by Elizabeth Atalay | May 13, 2014 | 2014, Economy, Education, Environment, Ethiopia, Girls, Government, Health, Human Rights, Humanitarian, International, Maternal Health, Natural Disaster, Poverty, Social Good, Vaccines, World Moms Blog
State of the Worlds Mothers Report Cover Photo By Phil Moore
The 15th annual State of the World’s Mothers Report was released last week by Save The Children, just in time for Mother’s Day, and World Moms Blog was there at the launch. The focus of the 2014 report is on saving mothers in humanitarian crisis, and the launch of the report in New York City was co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations. In his welcome address to the room Permanent Representative H.E. Mr. Libran Cabactulan of the UN Mission of the Philippines acknowledged from first hand experience, that women and children suffer the most in crisis situations.
The report notes that worldwide women and children are up to 14 times more likely than men to die in disaster. In fact it is no surprise that also according to the report more than half of all maternal and child deaths world-wide take place in countries suffering conflict or natural disasters. As Werner Obermeyer, Deputy to the Executive Director of the WHO office to the UN stated, It is not the armed component in conflicts we are worried about, it’s those who are suffering from the armed component.
The purpose of the annual report is to further the mission of Save The Children in protecting the worlds most vulnerable mothers and children. The State of the World’s Mothers report does so by highlighting where we are failing, what effective solutions need to be put in place, and recommended policy changes towards progress. Despite the fact that 80% of the countries are not on target for achieving MDG 4 and 5, maternal and child health goals, the extreme progress seen in other countries previously failing, tells us that it is possible.
Ethiopia for example has reduced its risk of maternal death more than any other African country, by nearly two-thirds. H.E. Mr. Tekeda Alemu of Ethiopia stated that the progress there was due to a well crafted policy based on the participation of people on the local level. 48,000 health extension workers were fanned out throughout the country to mobilize women volunteers in what they called the Women’s Development Army to reach remote villages. Afghanistan has also cut maternal death rates by 60-70 percent, moving up 32 places on the Mothers’ Index Rankings of the best and worst countries in which to give birth. This proves that the combined investment of minds and funding works. If these countries with terrible track records have been able to make such significant improvements, there is no reason we can not see this type of progress universally with proper programs and support.
Photo Credit: Save The Children
Climate change is the wild card that threatens even the countries that have made the most progress in maternal and child health. Climate related disasters and extreme weather are factors that can cause severe set backs in development.
The recommendations of the report call for a collaboration between governments, donor countries, international organizations, private sector and civil society to take responsibility, and each do their part to ensure mothers, and children in crisis situations have the best chance to survive, and thrive. Here is what we need to do:
1. Ensure that every mother and newborn living in crisis has access to high quality health care
2. Invest in women and girls and ensure their protection
3. Build longer term resilience to minimize the damaging effects of crises on health.
4. Design emergency interventions with a longer term view and the specific needs of mothers and newborns in mind.
5. Ensure political engagement and adequate financing, coordination and research around maternal and newborn health in crisis settings.
Save The children’s 15th annual State of the Worlds Mothers report comes at a pivotal moment in history, when humanitarian crises have focused a spotlight like never before on the needs of mothers and children who are struggling to survive. With record numbers of people displaced by war and conflict and increasingly severe natural disasters causing unspeakable destruction, it is clear we must do more to help the worlds poorest and most vulnerable families. We must give mothers the support they need to keep their children safe and healthy, even in the darkest times. -Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save The Children USA
You can read the State of the Worlds Mothers report in full here. See where your country falls on the Mothers’ Index Rankings here.
World Moms Blog Founder Jennifer Burden and Senior Editor Elizabeth Atalay at the State of the Worlds Mothers report launch in NYC.
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Elizabeth Atalay of Documama.
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 World Moms Blog | May 10, 2014 | 2014, Education, Girls, Government, Human Rights, Humanitarian, International, Nigeria, School, Social Equality, Social Good, Social Media, Women's Rights, World Moms Blog
Abducted. Scared. Abused.
Sold.
That’s the likely fate 276 girls are facing, taken from their schools in the remote reaches of north-eastern Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram. It’s been over three weeks since this started. We don’t what’s happening to them and we all fear the worst.
