Blogging For A Cause

Many people would only read on papers, see in pictures or watch on TV, the miserable lives that people caught in the mires of poverty, oppression and injustice have to live. I have been an eye witness to all of it. I could close my eyes and get a vivid show playing on my mind of all the stories of people caught in the web of misery, pain, sorrow, hunger, deprivation, marginalization, disempowerment and abuse.

Stories that prodded me to get out of my comfortable niche and lend them support in their struggle to regain for themselves the right to live their lives in human dignity. Social activism was to be my life for twenty six years until I decided it was time to put the activist in me to sleep it would never wake from and sleep it did or so I thought.

I should know better. Activists are strangers to the word sleep. They may vanish for a while but always come back more determined than ever. I never imagined that my passion for writing which I sent to hibernation for half a century would wake up and provide solace to the activist I thought I put to deep slumber.

When I got myself inside the blogosphere, all that motivated me was the desire to satisfy my passion for writing. I may not be good at it but I really love to write. That was the reason for my blog’s being. People suggested that I monetize my blogs now that they have gained some decent exposure but I simply shrugged off the idea. It was not until the activist in me, now fully awake, kept on prodding me to give the idea of making money with my blogging for the benefit of causes I have been so passionate about, some serious thought.

I could not resist the idea of doing the two things I love doing and so I begun to look into money making ideas on the web that really work. I visited Noob’s making money blog regularly just to get the feel and learn some ideas. One of the frequently suggested ideas was to have my blog be hosted on the web. This is not only to give it a professional look but also to lend my blog some credibility. I do not have the money for webhosting so it sort of poured cold water on my enthusiasm.

Let that activist go back to sleep. Let it wake up when I have the blogging resources I need to put the whole idea of blogging for money really work. But maybe, there is hope. I have discovered at the very last minute a free webhosting prize in a contest sponsored by Secluded Habitat. I am throwing my towels into the ring. I am joining the contest and hope to win.

There are questions that I needed to answer so as to make my entry to the contest official. I have already provided the answer to most of the questions but just to recapitulate let me bullet it down:

• Why do I want to win the competition?

I want to use my blog to raise money towards the support of charities I have long been involved with. As I have earlier mentioned, I have been consulting with bloggers like, Noob of Make Money Online, who have had long experience in making money out of their blogs and they are one in saying I need a webhosted blog. A webhosted blog would look much more professional and credible. On top of these, many money making opportunities on the web are only available to web hosted blogs. I could only do so much with a blog hosted on a free platform. I do not want to be limited in what I could do. I want to get the most from my effort as I want to give the best I could to the charities I would want to help.

• Why you feel you deserve to win the free hosting?

I deserve to win the free hosting as I am not winning this for myself. I am winning this to offer hope for that child who lives on the streets and for that woman victim of sexual abuse to get the help she needed.

• Why you have not got paid hosting previously?

Like I have said, I do not have the money for a paid webhosted platform. Winning this contest would solve the problem.

• And finally how would having your own hosting enable you to enhance your blog or service to the community?

The community is the only reason I am joining this contest. I have spent years of my life working with charity organization and helping them raise funds to know how much the good work they do depends on how much help they could get from people willing to support their work.

Ok! There go my answers. I hope I really would win this contest.

Note: I have won that contest hands down. Sad to say, we were not able to get enough volunteers with SEO skills to help us with the project. Still I continue to hope, someone would come along with the needed skills to help us get the project going.