The Wall of Life

2009-06-30T13:09:59Z

The nice people at ‘The Wall of Life’ contacted us because they liked our website and thought that we – that’s you, that’s us – would be interested to know about their campaign, launched last week with support of top faith leaders and celebrities.

What they want to do is to get 60,000 people to join ‘the wall’ in support of organ donation in the UK. The face of the campaign is two-year-old Louisa McGregor-Smith. Louisa celebrates her second birthday in July 2009. But she is only alive today because of a life-saving heart transplant when she was just five months old. That transplant was only possible thanks to the generosity of an organ donor and their family.

The Wall of Life is a unique way of showing your support for organ donation. It is also an exciting new way for us to acknowledge and celebrate the hundreds of individuals who sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register* every day. Decide whether you want to help someone to live after your death and join the NHS Organ Donor Register. Then join our community of online supporters by uploading your picture to the Wall. Please make sure you tell your family and friends about your donation wishes.

It doesn’t matter if you joined the register sometime ago, you are still welcome to join the Wall of Life. And if you carry a donor card, that’s great, but please still do join the register to ensure we know your donation wishes should the time ever come.

There is a desperate shortage of donated organs for transplant. Each year around 3,000 organ transplants are carried out in the UK, but the need for transplants is increasing faster than the number being performed. There are now over 10,000 in need of a life-saving transplant operation and, on average, 3 people die each day while waiting.

Louisa was saved because someone chose to give life after their death. Show that you too would like to help someone live after your death and join the Wall of Life today.

Click here for more on ‘The Wall of Life’ campaign.

For other news about the slow-but-steady rise in organ donations – ‘altruistic acts’ as they’ve been described – follow the links here:

And to make this one of your Generous actions, click here now.

*The register is a confidential, computerised database that holds the wishes of more than 16 million people who have decided that they wish to donate their organs after their death.

Meat-Free Mondays Go Mainstream

2009-06-15T13:29:34Z

Paul McCartney, Chris Martin and Sheryl Crow have launched the ‘Meat Free Monday’ campaign, asking people to forego meat one day a week to slow global warming.

As reported on Generous a while back, the world’s leading authority on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, says going meat-free one day a week is the ‘most attractive’ way for individuals to reduce carbon emissions. A 2006 UN study found that the livestock industry is responsible for 18% of man-made global greenhouse gas emissions, not least because of deforestation in the Amazon – cutting down trees to create land to raise cattle to cut down again to produce meat for

“I think many of us feel helpless in the face of environmental challenges, and it can be hard to know how to sort through the advice about what we can do to make a meaningful contribution to a cleaner, more sustainable, healthier world,” said McCartney. “Having one designated meat free day a week is actually a meaningful change that everyone can make, that goes to the heart of several important political, environmental and ethical issues all at once.”

More on Meat Free Monday here including these not bad vegetarian recipes.

Commit to go meat-free one day a week here on the Generous site.

Photograph: Peta

Generous News

The Wall of Life

Meat-Free Mondays Go Mainstream