Back in the fall, I had written a piece about a fabulous organization that I’m honored to be a part of as an advocate and ONEMom Community Partner, ONE.
ONE is a non-partisian advocacy organization that is backed by over 3 million members who work with government leaders to support proven, cost-effective solutions that save lives and help build sustainable futures.
Part of ONE’s advocacy is strengthened by the creation of ONE Moms, a group of powerful women bloggers, writers and other prominent advocates to help spread the word of ONE’s mission. These women have dedicated their time, energy, enthusiasm and passion for helping moms around the world have happier, healthier lives.
During the ONE Moms/Mums trip to Ethiopia last fall, the women visited fashionABLE, a nonprofit that works to empower women and create sustainable business in Ethiopia. Most of these women were rescued from prostitution and have been helped by fashionABLE to live a productive, healthy life for themselves and their children.
FashionABLE is a beautiful success story.
A few months ago, a competition was held by ONE | fashionABLE | ALTchallenge / contest where the Alt community was challenged to design a scarf to be voted on by conference attendees and then handmade in Ethiopia for an exclusive ONE | fashionABLE Mother’s Day Scarf. Fast forward to early April and the winning Mother’s Day scarf is now hitting the markets in the US. Each handmade scarf takes three days to make and is named The Genet after one of the amazing women who helped produce it.
Here is how the new scarf all began….
On Thursday, April 4th, there is a Pre-Sale of the scarfoffering two full days of free shipping (in the US only). After April 5th the pre-sale will continue with regular shipping. All scarves ordered will be shipped on April 17th in time for Mother’s Day. The scarf is absolutely stunning and has quite a special meaning as well.
Why its important? Genet and her child have been lifted out of poverty and into a sustainable life.
Last Friday, March 22 was World Water Day 2013, a powerful day of advocacy and awareness worldwide about the importance of safe water and sanitation. As part of the Global Team of 200, a group of social good mom bloggers from across the country who concentrate on women and girls, child hunger, and maternal health, I wrote my piece titled “Coming together for World Water Day“.
Photo credit: WaterAid
Jennifer James, founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Goodand The Global Team of 200 wrote this piece today on the popular blog site Babble called “Mom Bloggers in the Importance of Water” which documents the work our volunteer team of social good mom bloggers did for World Water Day 2013. I was honored to read it and wanted to share it with you all.
Today is World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. I was asked to write a post for the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life blog on how I have become inspired to be a global health advocate. Here is the post. To check it out on the Shot@Life blog, click here.
Photo credit: World Health Organization (WHO)
Never in a million years would I have pictured myself as a global health warrior. If you had asked me two years earlier if I’d be writing, volunteering and advocating on global heath issues, I would have certainly been surprised by the question. Yet in January 2012, I was selected to attend a three-day seminar hosted by the UN Foundation to be trained on global vaccines as a Shot@Life Champion. Little did I know, this summit would change my path and start my life-long journey as a global health advocate.
Waving at the school children in rural Nepal. A trip that opened my eyes to the beauty and poverty of the world.
This Friday, March 22, is World Water Day – a day delegated by the United Nations to recognize the importance and need of safe water around the world. In honor of this important day, I am thrilled to be working with the Global Team of 200 and WaterAid to help raise awareness of the desperate need for safe drinking water and sanitation around the world. Safe water and sanitation transforms lives and is one of the keys to bringing people out of poverty.
Water is just the beginning because… it helps build a more prosperous future. For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, an average of $4 is returned in increased productivity, thanks to time saved and better health. Photo Credit: WaterAid.
Did you know that 783 million people do not have access to safe drinking water?
Step back and think about this statistic for a moment. What would you do if you were not able to simply turn on your faucet and fill up your glass or pot with clean, safe water?
Until recently, Ayelech, a 22-year-old mother of two living in Lehayte, Ethiopia spent over two hours a day searching for water and carrying it home in two large jerry cans on her back. She gave birth to her second child Oytiba while on the side of river filling her cans. Photo credit: WaterAid.
What would you do if you had to spend an hour or two each and every day fetching clean drinking water?
With a safe water source close to home, people in the world’s poorest countries have a lot more time and water to cultivate crops, saving money and improving their diets at the same time. Photo credit: WaterAid.
