by Elizabeth Atalay | Sep 17, 2013 | 2013, Education, Humanitarian, International, Millennium Development Goals, Uncategorized, World Moms Blog, World Voice
In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals, and was written as the Millennium Goal Declaration .- United Nations Development Programme
This month as we continue our #Moms4MDG campaign we are excited to be joining forces with Save the Children to talk about MDG #2! Save the Children is an international non-governmental organization that serves to improve the lives of children in developing countries through better education and access to health care. Since 1919 Save the Children has been providing emergency aid to children in natural disasters and relief in conflict or war torn areas.
Millennium Development Goal #2 is to achieve universal primary education. Children need primary education to reach their full potential, and countries need to educate their children to succeed economically. MDG 2 strives for equal access to education for both boys and girls, and although according to the United Nations, primary school enrollment in developing nations is up to 90%, that still leaves around 57 million kids out of school. Imagine the progress that could be made with that many more educated minds.
Join us tomorrow on September 18th for our #Moms4MDGs Twitter party to discuss Global Education and MDG 2 with Save The Children. Twitter Party participants will have the chance to win a giveaway from National Geographic Kids! We hope to see you there.
P.S. Never been to a twitter party before? Go to www.tweetchat.com and put in the hashtag: “#Moms4MDGs during the party times. From there you can retweeet and tweet and the hashtag will automatically be added to your tweets. And, from there you can also view all of the party tweets!
Now head over to World Moms Blog contributor Martine De Luna’s post about MDG 2 on the Save the Children site!
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Voice Editor, Elizabeth Atalay of Documama in Rhode Island, USA.
Elizabeth Atalay is a Digital Media Producer, Managing Editor at World Moms Network, and a Social Media Manager. She was a 2015 United Nations Foundation Social Good Fellow, and traveled to Ethiopia as an International Reporting Project New Media Fellow to report on newborn health in 2014. On her personal blog, Documama.org, she uses digital media as a new medium for her background as a documentarian. After having worked on Feature Films and Television series for FOX, NBC, MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock Pictures, she studied documentary filmmaking and anthropology earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York. Since becoming a Digital Media Producer she has worked on social media campaigns for non-profits such as Save The Children, WaterAid, ONE.org, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, Edesia, World Pulse, American Heart Association, and The Gates Foundation. Her writing has also been featured on ONE.org, Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com, EnoughProject.org, GaviAlliance.org, and Worldmomsnetwork.com. Elizabeth has traveled to 70 countries around the world, most recently to Haiti with Artisan Business Network to visit artisans in partnership with Macy’s Heart of Haiti line, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans. Elizabeth lives in New England with her husband and four children.
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by World Moms Blog | Sep 16, 2013 | 2013, Adoption, Adoptive Parents, Africa, Being Thankful, Cultural Differences, Discipline, Ethiopia, Family, Guest Post, Health, Humanity, Humor, Inspirational, International, Kids, Motherhood, Multicultural, Netherlands, Parenting, Special Needs, Uncategorized, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Sometimes I’m really weary of explaining. To grannies in the supermarket. To teenage girls at the playground. To fellow mums at school.
My daughter is clearly adopted, yes. She’s from Ethiopia, yes. She’s had a rough start, yes. She’s lost part of her eyesight, yes. And she’s got some countless more issues, yes.
But she’s still a four year old. And I’m her mother. I’m raising her my way. Just like I’m raising her big brother, who is blond and looks a bit too much like me.
The big difference between raising my daughter and raising my son, is that people seem to feel a kind of responsibility towards my girl. It feels like adopted children are in a way public.
I do understand how we stand out, in our not so worldly little town. We are getting used to the extra attention she brings with her, although I admit I have been thinking to teach her to growl when a stranger touches her hair and skin unasked.
We were prepared for all this. We knew we were going to feel like we have arrows flashing around our heads when taking her out. Now that she’s been with us for two years, we’ve all grown a thick skin, filled with humor. We have a series of catchy replies to go with all the ridiculous questions. The next one who dares to ask me what we feed her, will be answered ‘grass’, without even a blink.
