John: Good morning, Hank. It's Monday, December 18th 2012, which means it's time for the 6th annual Project for Awesome! So, all over YouTube today, people are making videos about their favorite non-profit organizations. And right now you can go to projectforawesome.com and submit your videos and also vote for your favorites to help decide where the project for awesome funds go. And speaking of those funds, they only exist if you donate. There's a project for awesome IndieGoGo page with amazing rewards including the "Men of YouTube Calendar" featuring Hank and Me in togas. Oh my God, Hank, how did you talk me into that? Also for the next 48 hours there will be a livestream at the vlogbrothers YouTube channel and we'll be commenting and sharing and liking videos, generally making the internet about charity for a couple days. And then after that we'll return to discussing the dapperly dressed monkeys of Canada's Ikea parking lots. So, Hank, let's talk about poverty, to which you and I have a long standing and public opposition. There are about 1.4 billion people who live in what is called absolute poverty, which means they survive on less than $1.25 a day and have inadequate resources to get food, water and shelter. And before you say a dollar goes a lot further in Zambia than it does in the United States, that calculation isn't based on exchange rates. It's based on what's called purchasing power parity. When we talk about people living on $1.25 a day, we mean that they live on what I can buy, here in the US for a dollar and 25 cents. Hank, poverty is an incredibly complex problem. Corrupt governments worsen poverty, as do diseases like malaria and HIV AIDS, that not only kill people but also make them too sick to work. Everything from climate change to energy policy can hurt food production which increases prices and thus malnutrition. Lack of infrastructure, poor educational systems, discrimination, all of these things contribute to poverty. Hank, as my college girlfriend said when I asked her if she still loved me: It's complicated. And that's why I love Save the Children! Hank, in 2009 the Nerdfighter community worked with Save the Children to build a pond sand filter for a village in Bangladesh so they could have access to clean water. But that's just one kinda thing they do. Poverty is complex and Save the Children responds to it complexly. They train teachers, they keep kids healthy through HIV AIDS work that focuses on those orphaned by the disease, they train farmers in how to deal with droughts, they respond to natural disasters and they train and employ midwives and other front line help professionals to offer good prenatal care and keep kids healthy. But 7 million kids under the age of 5 are going to die this year and most of them will die of diseases that can be treated or prevented inexpensively. Hank, those kids aren't fundamentally different from my son - who by the way, painted this. (Points to painting behind him) He's two. He's a genius. - They aren't other, just because they were born in poverty. They can live full and long lives and help make the world a better and more interesting place for all of us. They can be construction workers and accountants and beauty gurus and vloggers! But first they have to survive to the age of 5. When we cut childhood illness and death rates, we also cut poverty rates. And Hank, Save the Children does this with astonishing efficiency. 91% of donations go, not to fundraising efforts or overhead, but directly to programs. Plus they work around the world, from Pakistan to the United States to Australia to Angola. So for this year's Project for Awesome, I am supporting Save the Children. So the last two years, I've sold bad zombie stories to raise money during the Project for Awesome. This year I'm changing tack by sharing an ebook containing stories I hope aren't bad. Including a semi autobiographic story called "Double on Call" which was the first thing I ever wrote on the very long road to writing "The Fault in our Stars". You can only get it by contributing to the Project for Awesome. And remember, since we have no overhead, 100% of donations to the Foundation to Decrease World Suck go to Project for Awesome charities. Which charities? Well that's partly up to you. So head over to projectforawesome.com, watch the livestream here in the vlogbrothers channel and remember: every comment you make on a project for awesome video is a penny that I have to donate to charity. So comment like crazy! DFTBA. Hank, I will see you on the livestream!