by World Moms Blog | Jun 4, 2013 | 2013, Human Rights, International, Turkey, World Voice
I am a Turkish mom, who is raising my 3 kids in the United States of America during the school season and in TURKEY for the summers. My husband and I made the conscious decision to raise our kids immersed in both of our cultures. Growing up in the democratic and secular country that Ataturk founded, I was nurtured in a climate of peace and freedom. I attended college in Switzerland and then in the United States, and I pride myself in being an independent and strong woman.
Ataturk’s western leaning values and teachings of acceptance, tolerance, honesty, hard work, and respect, still guide me today while I live with my American husband, and raise our kids.
We love taking our kids to Istanbul every summer. We have extended family and friends who welcome us. My oldest son swims in the Cross Continent Swim Meet each year. Where else in the world can one be in Asia and Europe within minutes? The kids spend the summers playing with their second and third cousins, and making new friends. We are exposing our kids not only to their own culture but also to others by traveling to historic sights, living world history, and showing them how all different religions, and ethnicities live in harmony in the same country. Although the religion of the population in Turkey is predominantly Muslim, it’s government is secular, and Turkey is a home for all religions and ethnic backgrounds. Everyone is free to practice what he or she believes. Well I should say everyone WAS free…
As I am sure most of you are aware by now, what started as a peaceful “save the tree” protest last week, has turned into a Revolution. Turkey elected a prime minister more than a decade ago, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has over the years leaned increasingly towards autocracy . He wants to build malls over parks, as a way to fill his pockets, demolish art centers and theaters, and build mosques to force his brand of conservative religion down everyone’s throat. He has sent his forces in to use tear gas, beat, throw illegal chemical compounds, and to imprison others whom he regards as threats to his Islamic régime. As the laws of the land do not seem to apply anymore in the country, I fear for my own children’s future, my niece who is in Istanbul, my family, my friends, my fellow citizens safety, and then I fear for the whole world’s safety. The new growing Turkey that has brought together worlds of religion, cultures and worldly growth is suddenly showing inordinate levels of intolerance.
I am a Turkish American mom who wants raise her kids in a world with peace, love, and tolerance in harmony. The world needs to know what is going on in Turkey right now, and to know that this is not the country that the Turkish people are used to, and apparently, based on the uprisings going on now, it is not the way they wish to live. It is no longer just about saving trees or the park, but about regaining democratic human rights.
This is an original guest post written for World Moms Blog by Ebru who grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, and now splits her time between Istanbul and the United States of America.
Have you been following the story of the uprising in Turkey?
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 Elizabeth Atalay | May 28, 2013 | 2013, Birthing, Clean Birth Kits, Contraception, Social Good, Social Media, Women's Rights, World Events, World Moms Blog, World Voice
Beginning today in Kuala Lumpur the world gathers at the Women Deliver conference, the third global conference to be held focusing on the health and well-being of girls and women. Starting today and running through May 30th International leaders, policymakers, healthcare professionals, NGO’s, youth leaders, corporations, and media outlets recognize the value of girls and women and take on solutions to issues affecting girls and women around the world. It is becoming increasingly clear that the most valuable investment we can make is in girls and women.
With the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline rapidly approaching, the time is now to deliver for girls and women, and Women Deliver 2013 will serve as a global platform for ensuring that the health and rights of girls and women remain top priorities now, and for decades to come.
Luckily we do not have to travel to Malaysia to participate; You can watch the conference livestream or go back to find the sessions that have been recorded that you may have missed. You can chime in or follow using the hashtag #WD2013 on twitter, and get the days re-cap by looking through #WDLive.
The +Social Good community also launched in Kuala Lumpur this week, and was inspired by the Social Good Summit, as a community of innovators, connectors and global citizens come together with the shared vision to make the world a better place. There are many ways to join in on the global conversation this week around women, girls and social good, we’ll see you there!
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 Jennifer Burden | May 28, 2013 | Shot@Life, Social Good, Uganda, World Voice
Jennifer Burden traveled by invitation of the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign to Uganda to observe UNICEF’s Family and Child Health Days, where children are provided life-saving vaccinations. This post reflects on Day 3 of her adventure in October. She has previously reported on day 1 about UNICEF offices in Kampala, Uganda and day 2 of her trip at a UNICEF Family Health Day in Mumbende, Uganda.
Riverboat Safari
On Day 3 of our Ugandan adventure we took a detour. We were scheduled to meet with the health staff who were going to be working at the Family Health Days that we were visiting on Sunday, but they were still busy preparing for Sunday. So, we found ourselves with unexpected free time. What better thing to do in Africa when your plans fall through than to visit one of Uganda’s national parks?
Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. Jennifer Burden of World Moms Blog with Jenny Eckton of the blog, Formerly Phread while in Uganda in October 2012 with Shot@Life.
Saturday’s adventure led us to Queen Elizabeth National Park, where we went on a river safari cruise on Lake Edward. We saw a multitude of hippos and buffalo, as well as, elephants, crocodiles, monkeys and beautiful birds. We hopped a riverboat and spent the entire time out on the water. I have never seen so many hippos in my life. Apparently, some had been brought to the park in the 1960s, and they’ve been expanding every since! One moment the waters would appear empty, but the next many hippo heads popping up out of the water! Babies followed their moms. They swam around together in groups. Absolutely incredible!
Culture & Signs of Extreme Poverty
The excursion was a fantastic opportunity for our delegation to get a feel of the country’s natural beauty and a great team building exercise. We were bonded going into the next Family Health Day. However, driving through the extreme poverty on the long bus ride through the country really put into perspective how much UNICEF’s efforts were needed.
We saw homes made of only big sticks and mud with reeds or tin for roofs. Although they are great “green” homes for the country’s beautiful African sun drenched days, they are unsuitable when temperatures become very cold at night and there is no running water or electricity.
