by Mama Mzungu (Kenya) | Aug 28, 2013 | 2013, Cultural Differences, Education, Inspirational, Kenya, Kids, School, Special Needs, Uncategorized, World Motherhood
In the US, people with physical disabilities focus on fighting stigma, on being viewed as people who can do almost anything despite of their physical limitations, and on fighting for the world to make appropriate accommodations in order to even the playing field.
In Kenya, like so many low-income countries, people with physical disabilities, children in particular, are fighting for their very survival.
A friend, who runs a school for the disabled here, recently told me an illustrative story. The man who founded the school was visiting a friend in a rural area and came across a disabled child who was tied to a tree while his parents went to work in the field. The boy was left with a bowl of food and forced to defecate in the radius rope permitted. The school founder, touched by this scene, made it his life’s work to make lives better and futures brighter for these children. (more…)
Originally from Chicago, Kim has dabbled in world travel through her 20s and is finally realizing her dream of living and working in Western Kenya with her husband and two small boys, Caleb and Emmet. She writes about tension of looking at what the family left in the US and feeling like they live a relatively simple life, and then looking at their neighbors and feeling embarrassed by their riches. She writes about clumsily navigating the inevitable cultural differences and learning every day that we share more than we don’t. Come visit her at Mama Mzungu.
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by Meredith (USA) | Aug 9, 2013 | Childhood, Competition, Education, Exercise, Family, Health, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Maternal Health, Motherhood, Music, Parenting, School, Sports, Stress, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children, Youth Programs
The air is slowly starting to get a bit cooler and the days a bit shorter (well, maybe not in Texas…but I know it is in some parts of the world), and I know it can only mean that fall will be soon approaching. Fall approaching in the Northern Hemisphere also means school starting, schedules to follow, and the onset of after school activities.
I don’t know how it is in your part of the globe, but here in Texas, some children start playing tackle football from the time they can walk (it seems). If they aren’t playing football, then they are playing year round baseball and look like mini major league players. A few months ago, I was talking to a mom of a girl in my son’s grade and she was telling me that both her girls are in ballet two times a week, gymnastics one day a week, one takes piano and the other takes violin lessons. And the same daughter who takes violin lessons, gymnastics and ballet also has to swim four days a week at 7:30 pm at night to be able to compete on the swim team. Her daughter is only going into second grade!!! (more…)
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 Purnima Ramakrishnan | Jul 23, 2013 | Casting a Wider Net, Economy, Education, Feminism, Government, Human Rights, Humanity, India, Inspirational, International, Motherhood, Nature, Purnima, Social Good, The Alchemist, United Nations, Women's Rights, World Moms Blog, World Voice
A couple of weeks ago, we featured a remote village, Piplantri (Western India) on the Gates Foundation. Piplantri is a model village, whose actions of change have been very well received all over India.
Aloe Vera products from the small scale industries
They plant 111 trees for every girl child who is born, create a fixed deposit of INR 31,000 (approx. USD 620) in her name which attains maturity when she is 18 years old and chalk up a legal agreement between the parents of the girl child and the government that they won’t get their girls married off before she is 18 years old. They also have Aloe Vera industries in which the women of the village are employed. So they have achieved MDGs #3 (promote gender equality and empower women), #4 (reduce child mortality), and #7 (ensure environmental sustainability) at one go. Today on the blog, I would like to introduce Mr. Shyam Sundar Paliwal and his wife, Anita, who were the pioneers of this change action in their village. Anita is 42 years old, and she got married after she finished her 12th grade. It was an arranged marriage and the couple were happy.
Their first daughter Kiran was 18 years old when she passed away. She died due to dehydration. That was the turning point in their life, and they vowed to make lives of others happy.
They also have another daughter Hemanshi (22) and a son Rahul (15) who is in 10th grade. Hemanshi is married and has a child, too.
The women of the village tending Aloe Vera
Anita recalls that when she came to her in-laws place after she got married, the first lesson she received from her father-in-law was to plant banana saplings such that they bear fruits during the rainy season and then plant mango saplings around the banana trees. Banana trees absorb water during the monsoon and transfers this water to the mango trees through its roots during the arid summer season. She says she has stuck to this piece of advice to date in her village and ensured that her villagers follow such age-old farming wisdom.