How would you manage? How would you live your life? And more importantly, how would you care for your family?
School-age children spent their days scrambling up narrow rocky trails, carrying home dirty water instead of going to school. Photo Credit: WaterAid.
To most of us in the Western world, the thought of not having instant access to clean, safe drinking water is literally unimaginable. However, for 11 % of the world’s population, this is a tragic reality. When you combine having unsafe drinking water with poor sanitation, it leads to diarrhea which kills 2,000 children every single day. Something completely unthinkable to many of us.
Every day, millions of women walk miles to fetch water, often carrying a child too. When the child gets too heavy to carry, they are left at home, often unsupervised. Photo credit: WaterAid.
Millions of people are trapped in a world in which clean, fresh and safe water is not even a remote option and has led to dire consequences. Preventable deaths and diseases, wasted time spent fetching water each day, lack of access for girls to education due to no adequate sanitation, and lower economic output for the nations without safe water and sanitation. Not having safe water or sanitation keeps people trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty with little chance of escape.
Water really is just the beginning…..these children are thrilled with their recently constructed toilet that provides them with good sanitation and privacy. Safe water really helps keep girls in school too. Photo credit: WaterAid.
But there is hope as the problem of unsafe drinking water is entirely solvable.
This Friday, join WaterAid and the Global Team of 200 to help spread the word about global water poverty. There are a variety of ways you can participate in this day and help spread awareness.
How you can help:
Follow WaterAid on Twitter and Facebook and share our posts on the #20ways that water is just the beginning of the road out of poverty. Also follow along with the Twitter has tag #WorldWaterDay 2013 for the latest news.
Join the World Water Day Google+ Hangout at 1.30pm EST/ 5:30PM GMT on Friday, March 22 at http://ow.ly/iZCdj – WaterAid and other leading water organizations (such as +charity: water, +Water.org, +Water For People, +People Water) will be discussing the world water crisis and solutions in a celebration moderated by YouTube star Justine Ezarik and WaterAid America’s Head of Policy and Advocacy, Lisa Schechtman (@LSchecht).
Make a donation: as experts in practical, hands-on water solutions WaterAid has brought clean water to 17.5 million people. But we need your help to achieve our aim of helping 1.4 million more people this year.
Please also watch WaterAid’s beautiful video “Water is Just the beginning” and share it.
Lives are transformed when hours spent carrying water are instead spent with family, tending crops, raising livestock or starting a business. Simple access to water, toilets, and hygiene education keeps families healthy, women and girls safe, and children in school. In communities around the world, WaterAid has helped 17.5 million people take the first steps out of poverty.
Today is not only International Women’s Day but also the launch of an amazing initiative put together by some of the most influential players in journalism, social good, business and the non profit world to create the Global Mom Relay, a 60 day relay connecting mother’s around the world.
Here is the press release on the event and what you can do to help. It is going to be an amazing 60 days so be sure to follow along!
“Global Mom Relay” Connects Moms Everywhere through the Power of Social Media to Help Women and Children
Arianna Huffington, Elizabeth Gore, Jennifer Lopez, Lynda Lopez and other leading voices join global “virtual relay” to help improve the health and well-being of mothers and children worldwide
Washington, D.C. (March 7, 2013) – Mothers around the globe are mobilizing their voices and their social networks as one of the most powerful forces for positive change for women and children in today’s world. Starting tomorrow, on International Women’s Day, moms and their friends will come together as part of a groundbreaking series of online conversations to share advice, stories, and inspiration about motherhood as part of the Global Mom Relay, a first-of-its-kind virtual relay with a goal of improving the lives of women and children around the globe.
Created by the United Nations Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, BabyCenter, The Huffington Post, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Mom Relay combines the power of moms with the power of social media to raise awareness and raise funds to improve the health and well-being of mothers and children worldwide. This “virtual relay” brings together 60 days of online conversations, rallying networks of people around the world to join in the relay by commenting, sharing stories, making donations and taking action. It represents a movement of people who refuse to sit by in the face of startling statistics about women’s and children’s health: nearly 7 million children under the age of 5 will die from preventable diseases each year and every two minutes, a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy. The Global Mom Relay will connect people to take action and change these statistics.
According to BabyCenter.com, 75 percent of moms say they have used social media to promote a charitable cause, and 82 percent would be more likely to do so if they knew their contribution could result in a donation to support families in need.