But I still can’t really cope with all the unwanted ‘advice’ we get about raising her. When my son was little, I never ever had some stranger giving him candy or cookies. I never had to explain myself in the supermarket when I refused to let him take everything he wished for. And I certainly didn’t have to listen to people telling me how neglectful I was for letting him cry out a tantrum.
With my daughter, I do have those encounters. This one time in the supermarket, I was truly abashed. I had just taken away some nasty sugar bombs from my daughter’s hands and put them back, much against the little miss’s wishes. An elderly lady came over, took the candy and handed them over to my girl again. I was confused, believing she misunderstood. So I explained I didn’t want to buy that rubbish for her. At that moment she cursed me for being so horrible towards that poor little black girl that has been hungry all her life. She put the candy in my cart, ordered me to buy it, and took off while nodding her head.
At such encounters – yes, plural – I have the urge to scream.
For one thing. She’s NOT a poor little girl. She’s in most ways an ordinary four year old preschooler. She can throw the worst tantrums I ever witnessed, just because I can’t peel an apple while driving my car or because I can’t make the Easter bunny magically appear in August. The last one was about having only six colors of nail polish to choose from. Poor girl indeed.
But most importantly, I’M THE ONE raising that ‘poor little girl’. Of course we are aware of her issues, mostly the ones regarding attachment and anxieties. We try to give her everything she needs, truck loads of patience and care which unfortunately aren’t always replenished in time. But she doesn’t need everything she wants. Just like any other child doesn’t. Unless you plan to end up with a spoiled brat that demands a yellow sports car at age eighteen.
Spoiling her will not make right all the things she missed out in the first two years of her life. Maybe that sounds harsh and loveless, but I can assure you it isn’t meant that way. I cry with her when she mourns her lost heritage, when she is homesick. I’ve swallowed away rivers of tears all those times I had to explain her history to medical doctors and hospital professors.
But I can’t raise my daughter based on pity alone.
This is a first-time, guest contribution to World Moms Blog from our friend and mother of The Penguin and the Panther in Belgium, Katinka. Her Flemish blog is in transition over to an English-only blog. Stay posted to World Moms Blog for more from Katinka.
The photograph of the author’s daughter used in this post is credited to the author.
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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by Frelle (USA) | Sep 13, 2013 | Friendship, Health, Home, Homeschooling, Kids, Motherhood, Parenting, Working Mother, World Motherhood
The truth about motherhood is that no one prepared me for this.
No, really.
Have you ever actually admitted that, out loud? That you feel lost, unprepared, five years behind where you “should” be in raising your children?
I just did. (more…)
Jenna grew up in the midwestern US, active in music and her church community from a young age. She developed a love of all things literary thanks to her mom, and a love of all things science fiction thanks to her dad. She left the midwest in her early twenties and has lived in the south ever since.
On her blog, she tries to write words that make a difference to people. Long before she attended college to major in Special Ed and Psychology, she became an advocate for special needs and invisible disabilities. She's always been perceptive of and encouraging to those who struggle to fit in. Having been through several dark seasons in her own life, she's found empowerment in being transparent and vulnerable about her emotions, making deep and lasting friendships, and finding courage to write from her heart. Her biggest wish is to raise her kids to be compassionate people who love well.
She's been online since 1993, with a total of 19 years of social media exposure. Having friends she doesn't know in real life has been normal for her since her junior year in college, and she's grateful every day for the ways technology helps her stay in touch with friends from all over the world.
Jenna lives in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina, and is a freelance writer and a stay at home single mom to 3 girls and a boy. She blogs at MadeMoreBeautiful.comMadeMoreBeautiful.com.
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by Olga Mecking | Sep 12, 2013 | Multicultural, Netherlands, Preschool, Technology, Uncategorized, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
I am raising digital natives and I love it. Technology is a big part of our lives. My brother-in-law once jokingly asked: “Is there a pen in this highly digitalized household?”
