by Elizabeth Atalay | Feb 25, 2014 | 2014, Communication, Culture, Education, Older Children, Social Good
“You Matter”. The revelation that those two words can change the world seems so simple, so intuitive, yet those are not words that young people are used to hearing. Angela Maiers a long time educator, and founder of Choose2Matter decided that those two little words could be revolutionary. With her passion and enthusiasm behind the idea that we each have a unique genius to contribute, it is no wonder that her 2007 TEDx talk went viral. Thus the Choose2Matter movement was born.
“We were created for significance and one of the most dangerous things that can happen to us is the feeling that we don’t matter.”- Angela Maiers
Angela points out that she is not talking about an ego thing, studies show that feeling like you matter is a basic human need. The genius she sees in all of us is each individuals’ ability to problem solve from their own unique personal perspective. What started out as a digital community has now evolved into Choose2Matter Live events at schools across the U.S.A. In my mind perhaps no one needs to hear this more than high school kids who are in the process of self-discovery, so I was thrilled when the two-day Choose2Matter Live workshop came to my daughter’s public high school in Rhode Island.
The first thing the kids learned was the Choose2Matter Manifesto: You are enough, you have influence, you are a genius, you have a contribution to make, you have a gift that others need, your actions define our impact, you are the change, you matter. If they did not believe it before, they were now introduced to the idea that their voices and their actions can help others. The examples shown to this new group of kids of ways in which students have already made an impact through Choose2Matter are remarkable.
Honestly though, who doesn’t need to hear this manifesto? Even as adults the feeling that we matter is essential. This is an ideology that we frequently see first hand here at World Moms Blog, the power of one person, one idea brought to fruition, and how it can positively impact entire communities. Kristyn Zalota launched CleanBirth.org to provide safe birth for mothers in Laos, Alison Fraser started www.mom2momafrica to support the education of women and girls in Tanzania, and the founder of World Moms Blog Jennifer Burden created this global community of mothers from around the world when she couldn’t find what she was searching for online. These are just three examples of the many ways World moms Blog Contributors and Editors are using their passions and voices to make the world a better place. Their accomplishments inspire me to strive to do more in my own life, through their achievements I can see the possibilities when one puts their mind to solving a problem.
A Heart-Break Map
After the introduction, when the kids broke out into groups of “heart-break mapping” to narrow down what breaks their hearts about the world, and then come up with solutions of what they can do about it, my heart burst open. Kids narrowed down their heart breaks into solvable problems, some chose to be brave about sensitive issues they knew first hand to use their experience to try to help others. Due to a snow-day a room full of high school kids chose to voluntarily return to school on the saturday before vacation week to follow through on their ideas. It was truly amazing to watch these kids come together and talk through some of the major issues impacting society. I witnessed at least three new websites being born to begin to address some of their heart breaks , self-harm, depression, and body image issues for girls. These kids got it. As Angela and her colleague Mark told the kids, these ideas may not be the ones to solve a problem, but you are just building your muscles here, you are just getting started.
The lessons the kids at my daughter’s high school learned in those two days are sure to stay with them. The empowerment of knowing that they do matter, that they are capable of making a difference is huge. The students were left with the message that they are the ones who will need to come up with the answers to the world’s most pressing problems, because us adults just may not have all the answers. (But that is one thing I think all teenagers already seem know.)
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Elizabeth Atalay of Documama.
Do you have any great examples of the power of one person who made an impact to share?
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 Fiona Biedermann (Australia) | Feb 24, 2014 | 2014, Oceania, Older Children, Social Media, World Motherhood
The mere fact that you’re reading this blog post means you have some understanding of social media and how it works. In this day and age you can’t escape the reach of social media, it’s everywhere from Facebook and Twitter to blog posts and everything in between.
Amazing things happen as a result of social media, families tracking down lost family members, people establishing support and advocacy for life changing programs at the blink of an eye, the ability to build and grow friendships and support networks across the world – social media is far reaching and rapid in its results.
As a parent though, social media can and should be terrifying.
For as quick as the good of social media duplicates and creates a movement it can also destroy and damage just as quickly. Reputations, lives, belief systems can all be damaged in the blink of an eye.
I was lucky in some ways, my children were teenagers at the very early onset of social media, so it didn’t impact largely on their early teenage years. As a mother though my mummy heart clenches with what I witness these days on Facebook and Twitter and what I see in the news.
Bullying drops to an all-time low when combined with the reach and anonymity that Facebook provides.
