by Meredith (USA) | Nov 8, 2012 | Africa, Being Thankful, Child Care, Childhood, Eye on Culture, Family, Motherhood, Nigeria, World Motherhood
Asking for help has always been a problem for me. Even when I knew I didn’t really know how to do something, I never wanted people to think I didn’t know something. I know I am not perfect but to let others see it was one of my worst fears.
Before I moved to Nigeria, I tried to be one of those super moms. My children were 3 and 15 months, and I felt like I could do it all: grocery shopping, house cleaning, taking care of our dogs, cooking, play time, mother, sister, wife, friend. And, I could do all of those things, but I was exhausted all the time. At the end of each day, I could barely read one page of a great book because my eyes just would not stay open no matter how much I willed them to do so!
When my husband told me about the possibility of moving to Nigeria, a flood of anxiety and fear swept over me: What would the medical care be like over there? What was the time difference? Would it be safe? Where would my son go to school? Would we die of malaria? It never occurred to me that there would be such a pleasant surprise in store for me amid all the negativity and fears I had of going there.
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Meredith finds it difficult to tell anyone where she is from exactly! She grew up in several states, but mainly Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana which is also where she met her husband. She taught kindergarten for seven years before she adopted her son from Guatemala and then gave birth to her daughter two years leter. She moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband and two children in July 2009 for her husband's work. She and her family moved back to the U.S.this summer(August 2012) and are adjusting to life back in the U.S. You can read more about her life in Lagos and her adjustment to being back on her blog: We Found Happiness.
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by Jennifer Burden | Oct 30, 2012 | Africa, Eye on Culture, Health, International, Shot@Life, Social Good, United Nations, World Moms Blog, World Voice, Younger Children
Yesterday, I found myself donning a hijab and touring the inside of a mosque in Mubende, Uganda. It was not my ordinary Friday afternoon as a stay-at-home mom in suburban New Jersey…
By invitation of the UN Foundation, I’m on an observatory trip to Uganda with the Shot@Life campaign delegation to take a first-hand look at UNICEF‘s programs in the country.
This past July UNICEF began bringing the medicine to the people, instead of trying to get the people to the medicine. They’ve had great progress in partnering with religious organizations to make this happen because 90% of Ugandans attend a church or mosque every week according to UNICEF.
So, our first Family and Child Health Day stop was at Mubende Town Mosque on Day Two.
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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 Jennifer Burden | Oct 16, 2012 | Africa, Shot@Life, Social Good, Travel, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, World Voice, Younger Children
World Moms Blog founder, Jennifer Burden, is headed to Uganda soon with the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign!
Last week I got the e-mail…”We have had a spot open up on our observation trip to Uganda (which is in two weeks), and we thought of you.” I had less than 24 hours to decide to accept the incredible invitation from the UN Foundation, and before I knew it, I was reading every travel advisory for Uganda under the sun.
The Shot@Life trip will be observing UNICEF’s bi- and tri-annual Family and Child Health Days, where children are given Vitamin A tablets to boost immunity and prevent blindness, deworming tablets to treat parasitic infections, routine polio and measles immunization, monitoring for nutritional status and insecticide treated mosquito nets to prevent malaria. There will also be visits to other routine immunization clinics, schools, places of worship and other places in rural Ugandan communities.
Could I leave my girls, 5-years old and 19-months old, for a week? They would be just fine for one week. Remember all that stuff you’ve told yourself about teaching social good to your children by setting a good example? Well, this. Yes, this. (more…)
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 Elizabeth Atalay | Oct 9, 2012 | 2012, Africa, Culture, Ethiopia, Inspirational, International, Motherhood, Social Good, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, World Voice
We are in Ethiopia this week, virtually following along with the ONEMoms team as they traverse the country gathering material to share with the world. “ONE.org is a non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Backed by more than 3 million members, ONE .org works with government leaders to support proven and cost efficient solutions to save lives and help build sustainable futures.”-ONE.org
Photo Credit: Rana DiOrio
World Moms Blog is excited recently to have become a community partner of ONEMoms and we’d like to bring you along as we follow their trip of 12 ONE Moms traveling through Ethiopia from October 6th through October 13th.
