by Elizabeth Atalay | Oct 2, 2012 | 2012, Birthing, Health, Humanity, Maternal Health, Media, Social Good, Womanhood, Women's Rights, World Events, World Moms Blog, World Voice
Photo Credit: The Fistula foundation
“One Woman at a time. That is how we fight fistula. By restoring health and dignity to one. One woman with the will to survive. She is still waiting.” -The Fistula Foundation
Take time to learn one woman’s story
Once we have given birth to our first child we join a sisterhood of mothers. We can relate to each other in a way that only someone who has experienced the bodily changes of pregnancy and birth can. As beautiful and miraculous of a process pregnancy can be, our bodies have transformed in ways that introduce humility as only gestation can.
As mothers we seem to be able to speak about personal things we would never speak of to anyone else. Breastfeeding, leaking milk, hernias, incontinence, episiotomy, my fellow mothers, we have all been there in some way. We understand. Personally, I shared my experiences with other mothers along the way through my four pregnancies and births, and one miscarriage in between.
Obstetric Fistula is not a pleasant topic, and not one that we as mothers talk to each other about, but it is a mother’s topic, and because as mothers we are sisters, we need to talk about it. (more…)
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 Ewa Samples | Jun 13, 2012 | Breastfeeding, Family, Media, Motherhood, Parenting, Poland, Polish Mom Photographer, World Motherhood
A while ago, during a nice lunch in a restaurant, I had to feed my two-month-old daughter. The moment I put her to my breast (completely covered, by the way), a constant whispering and eyeballing from a table across us made me feel like I was doing something wrong. These were young people, among them a mother herself. (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 World Moms Blog | Sep 30, 2011 | Birthing, Body Image, Childhood, Communication, Culture, Education, Eva Fannon, Family, Friday Question, Health, Husband, India, Media, Parenting, Pregnancy, Tara B., Twins
This week’s Friday Question comes from World Moms Blog writer TwinMom112. She asked our writers,
“How do you handle sex education in your home? If your child(ren) hasn’t/haven’t reached that age yet, how is sex education handled in your culture?”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Karyn Van Der Zwet of New Zealand writes:
“We have always used the correct terms for body parts and been relaxed about being naked in front of our boys – including when I have my period. I just answer the boys’ questions as they come up and we have a book called ‘Mummy Laid an Egg’ by Babette Cole, which we’ve read from time to time. It’s been as natural and normal as possible and sometimes we say…that’s our private business…the funniest situation was when our eldest son asked to watch us – so he could learn what to do…” (more…)
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
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by Karyn Wills | Jun 8, 2011 | Childhood, Communication, Family, International, Kids, Media, Motherhood, Music, New Zealand, Parenting, Toys
This started as a post about what happens when a mother gets ill, but still has a young family to care for. While we were busy doing research with a very nasty tummy-bug, Veronica published her post on taking her daughter to watch a game of college basketball, (NEW JERSEY, USA: Ladies of the Court).
It’s a lovely post about parents sharing their common passion with their child. The comments were great and they got me thinking – are our children genetically different to others? You see, during those few days when various ones of us were ill, the boys got to watch tv. This doesn’t happen in our house. Our kids aren’t allowed any electronic entertainment.
Before you jump to the conclusion that we are controlling hippy-freaks, let me reassure you that we have no electronic entertainment (for children) in our house for very good reasons. In fact, many years ago our eldest son was pretty much on a par with most other children of educated middle-class families. He watched educational tv and dvds every day, and he listened to loads of cds. He’d been to see The Wiggles on stage and a couple of other shows.
Then, a teacher suggested that a few of the behaviour problems we were having at the time might be due to over-stimulation. (more…)
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 Sunny Springer (USA) | Jan 20, 2011 | Family, Media, Motherhood, Parenting, Technology
It’s 3:30pm. My youngest son of five and I have just piled through the front door, bags of groceries in my hands and his lunch tin in his. He scrambles off to the kitchen, and the first thing he does is to not look for a snack. Instead, he starts playing a game on my computer at the corner of our kitchen.
3, 2, 1…There it is: “Can someone please turn on mom’s computer for me?”, he yells, banging his fists on my desk. There is something wrong with this picture, I realize. (more…)
by Jennifer Warren (UK) | Dec 16, 2010 | Family, Media, Motherhood, Parenting, UK
Technology. We all have it. We all use it. Some of us more than others. I’ve recently taken an inventory of all of the gadgets that we own and have come up with the following list:
1 desktop computer, 2 laptops (1 functioning, 1 going to laptop heaven), iPad, 4 iPods and 1 iPod touch soon to be added, the Wii, Playstation 3, PSP, Nintendo DS, 3 mobile phones, 3 iPod docks, 1 TV and DVD player.
I used to be proud, back in the day, that we only had 1 TV and DVD player. Once in a while we would put a movie in and watch. That was the extent of the technology in our home. Now, of course, things have changed… (more…)