How, as a parent, do you combat this sort of rubbish when most of the time you may not even be aware it is happening? How do schools even get involved with what happens in the cyber world outside the school walls? Teenagers (our babies) are committing suicide because of on-line bullying which is sadly in the news too often these days.
The love of selfies and intimate photos which are shared on Facebook and Twitter amongst tweens and teens (and let’s face it even amongst adults). Something which is done on a whim, or a moment of little thought and once released are out there and never to be reined in again.
Future employers can locate this information, in fact anyone can access this information if they know where and how to look. No person should ever think that what they post is between them and their ‘friends’. I don’t know how many posts I see from parents and teachers posting messages ‘to prove how fast it can spread around the world’ to warn their children.
I read the most amazing post the other day by a mother which she sent to the friends of her child, I don’t know this woman nor her children, but boy did her post hit home and make me realise how important this new element of parenting is. I applaud this show of brave parenting.
You can read her post here.
I’ve always had my children as friends on Facebook, so that I know what they’re posting and what they’re doing. It’s not always an ideal solution because middle son has a tendency of un-friending me when drama is happening in his life. This is a warning in its self and now that he’s 20 I don’t have as much control, but at least it makes me ask questions.
My quick tips;
- Set the rules for social media use right from the start
- Know what they’re doing and who they’re interacting with
- Make sure you have them as friends on social media
- It also helps to be online friends with their friends
- Monitor but don’t dictate to them, you want them to trust you
- Be aware of what you’re posting yourself that they may see or read
I’d love to hear your thoughts on social media and what you do with your own children to keep them safe. My grandchildren are the next generation of social media users and I plan on being ready and armed to keep them safe in the cyber world.
This is an original World Moms Blog post by Inspiration to Dream of Adelaide, South Australia. Fiona is the writer of Inspiration to Dream and can be found writing or reading with every spare moment that isn’t filled up with work and her three boys, and of course with a bit of spare time thrown in for hubby as well.
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Fiona at Inspiration to Dream is a married mother of three amazing and talented MM’s (mere males, as she lovingly calls them) aged 13, 16 and 22, and she became a nana in 2011!
She believes she’s more daunted by becoming a nana than she was about becoming a mother! This Aussie mother figures she will also be a relatively young nana and she’s not sure that she’s really ready for it yet, but then she asks, are we ever really ready for it? Motherhood or Nanahood. (Not really sure that’s a word, but she says it works for her.)
Fiona likes to think of herself as honest and forthright and is generally not afraid to speak her mind, which she says sometimes gets her into trouble, but hey, it makes life interesting. She’s hoping to share with you her trials of being a working mother to three adventurous boys, the wife of a Mr Fix-it who is definitely a man’s man and not one of the ‘sensitive new age guy’ generation, as well as, providing her thoughts and views on making her way in the world.
Since discovering that she’s the first blogger joining the team from Australia, she also plans to provide a little insight into the ‘Aussie’ life, as well. Additionally, Fiona can be found on her personal blog at Inspiration to Dream.
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by Elizabeth Atalay | Feb 18, 2014 | 2014, Environment, International, Millennium Development Goals, Social Good, Uncategorized, United Nations, Water, World Moms Blog, World Voice
In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals, and was written as the Millennium Goal Declaration .- United Nations Development Programme
The goal of MDG #7 is to ensure environmental sustainability. This month we are thrilled to continue our #Moms4MDG campaign by joining forces with Esquel Foundation in Brazil.
The goals of Millennium Development Goal # 7 are:
- Make sustainable development part of the policies and programs of governments and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
- Reduce and slow down biodiversity loss.
- By 2015 half the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
- By 2020, achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million people who live in slums.
To tackle MDG # 7 we have partnered with The Esquel Foundation:
The Esquel Group (EG) is a private non-profit organization founded in 1984 and dedicated to stalwart citizenship as the common element in sustainable democracy and sustainable economic development. It is a member of the Grupo Esquel network with associate entities in Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras and Uruguay. Its focus is strongly—though not exclusively—Latin American. It receives its support from contracted work and from donations from private, public and multilateral sources.Through seminars, presentations and training programs EG promotes national policies as well as grassroots initiatives dedicated to social inclusion and sustainable development. It fosters inquiry and action towards self governance and greater citizen engagement in public life, particularly at the local level. EG organizes a periodic policy seminar in Washington DC and conducts training on social entrepreneurship for community development, with particular focus on practices for strengthening the structure and functions of civil society networks, deliberative democracy and conflict management skills.- www.esquel.org
Meet us over at the Esquel Group blog today to read the guest post by World Moms Blog contributor Andrea Steiner! You can read her full post, here:
We will be co-hosting our#Moms4MDGs Twitter Party with Esquel Foundation, Girls Globe, and Multicultural Kid Blogs tomorrow, February 19th from 1-2pm EST to talk environment, so please join us!