The diverse group of ONEMoms includes a Supermodel/Activist, a Book Publisher, a Pig Farmer, Mom Bloggers, Food Writers, a Lawyer, a Scientist and a designer. Their goal is to meet up with Ethiopian women, agriculturalists and health care workers, and in doing so engage us in a global dialog on the important issues faced in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is a fascinating country, and the only country in Africa that was never colonized. The Italian government’s long ago attempt to do so apparently left hints of Italian influence behind. It is the most populous land locked country in the world, and home to over 80 languages.
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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 Natalia Rankine-Galloway (Morocco) | Sep 20, 2012 | Living Abroad, Motherhood, Relocating, Tunisia, World Events, World Motherhood
Tunis: 1st impressions….hot, beautiful, ancient….and dirty.
Between the bustle of the Medina, the rocky remains of Carthage and the white-washed walls and crisp blue sea views of Sidi Bou Sa’id lie fields, highway divides and alleyways of litter.
While the omnipresence of trash and it’s accompanying odor, flies and wild dogs are something you quickly become accustomed to and learn to look past, it is hard not to think about how much more lovely this city could be without it.
Why, I asked myself, can people not find a better way to get rid of their trash? Don’t they care about their city? An editorial in a local French language paper echoed my thoughts and reported the shame of having to apologize to visitors for the state of their public spaces; asking them to look past the litter to find the beauty of their country.
As a scrupulous sorter of my trash, compost and recycling back home, it was a shock to the system to see all manner of glass, plastic, paper and vegetation strewn willy-nilly along the road leading up to our beautifully maintained and manicured Embassy home. I reduce, reuse and recycle! I care about the the future of the planet my kids will inherit! I could never do such a thing…
And then it came time to dispose of our own garbage. (more…)
Natalia was born a stone's throw from the Queen's racetrack in Ascot, UK and has been trying to get a ticket to the races and a fabulous hat to go with it ever since. She was born to a Peruvian mother and an Irish father who kept her on her toes, moving her to Spain, Ireland and back to the UK before settling her in New York for the length of middle and high school. She is still uncertain of what she did to deserve that.
She fled to Boston for college and then Washington, D.C. to marry her wonderful husband, who she met in her freshman year at college. As a military man, he was able to keep her in the migratory lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. Within 5 months of marriage, they were off to Japan where they stayed for a wonderful 2 and one half years before coming home to roost. Baby Xavier was born in New York in 2011 and has not slept since.
A joy and an inspiration, it was Xavier who moved Natalia to entrepreneurship and the launch of CultureBaby. She has loved forging her own path and is excited for the next step for her family and CultureBaby.
Natalia believes in the potential for peace that all children carry within them and the importance of raising them as global citizens. She loves language, history, art and culture as well as Vietnamese Pho, Argentinian Malbec, English winters, Spanish summers and Japanese department stores...and she still hopes one day to catch the number 9 race with Queen Liz.
You can find her personal blog, The Culture Mum Chronicles.
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by World Moms Blog | Sep 8, 2012 | Canada, Eva Fannon, France, Grandparent, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Purnima, Saturday Sidebar, Scoops of Joy, Singapore, South Africa, Tara B., The Alchemist, USA, World Moms Blog
This week’s Saturday Sidebar Question comes from World Moms Blog writer Karyn Van Der Zwet.
In honor of grandparents’ day celebrated in some parts of the world this weekend, Karyn asked our writers,
“What do your children call their grandparents?”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Alison Lee of Malaysia writes:
“My son calls his paternal grandparents ‘Ji-Doh’ (grandfather) and ‘Nona’ (grandmother).”
Carol @ If By Yes of British Columbia, Canada writes:
“My mother in law is Grandma, because all her grandchildren call her that. My father in law is grandpa for the same reason. My mother is Nana, and my father was going to be Grampy, but Owl seems to have labeled him Ba Ba. A lot of the boys on my dad’s side of the family say “Bramy” for grandfathers.”
Eva Fannon of Washington State, USA writes:
“My kids call my parents Abuelo and Abuelita (Spanish for grandfather and an affectionate way of saying grandmother). They call my husband’s parents Pop and Grannie.” (more…)
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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