It must have been a sign of fate that I happened to be paging through the resort brochure the last night of my stay at the lovely Barefoot Cay and saw the two-page spread on Clinica Esperanza. Instantly I was taken by the story and by a stroke of luck the next morning, thirty minutes before my departure to the United States I found myself interviewing the very doctor who has dedicated the last several years of his life to helping build the clinic.
All photos credited to WaterAid and used with permission.
Can you imagine living a life without access to clean water or sanitation? Something as basic yet critical as clean water and access to a toilet is a luxury that many people around the world in developing nations simply don’t have.
Have you ever thought about the clothes you wear and what kind of statement you are making? Did you know that there are some clothing companies out there in the world that are trying to make a positive difference in people’s lives and change the way people think. Barnabas Clothing is one such company.
Sample of Barnabas casual sportswear. Photo credit: Barnabas Clothing Company.
“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho
Photo credit: Maternity Worldwide
The figures are startling. Every year around the world 287,000 women die in what should be the most joyous time of life: Having a baby. That means one woman dies every 2 minutes or 800 a day, during pregnancy and childbirth.
As a mother of two children who suffered two high-risk births, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be pregnant in a developing nation. It is not surprising that the majority of women (over 56% of the total) who die are in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of the world that is engulfed in extreme poverty. When you compare the mortality rates to women in the Western world, 99% of all deaths take place in the developing world.
In Ethiopia alone, one of the poorest countries in the world, 90% of women give birth at home and for every 100,000 women who give birth in the country, 676 women die from delivery and childbirth complications. Further accentuating the problem in the fact that Ethiopian women, who have little or no access to family planning or contraception, have on average 4.8 babies who survive. These numbers alone put women at high risk of dying and not living to see their babies grow up or raise the others.
Clorox may be mostly know for its fabulous bleach however I bet many people don’t know that this global company is also trying to brighten up the future of America’s children through Clorox’s Power A Bright Future K-12 school grant program.
Lovely Bella Thorne, a teen celebrity and star of Disney’s “Shake it Up” is working with Clorox to help spread the word and encourage votes from parents and teens in the Power A Bright Future program. Bella is working closely with Clorox to make sure that K-12 schools can receive funds for programs that encourage students to be creative, active and tech and science savvy.
Bella Thorne. Photo Credit: Cloxox Power Bright
That’s why for the program’s fourth year, Clorox will award seven grants totaling $200,000 to help fund new or existing school programs.
This week, Jennifer James, the founder of Global Team of 200, who I’m honored to write for, is on the ground in Ethiopia learning all about the issues Frontline Health Care Workers face in one of the poorest countries of the world. Jennifer is in Ethiopia along with three distinguished US nurses on behalf of Save the Children. Back in September, I had written a post about Save the Children’s campaign “Every Beat Matters” (to read post, click here). I was extremely touched by this campaign and what Save the Children is doing to help save lives. Jennifer published her first account of day one in Ethiopia today on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s blog “Impatient Optimists“. I asked Jennifer if I could share her story here as well and she was thrilled.
A woman has her child vaccinated by a Health Extension Work at the Germana Health Post in Ethiopia. Photo credit: Impatient Optimists
“There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up”
– Bernard Meltzer
Today is International Volunteer Day. However, in my book every day should be a day to volunteer. I am a strong advocate for giving back and believe strongly that everyone who is able should help others in need.
Volunteering does not have to be complicated. In fact, there are little things you can do right in your own backyard to help make the world a better place. For instance, every community has a school which needs volunteers to help out. I volunteer often at my children’s school on fun events and also on day to day tasks such as helping kids learn to read, write and do arithmetic. With the graying population, there is also a lot of need assisting seniors either at care centers, hospitals or just in every day life. With the economy in decline, many people need help just trying to survive. There are many places you can volunteer to give back to the poor such as helping at a food shelf, a donation center or a job/skill retraining center. The list of opportunities to give back and volunteer are endless. All you need is a little bit of time.
“If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you’ll end up not doing nothing for nobody.” ~ Malcom Bane
For today’s post, I would like to showcase a few memories of my favorite volunteer experiences over the last few years. With my next volunteer trip approaching in exactly one month (I leave for Honduras on January 5th) I am looking forward to having another opportunity to give back and see the world through new eyes.
This post is part of the Social Good Sunday series in which I highlight different organizations around the world making the world a better place.
Poverty is a tough topic to comprehend. It is tragic, dark, unfair and cruel. A way of life that doesn’t make sense in a world that has so much for some and so little for the rest. If poverty is hard to understand as an adult, imagine how confusing it is to understand such a difficult topic for children.
Many children in my community have everything they need and most likely too much. They generally have all the latest toys, more than enough food on their table, a home to live in and a family to love. However, once you step outside of Southwest Minneapolis, the picture is dramatically different. Children live in poverty, don’t always have enough to eat at night and struggle immensely in school. The inequities are surprising and often astounding.
According to numbers released in September by the U.S. Census, the percentage of children living in poverty in Minnesota continues to grow.
“Now 80,000 more children are living in poverty compared to 2000 (114,000), an increase of about 70 percent. Officially, an estimated 194,000 (15.4 percent) children were living in poverty in Minnesota in 2011, a trend that has continued to increase for more than 10 years. Compared to last year, the number increased only slightly by 2,000 children from 192,000 in 2010”.
