Train For Humanity Launches

About Train For Humanity

Train for Humanity’s mission is to utilize the web, social media, and blogging, in tandem with athletes in training, to support organizations that help prevent suffering and alleviate the pain of children, orphans, and refugees who have been displaced due to genocide or internal strife and war within their country.

Quite simply, they believe - getting fit + social media + blogging = social good

How Train For Humanity Makes a Difference

The three pilot project athlete-bloggers, Mark Hayward, Dan Clements, and Leo Babauta are hoping to raise awareness for the current crisis in Darfur and funds for the organization Darfur Peace and Development. All three are training for endurance events of varying distances ranging from a triathlon to a marathon.

They hope to show people that with a little creativity and innovation, anyone can assist and make a difference in the world. Mark talks about the origins of this project in his post about Creating a Bottom-Up Online Humanitarian Movement. They plan to open this up to more athletes in the future as well, as Leo states in this blog post about the TFH launch,

Train for Humanity is just in its first phase, with the three of us volunteering as guinea pigs. But we plan to open the site up to a larger group of athletes, so that if you plan to train for an endurance event such as a marathon or triathlon, you can sign up for TFH and have your own sponsor page. This way athletes can do a good thing as they train, and get some motivation in return.

My Role in Train For Humanity

My role in Train For Humanity so far has been relatively minor. I designed the logo. I'll be writing more about the logo design process for TFH in the near future. I'll also be writing more about what graphic designers, web developers, and digital artists can do to make a positive impact toward global problems.

Joshua Clayton handled all the website design and development and donated a tremendous amount of his time to getting this project off the ground. There are also numerous other involved in this project and you can find out about the team here.

What You Can Do

If you would like to learn more, have a look at the Train for Humanity website and please consider sponsoring one of them or spreading the word. I'm really excited about this project and seeing it realized.

Blog Action Day is also going really well. We'll be launching a design contest on both PSDTUTS and VECTORTTUS shortly that will get designers involved in making a difference. Feel free to link up to any other non-profit projects that are utilizing blogging, social-media, or creativity in the comments below.