“iPad” was among my now 2-year old’s first 50 words. When we Skype with my parents, sometimes my 4-year old gets tired and tries to swipe my father’s image away because she thinks that my laptop has a touchscreen.
There are many ways to approach digitalization. Some parents, bloggers and researchers focus on the negative impact digital technology (and technology in general) can have on our lives. They give tips on reducing screen time, warn against oversharing and treat technology as something that needs to be tightly controlled.
Others are amazed by the opportunities that technology offers us. They mention the community- building aspects of social media platforms, the opportunity to access information everywhere and at any time, and remark that our lives have been made much easier by digital technology.
Where do I stand on this? More in the technology-is-awesome camp.
As an expat, I appreciate the possibilities to not only hear my parents’ voices, but to also see them- and they can see the children. I can use my iPad to do yoga with the children, and to connect with them that way. We don’t have a TV, but instead we use our computers to watch TV series and movies, and read the news. I love taking pictures and I have a digital SLR. That way, I can take tons of photos to choose the very best. And I haven’t even touched on the great advantages I get from blogging. My hands rebel when I try to draw or paint, but my computer allows me to do just that.
I view technology as a tool that can be used to our advantage without taking control over our lives. I think that there is a time and place for everything. I love the term “digital natives”. Just as our children can teach us how to speak another language, we can learn to use all these wonderful devices and find delight in using them.
On the other hand, we can teach children to use technology and social media responsibly. I also think that we can teach them the world of paper books and sounds without a picture, and the world outside of the house rather than the world inside of their devices.
To me it is obvious that technology has much to offer in terms of education and play. But I believe that through technology we not only can connect with a device, but with our children (and grandchildren!) as well.
What is your approach to modern technology? Do you love it or hate it?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer and mother of two in the Netherlands, Olga Mecking.
The photograph used in this post was taken by the author.
Olga is a Polish woman living in the Netherlands with her German husband. She is a multilingual expat mom to three trilingual children (even though, theoretically, only one is trilingual since she's old enough to speak). She loves being an expat, exploring new cultures, learning languages, cooking and raising her children. Occasionally, Olga gives trainings in intercultural communication and works as a translator. Otherwise, you can find her sharing her experiences on her blog, The European Mama. Also take a while to visit her Facebook page .
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by Tina Santiago-Rodriguez (Philippines) | Sep 11, 2013 | 2013, Kids, Motherhood, Parenting, Philippines, Tina Santiago-Rodriguez, Truly Rich Mom
I’ll be celebrating my birthday very soon but to be perfectly honest with you, I’m not so worked up about it. Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m the type of person who deems occasions like these special, but when it’s focused on me, I’m not so particular about being pampered or getting what I want. That’s just me. I’ve been this way for a long time, I think.
Now that I’m a mom of three precious God-given blessings though, I find myself making wishes and sending out prayers in anticipation of my birthday — not for me, but for my children. (But please, don’t be fooled into thinking that I’m so selfless that way, because really, I’m not! *winks*)
So what exactly is my birthday wish for my children?
Nothing fancy really. But I’m sure most, if not all, the moms out there would agree with me on at least one of the “components” of my wish.
On my birthday, I wish…
…that my children will grow up to know, love and serve God.
…that in knowing, loving and serving God, my children will learn to love and serve others.
…that my children will discover what they’re truly meant to do in this world, and that my husband and I will be able to help them discover it. (more…)
Tina Santiago-Rodriguez is a wife and homeschool mom by vocation, a licensed
physical therapist by education and currently the managing editor of Mustard, a
Catholic children's magazine published by Shepherd's Voice
Publications in the Philippines, by profession. She has been writing
passionately since her primary school years in Brunei, and contributes
regularly to several Philippine and foreign-based online and print publications. She also does sideline editing and scriptwriting jobs, when she has the time. Find out more about Tina through her personal
blogs: Truly Rich Mom and Teacher Mama Tina.
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