by Jennifer Burden | Aug 5, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Education, Humanitarian, Older Children, Save The Children, Social Good, Social Media, World Moms Blog, World Voice, Younger Children
World Moms Blog is thrilled to be taking part in Save the Children‘s #FindTheWords campaign. The campaign raises awareness over 30 days with 30 words to emphasize that every child needs early education to thrive. The community of mothers that form World Moms Blog are committed to improving not just the lives of our own children, but of all children around the world.
Just by helping us spread the word by sharing on social media you will be entered to win a $100.00 gift card!
CREATE
The inspiration word we were given by Save the Children for this post was “create.”
We believe in creating the world we want to live in, here, at World Moms Blog. When I was looking to find a one-stop-place to read about mothers in different cultures and countries back in 2010, I couldn’t find what I was looking for. So on a whim, I decided to create the site I wanted to follow, just for fun.
In turn, the web site led me to new corners of the globe for social good and to meet my fellow World Moms, raised awareness for global health programs for women and children, created various international journalistic opportunities and fellowships for our contributors, and connected many very different women whom, otherwise, may have never connected, but are so glad they did!
Today, World Moms Blog writes from over twenty different countries spanning the globe, yet, we’ve found that mothers from such diverse places all want the same things for their children: health, peace, education, and security. We all want to see our children thrive and grow to their full potential.
There is an incredible sense of pride in creating something, whether you are a child creating a “masterpiece” or a mom creating the family financial plan. In creating World Moms Blog, I have had the opportunity to see many of our contributors run wild with their passions across our pages and witness our editors build our behind-the-scenes in managing over 60 volunteer contributors. That’s creation gone wild, and I love it!
With the help of the women who were part of writing and/or later embraced our mission statement, our site has blossommed into a tight-knit, albeit, world-wide community where the contributors and readers alike are able to broaden their worlds and connect over continents…all through the conduit of motherhood.
The word create inspires all we stand for at World Moms Blog. Whether it is to create an opportunity for yourself or for others to thrive globally, to create the life you want to lead, or the world you want to live in.
And we admire the work of Save The Children in creating a safe, healthy space for the children who need it most. Kids are at our heartstrings! Here are some amazing facts about the challenges children face around the globe:
- The first years of life are critical in children’s development, shaping cognitive, social and language skills, as well as lifelong approaches to learning. Evidence shows that 85 percent of brain growth occurs in the first five years of life.
- By age three, children from low-income homes hear on average 30 million fewer words than their peers, putting them 18 months cognitively behind his or her peers when they start school.
- 65% of young kids in need have little or no access to books. More than two-thirds of poverty-stricken households do not possess a single book developmentally appropriate for a child under five.
- Parents who talk less with their children in an engaging and supportive way have kids who are less likely to develop their full intellectual potential than kids who hear a significant amount of child-directed speech.
- Around the world, if all students in low-income countries acquire basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty.
Help create the future we want for children with Save the Children’s #FindTheWords. Early education creates an environment for young minds to flourish all over the world.
Just by helping us spread the word by sharing on social media you will be entered to win a $100.00 gift card, here are the rules:
To enter share our post via twitter or Facebook or Snap a picture anywhere you see the word “Create” out in the world (or what it means to you) then post it to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
To officially participate, your contributions must be tagged with the proper hashtags
#FindTheWords
#Create
and don’t forget to tag @WorldMomsBlog so we know you are in the running to win!
(The more people who share our posts the better chance we have of winning an interview with actress Jennifer Garner! So what are you waiting for!?)
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This is an original post to World Moms Blog by founder, Jennifer Burden.
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 | Jun 24, 2014 | 2014, Africa, Awareness, Babies, Birthing, Ethiopia, Health, Humanitarian, Maternal Health, Millennium Development Goals, Motherhood, Newborn Health, Pregnancy, Save The Children, Social Good, Third Eye Mom, Travel, World Moms Blog, World Voice
We had just spent the night at the source of the Blue Nile River. Lake Tana sits in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and as our caravan of Land Cruisers wove through the countryside from Bahir Dar to Mosebo I took in deep gulping breaths of sweet fresh Ethiopian air. The lush colors of our surroundings looked to me like they had been enhanced in Photoshop in the way that everything seemed to pop. How could I feel this emotional connection to place that was never mine? A place I had never been?
