“The Ghana branch of HelpSweden recently held a charity event to raise money for needy people in cold and barren Sweden. Money was collected in tip cups on behalf of poor Swedes, and Swedish foodstuffs like blueberry soup and crisp bread were sold to raise money for the starving—especially the children–in this part of cold and barren Scandinavia.”

I found the above news item via Sweden’s online news site, The Local. There’s even a video of this unusual news event from Ghana, and I’ve embedded it below.

Sounds fishy, right? That’s probably because it is. The “HelpSweden” campaign is part of UNDP’s efforts intended to put development aid for Africa high on the agenda when Sweden takes over the presidency of the EU next year, in 2009.

The campaign also has a fictitious web site HelpSweden.org which was recently launched via Facebook and YouTube. The website is adorned with the beautiful Swedish national colors of blue and yellow, and looks like your typical fundraising / charity website… complete with links for donations and sale of campaign materials.

But don’t pull out your credit card yet. Clicking any link on the HelpSweden.org website pops up a chilling message that through unfair trade, cheap labour, and expensive loans, more wealth flows out of poor countries to rich countries than the former receives in the form of aid.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Sweden needs your help to get the message across. To find out about the many ways that you can help, visit the campaign website at HelpSweden.org.

I’ve come to believe that when you make up your mind to embark on a journey, any journey, all the Angels lineup to march forward with you, and things just begin to happen.

This week has been one of such Angel-led forward marches.

I started off the week with a great and mighty fall (pic) on Monday morning while returning from my usual morning jogging, and boy… what a mighty fall it was. I got bruised all over and got back home feeling like chicken! But this little misfortune was more than compensated for by other happenings later on in the week.

Out from the blues I started receiving calls from people who say they have been “hunting me down all over” (my contact numbers have changed quite a bit over the past 3 years). These are people whom I had chance encounter with some time back, and whose lives I had the privilege o impact in some way, during one of my workshops, keynote speeches, and some other random encounters.

Two have returned to graduate school, 3 have switched jobs and are doing what they seem to trully love now, one (a lady) has opened a brand-new factory line to produce babies, and others have either started their own businesses, or are in the process of doing so. And they sounded happy and wanted to say “hi and thank you”.

I’ve had 12 of such calls this week already: 10 from Ghana, and 2 from elsewhere on this planet. It couldn’t have been planned, because these people don’t know each other from Adam. Mere coincidence? Who knows.

To all the girls I’ve loved before of you who have called me this week, Hi, and thank you too, for your calls. And to everyone else, thanks for the opportunity to serve you. You all do, and will always take a special place in my little achy breaky heart as well.

Matt Flannery, Co-Founder & CEO of Kiva, just passed along an exciting news that Kiva’s entry “Loans that change lives” has just been voted one of the Top 25 in the American Express Members Project online competition.

Only the Top 5 projects by popular vote will move on to the final round to compete for a $1.5 million First Prize.

Kiva and the hard-working entrepreneurs arounnd the world need your help between now and September 29th to get as many votes as possible! As Matt Flannery says, with your support, Kiva can turn this $1.5 million First Prize into $30 Million dollars in loans to 60,000 entrepreneurs around the world.

And anyone, absolutely ANYONE, can help, Here’s how:

If you’re an AmericanExpress (Amex) cardmember, you can help Kiva win this US$1.5 million First Prize by voting for Kiva. Head over to the Members Project website and vote for Kiva - Loans That Change Lives.

Even if you’re not an Amercan Express cardmember, you can still help Kiva to win this prize. Just like I’m doing here, you can help Kiva win this US$1.5 million First Prize by spreading the message. Shoot some emails to your contacts, post link on your blog or website, on your social networking profile, etc. Go here to find out how.

Remember, as Kiva Co-Founder & CEO Matt Flannery says, with your support, Kiva can turn this $1.5 million First Prize into $30 Million dollars in loans to 60,000 entrepreneurs around the world. Thanks for helping hack poverty out of the world.

I’ve been getting lots of emails and direct tweets from people asking why I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet for some time now. And I’ve not answered a single one of these mails and tweets for the same reason why I’ve been quiet. To all of you who wrote and never got a response from me, and to all of you who came here and didn’t find anything new, sorry to disappoint.

No I’m not sick or “busy” or anything of the sort. But I really needed a little time for myself. I needed time for some deep introspection… time to do some serious digging into the SELF, to ponder over where I’m headed, to assess my current plan to get there (and why it doesn’t seem to be getting me there)… and to uncover the old and dusty path one more time.

And I’m glad to report that this was time well spent. Perhaps I’m fortunate enough to have known what I really want to live for very early on. And after all these years, every single “self discovery” exercise takes me back to the very same place. The real difficult thing for me has always been having the discipline to stay on track.

But how do you stay on track, when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from? When you’ve got rising medical bills? And when you’ve got ageing parents whose only retirement plan is their investment in your education? That’s a big trap, I’d say. And no, I’ve not had any “ahaah” moment, yet. I’m simply going to trust that, somehow, the dots will connect somewhere in the future.

And here is to hope that poor Stephen & Agartha will be with us for a little longer.

From this point on, this blog, the only thing I can trully call my own, will be chronicling that journey. Not much is changing here, except there will be a) less and less stories about my cat spilling milk on my dog; b) more and more in-depth articles on the subjects of technology, entrepreneurship and development; and c) more frequent and regular updates.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement throughout these hard times.