Last week Global Impact, a leader in global philanthropy, launched the Women & Girls Fund in partnership with four of the best-in-the-business charities to help improve the lives of women and girls around the world. The Women & Girls Fund is unique in that it harnesses together four of the most respected charities in the field, CARE, World Vision, Plan and International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), to help change the world by investing in women and girls.
The plight of women and girls around the world is heartbreaking. Of roughly one billion people in the world who live in extreme poverty, the majority of them are women. I have written tirelessly about the struggles of women and girls because it is a cause I am truly passionate about.
Saturday, March 8th is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the advances and successes women have made around the world. In honor of this special day I am reposting last year’s summary of what this day means to me. The more I see the world and learn about the struggles women in the developing world face, the more inspired I am to make a difference. Thanks for reading and please spread the word.
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any”. – Alice Walker
A few months ago I watched a brilliant documentary called “Miss Representation“. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the award-winning film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. I have been meaning to write about the documentary for months yet had left it in the back burner until the Olympics began and some of the media coverage of the women althetes outraged me.
Two recent articles in particular (“Medals aren’t enough: Women athletes still have to sell sexiness” and “Scantily Clad Russian Olympians Are Making Us Uncomfortable“) made my anger flair and made me realize that as a society if women’s rights are ever going to improve, me must stop looking at them as sex objects. Certainly one can argue that it is in our biology and nature. Men will always covet and admire women and their bodies. Yet what I want to argue is that it is fine to admire a woman’s beauty but our powerful media does not need to continue to objectify women. It has come to the point where it is so commonplace that one often turns a blind eye to it. Let’s face it sex sells.
This week as part of World Moms Blog where I am a writer and editor for our social good column, we are participating in our second annual campaign to support fellow World Moms Blog writer Kristyn Zalota’s non-profit organization CleanBirth.org which saves lives of mothers and their newborns in Laos. Partnering with Multicultural Kids Blog and Girls Globe, we are coming together to help CleanBirth.org launch their crowd funding campaign to raise $7,500 to help train more midwives and provide sterilized birth kits to mothers in Laos.
What is so amazing about Kristyn’s story is how she saw a problem half-way around the world and decided to change it. As an avid traveler and a doula, Kristyn saw firsthand through her visits in the developing world how many mothers and children die during childbirth from simply lacking a safe, sterile birth. Inspired to make a difference Kristyn began CleanBirth.org and two years later she has seen remarkable results and has saved many lives.
For the past year and a half I’ve been honored to be a part of an exceptional group of women bloggers using our voices on our blogs and through social media to help try to change the world. As a proud member of the Global Team of 200 and Mom Bloggers for Social Good, I’ve had the opportunity to learn about and share with you some of the amazing things different non-profits are doing around the world to save lives and end poverty.
Kibera slum, Nairobi, Kenya Boys sit on a boulder overlooking the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo credit: Gates Foundation
Jennifer James, founder of our social good team, has worked particularly hard with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It has been fascinating to be a part of some of the work this amazing foundation is doing at changing the world and saving lives.
INDIA / Bihar / Jamsaut village / 23 March 2011 Bill and Melinda Gates with children at an Anganwadi centre in Jamsaut village near Patna. Photo Credit: Gates Foundation
Yesterday, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released their co-authored 2014 annual report which contains some exciting findings and predictions in the world of social good.
2014 Bill and Melinda Gates Annual Letter
This year’s letter, “Three Myths that Block Progress for the Poor,” addresses three misconceptions about the global effort to end extreme poverty: Poor countries are doomed to stay poor, foreign aid is a big waste, and saving lives leads to overpopulation.
In fact, life is better for more people around the world than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives and poverty rates have been cut in half in the last 25 years. Child mortality is plunging. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. Bill and Melinda want to tackle these myths because too often they give people a reason not to act.
Every so often I get contacted by various NGOs to share important advocacy and awareness campaigns. If you follow my blog, you know how seriously I take my social good advocacy especially when it comes to poverty, violence against women and girls, global health and education. When you have witnessed some of these horrendous tragedies firsthand, you will forever be changed and feel compelled to tell the countless stories you’ve heard along the way.
