Little girl gets big surprise

!4-year-old rock climbing extraordinaire

At just 14 years old, Ashima Shiraishi is  considered to be one of the best rock climbers in the world. The New York City-based school girl started playing around on Rat Rock in Central Park when she was seven, and was climbing routes many adults can't finish by the time she was eight. Now she's the only woman and the youngest person of any gender to climb a rock wall with a difficulty grade of 9a+ which is the third most difficult grade in existence. The film is courtesy of VICE Sports and YouTube.

You just can't beat the oldies (with a modern twang)

Enjoy this mashup of 66 (Old) movie dance scenes mashup (courtesy of Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk featuring Bruno Mars)

If you like this video, please support these film preservation charities:

The British Film Institute, http://www.bfi.org.uk/about-bfi/suppo...
The George Eastman Museum, http://eastman.org/donate

'No matter what hatred does, we will only shine brighter'

Support for Paris is flooding into France from around the world after the horrendous attacks on Paris.

In addition to condemnation from Western world leaders, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the attack an 'inhuman crime'.

Buildings across the globe have been lit up in colours of the French flag to show support, including the spire on top of the new One World Trade Center, Sydney Opera House (see left) San Francisco’s City Hall, London Bridge and other towers and bridges in Canada, New Zealand and Mexico.

Supporters on social media have turned their profile photos into French flags, and photos of the Eiffel Tower grounds draped in the American stars and stripes in 2001 following 9/11 have reminded people of the solidarity that inevitably follows tragedy.

American Natasha McIntosh Westhoff wrote, “We know your sunrise Paris- the one where the dust is settling, and you are trying to make sense of the senseless… But we also know – it never lasts. Because no matter what hatred does in the dark of night… it didn’t stop the light… in the brightest city in the world… We know, you will only shine brighter.”

Landfill Harmonic achieving good in Paraguay

While working as an ecological technician at the Cateura Landfill, the largest garbage dump of Paraguay’s capital Asunción, Favio Chávez got to know and befriended some of the 2,500 impoverished families who lived at the garbage dump working as recyclers. Witnessing the rampant illiteracy, extreme poverty, pollution and surrounding culture of drugs and gangs, Chávez became acutely aware that the children needed something positive in their lives – something to keep them out of the landfill and striving for something more.

Having previously been a music teacher, Favio decided to share his love of music with the children, and began teaching music lessons using the handful of personal instruments he owned. He soon realised there wasn’t enough instruments for all the eager students, so he started experimenting with making instruments using scraps of dirty oilcans, jars, wood, forks and other junk in the Cateura landfill, the instruments began to take shape and become finely tuned musical instruments - violins, flutes, cellos, drums…all made from trash. From this ingenuity, the “Recycled Orchestra” was formed with the local children as its members learning and performing Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.

So far, Chavez has taught music skills to over 120 children, inspiring hope, confidence and an awakening of passions within the children and their families who are now beginning to believe in a future beyond the slums of the landfill. The youth orchestra, now 30 members strong, has performed throughout the world and is the subject of the upcoming documentary Landfill Harmonic. There are 50 youth currently participating in the music education program who aspire to soon join the orchestra.

View the trailer to Landfill Harmonic - to be shown this coming Sunday, 27th September, at Zurich Film Festival.

You can make a difference

Did you know you can transform the lives of many Ugandan women with as little as £100?

Ugandan women aren’t short of smart business ideas - they just lack the means to start them. The team behind www.microbanker.com have given out more than eight thousand small business loans to women in rural Uganda to help them to work towards a better future and escape the poverty trap.

As a microbanker you select a business plan to donate to and the loan is passed onto the client – a lady in rural Uganda. While the client builds her business, she makes weekly repayments of the loan, including interest to cover the costs of the organization. The loans are repaid in a maximum of one year and each week you can follow ‘your’ client’s repayments.

The women repay their loans in a maximum of one year in weekly installments. Each installment is added to your online microbanker account. For financial regulatory reasons you cannot take out your donation after the loan has been repaid - it will remain a donation. But you can choose which microcredit to support with the repaid amount, meaning that your one donation will help women again and again to realize their dream of working for a better future!

www.microbanker.com

An all time favourite...