EVEN the most dismal negatives can spawn a positive, as the emerging Raknominations movement proves.

As most of us are aware, the national news has lately been full of worrying stories about Neknominations, one of the latest and most widespread online fads.

Most such phenomena are briefly amusing at best and a bit dull at worst, but this one, in which people challenge one another to drink ridiculous concoctions, appears to have claimed several young lives and endangered many others.

If its victims are guilty of anything, it is possessing characteristics countless young people have in common: a wish to have fun, a desire to impress friends and an inability to believe death has any business with people in their teens and twenties.

Now a young woman from Redhouse called Amy Slater has started a new movement, one in which people are challenged not to risk their health but to do good things for others instead.

She has already inspired several people to make a real difference in the lives of fellow human beings, and the number taking part is growing.

What Amy and the Raknominations pioneers are doing for those on the receiving end of their efforts is already magnificent, but if they can divert other people away from potentially self-destructive activities and into the very opposite, they may well save lives.

There have been other online promotions of doing good things, such as the ‘pay it forward’ movement, but Raknominations could not have come at a more crucial time.

May it be a global success.