We’re sickened. We’re outraged. We also have no idea what to do. So, we’re doing what Americans tend to do. We’re taking selfies of ourselves with the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. We’re tweeting. We’re posting facebook rants. In the lack of anything else to do, we’re signing online petitions by the thousands to make the world pay attention.
I’m not saying this these are bad actions to take. No! I signed the petition myself. I tweeted #BringBackOurGirls. I liked and shared Amy Poehler’s Smart Girl posts on facebook to help focus the national conversation on them. I was thrilled to hear that the U.S. is sending support and I believe social media was a part of that. But after I did those things, I was still sickened. Still outraged. I still didn’t know what to do.
And then I thought of this girl.
Malala Yousafzai. A Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban at the age of 15 who still fights daily for girls’ education knows a little something about this issue, don’t you think? She has said, “The extremists are afraid of books and pens, the power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women.”
Then, let those men be afraid of me. I am even more dangerous than a schoolgirl with a pen. I’m an educated mother with a laptop. And I’m not just coming after them. I’m coming after their whole oppressive way of life.
The welfare of the kidnapped girls rests in someone else’s hands in the short term, but I advocate against poverty and injustice with an eye for the long term. While we wait and we pray for these girls, shouldn’t we be using this anger and anguish to secure a future for all girls coming after them?
If all children were in school as a normal matter of course, then schools with girls would cease to be obvious targets. That fundamental paradigm shift would be more effective than sending a SEAL Team in to get the girls (even though that is what I dearly want to happen right now) because educated and empowered girls become mothers who raise enlightened sons.
Here’s another Malala quote:
“Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don’t think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children.” But the men are wrong. Indeed, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
So, what concrete actions can we – as Americans – take right now to hasten this reality? We can start by demanding that our U.S. Representatives pass the Education for All Act (H.R. 2780), which specifically calls out victims of human trafficking as some of the most vulnerable children to help. We can also call on them to sign U.S. Representative Jan Schakowksy’s letter to the Obama administration to fund $250 million over 2 years to the Global Partnership for Education, which aims to raise $3.5 billion from donor governments at a pledging conference this June. With $3.5 billion invested by donors, the Global Partnership can secure an additional $16 billion from developing country governments. By 2018, that investment can support quality education for 29 million children, largely in fragile and conflict-affected states.
As badly as we need the #BringBackOurGirls social media awareness today for the 276 girls we keep vigil for, these two steps are even more needed in the long run to help millions of other girls at risk now and in the future.
So, after you’ve tweeted and posted your selfie on facebook, do not stop there. Click on these links to contact your U.S. Representative about the Education for All Act and the Global Parntership for Education. Tell them that girls are showing incredible courage just to go to school, and the U.S. should support them. Educating all girls and boys will create a world where kidnapping and selling students is not acceptable in any culture on the planet.
This is an original Post for World Moms Blog by Post by Cindy Changyit Levin who writes the Anti-Poverty Mom blog and is volunteer advocate for RESULTS, Shot@Life and the ONE Campaign. She can also be found on twitter @ccylevin.
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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 Mannahattamamma (UAE) | Mar 19, 2014 | 2014, Computers, Cultural Differences, Culture, Education, Expat Life, Government, Homeschooling, Living Abroad, Multicultural, Older Children, Politics, Religion, School, Social Media, Traditions, UAE, USA
I always swore I would never home-school my children. I know many people do, and do it quite successfully, but I’m awfully fond of the quiet that descends on my house after they’ve tromped off to school. If that tromping were only happening from the bedroom to, say, the kitchen table, I think I might simply lock myself in the bathroom and never come out.
But as so often happens, my vow has collided with reality and I have found myself, in recent weeks, trolling home-schooling websites in search of teaching resources. My kids are now 9 (nine and a half, he would say indignantly) and 13; they go to a British school here in Abu Dhabi. That means they’ve spent a lot of time learning various English kings and queens, although they can’t recite them all in order. They study “maths,” and do prep rather than homework; they study English history and geography; they read mostly English writers in their literature classes. In addition to all those Anglo studies, they take Arabic language classes four days a week and once-weekly class called “Islamic Studies.” The Arabic classes are mandated by ADEC (Abu Dhabi Education Council) and I have to say, I’m much more interested in my kids learning Arabic than I am in their ability to name all the English kings and queens.