Though this is my first time in Ethiopia, the verdant landscape brought me back to other rural parts of Africa I’d traveled through in my youth, similar topographies that had stayed with me ever since. This time I’d returned to the continent as a new media fellow with the International Reporting Project to report on newborn health. World Moms Blog Editor Nicole Melancon of ThirdEyeMom is a fellow on the trip as well, and last week wrote about our initial overview of maternal and newborn health in Ethiopia. Now we were heading to one of the villages housing a Health Post, which serves the local and surrounding population of approximately 3,500 people.
Mosebo Village is part of Save The Children’s Saving Newborn Lives program, and as such is looked to as a model village in the Ethiopian Government’s plan to reduce maternal and newborn mortality. Mosebo is a rural agrarian community that produces wheat, teff and corn. There I met seven-year-old Zina whose mother, Mebrate was about to give birth. Through our translator Mebrate estimated her age to be around 26, and told us that Zina was her first child. For economic reasons she and her husband had waited to have a second. When she had Zina, Mebrate had gone to her parent’s home to give birth, as women in Ethiopia often do. It is estimated that 80% of Ethiopian mothers will give birth in their home, often without a trained health care attendant. Towards the end of Mebrate’s first pregnancy she went to live with her parents as her family instructed, until after the baby was born. In that way her mother could help her deliver, could care for her and the baby, and feed her the traditional porridge after birth. Although there were no complications during her delivery, sadly, many young mothers giving birth at home are not as fortunate. The time period during and around birth are the most vulnerable for the lives of both the mothers and babies. The Saving Newborn Lives Program aims to reduce maternal and newborn mortality beginning with awareness programs and antenatal care on the local level at Health Posts like the one we visited in Mosebo.
The Mosebo Health Post and Health Extension Workers
We had met Tirgno and Fasika, the two Health Extension Workers at the Mosebo Health Post earlier that day as they showed us the two room interior, and explained their role in improving maternal and newborn health. They work to raise awareness in the community about the importance of antenatal care, and the potential dangers of giving birth at home for both mother and child. Newborn health is interdependent with maternal health, and the most prevalent causes of newborn mortality, infection, Asphyxiation, pre-maturity or low birth weight, and diarrhea can often be avoided with proper care. These days in Mosebo after receiving antenatal care at the Health Post women are then referred to the regional Health Center for deliveries.
Zina shyly smiled when we ask her how she felt about having a new sibling, she stood straight and tall listening intently as we asked her mother about the babies’ arrival. When Mebrate goes into labor this time, with her second child, she will embark on the walk along rural dirt roads for around an hour to the nearest Health Center to give birth.
Elizabeth Atalay is reporting from Ethiopia as a fellow with the International Reporting Project (IRP). This is an original post written for World Moms Blog.
You can follow all IRP reports by World Moms Elizabeth Atalay & Nicole Melancon at #EthiopiaNewborns
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 Karyn Wills | Jun 23, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Brothers, Childhood, Culture, Education, Eye on Culture, Kids, Multicultural, Music, Nature, New Zealand, School, Siblings, Traditions, World Motherhood
It’s mid-winter in New Zealand. The air is crisper than I’ve felt it for a while, the leaves have pretty much fallen and we have had the shortest day of the year.
This week also saw the appearance of the star cluster, Matariki, (The Pleiades), which heralds the Maori New Year.
This was not a festival I had ever heard of growing up but it has been revised and reinstated and there are now celebrations being held all around New Zealand. While different tribes traditionally celebrated Matariki in their own fashion, now it is universally marked by the new moon and rising of the Matariki star cluster with festivities running from 1st June to 30th July.
Traditionally, Matariki was a time of celebration, important for navigation and the timing of the seasons. It was particularly relevant to the preparation of the ground for the upcoming growing season and offerings to the gods, and specifically, Rongo, the Maori god of cultivated food.
Only a few New Zealand schools consistently mark mid-winter and Matariki but for our boys’ school, festivals are an important part of the culture and I have two mid-winter events to attend this coming week.