P.S. Never been to a twitter party before? Go to www.tweetchat.com and put in the hashtag: “#Moms4MDGs during the party times. From there you can retweet and tweet, and the hashtag will automatically be added to your tweets. You can view all of the other party tweets at that hashtag as well!
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Voice Editor, Elizabeth Atalay of Documama in Rhode Island, USA.
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 Katinka | Feb 17, 2014 | 2014, Adoption, Awareness, Being Thankful, Belgium, Birth Parents, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Ethiopia, Eye on Culture, Family, Friendship, Home, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parenting, Penguin and Panther, Relationships, Siblings, World Motherhood, Younger Children
We have a cat. A lot of people have a cat. Ours is named Rino. As in rhinoceros, minus the “h” and the horn.
Looking back, I got him when he was still a little too small, so he definitely sees me as his cat-mom. He slept in the Big Bedroom during the first months of his life, with me stroking him upon every little yelp. When he wants to cuddle, he tucks his head in my armpit, as if he wants to get nursed. He’s the cuddliest cat I know. And the best frog catcher as well.
Rino is get-out-of-jail-free card. He radiates reassurance. Peace of mind. When I’m overwhelmed by motherhood, he can convince me to allow the children to come back downstairs after their time-out. He reminds me I prefer talking above time-outs.
When the kids are finally asleep, he crashes the couch with me. There’s nothing like the sound and feel of a purring cat to take the daily stress away. Did I mention he’s fat and orange? The perfect blanket. Matches most of my cloths too.
When our son is having a bad morning, he usually refuses to put on his cloths. He goes on strike on the couch, with his head beneath the cushions. We aren’t able to get through to him nor make eye contact. His sister will try, but she always manages to make things worse. Not her fault, and she earns her credits for trying the impossible.
And then Rino comes pawing in. Takes a few bites from his food and then goes straight for his ‘big brother’. The minute I tell my son who is coming for him, we see his face again. Eleven minutes, fifty three strokes and fourteen cuddles later, he will be dressed and heading for breakfast. The same goes for homework, violin practice and heart break: Rino will drag him through.
When our adopted daughter first met Rino, she nearly jumped to the ceiling. She only knew cats as thieves that should be chased from the orphanage’s kitchen, so she hissed and motioned to get him out, hiding behind my skirts. She didn’t develop a liking for stuffed animals either, with a brother sneaking up on her with those. He didn’t particularly like his new little sister those first months and couldn’t stop scaring her away, so we ended up hiding all the stuffed tigers and cats from them both.
Two years later, their bond has grown. They do continue teasing each other. They fight like little demons over who gets to open the curtains in the morning but an hour later in school the little one will call for her brother when she’s running from kissing boys. They always end up wanting to play with the exact same box of Legos that was untouched for weeks before, but just as frequently, they will team up against me, especially when candy is at stake. I was told that is universal proof they’ve developed a sibling bond.
The same goes for Rino. Our daughter considers him part of the family now. She demands we talk about him with first ànd last name, our family name, and she doesn’t believe it’s fair he’s not allowed to go to the zoo with us. He would love the big cats, you know. I’m glad Rino is visibly terrified inside moving vehicles so in the end our daughter’s more or less convinced he wouldn’t really like joining us.
A few weeks ago, my daughter asked how Rino came to our family. Did he come willing? Or was he taken from his mommy? After we hesitantly told her it was the latter, she immediately went to find him and whispered in his ear, “You’re just like me!” Ever since, she considers him her little brother even more.
He has become her mirror, in a way. Whenever she’s fantasizing about what she would like to tell her birth mother, he’s a major part of her story. She would like to send her birth mother pictures and drawings of Rino, but not of herself. Pictures of Rino sleeping in the bird house, of Rino coming from the woods when he hears our car approaching, of Rino sleeping with his paws in the air and head to the side, like a wrongly assembled toy. She wants to tell her all about him.
But most of all, she wants to tell her birth mother that we are such great and loving parents.
For Rino, of course.
Do you have pets that enrich your family? Do they help your children cope with life’s sharp edges? Feel free to share about their funny and serious contributions in your daily life!
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by K10K from The Penguin and The Panther.
The picture in this post is credited to the author.
