by Kyla P'an (Portugal) | Nov 13, 2012 | Ethiopia, Eye on Culture, Girls, Health, Human Rights, Inspirational, International, Maternal Health, Media, Multicultural, Social Good, Tragedy, Travel, Uncategorized, United Nations, USA, Womanhood, World Events, World Interviews, World Moms Blog Writer Interview, World Voice
As we continue to explore the world of women and moms across the globe, occasionally World Moms Blog will bring you exclusive interviews with people outside of our contributor base. These interviews will focus on people and organizations that are moving and shaking the world and in the process, are bringing greater awareness to women everywhere.
World Moms Blog Founder and Editor, Jennifer Burden, met Andi Gitow at the September Social Good Summit in New York City. Jen could tell Andi was someone that had a role worth sharing with World Moms. Below is a recap of a recent phone interview WMB Senior Editor, Kyla P’an, conducted with Andi :
WMB: World Moms Blog is a blog that focuses on motherhood around the globe, on social good, and on human rights. Can you tell us about an aspect of your work at the UN that overlaps one or any of these topics?
Andi Gitow: My work and films largely focus on human rights and the causes and long lasting legacy of violence. This includes the use of rape and sexual crimes as a weapon of war. I have covered stories on human rights violations and conflict and healing in Bosnia, Liberia, and Darfur. Other issues we have covered include maternal health and the risks mothers face in the developing world. I have found in my coverage that human rights and women’s’ rights regularly overlap.
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Kyla was born in suburban Philadelphia but spent most of her time growing up in New England. She took her first big, solo-trip at age 14, when she traveled to visit a friend on a small Greek island. Since then, travels have included: three months on the European rails, three years studying and working in Japan, and nine months taking the slow route back from Japan to the US when she was done. In addition to her work as Managing Editor of World Moms Network, Kyla is a freelance writer, copy editor, recovering triathlete and occasional blogger. Until recently, she and her husband resided outside of Boston, Massachusetts, where they were raising two spunky kids, two frisky cats, a snail, a fish and a snake. They now live outside of Lisbon, Portugal with two spunky teens and three frisky cats. You can read more about Kyla’s outlook on the world and parenting on her personal blogs, Growing Muses And Muses Where We Go
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by Alison Fraser | Nov 6, 2012 | Canada, World Interviews, World Moms Blog Writer Interview
Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
I live in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada which is a city just outside of Toronto. I am originally from the little town of Long Sault, Ontario.
What language(s) do you speak?
English is my first language. I graduated from secondary school with an official “Certificate of Bilingualism” but have lost most of my French language skills over the years.
When did you first become a mother?
My oldest daughter, Ryleigh, was born in 2003. My middle daughter, Camryn, arrived shortly thereafter in 2005 and baby girl number three, Quynn, rounded out the family in 2007. There is a 3 year, 8 month age gap between my oldest and youngest daughter.
Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you work outside the home?
I work as an Environmental Toxicologist for an environmental consulting company. I have been with the same company for ten years and I am now an Associate with the firm.
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Alison Fraser is the mother of three young girls ranging in age from 5 to 9 years old. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Alison works as an Environmental Toxicologist with a human environment consulting company and is an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She is also the founder and director of the Canadian Not for Profit Organization, Mom2Mom Africa, which serves to fund the school fees of children and young women in rural Tanzania. Recently recognized and awarded a "Women of Waterloo Region" award, Alison is very involved in charitable events within her community including Christmas Toy and School Backpack Drives for the local foodbank.
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by Maggie Ellison | Nov 5, 2012 | Being Thankful, Home, Inspirational, Motherhood, Natural Disaster, Safety, Tragedy, Uncategorized, USA, Weather, World Events, World Motherhood, Younger Children
A week ago, Hurricane Sandy made landfall very close to our home in New Jersey.
We live in a waterfront neighborhood, where some people live bay-front and the rest of us live on lagoons. Even though a mandatory evacuation was issued, we wondered whether we really needed to evacuate, since we live on one of the furthest lagoons from the bay and because we knew how many feet above mean high tide we are. But, with young children, we chose not to take any chances and heeded the warning. We spent the hurricane at a cousin’s house, leaving our home on Sunday. The storm was at its worst on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon we were able to return home.
From my cousin’s home, we watched strong gusts of wind come and take down trees and saw some flooding but that was nothing compared to what we would see when we went home.
We were very lucky. We could see the water line in our yard. If the water had come up another 1.5 feet, we would have had flooding inside our house. We lost part of our dock, stairs and walkway, all of which were still under water when we first got home. We had some branches come down and a shutter fly off the house.
We have now spent a few days working in and out of the house and are just about back to normal. We lost electricity but it was restored four days later. Now we have a freezer and fridge to clean out. We saved what we could, but couldn’t save it all.
