Change the world for a fiver

A good number of you will be finding yourselves at home a whole lot more at the moment and over the coming weeks. This may mean you may also find yourself in the fortunate position of having spare time to fill.

In an effort to keep positive, lift the spirits and hopefully make a real difference to our future, we can highly recommend this fab little book called ‘Change the World for a Fiver’.

It was published to mark the launch of a project by Community Links, led by Eugenie Harvey in 2004, under the name ‘We are What We Do’. The Community Links charity was at the time tackling the causes and consequences of social exclusion in east London.

On picking it up again and re-reading the introduction, we felt it was just as apt now as it was back then. Here’s a snippet:

‘We live in peculiar times. More communication devices than ever before, yet more people live alone. We want to belong to communities but our cities can be very lonely places.’

The book contains simple, everyday actions which we could pretty much all do. Each page has an ‘action-strip’ down the right hand side which suggests the action for that day. Examples include:

• learn basic first aid
• plant a tree
• turn your heating thermostat down by 1 degree
• walk more
• turn off appliances at the mains
• register online as an organ donor
• write to someone who inspired you

The list goes on. Each action gives a little summary and explanation of how it can benefit both you, your community, and ultimately, the world.

Our action for today is a particularly simple but effective one; Smile, and smile back! It takes half as many muscles to smile as it does to frown and it makes you and others feel twice as good!