If you ask her about her daytime job, Katinka will tell you all about the challenge of studying the fate of radioactive substances in the deep subsurface. Her most demanding and rewarding job however is raising four kids together with five other parents, each with their own quirks, wishes and (dis)abilities. As parenting and especially co-parenting involves a lot of letting go, she finds herself singing the theme song to Frozen over and over again, even when the kids are not even there...
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by Roxanne (USA) | Feb 14, 2014 | 2014, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Divorce, Family, Kids, Motherhood, Older Children, Parenting, Rox is Brilliant, Single Mother, Unintentionally Brilliant, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children
In a conversation with a friend the other day, she mentioned that someone once asked her if I was seriously okay with letting my 7-year-old go to the bathroom by himself. A little while later I read Mama B’s post about how her house is a dungeon of rules, and I suddenly felt extremely guilty for not imposing more rules on my son. (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 Mannahattamamma (UAE) | Feb 12, 2014 | 2014, Education, Expat Life, Older Children, UAE, World Motherhood
I turned fifty last month.
See how calmly I said that? Just rolled right off my keyboard with nary a omigodhowdidigetsoold freakout.
Turning fifty in Abu Dhabi, where we’ve lived for the past three years, meant that my family couldn’t be with me to celebrate this milestone (millstone?). On the other hand, celebrating here in a place that still feels quite “new,” reminds me that I’ve avoided one of the big pitfalls of late middle age: falling into a rut. As a wise friend here pointed out to me, when you’ve just upped stakes and settled in a new country, culture, city, you’ve pretty much blown the “rut” wide open.
I’ve gotten used to many new things over our years here–buying Pop-tarts in the “pork room,” Sunday as the start of the work-week, no door-to-door postal service–but there are other things that feel more difficult to resolve, particularly when I think about what my kids are (or aren’t) learning as a result of living here. As with all things, of course, we start to figure out what really matters to us, as parents and as people, when we’re confronted with the absence of that thing.
Here’s a thing that’s absent in Abu Dhabi: recycling. Think about that for a minute, especially those of you who live in the US: think about the fact that it’s become almost second nature to separate your garbage, to flatten the cardboard, take the empty bottles back to the store, to look for products in environmentally-conscious packaging (unless that triples the price in which case…hmm…).
Not here. Oh sure, there are some “recycle” bins in public places, and in the housing development where we live, we have two garbage bins: one for “wet” garbage and one for “dry,” but we’ve watched as both bins get dumped, day after day, into the maw of the same truck. Plastic water bottles are ubiquitous but there isn’t anywhere to recycle them (which will explain why there are about 75 of them under my sink right now–and I think they’re breeding); gas-guzzling SUVs are the norm; and while there is talk about developing solar power here (in the land of eternal sunshine and heat you’d think that would be a no-brainer), nothing as yet has happened.
I use many of these problems as “teaching moments,” trying to explain to my kids about the importance of being environmentally conscious, but it’s been difficult to put anything into action, unlike when we lived in New York, where we took our compost to the farmer’s market to be turned into worm food, separated our trash, and so on.
And then for my birthday, my husband surprised me with two boxes. One was very small and contained things that sparkled. That box was just for me. The other box, much bigger and bulkier, contained a big plastic tub. Much less romantic, perhaps, but a gift for the whole family to–if not enjoy, then at least participate in: Bokashi.
Bokashi is a Japanese word that means fermentation, and bokashi is a method of composting food waste by sprinkling the scraps with “bokashi bran,” which encourages the fermentation process.
All our food scraps (meat, cheese, bread, coffee grounds) go into the bokashi bucket and when the bucket is full, we bury the contents of the bucket in our backyard (although there are other options; see the website for details).
Now my kids have an additional chore: they are the food scrap patrol. Uneaten contents of lunchboxes don’t get dumped at school; they go into the bokashi. Dinner scraps, lunch bits, residue in cooking pots: bokashi, bokashi, bokashi. Not only does composting in this fashion show my boys how much food we throw away and (I hope) make them more mindful about food waste, the process going on inside the bucket is like an ongoing science lesson: molds and other micro-organisms, all right there in the kitchen bucket.
Will this at-home recycling help Abu Dhabi resolve its recycling crisis? Of course not, but at least we are teaching our children (I hope) that everyone can do a small something — and that if enough people do a small something, a Big Something might result. And that’s not a bad lesson –for kids or for fifty year olds.
Is recycling the norm in your country? What do you do to go “green” in your country?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Deborah Quinn in the United Arab Emirates of “Mannahattamamma.”
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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