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Maggie is so grateful to be raising her 2 children with her husband in the low country of South Carolina. Life at the beach is what she’s always known, although living in SC is new to this NJ native! The beauty of the live oaks and the palmettos takes her breath away on a daily basis and being able to go to the beach all year is a dream for her. Art and music have also always been a part of Maggie’s life, and she is happy that her family has the same love and appreciation for it that she does.
Maggie and her family are also very active. Her husband coaches both kids in soccer, and they like to spend their time outdoors kayaking, biking, swimming, camping, etc. They try to seize every moment they can together, and they feel that it’s not just the family time that is important. They want their kids to know a life of activity and respect for the outdoors, expose them to new things and teach them about the world! Maggie and her family are no strangers to overcoming life's challenges. They've had to uproot their family several times when jobs have been lost in the economic crisis.
They also lovingly face the challenges of having a child diagnosed with special needs. Through all this, Maggie has learned to celebrate the good times and never take them for granted. Her family is everything to her, and she is incredibly grateful for every day she has with them and for every moment she has shared with them. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t tell them she loves them and how lucky she is to be her kids’ mommy. How sweet!
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by Roxanne (USA) | Oct 31, 2012 | Economy, Education, Elections, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Rox is Brilliant, Single Mother, Unintentionally Brilliant, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Here in the States, it’s election time. That glorious time of year when you can’t turn on the television or the radio or open your mailbox or drive down the street without being bombarded with all the VOTE FOR ME advertisements.
I hate this time of year.
The election signs make our neighborhood look trashy, the mail just gets tossed so it’s a waste of paper, and my Facebook timeline is filled with arguments about whose candidate is better for America (or Nevada, when it comes to local elections). People get mean. Vicious. And it makes everyone just seem ignorant.
It’s also the one time, every four years, when I’m forced to rethink my stance on everything. I question everything I believe in. And, I wonder, with how ill-informed I feel most of the time when it comes to politics, how will I ever be able to teach my child how to make his own decisions when it comes to our democratic process? (more…)
Roxanne is a single mother to a 9-year-old superhero (who was born 7 weeks premature), living in the biggest little city and blogging all about her journey at Unintentionally Brilliant. She works as a Program Coordinator for the NevadaTeach program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Roxanne has a B.A. in English from Sierra Nevada College. She has about 5 novels in progress and dreams about completing one before her son goes to high school.
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by World Moms Blog | Oct 27, 2012 | Eva Fannon, France, Home, Japan, Kids, Philippines, Purnima, Saturday Sidebar, The Alchemist, Tina Santiago-Rodriguez, Truly Rich Mom, USA
This week’s Saturday Sidebar Question comes from World Moms Blog writer Maman Aya. She asked our writers,
“At what age would you start to leave your child at home without supervision; how long would you leave them and where do you live (i.e. an apt in a busy city, a house in a busy suburb, on a farm, etc)?”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Picture courtesy of Alison Lee of Writing, Wishing
Hamakkomommy of Japan writes:
My only answer is not yet! My kids are seven and five. We live in an apartment in a large city. In Japan, it’s assumed that first grade is old enough to stay home alone or go about the neighborhood alone. Sometimes even younger kids are left home alone for short periods. Teachers leave the classroom during break times, etc. Even preschool teachers will leave the kids unattended for a minute or two. It’s very different from the attitude I grew up with!
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 Carol (Canada) | Oct 24, 2012 | Babies, Canada, Child Care, Health, Parenting
Of all of my parenting decisions, my choice to use cloth diapers raises the most eyebrows.
People tend to treat it like an admirable but inconvenient decision that they would never seriously consider themselves, like converting your car to run on vegetable oil or biking everywhere instead of driving.
They see it as difficult, and a little weird.
This bothers me, because I think my choice is more convenient, not less.
I use a diaper service, Happy Nappy, and since they bring my diapers to my door and take them away from me on a weekly basis, you could argue that my choice is actually lazier than using disposables, since I never have to go shopping for diapers. I don’t deal with any more poop than a parent who uses disposables. In fact, since I find that disposables have a deplorable tendency to leak poop down my baby’s leg, I actually deal with more poop when he’s in disposables.
Their cost is comparable to disposables – around $25 a week – and service becomes free after you’ve been with them for 30 months, because kids usually potty train earlier in cloth diapers. So either my kid will be potty trained by 30 months, or I get free diapers. That makes it a cheaper choice, even with the convenience of a diaper service.
So here I am, making a cheaper and more convenient choice, but people respond as though I was hand-knitting my entire family’s wardrobe or something. (more…)
Carol from If By Yes has lived in four different Canadian provinces as well as the Caribbean. Now she lives in Vancouver, working a full time job at a vet clinic, training dogs on the side, and raising her son and daughter to be good citizens of the world.
Carol is known for wearing inside-out underwear, microwaving yoghurt, killing house plants, over-thinking the mundane, and pointing out grammatical errors in "Twilight". When not trying to wrestle her son down for a nap, Carol loves to read and write.
Carol can also be found on her blog, If By Yes, and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets
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