Living in the slums of India can be a dangerous place for a young girl.
Recently I was contacted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) advising me of an awareness campaign that is near and dear to my heart: Gender violence. From November 25 to December 10, USAID is promoting an awareness campaign called 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence(#16Days) in attempt to shed light on this important issue.
When I was in India this past May on a social good blogging trip, I visited a beautiful school for abused girls in the heart of a Delhi slum. Almost every child at the school had been either physically or sexually abused yet their perseverance to move beyond their pain made my heart melt and fulfilled me with hope and commitment that I would never forget them nor their cause. No one should have to suffer because of their gender. Yet sadly many do.
Today’s post is a guest post written by a dear friend of mine Elizabeth Ataley of the beautiful blog Documama. I met Elizabeth a few years ago at BlogHer and we have worked together ever since as fellow members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good, the Global Team of 200 and ONE Moms. Elizabeth recently went on a social good blogging trip as part of Global Team of 200 to South Africa along with Jennifer James, Founder of Social Good Moms/Global Team of 200. Here is her report on their visit to Rebecca’s Well in Alexandra Township, South Africa.
Alexandra Township. Photo credit: Elizabeth Ataley/Documama
Hope Springs From Rebecca’s Well in Alexandra Township, South Africa
The shift was drastic. One second we were driving through what looked like typical city sprawl, passing industrial yards, a McDonald’s, and the next moment rubble heaps, and rusted corrugated tin sheds pulsing with people lined the sidewalk. It was as though we passed through some sort of invisible wall into a different reality. The reality that the people of Alexandra Township, which we had just entered, live in is light years away from the gleaming luxury hotels and shopping malls that rise up on the horizon just a few miles away in Sandton which is known to be one of the wealthiest areas in South Africa. Jennifer James and I were headed on our first site visit for our #socialgoodmomsjoburg Global Team of 200 trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, and the impact it had on us would be huge.
Alexandra Township. Photo credit: Elizabeth Ataley/Documama
“We are starving for education. For us it is like a precious gift, a diamond” – Malala Yousafzai
The story of Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakastani girl who was shot at point blank range in the head a year ago on a school bus by the Taliban has become one of the most powerful stories of our time. A girl of a mere 15 years old, who had the courage and bravery to stand up to the Taliban and risk her life for her simple belief that girls should be able to go to school, has captured worldwide attention to her cause. Today at 16 years old, Malala’s voice is being heard all over the world and people are listening.
Her voice and bravery has lead her to become the youngest ever nominated to receive a World Peace Prize and her fight for girls education has created an international global movement and a day named after her. In honor of “Day of the Girl” today, I wanted to talk about one girl who is by far one of the most amazing, inspiring young activists in the world. Malala whose life is a gift to the world and who proves that anyone can make a difference.
Cover of Malala’s new book “I Am Malala” which was released this week.
“People have prayed to God to spare me, and I was spared for a reason — to use my life for helping people” — from ” I Am Malala.”
Over the past year, I have worked hard to build awareness and share the stories with my readers on some of the biggest social issues in the world. I have written about global health, poverty, education, safe water and sanitation, human rights, and most of all, how all of these issues have especially impacted women and girls in the developing world.
The beautiful girls at Protsahan finally getting a better future for themselves.
One topic that is near and dear to my heart is violence against women and girls. It is absolutely horrifying that in today’s world women and girls are being physically and sexually abused on a daily basis. Sadly, it happens everywhere. Yet violence against women and girls is even a greater problem in countries of poverty where the status of women is often so incredibly marginalized that women and girls have little or no say in the matter.
Living in the slums of India can be a dangerous place for a young girl.
Traveling last May to India brought the issue of violence against women and girls to the forefront. I had just arrived after the horrendous rape and killing of a young Indian girl on a moving bus. The country was still in an uproar over the event and justice against these young men who took her life is still being sought. Today, I read the surprising news that these men have been convicted of the highest penalty possible: The death penalty and perhaps marked a change in the way law fighting these atrocities will be handled.