On Wednesday evening, my youngest son has a lantern walk through a public garden. Imagine a waterfall and a large pond with a bridge over it and a stream running throughout. Imagine 30 or so small (3-6 year-old) children clutching a paper lantern with a candle in one hand and a parent’s hand in the other as we meander through the park in, otherwise, pitch black. We will wander past tiny grottos of handmade gnomes and crystals, we will attempt to sing (although for the children, it’s enough that they manage to walk and stay upright!) and we finish gathered together, munching on a star shaped, ginger or shortbread biscuit.
On Thursday evening, my older sons have their mid-winter festival, beginning with a shadow play performed by their teachers. After the play, the children who are between 10 and 14 gather in small groups amongst the trees at school and the youngest children, guided by their lanterns and teachers, meander from group to group and hear the older children entertain them with a song, or a poem or a tune. The 10 year-olds then follow behind the youngest to see the older children’s performances and the 11 year-olds follow them, and so on. They will finish with their classmates and a biscuit and warm drink.
The magic in these events is heart-warming and the children just seem to absorb the atmosphere; they appreciate the small snippets of light amongst the darkness, the companionship, the quiet musicality of the ’entertainment’ and especially the sharing of food at the end! (So do I.)
Do you celebrate mid-summer and mid-winter? How do schools where you live mark these seasonal events?
Sources: NZ Ministry of Culture and Heritage; Wikipedia
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our writer and mother of three boys in New Zealand, Karyn Van Der Zwet.
The image used in this post is credited to Wikipedia images with editing from Dayne Laird (Ministry for Culture and Heritage, NZ)
Karyn is a teacher, writer and solo mother to three sons. She lives in the sunny wine region of Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand in the city of Napier.
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by Ewa Samples | Jun 20, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Environment, Family, Health, Human Rights, Humanity, Inspirational, Motherhood, Parenting, Polish Mom Photographer, Safety, USA, World Motherhood
Four years ago I bought my last body lotion and body wash. Two years ago, for several months I went “no-poo”. Around that time I also threw all my deodorants in a trash can.
The only thing I have gotten back to is the shampoo. I do, though, try to make it myself every now and then. The rest of the cosmetics are not very welcome on my bathroom shelf, unless I make them myself.
Because of that, I normally try to stay on top of situations in which I may run out of something (and also because I simply refuse to use the toiletries that are on my husband’s shelf in the bathroom). Funny thing is that he has way more “beauty products” than I do, and he does not have a lot of them, compared to most people.
… but one day it happened, I ran out of my shampoo…
Luckily it was a shopping day. Happy that I didn’t actually have to make an extra trip to the grocery store just to get a shampoo, with my greasy hair tied in a ponytail, I left the house. Because it was pretty late, and we were pretty exhausted from a busy day, we had decided we were going to stop by only one store, not two, like we normally do. (more…)
Ewa was born, and raised in Poland. She graduated University with a master's degree in Mass-Media Education. This daring mom hitchhiked from Berlin, Germany through Switzerland and France to Barcelona, Spain and back again!
She left Poland to become an Au Pair in California and looked after twins of gay parents for almost 2 years. There, she met her future husband through Couch Surfing, an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals.
Today she enjoys her life one picture at a time. She runs a photography business in sunny California and document her daughters life one picture at a time.
You can find this artistic mom on her blog, Ewa Samples Photography, on Twitter @EwaSamples or on Facebook!
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by Susie Newday (Israel) | Jun 18, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Guest Post, Israel, Kids, Media, Motherhood, Parenting, Safety, Terrorism, World Voice
Below is a guest post by Joanna Landau, the founder of Kinetis. I turned to her when I was struggling to write a post about 3 teenagers kidnapped in Israel by terrorists. I knew I wanted to bring attention to the situation because I have been appalled at the lack of press this situation was getting around the world. Fellow World Moms confirmed for me that in their respective countries, the news was getting close to no coverage and in many instances, no coverage at all. Yet here in Israel, no one has thought about anything else for the past 6 days. Joanna has managed to capture all my thoughts and feelings. Please share her message.
