Kind Deeds Making the Internet: #6

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone who is celebrating! A happy belated Valentine's Day to all as well, regardless of whether you are single or attached - all we need is love, right? Here is this week's round up of cool people doing kind things.

Sunday supports

Dr. Kathrin Höppner, an Air Chemist in
Queen Maud Land, Antarctica © WMO retrieved from UN.org

International Day of Women and Girls in Science took place last Sunday. According to UN Women, the day is "an opportunity to take a stand for women and girls in science and to break the stereotypes that hold them back. Bridging the gender gap in science is vital for achieving sustainable development...although science-related fields are critical to national economies, most countries have not achieved gender equality in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)."

The annual Show of Hearts Telethon on Global BC also took place last Sunday, in support of Variety - The Children's Charity, raising nearly $5.5 million for children in need across British Columbia.

Matters of the heart
The 2018 Women's Memorial March on Valentine's Day marked the 26th consecutive gathering held to honour the lives of missing and murdered women and all women’s lives lost in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. As put by the Annual Women's Memorial March website: "The first women’s memorial march was held in 1992 in response to the murder of a woman on Powell Street in Vancouver. Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine’s Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Unceded Coast Salish Territories." See coverage from this year's march on The Georgia Straight and CBC News British Columbia.

© Travis Lupick, The Georgia Straight

Living the Olympic Philosophy
The PyeongChang 2018 Olympics are in full swing. The philosophy of the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Movement, as summarized by Scholastic, is to develop "good sportsmanship, sense of fair play, and respect for fellow athletes" and, through sport, teach "men and women of different races, religions, and nationalities to work peacefully together in competition toward common goals." It is in this spirit and philosophy that one story stuck out for me this week, given our current times - one of a Russian luger offering an athlete from the United States the use of his sled.

Florida
Finally, last week's tragic events in Parkland, Florida have been well covered on the internet and through traditional news outlets, with many comments offered via social media. Regardless of your position, let's recognize and remember people like Aaron Feis, the football coach who died shielding students from bullets, and survivors speaking truth to power and calling for change - including students like David Hogg, Sarah Chad and Carly Novell, among others.

Enjoy the remainder of the weekend.

About Kind Deeds Making the Internet
Each Friday (or so), I will post highlights of cool people doing kind things that popped up in the news or in social media that week. Hopefully this will be inspirational in helping us all think about who we would like to acknowledge with gratitude, kudos or thanks. For future weekly highlights, be sure to send me anything you think would make for interesting reading.