I often find that our middle class children live in a bubble and grow up rarely being exposed to what the rest of the world lives like and even more so, what a large percentage of kids in their own city live like. In poverty. If it is hard for adults to understand poverty, it is oftentimes even more challenging for children to understand the full impact of poverty on families and kids themselves.
In honor of the first ever Giving Tuesday, a new day to give back to the community that was launched on November 27th, The Greater Twin Cities United Way* launched a fun, educational online game cleverly called “Pass the Grade“. In “Pass the Grade”, players will experience four challenges that teach about the trials children in poverty have to overcome to succeed in school. What is so impressive about Pass the Grade is that it accomplishes two important goals: First, it educates children about other kids living in poverty in a fun, engaging way. Second, it also raises money for educational programs with each game played.
Here are some details about the fundraising piece of the campaign (all information below provided by Greater Twin Cities United Way):
The goal of United Way’s Pass the Grade Campaign is to help 7,500 kids pass the grade in 2013. Here are some examples on how playing this game helps children living in poverty:
The game, developed by Space 150 and supported by U.S. Bank, takes players through four unique challenges that test if they have what it takes to pass the third grade. (Students who fall behind by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.) After each challenge, statistics on childhood poverty are shared. Upon completion of the game, a grade is given to the player. Players are then asked to share their results via social media to encourage additional donations.
“Tackling the challenge of poverty and making a difference in a child’s life can’t be done alone, it must be a community effort,” says Greater Twin Cities United Way Senior Vice President of Marketing Kathy Hollenhorst. She continues, “In playing Pass the Grade, one learns about the impact of poverty on a child’s educational advancement, while at the same time learning about how to make a difference in the community. With our regions’ philanthropic spirit, we at United Way believe that together we can help all children get the quality early education they need to succeed in school – and in life.”
Ok….now I’m going to ask everyone to play the game! I just played the game and I failed! I failed at passing but I sure learned a lot about kids living in my community in poverty. Here is what I learned.
About Greater Twin Cities United Way:
Greater Twin Cities United Way addresses our community’s most critical issues by focusing on three key areas: Basic Needs, Education and Health. We attack poverty on multiple, interconnected fronts to achieve lasting change – through 10 measurable goals – by collaborating with business, government and nonprofit organizations to create solutions and carry out our call to action to LIVE UNITED by encouraging everyone to Give. Advocate. Volunteer. United Way serves people living in or near poverty in nine counties: Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott and western Washington. Join the movement. LIVE UNITED.
For more information, visit www.unitedwaytwincities.org
As World AIDS Day rapidly approaches (December 1, 2012) it is time to think about the impact that AIDS has on children. Did you know that every single day 900 children are infected with HIV? Furthermore, 90% of child infections of HIV are passed on from mother to child.
Today is the first ever Giving Tuesday, a day across the country dedicated to giving back. Launched by the creative minds of the UN Foundation, Unilever Corp. and United Way, what started simply as a great idea turned into a mass event involving over 4,000 organizations in all 50 states.
It is the hope that Giving Tuesday starts a new national day of giving via the collective power of charities, families, businesses and individuals who will transform how people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season. Judging by the media, it is looking like the first Giving Tuesday will be a great success and only continue to grow in years to come.
Back in July I wrote a post titled “The End of AIDS: We can’t stop funding now”. The post was in response to my visit to our nation’s capital on behalf of my advocacy work with Results, a grassroots organization that works to end global poverty. During this visit, I had to opportunity to visit the Global Village at the XIX International AIDS Conference which was being held in the United States for the first time in many years. It was a symbolic event, clearly highlighting America’s leadership as one of the key funders and advocates in fighting AIDS.
This December 1 is World AIDS Day, a day in which the world brings attention to the devastating fact that this global epidemic still infects 2.7 million new people and claims 2 million lives each year. It is also estimated that nearly 30 million people have died from AIDS-related causes since the beginning of the epidemic (UNAID 2010 report).
Although “these are sobering numbers, this year World AIDS Day comes after a string of stunning scientific advances that has fundamentally altered the possibilities in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The end of the AIDS epidemic is within our grasp” (Results.org).
A poor neighbourhood shows the damage after an earthquake measuring 7 plus on the Richter scale rocked Port au Prince Haiti just before 5 pm, January 12, 2010. Photo Source: Wikipedia Commons
Last week I participated in a live Twitter Party on behalf of Mom Bloggers for Social Good for Habitat for Humanity’s work in Haiti. If you have never done a Twitter party or have no idea what I’m even talking about, let me explain. Basically a group of people interested in learning about a topic jump onto Twitter at a designated point in time and use the same hashtag (ours was #HabitatinHaiti). A good Twitter party is well-managed and moderated by asking the attendees a group of questions which creates dialogue. It is a fantastic way to learn more about a given topic, spread the word and be an armchair advocate.
I learned a lot last week during our Habitat for Haiti chat but what stuck with me most was one question in particular: “What is community?”.
Haitians set up impromtu tent cities thorough the capital after the 2010 earthquake. Photo source: Wikipedia Commons.