Yet has anything really truly changed for the millions of women around the world who are faced with violence, discrimination, harassment, intimidation, neglect and unworthiness every single day of their lives? Not much. There are laws in India against physical and sexual abuse but seldom are they enforced.
Author’s note: This is the second post documenting my visit on behalf of Mom Bloggers for Social Good to see Save the Children’s work at the Indira Kalyan slum in Delhi, India. To read the first post click here.
India has made a tremendous amount of progress over the last two decades fighting to save the lives of mothers and children. A decade ago close to 75,000 women died during childbirth every year and this number has been reduced to 56,000 in 2010. Significant progress has also been made in newborn survival. Since 1990, India has reduced the rate of deaths of children under 5 by 46% or almost in half. Despite the major achievements, newborn and maternal dealths are still way too high given the tragic fact that many of these deaths are largely preventable. The situation is especially dire in India, the second most populous country in the world, with a hugely disproportionate percentage of maternal and newborn deaths.
Inside The Indira Kalyan Camp, an unauthorized slum in Delhi
Nearly 1 in 5 deaths of children under age five are in India. (1.6 million children or 29% of the global total ).
19% of these deaths take place on the day a child is born and 53% occur within the first month of birth.
Large scale inequities within India continue to persist today in terms of wealth disparities, rural-urban divide, education, age of mother, caste, which means that not all babies born in India have an equal change of survival.
Children within the Indira Kalyan Camp pose for a picture
They called her Braveheart, a name that symbolizes a fighter. People have also called her Fearless and India’s Daughter. Due to Indian law, the real name of a rape victim is withheld from the press. For some reason the name Braveheart seemed to stick.
Months after her tragic, horrifying death Delhi’s Braveheart continues to tear away at Indian society and many Indians’ cry for change. Braveheart’s December 16th gang rape on a moving bus has gained worldwide attention, outrage and grief. Further high-profile rapes such as the recent rape of a Swiss and American tourist have continued to push the not so pretty truth about the status of women in India into the forefront. Meanwhile, India’s tourist industry has been reeling with a 35 % decline in female tourists for the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year (Source: Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India). It is evident that foreign women travelers are concerned about the dangers of traveling to a place with such a tarnished reputation for women’s rights and safety.
In a country where a rape is reported every 21 minutes, and gruesome rapes of young children are inundating the news, you would think that it would be enough to push for societal and governmental change. Yet has anything really truly changed for the millions of women in India and around the world who are faced with violence, discrimination, harassment, intimidation, neglect and unworthiness every single day of their lives?
In honor of today’s release of Save the Children’s annual State of World Mother’s report, I am sharing the emotional aspects of my birth story to help advocate for the one million newborns that die needlessly and helplessly within the first 24 hours of life. By sharing my birth story, I am joining moms from across the United States to help bring awareness and advocacy steps in making the first 24 hours of life count. The bottom of this post will have more information on the results of the report and how you can help spread the word.
Me and my son Max, right after his birth. 11/11/04.
I will be completely honest. I was never sure that I wanted to become a mother. At 32, I felt my life was already fulfilling enough, being happily married, working hard in my career and enjoying traveling to crazy places, running marathons and having all the freedom I could possibly want. Perhaps I was selfish but I was happy.
All this changed the day I was half way around the world, doing my very first dive in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, when I got the call. That terrible call that I will never forget. The call to tell me that my two-and-a-half-year-old nephew had unexpectedly died. I was in shock. It couldn’t be true. How could a healthy, beautiful happy child that I had seen only two weeks ago be gone just like a flick of a light. How could something so ungodly awful and tragic happen? I felt raw. Numb. And deeply distraught. Although I wasn’t a mother and I couldn’t possibly understand, I loved that little boy with the bright blue eyes and the dashing smile. It was that tragedy that made me realize how short and precious life truly is and how I couldn’t imagine not possibly being a mother myself.