Anita, who is the wife of the ex-sarpanch (ruling political head) of the village, Piplantri, is a very active community member. She is a Zila Parishad Member (Elected person of the district council). Her husband has always been supportive of her as a woman and wants her to do her best for her villagers. He has never restricted her in any way. Though she is more educated than him, he has never been jealous of her, but has only encouraged her and furthered her growth and development as an active member of their society and community. She says, if only all women of the world gets a husband like Shyam, the women of the world will be better off and we would not be speaking of women’s rights here.
Shyam Sundar won the panchayat elections in 2005 and he says he first wanted the people who worked in the government offices to be comfortable. He installed the first AC in the office, brought in some comfortable furniture and ensured that people in all echelons of the society were treated equally. (In rural India, at times, the upper caste people are given more respect and sit on chairs, whereas the lower caste people are treated shabbily and sit down on the floor. Read more about the Evils of Caste system in India here). He said, he worked on the psychology of the ruling body to make them happy and comfortable. He says, only if they are happy, they would start working on reform measures and help provide for the remaining villagers. He, at his own expense, made the offices a comfortable place to work and conducive to provide better results.
He started small. In this difficult water shortage era, he diverted the waste water from all houses/offices towards the fields. Better water conservation was ensured. If waste water does not stagnate anywhere, there would be no mosquitoes and no dengue and fewer diseases. So, he solved primarily problems with simple, cost-effective solutions.
He installed drinking RO water systems in schools. Brought in furniture for the students and made the public schools better than the expensive private schools. People started flocking towards government schools. He raised awareness slowly and in a small way, which evolved out.
Mrs. Anita Paliwal working on the Water Harvesting Structure
He started rain water harvesting with the help of government. He built canals. He used the women of the village who were unemployed. To the left is a picture of Anita, who at times does not hesitate to get into the fields with a mean sickle. She and her husband were instrumental in starting the water harvesting structure of the village. In most of his welfare activities 90% of the employed are women and 10% alone are men. Women of the village have been blessed indeed to have him there, says Anita. In addition to 25,00,000 Aloe Vera plants, there are 10,000 rose shrubs which are also used in small-scale industries for toiletries and medicinal supplements. Women are employed in all of these schemes.
Mr. Shyan Sundar Paliwal and Mrs. Anita Paliwal with Anna Hazare
He started the Kiran Nidhi Yojna with the 76-year-old International Social Activist, Anna Hazare to ensure that no girl child is married off before 18 years old. This man who himself did not study in a college, ensures that all girl children in his village get a college degree. He also nudges the parents to get their girls married off in collective wedding, so that money is conserved and better utilised for other public welfare schemes or for their own savings. This scheme also granted government land to the parents in return for planting 111 trees on the birth of their daughter in that land, and tending to it to fruition before their girl child is 18 years old. On the death of any community member, the family is requested to plant trees again.
He says this again works on their psychology. The girl children treat the trees as their own brothers and sisters. After all, the saplings were planted on the day of their birth. And the parents get emotionally attached to the trees which came into existence on the day their family member was born or died. They then take care of it as a family member, and would under no means cut it down. He says, it is all in the hearts of the people. If people get involved with their hearts, anything is possible. He made people to get emotionally attached to nature and trees and the earth.
I learnt something new from Anita and Shyam that day – Ecofeminism. It is such a beautiful concept. Women and nature have been connected since time immemorial and this couple have harnessed it.
After all, he who was not highly educated could work on such things and make that beautiful village into a heaven, he says, the whole world could change too. And we would have no need to talk about the MDGs or uplifting of any downtrodden society/community.
When asked how he felt when his village was showcased by the Gates Foundation on their Blog, he gushed with happiness and pride. The district collector and Panchayat officials were so excited, too, he said. But his only complaint was that he could not get a hard copy of the magazine which he could show his villagers. He is so proud like a father, like the father of the heaven he created.
