to find safety.

A Davao City refugee camp. All photos by Fatima Danan.

These people, the roots and the peasants of Philippine culture, are the backbone of the nation. Now, they have nowhere to call home.

This week I visited a refugee camp in Davao City, located on the grounds of UCCP Haran, a church-owned private property. There I asked some of Lumads I met about their lives and culture.

These are their stories.

Meet Nat'uloy, a disabled man who makes kudlungs, a traditional musical instrument.

Nat'uloy has been crippled for two years, so his wife carried him to the refugee camp on her back. She also took over the farming work back home.

“We couldn't bring food because the military would suspect that we were fleeing," he remembers, “so she carried me for about two days, and both of us and our children didn't eat anything."

Now, at the refugee camp, Nat'uloy makes artifacts from his homeland to keep their culture alive. He makes kudlungs, a string instrument similar to a guitar. It's a piece of home, he says. It takes him three days to finish one.

“Yes. Sometimes we sell it. But sometimes we just play it after my neighbors do their farming at home. At dusk, we play."

Meet Merlyn, a kind woman who has adopted two children during this crisis.

“I adopted two kids from different parents," she told me. “One of them, her father died of tuberculosis and her mother found another man. The other one also lost her parents from TB."

Meet Lora, a farmer by trade.

“I work in the sugarcane field. Sometimes I plant sweet potatoes, eggplants, anything," she says of life back home. To get to the Davao City camp, she walked for five days.

Because there was no food, we ended up eating raw vegetables," she remembers. “I miss home. And working."

Meet Jenny, Malonie, and Bernadette, three little girls with big dreams.

From left to right: Jenny, Malonie, and Bernadette.

“I'm 12 years old," Jenny told me. “My father's already dead and my mom has another man."

Jenny and Bernadette were adopted because their parents fled or died during this crisis.

“It's hard to move from one relative to another. Now, I live with them," Bernadette explained. “My adoptive father works as a farmer and I help him every day."

Malonie, on the other hand, does not want to work in farming. “I'm a majorette dancer," she told me.

And meet Tungig, a young leader in his community.

Last year, Tungig brought more than 1,300 Lumads to Davao City. “I've been evacuating since I was 5 years old," he told me.

He explains that it takes seven months to harvest rice, which grows commonly in the Philippines and is the livelihood for many Lumads. By the time the Lumads return to their lands, the rice will be dead and they will need to start from square one with planting. It will take seven more months, then, for them to produce the food they need to survive.

It has been five months since the day many Lumads burned their slippers, used them as torches, and walked day and night to reach Davao City.

Since then, 12 babies have been born in the camp, and many pregnant women are worried about where they will give birth: in the refugee camp? Along the road as they walk home?

The Lumads want to go back to their ancestral lands, but that's still not in the picture. Instead, they fight with their voices as weapons, joining the massive support from locals in the city. Instead, they wait.