TIME Magazine
Voices of the Volunteers
Four volunteers, and the founder of Teach for America, talk about what motivates them, and what they have learned
Making a Difference at Home
Inspired by their work abroad, Peace Corps volunteers return to the U.S. as teachers, bringing the lessons they learned to the kids who need them most
How Others Serve
Abroad, civilian service ranges from diplomacy to firefighting
Teach for America
Top college graduates spend two years teaching at the worst American schools through Teach For America. Here's a look at other groups and organizations that were inspired by TFA
Harlem Children's Zone Project
Harlem Children's Zone Project links social-service programs together tightly to prevent at-risk children from falling through the cracks. Here's a look at other organizations inspired by this program
Ashoka
Ashoka developed the concept of "social entrepreneurship" or investing in social change like a business and demanding measurable results. Here's a look at organizations inspired by Ashoka
VolunteerMatch
VolunteerMatch has made more than 3 million referrals to socially responsible Web surfers. Some 52,000 nonprofit organizations recruit help through the site. Here's a look at organizations inspired by VolunteerMatch
Saving One Life At a Time
Six million children—and even more adults—die unnecessarily every year. Good people all over the world are doing their best to save them. You can too
In Case of Emergency...
While his New Orleans emergency room took on water, a doctor set up a refuge elsewhere for about 50 critically ill Katrina patients
The Voice of Compassion
Offstage, opera legend Placido Domingo is a one-man charity band
A Shoe That Fits So Many Souls
For each pair of Toms sold, the company gives one away to a child in need
Certain Charity
Former lawyer Cameron Gray gets food to the poor and personally documents delivery for the donors
The Good Samaritans
Melinda Gates, Bono and Bill Gates: three people on a global mission to end poverty, disease—and indifference
Dynamic Duo
United in outrage, Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis organized the Live 8 concerts to get the world to heed their calls for action on African poverty
Here's What You Do
Four leaders whose communities were devastated by natural disasters share their experiences and counsel with their counterparts on the Gulf Coast
Exceptional Healing
Pediatrician Leena Kaartinen has made a career of helping people in dangerous locales
Secret Sharers
A duty-free-shopping mogul gave away more than $2 billion to educational and human-rights causes over almost two decades—all of it anonymously
Learning the Art of Giving
How a Bangalore-based social activist and journalist became a self-taught philanthropist, building two foundations from the ground up
It's Raining Pencils
A rookie teacher in New York City has created an online charity that allows donors to search teacher requests and fund the projects they like best
Run for their lives
Serge and nicole roetheli traveled around the world enduring snakebites and toothache — all for charity
Givers Who Mean Business
It's being called "private equity for the poor" and "a market-based approach to giving"—the Acumen Fund is a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries build businesses
To the Rescue
A businessman turned professional samaritan risks his life to save victims of terror and tragedy
Exceptional Healing
Posted Oct. 10, 2005 All doctors receive training, but there's no medical school in the world that can teach you how to operate in a hail of shrapnel, or how to amputate a dying boy's leg with a Swiss Army knife. Leena Kaartinen has learned these skills—the hard way. "You can't possibly train for this," says Kaartinen, who for the past nine years has been living in a mud house and working among the isolated Hazara tribal villages in the mountainous Lal-wa-Sarejangal district of central Afghanistan. "You have to improvise. I just pray for wisdom and I get it."
Kaartinen's fellow Finns have a word for this kind of determination to tough it out, no matter what the circumstances: sisu. Since 1971, pediatrician Kaartinen, 63, has been the walking definition of sisu in places where creativity is as necessary as courage to survive, let alone to save other people's lives. Raised a Lutheran, she studied medicine in Germany and has been working for more than 30 years as part of International Assistance Mission, Oxfam and other groups. Back in 1985, Kaartinen helped found a maternity and pediatric clinic in Kabul, and she brushes off the many close calls she had with bullets. "I'm never scared for myself," she says. "I'm confident that my fate is not in the hands of the Taliban or the warlords or the rockets."
These days, she sees up to 60 patients a day, but spends most of her time training Afghan women to become health workers in their own communities. After years of being denied educational and employment opportunities under the Taliban, Afghan women are making up for lost time. "Training local workers—particularly ladies—is top priority," explains Kaartinen. "There are not enough foreign female doctors, and women here cannot be satisfactorily examined by men. Their husbands go in their place and describe the wife's symptoms to the male doctor. This isn't enough." Despite the challenges, Kaartinen is still committed to sisu.
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