No, I have not. Not until I’ve read about it at Alhena’s blog recently!

You see, Alhena has chosen to blog for Compassion In World Farming this coming July 28th because the organization “deals with a matter that is very close to her heart.”

Compassion In World Farming is a UK-based animal help organization but they work internationally. Their goals are to end cruelty to those animals that we usually forget about; to end factory farming, long distance animal transports, and similar atrocities. These animals, which you will later meet again in form of a steak or hamburger, spend their lives under the most horrible conditions, and then 90 hours or more in overcrowded vehicles or ships while being carted to their final destination.

The welfare (or lack thereof) of farm animals has always meant a lot to me. We can’t make people stop eating meat. What we can do is to make sure the animals at least have a decent life before they have to die, which is what the people at CIWF are striving to accomplish.

- Alhena @ Bacblog: Blogathon 2007

And Alhena is going to do something fun this year. She’s attempting to complete an entire jigsaw puzzle of 1,500 pieces and she will post pictures of her progress every hour :) And anybody who sponsors $50 and above will receive a small, original color drawing (A6 size) of their own pet or any other animal (you may decline the offer if you don’t keep drawings). To see how good she is, check out Alhena’s DeviantArt page.

Blogathon in a Nutshell provides more information about the Blogathon and how you can sponsor me :)

More on other blogathoners and the charities they are representing:

• Mike and Tish — The Glaucoma Foundation

I’ve never personally met Pei Lee, but let me tell you something about her that I happened to learn in the last 2 days.

You see, 28-year-old Pei Lee was diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type II when she was 12 years old, and over the years, her condition has progressed badly, and she is now deaf in both ears and blind in one eye. She had some limited education, and her last known job was selling kuih in the wet market.

Two weeks ago (in mid-June), the tumor in her cervical spine started to act up. She attempted to borrow her MRI scans and medical report from the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital but the attending doctor refused to allow her. According to Pei Lee, the doctor simply wrote her a letter instead.

Pei Lee wishes to consult a neurosurgeon at a private hospital because she had her spinal tumors removed at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital she is aware of the poor quality of health-care, especially those involving spinal surgeries. But the bad news is she couldn’t afford the consultation fees, screenings and treatments in a private hospital..

Pei Lee will need approximately *RM 60 per consultation and approximately *RM 1,000 for a spine MRI (amounts marked with an * will be determined and confirmed).

So how do we help Pei Lee?

At the moment, I have too much emotions going in my head, but here are some ways I think we could help her:

1. We could blog about Pei Lee and her condition and request for donations from the public – we could “fix” each donation at RM 5, and those RM 5 adds up very quickly!
2. We could sell links on our blogs – e.g. RM 20 or RM 30 per link for a month, etc., as suggested by Andrew @ BlogAsian

I know I have been asking for a lot of donations lately, and that you may NOT even want to read about it anymore. But think about it this way.. We may not feel the pain that she is feeling, and heck, we may not even know how she’s feeling at the moment. And I don’t want to give you the impression that Pelf is all out to drain her readers’ pockets. What I am asking from you is a little kindness and compassion, that all..

Go ahead and paste that little green (or yellow) badge on the right on your blog and link it to Pei Lee’s Healthcare category on Yvonne’s blog. God knows, you might change a young woman’s life..

Two days ago I said I’d be revealing some Blogathon badges that “I’ve put together” instead of “I designed” because well, I didn’t design them in the first place. I didn’t design the Giving Hands logo, and I’ve only modified it and added some Blogathon-related catch phrases on it so that it represents the Blogathon as well as The Giving Hands :)

These aren’t first class badges but I will be using them throughout the Blogathon.

Official Blogathon Mascot

Square badges

Rectangular badges

Long banners

Blue rectangular badges

Red square badges

So if you’d like to use any of them on your own blogs, you are most welcome to do so. But please download the images and host them yourself instead of hot-linking them, deal? :)

Or you may also check out Edrei’s cannot-be-missed-bright-orange-in-colour badges and banners. He’s also designing custom-made Blogathon badges and banners in return for a sponsorship. Go check him out, he’s good :)

More on the Blogathon 2007 series:

• I’m going solo this Blogathon!
• Blogathon is now open for registration!
• What you can do to sponsor me
• How to sponsor me in kinds instead of cash