http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28536735 GOOD, Kenneth Cole Productions and MySpaceTV have launched On Skid Row, a five-part documentary series that will shed light on a place that is invisible to most people; a place where 9,000 homeless people, whose average age is 9, live in abject poverty, card board boxes, surrounded by feces, urine, rats, prostitution and crime; where mentally ill are dropped off to fend for themselves. And this isn’t a far away place in the third world. In the words of the writer and narrator Sam Slovick, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, this is the first “Third World city in America.” This is Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the notorious neighborhood, which, ironically, is right next to LA’s financial district. On Skid Row is produced by Good Magazine, will be screened on MySpaceTV, and is sponsored by Kenneth Cole Productions. So and check out Part One of On Skid Row on MySpaceTV, at GOODMagazine or at Kenneth Cole Productions’ Awearness Blog. And to find out other ways you can to help alleviate homelessness, check out HELP USA.

Our second installation of the TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is here give you the very best of Katie, Nicole, Giulia, Gina and Kerry! More blogs means more to love this Valentine’s Day week, and more social action means a healthier and happier world for everyone. Check out our most popular posts of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

5 Ways to Take Action and Get Action On Valentine’s Day

Top 10 Guilt-Free Valentine’s Day Jewelry Gifts: Show Your Valentine You Have a Heart

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Nicole:

Kiva: Microlending to Change Lives

Top 10 New Releases to Inspire Social Change

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Giulia:

Alicia Keys Uses Grammys to Help Keep a Child Alive

V-Day Celebrates Its 10 Year Anniversary!

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Gina:

Top 10 Movie Characters That Make A Difference

Art As Politics In “The Silence Before Bach”

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Kerry:

Tap Project Gets Donations Flowing For Safe Global Water

Levon Helms’ “Dirt Farmer” Wins Grammy Gold

A small New York ad agency is making a big difference in the lives of third world children who lack access to clean drinking water. Droga5’s Tap Project, a pro bono ad campaign, partners with restaurants that donate $1 to Project Tap each time a diner chooses tap water over bottled during the week of March 16th. With World Water Day coming up on March 22nd, the Tap Project is raising awareness of–and money for–the cause of clean water in undeveloped nations.

The first Tap Project, last March, raised about $100,000 through the participation of  300 or so New York restaurants and thousands of patrons; this year, as the New York Times reports, the Tap Project’s going nationwide:

Additional markets scheduled to take part are Boston; Chicago; Cincinnati; Dallas; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Portland, Ore.; Richmond, Va.; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; and several cities in South Carolina.

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People in undeveloped nations are dying in droves for lack of access to safe drinking water. We take it for granted, but in many countries getting sufficient water that’s free of pollutants and deadly microbes is a daily ordeal.

There is no earthly reason why millions of people should be condemned to die every year from drinking contaminated water, and plenty of tech-savvy do-good geeks (I mean that in the nicest possible way) are hard at working devising solutions to this urgent problem. Three of the most interesting revolve around bicycles, as you’ll see in these YouTube videos. Pedaling and purifying, that’s my kind of multitasking. Hope the idea gains traction.

To learn more about the worldwide need for safe drinking water, go to drinking-water.org.

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