The phone rings. “Hey, Mom, it’s me”, your 16 year old son says, “I’m on my way home”. You put the phone down, and go back to whatever it is you’re doing. An hour later, you start to worry, he’s not answering his phone. Two hours later you and your husband start to panic, you call friends, relatives, start canvassing the neighborhood. Three, four, five hours later, you know something’s happened. And then you realize you’ve joined that awful statistic, something’s happened. Turns out your son hitchhiked his way home with a couple of friends, and has been kidnapped. Your worst fears have come true. And now what? What would you do to bring him back, assuming the police are doing everything they can to find him?
There’s a boy called Naftali, and he was kidnapped together with his friends Gilad and Eyal 6 days ago. Naftali called his mother, a half an hour before he got into the car.
This is not a hypothetical situation. It happened in Israel and you may have not heard of it, because it sounds like the kind of thing that can happen in a place where there’s a conflict going on.
And some may put a political twist on it, bringing in all sorts of issues that can cloud the basic, simple fact that three youngsters have been kidnapped.
In Israel it’s the only thing on our mind, as a nation fears for three kids, not soldiers, who have disappeared, apparently taken by terrorists. But it’s not a political story: for every mother, wherever you live, it’s a personal story. Because these things can happen anywhere, and children and teens have become innocent victims of the evils of this world.
In America it may be from a shooting spree at a school, in Nigeria it’s girls at a boarding school. In any country, it may be a bitter divorced parent who takes their kids without telling the ex-spouse; or it can be a sick person who preys on children. Kidnapping can be anywhere, it can happen to anyone.
Gilad, 16 years old, likes to bake and volunteers with youth his age. Apparently, when he steps into a room, his smile lights it up. Naftali plays the guitar, loves football and is an excellent student. Eyal is 19, likes to sing, and sang at his cousin’s wedding not long ago. These are kids, just like yours. They don’t represent the state, they probably never imagined they would. But everyone is turning this into a political, or diplomatic discussion. It’s not. It’s about how fragile this world is and whether you care.
Imagine it was your kid who phoned 6 days ago. Imagine what you’d be feeling today, knowing he’s in the hands of merciless terrorists, or worse. I’m usually a very positive person, with an optimistic outlook on life and a constant desire to make the most of what we have. But as I look at my own three kids, who are 12, 10 and 7 and home safely with me, I wonder how Naftali, Gilad and Eyal’s parents must be feeling.
Premised on the #BringBackOurGirls campaign to raise awareness for the kidnapping of the Nigerian girls, a campaign to #BringBackOurBoys has also exploded online. But only in Israeli and Jewish circles, and hardly in traditional global media sources. Because everyone else is looking at this and just moving on.
If you’re a mother, and you understand how it feels to love your child, and if you believe that children, more than anyone, are innocent until proven guilty, you can’t and shouldn’t remain indifferent to this incident. If you have a 16 or 19 year old kid, hug them tonight, and if these words resonate with you, snap a quick selfie together and help the world #BringBackOurBoys .
Photo Credit: Maya Ben-David & Avner Seliger
This was an original guest post for World Moms Blog by Joanna Landau.
Joanna Landau is the mother of 3 as well as the Founder & Executive Director of Kinetis, a non profit social startup promoting Israel as a hub of creativity and innovation. Kinetis brings leading bloggers from around the world to Israel to experience it for themselves. In addition, Kinetis operates educational programs in Israeli schools, the Army and Universities that aim to reignite national pride.
Susie Newday is a happily-married American-born Israeli mother of five. She is an oncology nurse, blogger and avid amateur photographer.
Most importantly, Susie is a happily married mother of five amazing kids from age 8-24 and soon to be a mother in law. (Which also makes her a chef, maid, tutor, chauffeur, launderer...) Susie's blog, New Day, New Lesson, is her attempt to help others and herself view the lessons life hands all of us in a positive light. She will also be the first to admit that blogging is great free therapy as well. Susie's hope for the world? Increasing kindness, tolerance and love.
You can also follow her Facebook page New Day, New Lesson where she posts her unique photos with quotes as well as gift ideas.
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by Nihad | Jun 18, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Egypt, Husband, Me-Time, Motherhood, Parenting, Relationships, Single Mother, Womanhood, Working Mother, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
My swim coach is in her mid to late twenties and she’s engaged to be married. On several occasions, I’ve noticed from the way she talks, that she does not seem to be happy in her relationship. Today, I didn’t see her engagement ring on her finger so I asked her about it. She said she had taken it off because she was afraid of losing it in the swimming pool.