Having the boys be in an English system has been a learning curve for all of us. We’re learning two languages, actually, Arabic and, well, English: the boys now live in a world where things are “grey,” luggage goes in the “boot,” and we put garbage in the “bin.”
I’m not considering a dabble in the home-schooling system in order to beef up my boys’ appreciation of the Queen’s English, however. My kids, like every schoolchild in the country, have a curriculum that is at least in part determined by the UAE government, and that means there are things that aren’t supposed to be taught. I live in a place where censorship happens and where, unlike the States, the policies cannot be overtly challenged in the courts. So, for instance, in the States if you live in a town where they want to ban the Harry Potter books, you can take the school district to court. Not here.
We had to sign a permission slip so that our older son could get the science textbook that included the chapter on reproduction (with pictures of, you know, the embarrassing bits); his Latin class translates vinum as … grape, not wine. These are relatively small annoyances, although of course they are far from ideal.
There are, however, more serious concerns in terms of what shouldn’t be included in history courses and literature courses, and that’s where I find myself trolling the home-schooling sites for resources. The Holocaust can’t be taught here; Israel and Judaism are not supposed to be mentioned here; communism isn’t supposed to be discussed; evolution isn’t supposed to be taught; and the list goes on. Sometimes it feels as if we’re living in some kind of Bible-thumping town in the rural U.S and I realize, yet again, that fundamentalism can be seen as a global phenomenon that differs only in the nature of its prohibitions: the fear that motivates the prohibitions stays constant.
Before you leap to any conclusions, please know that the Muslim families I know are as frustrated by these government-issued edicts as are the non-Muslim families and many of us have talked together about what we can do to help our children gain a full picture of the world, regardless of what the government says. So it is that what in some contexts (living in Manhattan, for instance) would be a purely theoretical discussion has become in our household, a very pragmatic series of conversations.
Think about it: how would you talk to your kids about censorship? Is censorship always bad? Think about your children, if you have them, and the internet: are there sites you say they can’t see, or have you put a filter or something on your computer to prevent certain kinds of access? Do we agree that there is such a thing as “good” censorship? (Because of that whole teenage-boy-surfing-the-internet thing, I see a (slight) upside to living in a “nanny state.” I am fairly sure that if he wanted to look, my son wouldn’t be able to find basic porn–not to say that if he really wanted to dig around he couldn’t elude the censors, but at this point, I think his porn-directed vocabulary is still too limited to get around the government blocks. I guess we file that under “thank goodness for small favors,” right? )
My husband and I are both professors, and so we are able to bolster and supplement what isn’t happening in school, but we are also having a lot of conversations with our kids about censorship, politics, and the necessity of thinking about things in ways that are different from how we might think about them. We point out that the UAE isn’t Saudi Arabia; there is no Taliban here; the country is not governed by a theocracy of any sort. We know Jewish families who live here; I know gay couples who live here; a Mormon family lives next door to us. I see people on the beach in the scantiest of scanty bathing suits.
Living here means coming to term with nuance, with ambiguity, with living in a world that is organized around “both/and,” rather than “either/or.” The country is progressive and conservative; censorship is a problem that has a context; learning happens as much from what is not there as it does from what is there. It’s complicated and let’s be honest — no nine year old, no thirteen year old—and very few adults—really likes ambiguity. After all, if there is no “in-between” answer, life becomes much easier, doesn’t it?
No, of course I’m not happy that my kids have a biology textbook with the word “pig” marked out. Of course, I’m also not pleased that the Anglo-centric curriculum also neglects things like the US Civil War, other than in the most general sense. But I will say that I think it is, and will continue to be, a powerful learning experience for my children (and us) to have to confront and think about what it means to live in a place where the government attempts to exert such extensive control. I like to think that, paradoxically, these attempts at censorship will make my children more open-minded adults.
Have you ever been confronted with censorship? How have you dealt with it?
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 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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