I was fortunate enough to visit Lisbon, in Portugal this summer as a part of a European tour I took. The beauty of this charming little city is incredible! My family is Portuguese from the Acores, so the portuguese mainland was a completely different experience for me. I wanted to take pictures of everything because it was all so beautiful. It's strange how a city like Lisbon can evoke such emotion. It stirred up something inside me. Perhaps more of an appreciation for my own heritage. A curiosity to learn more about my roots. What made this experience a truly unique one was also the fact that i was there in the midst of the European Cup. I didn't go to lisbon to attend any soccer matches but what blew me away was the unity of this tiny little country during these games. There were flags hanging from virtually every window and doorway in the city! People were singing and dancing in the streets. The Greeks and the Portuguese celebrated together without riots or any violence even though in the end there was only one winner! It was fabulous!....... But when it was all over and everything was said and done, i sat and thought for a little while. I wondered why a sporting event could bring so many people together. Why can people be totally unified for a soccer championship? Why is it that it is so difficult for us to stick together when we are trying to acheive something much greater?......If only getting people excited about making positive change in the world were as easy as gathering millions for a sporting event. How great would that be? :-)

It seems to me that everything on the news is depressing. At one point I stopped watching because i felt that i didn't want to hear about it anymore. I didn't want to see the pictures of civilian houses being blown up in Iraq, or the mass gr aves of all the innocent lives of those lost in such atrocious acts of violence. But i soon came to realize that life is too short to ignore the problems around us. It is so very easy to turn a blind eye to the issues that are not occuring in your own backyard. I am very affected by the things i see on the news. I get sad and disappointed in this world we live in when i watch what is going on around us, but at the same time i believe that we all have a hand in what goes on. My mother gets angry with me sometimes and tells me that i CANNOT save the world and that i should just stop trying, but everytime she says this i only want to help some more. I know we can't fix all of the worlds problems especially those that feel so far from home and out of reach. But i do beleive unity is the key and as long as we all stand together and feel compassion for those less fortunate then we can make a difference. We just have to want to. We must help educate those who do not understand the severity of some of these global issues. And we must help rejuvenate the hope into the hearts and minds of those who have allowed themselves to get to overcome by the misery this world seems to have become. We are the youth of tomorrow and we can do it together! To everyone on TIG who is working or has worked tirelessly to make a difference by creating or joining in on projects, you are the ray of light this world is looking for. We just have to keep at it. I must prove my mother wrong. She must see that everything we do matters. If our projects and actions brighten the day of a few people then it is already worth doing, because changing the world begins one individual at a time. :-)