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Walk its streets and you're likely to hear a snippet of the hundreds of languages spoken in New York City. Foreign tongues and foreign-born people are what make the Big Apple the cosmopolitan town that it is. And who accounts for the city's appeal—and noise—so well as its children? This is, after all, the city where you can overhear "don't pick your nose" and "you're bucking for a time out," in Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, and Tagalog within just a few blocks. Photographer Danny Goldfield decided to capture portraits of young New Yorkers with roots in every country on Earth. So far, his photographic mission has snapped shots of the offshoots of nearly 150 nations. With the project's final steps within view, we remain impressed, awed, and humbled by the beauty and promise of Gotham's youth. We thank the kids, their parents, and Goldfield for so many glimpses of the world's natural beauty, all nestled in one amazing city.

In the year 2000, world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit pledged to cut global poverty in half by 2015. We are now closer than ever to that benchmark year—and many countries have yet to follow through on the promise. The Stop Child Poverty campaign has dedicated itself to mobilizing and helping ordinary citizens push their governments to reach the goals. The campaign's site provides a picture of what life is like for children who live in conditions of extreme deprivation. It details the rights of young people under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (beginning with "the right to survival"). And it outlines what you can do today to make a difference for kids on this planet. We have seen the power possible when groups of people speak up, and when they harness the power of the Web to do so. The time is now. As 2007 approaches, there are not that many years left until the deadline.

This captivating site follows a group of kids from a private school in Northern California as they visit a Tanzanian village to lavish a schoolhouse and its students with supplies, aid, and boundless enthusiasm. It's touching to see video clips of the Americans, many of them African-American or Latino, speaking of the enormous challenges their new friends face. But it's the Tanzanian children who give this site its most poignant moments as they describe the ravages of AIDS, squirm through an American-style sex ed class, and raise their voices in song. The site's sophisticated design presents lush photos and video and audio interviews -- and contrasts stirringly with the grinding poverty that the small school contends with. But with friends like these, it's hard not to believe that things will get better. Little by little.