Lisa Siregar

What Happens to You Today Could Make It to the Pages of ‘A Day on the Planet’

September 9, 2009 is a significant date for a group of online volunteers. Today is the day when people around the world will go about their daily lives, write about it and send it to be included in a book — and you can be part of the project.

“A Day on the Planet,” set for publication next year, would include about 500 entries submitted by anyone who wants to share their experience about what went on in their lives today.

“We chose this day because the date is so easy to remember,” said Karin Reilly, a friend of Matthias Kluckert, who first came up with the idea.

Kluckert, a journalism student from Germany, first thought about how interesting the lives of other people could be on a flight from Beijing to Frankfurt in January 2006.

“I stared [out] the window,” Kluckert said. “Suddenly, I realized how many people were living their lives down there, while I was only flying by and had no idea about who they were and what they dreamt about.

“I told my friend Max about all those thoughts and ideas — and he was the one who said, ‘Let’s make it a book,’ ” Kluckert added.

The friends have since managed to bring together a team of about 40 volunteers from around the globe. The volunteers, who have not met each other in person, communicate via the Internet.

They work on a Web site, adayontheplanet.com, as well as blog, post updates on social site Twitter and share information about the book.

“We are spreading the word about it to get people to send us their stories,” Reilly said. Soon after the stories come in, the volunteers will be translating them into eight languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Russian.

Once the book is sold around the world, organizers say a large proportion of the money will be donated to charitable organizations.

“A charitable organization has not yet been definitely specified, as we do not yet know how much money will come in, but we are in contact with” two groups, Reilly said.

Anyone who wants to contribute to the project can send their stories in one of the eight languages at stories@adayontheplanet.com until Sept. 25. The story must be a personal experience about what happened to you on Sept. 9. It should be about A4 page in length, font size 12, with clear information about your name, age, location (town/city, region, country) and a fairly precise time of day.

Hanny Kusumawati, who works at a PR company in Jakarta, said she heard about the project via Twitter and is planning to participate. She thinks that the project is a great idea because most people only have vague ideas about what life is like in the rest of the world.

“It’s rare that we know exactly how someone spends their day in different countries or cities, what’s special to them, what strikes them,” Hanny said.

However, she does not plan to do anything out of the ordinary for the day.

Hanny believes something as simple as an ojek [motorcycle taxi] ride could be special enough to write about, if she includes what she sees and feels.

It does not take a grand idea to contribute to “A Day on the Planet,” said Florian Heine, one of the project volunteers.

“I think that many people would be interested in knowing if a sack of rice falls over in China — as long as it’s connected with a personal story,” Heine said.

To learn more

www.adayontheplanet.com

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