“To educate a girl is to educate a thousand people,” says Maimouna Samaké, a mother of six children (including five girls). “If you put one seed in the ground and rain comes, it will grow to produce many seeds.”

    Samaké, one of 2,000 residents, lives in a small village, Sounkala, in one of the world's poorest countries. Now she has a chance to see this wish come true thanks to Build On, an American non-profit organization that is building a school in her community.

    For 17 years, build On has been sending American high school students overseas to create schools in places where literacy (文化) and formal education are usually out of reach. The organization has built about 300 schools in Mali, Malawi, Nepal, Senegal, Nicaragua and Haiti. Its goal is to get young Americans in mostly urban areas to get involved in education. At the same time it can bring literacy to children and adults in poor villages in the developing world.

    Sounkala's current school only has about 70 children; mud floors, poor lighting, few desks and an absence of books mean that the school is not the most ideal learning environment. Therefore they certainly could use Build On's help.

    Samaké hasn't been to school, but she wants a better future for her five daughters, including Ramatou, 12, and Mariam, 10. “When a woman attends school, she will teach what she learns to her children,” said Ramatou, who wants to become a doctor. “She will also know how to take better care of her family.”

    Build On tries to build schools for grades one to three. If things go well over those three years, they return to help build another school for grades four to six, and then set up evening adult literacy classes.

    Ramatou and Mariam will not learn inside the walls of build On school since they are already in the sixth grade, but Samaké hopes that they will be able to attend evening classes to continue learning.

D

    A survey has shown that what you do on a plane can be determined by which nationality is listed on your passport.

    According to the results of an international passenger survey. Australians are the biggest drinkers on board with 36 percent choosing to down the hatch（干杯）, compared to 35 percent of Americans and 33 percent of Brits.

    The Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) spoke to around 1,500 people, aged 18 and older, who have travelled by plane at least once during the last three months and were living in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, China, Singapore, Australia and Brazil.

    The results found Chinese travelers are most likely to nod off once the seat-belt sign switches off. They are also the first to take out their credit card for some in flight shopping and the biggest fans of gaming. Americans on the other hand like to use their time in the air more productively when not drinking, choosing to work while flying at 35,000 feet.

    Meanwhile, Brits and Germans are the best at making chat with random strangers spending 50 percent more time than any other nationality. Comparatively, Brazilians conduct their conversations online via email, messaging apps or social media.

    Despite plane food having a bad reputation, seven out of ten interviewees said they were happy to eat upon the selection of in-flight snacks and meals. In flight magazines were also popular with four out of five passengers.

    The international flyers did, however, express their desire for better in flight entertainment. “The industry has greatly improved the comfort, entertainment and onboard service, and passengers are accepting those improvements” said Russell Lemieux, the APEX executive director “At the same time, passengers are demanding more from their air travel experiences which will drive more improvements touching all aspects of the journey.” he added.

    Everyone wants to win, and everybody knows it. Take the case of Olympic athletes, who train hard each day for years to reach the top of their sport and hopefully win a gold medal. Since every competitor's goal is to win, we assume that the silver medalists would be less happy than gold-medal winners, but still happier than those in third place. Common sense says that our levels of happiness should have something to do with our levels of achievement – except that often this isn't the case.

    Researchers found that bronze medalists actually appeared on the whole to be happier than silver medalists. How could that be? The answer, in a word, is gratitude. Silver medallists, who compared themselves to the gold medalists, experienced disappointment at having been close to winning the gold, but falling short. The bronze medalists, on the other hand, were thankful to have won a medal at all, comparing themselves to all those who didn't even reach the Olympic platform.

    If happiness, then, is the aim of life, perhaps our achievement-centered culture is getting it all backwards. We focus on what we want rather than on what we have. We forget to be grateful, and as a result we forget to be happy.

    We're from a culture that teaches us to envy others – another person achievements – and that is always looking forward to what comes next. Yet in a better society, might we not look at what all of our earlier nexts have already earned us?

    I encourage any person who struggles with frustration （挫折）in their life to take out a notebook and a pen each evening before bed, and to write down all the things that they have gratitude for. It's not a cure for dissatisfaction, to be sure, but many people quickly discover that, when they actually stop to think about it, they have things pretty good and happiness comes.

    Those bronze medalists, after all, can't be wrong.

    Most heroes are not super. They don't appear in comic books, on television, or in movies. They just do what they believe needs to be done to make their world a better place. Bike Batman is one of them.