He also invites donation to his Kiran Yojna Scheme for the fixed deposit of INR 31000 of every girl child born in his village. He invites the contributors, readers and fans of World Moms Blog to make a trip to Piplantri. He wants people to embrace such change and for them to build upon it to suit their own society, and community.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Purnima, our Indian mother writing from Chennai, India. Her contributions to the World Moms Blog can be found here. She also rambles at The Alchemist’s Blog.
Photo credit to Piplantri.com
What do you think about the traditions put in place to support girls and women in the community of Piplantri?
by Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes | Jul 15, 2013 | Belgium, Education, Government, Health, Special Needs, Tantrum and Tomatoes, Uncategorized
It is a running gag that we Belgians like to make things complicated. This shows itself best in the Moloch which calls itself ‘Government’.
Government – like all of its kind – has a thing for paperwork. It starts even before you are born, when your mother and father are requested to fill in form after form to guarantee your basic rights and to prove that yes you are about to enter the world.
And it goes on and on and on. Papers which need to be filled out announcing your actual birth, your name, gender, weight, etc… Then when you are a few weeks old, your mother will receive an order to have you weighed, measured and to have a friendly chat with a childcare specialist about how you – little pooping nugget – are doing. (Don’t get me wrong, I greatly appreciate this service: these checkups – and accompanying vaccinations – are free of charge, and they often aid in detecting health issues really early.)
When you enter school the whole administrative shebang is transferred to another institution, which will now not only monitor your growth, weight gain and fine motor skills but also your learning process and general scholastic development. And, of course, there is paper work to be filled out…
So this is how I found myself filling out a five–page questionnaire on a rainy night in May in preparation of our eldest’s first annual checkup. Most questions were simple and straightforward : “Do either of the parents wear glasses?” (Yes, both), “Any hereditary diseases, mental illnesses,…” (None), “Primary language spoken at home?” (Dutch), “Any serious illnesses as an baby/infant?” (No).
But there was one question which gave made me pause : “Was either of the parents treated for a learning disability as a child/adult? If yes, please specify which one.”
Well, yes, actually. I was.
When I was about seven or eight years old I was diagnosed with the type of Attention Deficit Disorder, now called ADHD–I. Later they threw in some dyscalculia for good measure. While I never took any medication, I did receive treatment well into my teenage years.
Those were very difficult times, mainly because when I was diagnosed, the whole ADHD–spectrum was relatively unknown. Most people – teachers, close family members and other – scoffed when ADHD or ADD was mentioned.
Many called it an imaginary condition and would tell me that I was making things up, that I was just “not that bright”, “plain stupid”, “not trying hard enough” or – my personal favourite – “a lazy good for nothing pest, who would never get a degree and whose only career option was cleaning toilets”.
I vividly remember how my mother and I were asked to come to the principal’s office one day during my first year of high school, so we could discuss my poor results and lack of attention during class. We arrived carrying a thick file full of test results, reports, statements,… only for the principal to refuse even to look at the file and tell my mother that “it was about time that she accepted her daughter was not as intelligent as she was and that she should not waste peoples time by insisting I remained in a normal classroom.”
Needless to say, my mom was a wee bit pissed off and the discussion which followed can best be described as a fight between a lion with anger issues and a crazy, rabid baboon on steroids.
It got better when I changed schools the next year. It got better when I got older, because I got a better view on the what, the why and the how. It got better because I developed coping skills. It got better because the therapy actually worked and somehow my brain got whipped into some kind of shape. As we now know there is no “curing” ADHD. I still get distracted easily and rely on noise cancellation headphones or classical music to get me through a bad day.
After filling in the questionnaire I catch myself looking at my children all too often, and playing the “What if” – song in my head.
Because what if – along with the sensitive skin (sorry about that one, by the way, kids) and the shape of their eyes – I gave my kids those parts of me. What if, they, too, will have to fight a lifelong battle?
I know times are different. We are lucky to live in a part of the world where education is a basic right, not a privilege and not something for which we – women – have to fight. I know there is a better understanding, new developments in treatment and more acceptance regarding learning disabilities as opposed to when I was a kid. I know – think, hope, … I will probably be more prepared in dealing with one or both of my children being diagnosed with a learning disability than my own mother, who was basically left in the middle of the jungle with a broken compass as her only tool to help her fight a way out, if only because I’m aware of the fact that this situation may arise and have lived it, am in still living it, coping with it.
