This is an awesome photo for many reasons, and I'll tell you why: It's a photo of Kenyans associated with an African NGO personally thanking several Second Life avatars for all their help in a fundraiser. I recently saw it in the Facebook feed of renowned SL musician POL Arida , and naturally had to know more:

"I play in Second Life a lot and transmit via my website," he tells me. The group is thanking him for his performance at Feed a Smile, a charity event he's played twice, and will play for again next month. "All the donations at the gig go to the Feed A Smile Charity, which runs a project in Kenya. On the ground in Kenya they really appreciate the effort for the charity. The charity watches the SL gigs." To get a taste of what they were hearing, watch this POL video:

To me it's always beautiful to see three worlds bridged so meaningfully, folks from the developed world reaching out to the developed one through the personae of a virtual community. As for Mr. Arida, he says, "I suppose what matters to me is that I can make a little difference from my own house in Scotland."

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