The Global Mom Relay will take place from March 8 to May 8, 2013. Here is how it works:
Each day, a mother, expert, celebrity, or advocate will use a blog post, video, or online interview to discuss motherhood and inspirational moms and to highlight important issues and causes. Readers and viewers will be asked to share that day’s post and to donate to the featured cause. That day’s Global Mom Relay contributor will then “pass the baton” to the next day’s relay participant. Participants lending their voice include: Lisa Belkin, Barbara Bush, Randi Zuckerberg, Dr. Harvey Karp, Reema Nanavaty, Rocky Dawuni, Ann Geddes, and Bobbie Thomas.
Each time a person shares a relay post on Twitter, Facebook or Email, or donates $5 or more as part of the relay, a $5 donation (up to $8,000 per day or $500,000 total) will be donated by Johnson & Johnson and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to one of four innovative efforts that are helping women and children lead healthy and happy lives – Girl Up, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), and the Shot@Life campaign.
The global discussion will culminate on May 8 in honor of Mother’s Day with Mom+Social, a one-day global summit held at the 92YTriBeCa in New York City. The summit will connect mothers to each other, worldwide experts, and leaders to inspire action that leverages the unique power of social media to improve the lives of families, of communities, and our world.
The Global Mom Relay will include perspectives from its co-chairs, Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group; Elizabeth Gore, the United Nations Foundation’s Resident Entrepreneur; Jennifer Lopez, Actress, Singer, and Co-Founder of the Lopez Family Foundation; Lynda Lopez, Journalist and Co-Founder of the Lopez Family Foundation; and Sharon D’Agostino, Vice President, Corporate Citizenship for Johnson & Johnson.
“Moms are often the glue that holds humanity together. At home, in their neighborhoods, at work, and online, moms are working hard to support each other and our communities,” said Elizabeth Gore. “The Global Mom Relay will unleash this passion and help moms pay it forward to change lives around the world.”
“My sister Lynda and I had children around the same time and both feel strongly about helping other mothers who are in need so that they have the chance to experience a healthy start as a new mom,” said Jennifer Lopez. “It is an honor to be part of this important global conversation and I hope others will join us.”
“As a journalist, I know the power of the voice to inspire others and create change,” said Lynda Lopez. “As a mother, I also know the unique power of a mom and her voice to help her children, family, and community. The beauty of the Global Mom Relay is that a mother anywhere can use her voice to share these stories of motherhood to help improve the lives of women and children everywhere.”
“A mother’s love is the most powerful force on Earth and wherever she lives, a mom wants nothing more than the health and safety of her children,” said Sharon D’Agostino. “During this celebration of millions of moms around the world, we are excited to help unite and empower them to improve the lives of other women and their children.”
The Global Mom Relay is in support of Every Woman Every Child, a movement launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015. Healthy families promote healthy communities and a healthier world. By learning and taking action online through the Global Mom Relay, moms and other participants will help mothers like them around the world.
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The United Nations Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, BabyCenter, a member of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, The Huffington Post, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation created the Global Mom Relay, a global conversation among mothers and their friends to create change. From March 8, International Women’s Day, to May 8, in honor of Mother’s Day, today’s leading global and local voices will discuss the importance of strengthening the health of mothers and children around the world. Each time a person shares a relay post on Facebook, Twitter or Email, or donates $5 or more as part of the relay, a $5 donation (up to $8,000 per day or $500,000 total) will be donated by Johnson & Johnson and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to one of four initiatives that are helping women and children lead healthy and happy lives – Girl Up, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), and the Shot@Life campaign. For more information, visit http://www.unfoundation.org/globalmomrelahttp://www.unfoundation.org/globalmomrelay.
Exactly a year ago today I was in Xela, Guatemala on a week long volunteer and spanish immersion trip when I heard the noise off in the distance. It sounded like a parade. I asked my teacher Lilian if she knew what on earth was going on and she replied with a smile, “It’s International Women’s Day!” and asked if I’d like to go see the festivities. I had never heard of International Women’s Day before yet it sounded spectacular. I packed up my school work and Lilian and me were off in a flash to the main square.