I mentioned that I thought she had broken up and she confided that she had been on the verge of doing so the day before. She looked so sad and I understand how she feels. She is desperate and disappointed, she loved her fiancé but as he doesn’t show his love she said that she doesn’t feel anything for him anymore and she believes that sooner or later the relationship will be over.
I found myself telling her to think only about her happiness and about making herself the first priority in her life, that she must stop being the only one to give and that she has the right to receive. I expressed concern that by being the only one giving in a relationship, she may find herself, after a few years, frustrated, disappointed and unable to give anymore.
While talking to her, I found myself thinking about how women in my community, as well as in many other communities, grow up with the belief that a woman is created to only give. Everybody around her expects to receive yet no one thinks about what she needs or that she even has needs that must be met. A woman’s role is to make everybody happy even if she is not. Her husband, her children and even her parents expect a lot from her but no one cares about what she expects.
For many long years, I lived with the people surrounding me expecting too much from me. I was giving so much but at a certain point I could not go any farther. I could not accept the idea of burning myself for others while nobody thought about me. My reaction was a little bit aggressive. I could not bear anymore the idea of being a good girl, good wife and good mother.
Being good to my parents meant being obedient to my mother even if she was intruding on my personal life and imposing her beliefs as to what I need to do and what I should not do. Being good to my husband meant I had to take responsibility for everything, take care of his needs, be kind to him, work, and take care of the house all the while never having my needs met. Being a good mother meant taking care of the kids’ needs, studies, training and entertainment.
You may ask why my husband didn’t do his share in all of this? The answer is that we have different values and backgrounds so he always said that none of those things are his priorities, so if I wanted them I had to do it myself. For years I did, but after nine years I exploded and that was a turning point in my life. I got divorced and I lived, as a single mom, with my kids, for five years. Those years were the transformation years.
I finally realized what my mistake was. I was not making myself a priority. I was allowing everybody to make decisions for me. I was not happy yet I was expected to make others happy. I never thought about my needs, I was only focusing on the needs of my family. I reached a point where I couldn’t give love anymore. How could I do that with my emotional tank empty? To give love to others you need to get your emotional tank refilled. Only then will you be able to give love to everybody around you.
It took me years and I’m still working on it, learning to constantly refill my emotional tank from different resources in order to be able to give . That’s exactly what I told my lovely and kind swimming coach in my conversation with her today. Get your emotional tank refilled, do your best to find your own satisfaction and fulfillment. Do whatever you can to make yourself happy. Only then will you be able to give love to others . You will feel happy even if you don’t receive love from others because you already have your tank refilled.
I really sympathize with women in my community because they are taught lies about what it means to be a good wife and good mother and they believe it. They live internally unhappy but do not dare to object or ask for what they need. They feel that they must accept what they’re given. They are looking for approval from others and they are afraid to reject the beliefs they were bought up on.
What beliefs in your community hurt women’s well being yet they don’t dare to reject them?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Nihad from Alexandria, Egypt. Nihad blogs at Aurora Beams Life Coaching.
Image courtesy of “Young Woman Under Depression” by David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Nihad is an Egyptian woman, who was born and has lived her whole life in Alexandria, Egypt. She says, “People who visited this city know how charming and beautiful this city is. Although I love every city in Egypt, Alexandria is the one I love the most.”
She is a software engineer and has worked in the field for more than twenty years. But recently she quit her job, got a coaching certificate and she is now a self employed life and career coach. She says, “I believe that women in this era face big challenges and they are taking huge responsibilities. That's why I have chosen my niche -- women looking for happiness and satisfaction. I help and support them in making whatever change (career change, life change, behavior change, belief change…) they want to bring more satisfaction and happiness in their lives.”
Nihad is a mother of two lovely boys, 15 and 9 years old. She states, “They are the most precious gifts I have ever had. I madly love them, and I consider them the main source of happiness in my life.”
Our inspiring mother in Egypt can also be found at Aurora Beams Life Coaching.
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