This first week of December, you can do something small with the potential to change the world.

Today, in Darfur, Sudan, women live in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. They risk violent attacks and even rape as they venture into dangerous areas to collect firewood.

Today, in Bungoma, Kenya, orphaned boys survive in the streets. Homeless and alone, they try in vain to forget the pain of their pasts and the threat of starvation.

How far would you go for your education?

If given the choice, would you choose school or food? I’m sure there are plenty of people out there sacrificing meals to make ends meet. After all, the joke about college kids surviving on Ramen noodles didn’t originate from nowhere.

But when it becomes impossible to pay for both, what do we do? Take a semester off school to earn some money. Or, worst case scenario, drop out of college entirely.

Child Soldier.

A pairing of words that should never exist.

But it does. In Africa, we have seen it in Sierra Leone. We have seen it in Sudan. We have seen it in Uganda. We will see it in Kenya.

We all want to make a difference in the world, but what about Reno? What can we do to make an impact here at home?

While several Associated Students of University of Nevada organizations hold fund raising events to benefit international causes (such as, ahem, Project 58’s “Movie and a Mission” on Monday at 6 p.m. in the Joe Crowley Student Union Theater to learn to prevent child soldiers in Kenya), what can we do to impact the local community?

Why should we care? This world seems as screwed up as it could possibly get. Sick and starving, kids suffer on the streets.

For almost a year, Tabu Odhiek kept asking to go back to school. After years on the streets, this 12-year-old African boy decided he’d had enough. He wanted to come home.

With dirt-caked skin and tattered clothes, the street boys of Kenya, Africa, struggle daily to survive. Disregarded by society and with no social system to care for the children, many boys are left to fend for themselves in the unforgiving streets.