There I watched in awe and joy how a community could come together as one and celebrate the rights and beauty of women. It was so incredibly touching that I rushed home and instantly wrote a post on the experience titled “El dia de la mujer in Xela, Guatemala“. Even a year later, the memory of that day will forever be engrained in my heart. It was beautiful so heartbreaking yet also so full of hope.
Violence against women is an enormous problem in Guatemala and sometimes women are victims of abuse and even murder. Lillian told me that this was the first time she remembered having so many men participate in International Women’s Day and was hopeful that it would lead to change.
I’ve been bursting with excitement to tell you all some wonderful news! In one month, I am off to some amazing places and will be engaged in the most travel I’ve done in years! Some of it is for pleasure and well, the other trip is a complete surprise. So let me give you a couple clues on where I’m going….
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read past posts on Honduras, click here.
The main reason why I went to Honduras was to volunteer and give back. A month before leaving I found out my volunteer placement would be at a Honduran daycare center for poor single mothers to send their children to the day while they tried to earn a living. As a mother myself who adores children and an advocate for fighting poverty, I couldn’t think of a better placement. I could hardly wait.
All 100+ Shot@Life Champions who left their families behind to travel to our nation’s capital in February to advocate for the millions of parents who don’t have access to life-saving vaccines.
My dear friend Jennifer Burden, mother, wife, advocate and founder of World Mom’s Blog, wrote a beautiful piece today as part of the Shot@Life’s 28 Days of Impact Campaign about her advocacy and recent trip to Uganda as part of Shot@Life delegation.
Please on link below to read her heartfelt post and learn more about the work we are doing for Shot@Life.
Jen came into my life over a year ago through my WordPress blog. As a mother of two young girls living in the suburbs of New Jersey, Jen wanted a way to open up others to global motherhood and our shared experiences. She had searched the net over and over and found tons of blogs on motherhood yet there were no blogs at all on what it is like to be a global mother. For all mothers, no matter where you live in the world, have a special bond. We may have different lives, cultures and parenting techniques, but we are all mothers. Hence came the dream of starting World Moms Blog, a volunteer-lead blog using mothers from around the world to tell their stories and share their voices.
Author’s note: This post is part of my series on my recent trip to Honduras. To read past posts on Honduras, click here.
Finding the right program abroad can prove to be a daunting task. I searched countless hours on the Internet but after the trip to Honduras I realized my mistake. I was searching for volunteer opportunities not spanish language schools. Little did I know that almost every language school offers volunteer opportunities alongside their program. Had I searched under spanish schools, I would have found lots of options. In retrospect, everything worked out more than fine. It just took me a roundabout way to find my school, Centro Internacional de Idiomas. Next time, I’ll know the back way in and do it differently.
Today I am honored to be collaborating with a group of women bloggers on behalf of ONE, a non-partisan, grassroots advocacy organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable diseases, to increase awareness about world hunger.
ONE asks:
“How can it be that 40% of Africa’s children are so chronically malnourished by the age of five that they will never fully thrive, physically recover or mentally develop – and this has not improved in two decades, despite so much other development progress?
In 2010, 171 million children under the age of five had stunted growth (chronically malnourished)[1]
Every year, malnutrition causes 3.5 million child deaths – or more than one third of all deaths of children under the age of five[2]
More than 600,000 children die each year from vitamin A deficiency[3]
2 billion people are anemic, including every second pregnant woman and an estimated 40% of school-aged children — contributing to 20% of all maternal deaths[4]
The economic toll of malnutrition causes the loss of 2-3% of GDP in affected countries and more than 10% of productivity over a person’s lifetime[5]
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” – Mother Teresa
Two lovely Garifuna girls in Roatan, Honduras.
Four years ago, I was finally at the point in my life in which I was able to set a new goal for myself. I made the decision that I would spend one week a year abroad as a global volunteer, giving back to a host community. After years of traveling around the world, I realized how incredibly fortunate I am to be able to see places that most people will never see. Furthermore, I understood how much we truly have in the western world compared to to everyone else who are not so fortunate. Spending time in developing countries opened my eyes even more and I became even more thankful for the fact that I had a more than adequate roof over my head, plenty of food on the table, a loving family, the ability to stay at home with my children and pursue my dreams. All in all, I realized that I had a really great life and that millions of people around the world were just struggling to survive.