But still…
What if… ?
How are people dealing with the whole learning disability spectrum in your neck of the woods? If you are a “former special needs child turned adult” how would you deal with this situation?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Tinne of Tantrums and Tomatoes.
Photo credit to the author.
Born in Belgium on the fourth of July in a time before the invention of the smart phone Tinne is a working mother of two adorably mischievous little girls, the wife of her high school sweetheart and the owner of a black cat called Atilla.
Since she likes to cook her blog is mainly devoted to food and because she is Belgian she has an absurd sense of humour and is frequently snarky. When she is not devoting all her attention to the internet, she likes to read, write and eat chocolate. Her greatest nemesis is laundry.
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by Roxanne (USA) | Jun 21, 2013 | 2013, Childhood, Education, Kids, Milestones, Motherhood, Parenting, Preschool, Rox is Brilliant, School, Unintentionally Brilliant, USA, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Earlier this month I attended my son’s graduation ceremony. He looked so handsome in his bright red cap and gown, smiling proudly at all he has accomplished. He clutched his little blue diploma when they called his name, and I was overcome with emotions that felt out of place. Especially considering the fact that my son had just finished Kindergarten.
Literally. (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 Mirjam | Jun 10, 2013 | Being Thankful, Childhood, Inspirational, International, Life Lesson, Milestones, Motherhood, Netherlands, Parenting, Preschool, School, Siblings, World Motherhood, Younger Children
It has been magical.
Waking up to the sound of a little person chatting.
Starting my mornings with a little person crawling in to bed with me, smiling at me, kissing me.
Carrying a child on my hips, making little ponytails, spoon feeding.
It’s been wonderful to watch the world through tiny eyes.
Eye opening to simply be and sing, laugh or dance on random occasions.
Eskimo kisses, random hugging, silly phrases, chasing and tickling.
It has been freeing to lie on the floor playing with toys; to walk down the streets filled with our fantasies.
Kissing dolls goodnight, searching the house for favorite stuffed animals, driving around singing silly songs.
It’s been heartwarming to be the funniest and smartest person alive, at least in your eyes.
The safest place is no longer exclusively with me.
You are going to school now.
You will spend a big part of the day in someone else’s care.
The world is no longer viewed from within my arm’s length.
Catch length, hug length, hold length.
I hold your hand as I take you to school on your first day.
You’re nervous, and you’re gripping my hand tight.
“Mommy, I’m shy.”
“Don’t worry, the teacher knows you are shy, and she will take good care of you.”
In the class room you spot your favorite activity. Your eyes sparkle with anticipation.
You join two other girls and they immediately start a conversation with you.
Our parting is hasty. You don’t have time for me.
There are colorful shiny papers that demand to be cut and pasted.
Hesitatingly I leave the room.
There are no tears, except maybe in my eyes.
There is no dramatic goodbye, as it should be on a big day like this.
As should be fitting, when you enter into a new era.
Outside I pause in front of the window with your father, hoping to catch your eye so I can wave.
Nothing. You are busy, all consumed with your new environment.
The teacher notices us and taps you on the back. We have to settle with a quick wave from you.
And that’s it.
Just like that my child is all grown.
My day is spent in confusion. I am absent, forgetful, and my eyes are teary.
I have the constant feeling that I’m forgetting something, someone.
At the end of the morning I’m relieved to go and pick you up.
I immediately know that you had a great time. It shows.
As we leave the schoolyard, I watch my oldest while he walks in front of me. He’s all long arms and legs and he is Mr. Cool himself. He is having a vivid conversation with his sister. When did they get so big?
I’m holding your hand. You’re by my side. Close to me. Suddenly you start to pull my hand, you want me to let go. Reluctantly I loose my grip and you run away from me, eager to follow your siblings.
The years I leave behind are truly wonderful.
And I know there is so much more to come.
But I hesitate, I try to hold on to this as long as I can.
Now that I still see traces of that toddler in you.
Now that I can still feel what it was like.
When you were completely mine.
This is an original, first post to World Moms Blog from our new writer in the Netherlands, Mirjam.
The photo used in this post is credited to the author.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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