The Chinese saying goes: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. This is what the Seattle-based Fare Start does. Not only does the charity (慈善机构) provide meals for the homeless but it also teaches them cooking skills that prepare them for jobs in food service.

In Seattle, 13.2% of people lived below the poverty (贫困) line in 1999. Many of them even had problems feeding themselves. Since then, Fare Start has grown 90% of whom went on the adult cooking training program to well-paid jobs within 90 days of graduation (毕业). About 88% of those people still held their positions six months later.

At Fare Start, students begin their training with simple tasks like reading recipes and planning menus. Many also receive housing help. In return, they are required to work. Starting with helping in the kitchen preparing meals for people, they move their way up the ranks (等级), ending up in the kitchen of the Fare Start restaurant in downtown Seattle.

The practical skill-training and other support services allow successful graduates like Jayna. She lost her job as a nurse due to alcohol abuse (酗酒). Since graduating from Fare Start, she has worked in a small fast food house at Yellow Stone National Park. She said, “I could not have put myself back together again. Fare Start did that for me.”

Kevin is another success story. He found that having to show up at the same place every day kept him living a normal but meaningful life. Upon leaving Fare Start, Kevin began setting goals and plans for his future and seeing them through — including holding down his job for almost a year.

Going forward, Fare Start plans to focus more on women especially women with children.

Rupert Isaacson was born in London to African parents, and grew up in the English countryside where he discovered his love of horses. Later, as he grew up hearing so many fascinating memories about Africa from his parents, he went there and lived with the people called the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert.

By the year 2000, Rupert was already working as a reporter, writing articles and guidebooks about Africa and India. He met his wife Kristin in India. Today, they live with their son, Rowan, in the US. But Rupert faced the greatest challenge of his life when, at the age of two, Rowan was diagnosed with an illness that harmed his ability to communicate with others.

Rupert discovered that spending time with horses and riding them was helping Rowan. But unluckily, the Bushmen of the Kalahari do not have horses. So the family set out for Mongolia, where horses have been important for long. Rupert has written about this journey to help his son in his book Horse Boy, and then he produced a documentary film of the same name. In the film, people have the chances to see the family travelling in Mongolia, riding horses and meeting healers（治疗师）in order to help Rowan.

Later, Rupert set up the Horse Boy Foundation on his farm in Texas in order to help more people like Rowan. It is a school that teaches people how to use horses for healing. He wrote another book The Long Ride Home about travelling with Rowan to Africa, Australia and Arizona in the US. Then Rupert continued to produce the documentary programme Endangerous, with Rowan as host, about dangerous animals that were endangered.

Rupert Isaacson has managed to discover the secrets of turning one challenge into many achievements.

Morshed is a man from Jordan (约旦). He spends around 1,400 dollars every month on food for dogs. He vaccinates (给……接种疫苗) them. There are many street dogs in Jordan. Most people want to stay away from them.

Seven years ago, Morshed decided to help these street dogs. He started to take a lot of food to feed them every day. Recently, Morshed shared videos of dogs on TikTok. “I put them online because I want people to change their ideas about street dogs.” The dog lover also hopes that one day he will be able to build a shelter (庇护所) for street dogs in Jordan.

At a cat rescue (救援) and adoption (收养) center in Chengdu, a young woman is filling an adoption form (表格). After answering some online questions about adoption, she can pick up a cat and take it home.

The center’s founder, Xu Zhe, with a team of nine, rescues cats in Chengdu and in nearby Chongqing. They give the cats very good places to live. Here, newborn cats and their mothers live safely in rooms with food and clean water, waiting for the adopters.

Some people named Xu the cat fighter, and he has more than 10 million followers across the country. The center gets cat food, cat litter and cans of food from all over the country.

Pandas stayed in the US for 50 years.

On April 16, 2022, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in the US held a big activity to celebrate the 50th year of the first pair of pandas arriving from China. They came to the US in 1972 as gifts. The zoo workers try their best to take care of these pandas. The zoo grows bamboo and cuts bamboos from 20 other places in the US. The pandas have brought a lot of happiness to people. However, the meaning is more than that. China and the US worked together very well to save the pandas.