Ugandan house made of mud and sticks.
Also, children were seen walking long distances in school uniforms, many alone. Women, men and children carried large yellow containers to collect water in and walked for miles home. An image that will never cease to amaze me — the site of an African woman balancing her load on her head and walking on the roadside barefoot.
Woman in Uganda walking on side of road in western Uganda.
Unfinished homes and store fronts were quite common. We were told that owners would save up for bricks and then add gradually to the structure over many years. It was not uncommon to see unfinished storefronts in use or piles of bricks that had been delivered to unfinished residences. Bricks were made of heated, dried mud.
Here is an example of a typical storefront. This one is a bicycle shop and a clothing store. Often times, the storefronts were painted by companies seeking to advertise mobile phones and other products.
Common roadside storefront in Uganda.
We were truly humbled by our trip out to western Uganda. The further we drove away from Kampala, the more common it was to see mud huts. And storefronts were everywhere, often with mothers manning them and children playing outside. Day 3 was a truly memorable day. We captured photos that changed us and that will stay in our advocacy hearts forever. This day was good for our delegation to get to know each other better and prepare for the next round of Family Health Days on Day 4.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by founder, Jennifer Burden of New Jersey, USA.
Photo credits to the author.
Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India.
She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls.
Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.
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by Mannahattamamma (UAE) | May 22, 2013 | Body Image, Cultural Differences, Feminism, Human Rights, Religion, SAHM, Sex, Tunisia, UAE, Womanhood, Women's Rights, World Events, World Voice
I used to have a college professor—of women’s studies, of course—who would occasionally start class when we were particularly chatty and inattentive by saying, loudly, “SEX!” Our heads would whip around to stare at her and the room would be silent.
The professor would chuckle and then start the lesson, which almost never had anything to do with sex—or at least not sex in an interesting way. Her way of talking about sex was dry and academic, having to do with words like “hegemony” or “heteronormative.”
I thought about that professor a few weeks ago when I read about “International Topless Jihad Day,” sponsored by FEMEN in support of Amina Tyler, who had sparked a global controversy by posting a topless pictures of herself on Facebook with “my body belongs to me and is not the source of anyone’s honor,” scrawled on her naked chest in Arabic. Tyler’s life—and the lives of her family—were threatened after the pictures were posted; she has since left Tunisia, where she lived.
The topless jihadists claimed that their actions showed solidarity with Amina and sent a message to the world that women’s bodies belong to no one but themselves. And yet it seems a bit like my professor yelling SEX! FEMEN is yelling BOOBS–and the topless jihad did, it’s true, get a lot of press coverage. The coverage drew attention to Amina’s plight but also gave respected media outlets a chance to run pictures of boobs and more boobs: Huffington Post ran a whole slideshow of revolutionary boobs. (more…)
After twenty-plus years in Manhattan, Deborah Quinn and her family moved to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates), where she spends a great deal of time driving her sons back and forth to soccer practice. She writes about travel, politics, feminism, education, and the absurdities of living in a place where temperatures regularly go above 110F.
Deborah can also be found on her blog, Mannahattamamma.
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by Ms. V. (South Korea) | May 21, 2013 | 2013, Human Rights, Humanity, International, Korea, N. Korea, South Korea, World Moms Blog, World Voice
As the world watches and wonders what, if anything, is going to transpire as a result of North Korea’s recent threats against South Korea and the US, we sit here in Seoul going about life as usual. Indeed if it weren’t for the international news coverage, I could have easily remained blissfully unaware of what our neighbor to the north has been up to these past few weeks.
Perhaps because they are used to it, or perhaps because stopping everything is simply not an option, South Koreans continue on with life. I suspect it’s a combination of the two. If there is a great deal of fear about the threats, it is not apparent. There seems to be more of a sense of annoyance that we have to play out this charade once again. It is incredibly frustrating that North Korea can set a whole region of the world on edge with these oft-repeated promises of obliteration. (more…)
Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states.
Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.
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by Elizabeth Atalay | May 14, 2013 | 2013, Interviews, Social Good, Social Media, United Nations, World Interviews, World Moms Blog, World Voice
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
World Moms Blog recently took part in the Global Mom Relay, developed in partnership with United Nations Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, BabyCenter and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Leading the effort were Co-chairs Arianna Huffington, Jennifer Lopez, Lynda Lopez, Elizabeth Gore, and Sharon D’Agostino. The relay supported the Every Woman Every Child Movement launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to improve the quality of life of women and children in line with The Millennium Development Goals to be reached by 2015.
Each time a Global Mom Relay piece was shared, a $5 donation was made by Johnson & Johnson and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to one of the four partners, the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Health(MAMA) ,Shot@Life, Girl Up , or the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
World Moms Blog Founder Jennifer Burden and Social Good Editor Elizabeth Atalay attended the culminating event in New York City last week, the MOM + SOCIAL Conference at the Tribeca campus of the 92Y.
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to interview Elizabeth Gore, one of the co-chairs of the Global Mom Relay, host of the MOM + SOCIAL, resident entrepreneur at the United Nations Foundation, former championship equestrian turned inspirational advocate, and mom to Opal Mae.
Elizabeth Atalay: Can you tell me a little bit about how you transitioned from championship equestrian to champion for women and children?
Elizabeth Gore: I grew up on a cattle and horse ranch in Texas, and was the first female to graduate from college in my family. At Texas A & M University I showed horses, and I always thought that I would eventually go back to help manage the family ranch.
The tipping point came for me when a friend of mine had to drop out of school because she became pregnant. There were no family or child services available for students on campus at the time. We protested, and advocated, until the university finally created a children’s center. (more…)
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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