These past few days I’ve been thinking how I can give back to society. I have been immersed in development work for most of my life (my mother worked at the Asian Dev’t Bank, and my dad runs a USDA-sponsored school feeding program in one of the poorest regions in the Philippines; I worked at the National Economic and Dev’t Authority for three years). Now, while I’m also helping some people become better bloggers (and earn from blog-related activities as well), I have been hoping I could help contribute to the bigger picture.

Some of my ideas include raising funds to sponsor some equipment or materials for a local public school. If I get lucky whatever I raise could even help finance a classroom, library, or even a school building (you’d be surprised how cheap it is to build here in the Philippines compared to western standards).

So inspired by Lorelle’s post on the Blog Herald, I’m seriously considering participating in the July 2007 Blogathon.

Each participant must update every 30 minutes for the 24-hour period beginning on July 29, 2006, at 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Everyone blogs during the same 24-hour period. For example, if you are blogging from Paris, France, you would begin at 4:00 pm (1600). In Sydney, Australia, you would begin at 11:00 pm (2300). You need not update right on the half-hour, so don’t panic about exactitude. Just be sure you’re updating once about every 30 minutes.

I don’t have a specific charity in mind yet, as I’ve been getting in touch with my contacts in the Education field (the Pinoy Teachers Network) to see how they can help. So maybe they can serve as the “charity” or the recipient of whatever funds raised.

What do you think? Will you sponsor me if I participate?

And even if I don’t, I’m still set on raising funds to help local schools.

Think science. Science think.