1. GNN Founder Talks With BBC World Service About Positive News in the Media Landscape
In a world dominated by news of destruction and disaster, millions of people across the globe are turning toward positive news platforms—and the BBC World Service recently spoke with a pair of female pioneers in the good news space.
Kim Chakanetsa hosted The Conversation with Good News Network founder Geri Weis-Corbley and Anuradha Kedia, co-founder of The Better India. Anuradha and her husband focus their multi-lingual media platform on creating a positive impact across India.
Produced by Abbie Bulbulian and Jane Thurlow, the podcast episode explores how we define good news and the effects it has on society.
2. Pilot Announces in a Heartwarming Reveal That Young Passenger is Now Cancer Free
Reed Marcum was just a kid when he learned that some children in his town of McAlester Oklahoma didn’t have any toys under their Christmas tree.
A shy kid who was bullied in school, Reed remembered the moment very clearly, since he was no stranger to feeling left out. Even though his parents divorced when he was just 7, there were people who stepped in to make Christmas time special, so the thought this his fifth-grade friend would find nothing under the tree was tough to hear.
Whatever the reason his heart or his blues, he proposed to his mother to hold a toy drive, similar in structure to a backpack drive they had organized the year before. Reed’s mother, Angie Miller, posted a video on Facebook explaining her son’s intentions, and asked for donations of toys or money to buy toys for a giveaway that Reed had decided to do as a 4-H project.
3. Youth Volunteers Form ‘Grandpals’ to Connect Lonely Senior Citizens With ‘Grandkids’ to Hang Out With
In India, a group of considerate young people calling themselves the “good fellows” are changing the lives of India’s senior citizens by pairing them with volunteer grandkids.
Meant to combat loneliness and help bring these elders back into society, the organization allows members of the elder’s family to nominate them as a “grandpal” in search of a “good fellow,” typically if their spouse or closest family member isn’t around anymore.
The Goodfellows was started by Shantanu Naidu, Niki Thakur, and Gargi Sandu, a trio of young Indians from Mumbai who all shared a love of hanging out with their grandparents. Today, they have a team of 65 young men and women aged between 18 and 24, and 400 grandpals signed up.