    Bike Batman is a 30-year-old married engineer who lives in Seattle, Washington. He's a cyclist who also buys and sells bikes as a hobby.

    About three years ago, he was looking for a bike for his wife. He found one on Craigslist, a website where people list things they want to sell. As he often does, he also looked at Bike Index, a popular website that allows users to register their bikes and post reports when they're taken. The bike, which he was considering purchasing, clearly matched one reported stolen on Bike Index.

    Then he called the person who claimed to be the bike's owner and arranged to meet him— supposedly to complete the sale. When the two men met, Bike Batman told the thief, “You've got two options. You can wait until a police officer gets here, or you can just get out of here.” You can imagine what the thief did.

    After that first success, Bike Batman developed a safer routine. When he sees questionable bike ads on Craigslist, he cross-references the image with bikes reported on Bike Index. Once he has confirmed it with the owner, he arranges a meet-up with the thief and will call the Seattle police department so that officers can participate in the action. In more than half of the 22 cases in which he has got back and returned bikes, the thieves have been arrested. In one case, Bike Batman even helped a family recover a wide range of prized possessions that suspects had stolen during a home burglary.

    His nickname came from a discussion with a police officer who suggested he be called “Robin Hood”. Since he wasn't exactly stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, “Batman” seemed a better fit. The idea of a superhero punishing criminals feels pretty silly to him, but the main reason he continues his work is to keep up Seattle's reputation as a friendly city.

    I decided to ski to the North Pole. It was after I saw an advertisement in a newspaper looking for people to join a team to ski 350 miles to the North Pole. Back in 1996, there had never been a woman from the UK who had accomplished this challenge. I wondered what it would be like to survive in temperatures cold enough to freeze your flesh in seconds, so I sent off for the application form.

    The application form full of pictures of male explores arrived. The words “Are you man enough for the ultimate(极限的)challenge?” made me angry and even more determined to get on the team.

    Over 500 individuals applied for a place in the team, and the selection process included physical and psychological tests designed to pick the best group. In one test, there was a huge rope ladder we had to climb, and I froze at the top because I have a fear of heights. I thought my hopes were fading as most other applicants sailed past, leaving me behind. But two others helped me over, and later I found out that the organizers were not looking for amazing individuals, but great team players, and this moment had shown them who would take care of others in the team.

    I had revealed(显示)my weakness, and in a place like the Arctic, you have to be yourself, as there is nowhere to hide. These personalities of asking for help and showing weakness are necessary for women to master.

    I realized that by being myself, I could succeed. I was selected for the team. I realized that I could achieve more than I ever imagined — more importantly, by sharing my story with others, I could inspire them to take a step into the new world and reveal more of their abilities.

    The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows that one in every 12 kids is living in homes where no one has worked for at least a year. That may be due to unemployment or issues such as sickness or disability that mean they can't work, and aren't required to. This is known as being in a "long term workless" family.

    The issues faced by children in workless families have very bad influence on their development and education, limiting their future employment prospects, and reducing their opportunities to succeed throughout their lives.

    Not only does worklessness reduce family income, it can also damage families' health and stability, and thus destroy children's development. This is because many workless families are held back by disadvantages such as debt, drug and alcohol dependency, and by homelessness. Suffering from the family problems, many children face a greater and greater possibility of repeating the poor outcomes of their parents. Government research has shown that children in workless families are almost twice as likely not to reach the expected level at all stages of their education. For example, three-quarters of children from families where no one works failed to reach the expected level at General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), compared to around half of children in lower-income working families.

    So attention should be paid to children in out-of-work homes. Having working parents means a child is more likely to do better at school, to have better health, education and development, and also means they are less likely to fall into crime.

    But for some families, worklessness, or not employment, is the norm. They just choose not to work. These families often face huge barriers to getting on with their lives but they take the opportunities offered by the society. Parents' ability to work is frustrated by issues like low skills or poor mental or physical health, or drug and alcohol dependency, leaving children without the stability they need.

    We all want to help workless families with complex problems so that their children can take advantage of the opportunities in Britain. We all want parents to have the chance to go out to earn a living and to enjoy the pleasure of work, so that their children can benefit from the good examples of working parents. In doing so, we should know the need to understand the complex issues that some families face and to develop a new approach to deal with poverty. Because the root causes are not financial. It is about helping families overcome the problems they face so that they can go as far as their talents and hard work will take them. We shouldn't retreat from acting to deal with disadvantages, because we know the costs of inaction to individuals, communities and society.