by World Moms Blog | Apr 24, 2013 | Childhood, Communication, Family, Guest Post, Health, Human Rights, Inspirational, International, Interviews, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Relocating, Shot@Life, Traditions, United Nations, Vaccines, Working Mother, World Events, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, World Voice, Younger Children
For the past two years, World Moms Blog and many of our global contributors have been deeply engaged with and committed to the mission of the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign.
In recognition of World Immunization Week and in celebration of the official launch of the Shot@Life campaign a year ago today, World Moms Blog is proud to introduce you to global Champion, Courtney Diesel O’Donnell.
World Moms Blog: Where do you live and are you from there?
Courtney O’Donnell: I live in Berlin, Germany. I moved to Berlin a little over a year ago with my family. My husband is originally from Germany, but it’s my first time living here. Berlin is a fascinating city – full of history, remembrance and rebuilding. Today, in addition to government and other industry there is also a thriving art culture here.
Yes, I am a mom of two boys, ages 4 and 2.
What did you do before becoming a mom? Do you still do that?
I have worked for many years in the communications field – for political candidates, non-profit groups, and also corporations. I still work in this capacity as a consultant to various organizations.
How did you learn about Shot@Life?
I became aware of Shot@Life through social media and a friend who began working with the UN Foundation.
Why did you become a Shot@Life Champion? (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 World Moms Blog | Apr 19, 2013 | Africa, Clean Birth Kits, Economy, Education, Family, Health, Human Rights, International, Motherhood, Multicultural, Older Children, ONE, Parenting, Poverty, Pregnancy, Shot@Life, Sleep, Sleep and Children, Social Good, Travel, Uganda, United Nations, Vaccines, Womanhood, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, World Voice, Younger Children
The World Moms are making a difference in the world, and we get excited to see our friends and readers run with something we’ve advocated for. Today we are featuring a guest post from a friend of the blog, Shilpa, owner of the online global home and fashion retailer, Harabu House.
“Equal pay for women”, “Healthy Children”, “A Good Sleep”, “A Good Education”, “Safe and Healthy Pregnancies” are just some of the wishes expressed for world moms at a casual event hosted by Jennifer Burden, founder of World Moms Blog. Jennifer had organized this event to highlight her trip to Uganda with the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life program, while telling a group of about 30 women about the women behind World Moms Blog and their social good initiatives.
A mutual friend of ours had suggested that Jen and I would hit it off with our interest in all things global, and we sure did! I was thrilled when I received an invitation to her event as I wanted to know more about her trip to Uganda.
We enjoyed wine, cheese and chocolate at Jen’s house and shared our own wishes for world mothers on a tree created from cardboard on her wall. Then, she called us into her family room in the middle of the party for a presentation. With her laptop connected to her T.V., she took us on a journey to Uganda through pictures. (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 World Moms Blog | Mar 17, 2013 | Shot@Life, World Moms Blog
If you are interested in having a closer relationship with the UN, you can support the Shot@Life campaign by just filling out this form to join over 190,000 people in support of life-saving vaccines for children in the developing world.
And, don’t forget — choose “Shot@Life Champion” in the “How Did You Hear About Us” field and write in “World Moms Blog” to let them know we sent you!!
Are you on Twitter? World Moms Blog will be at the Shot@Life twitter party this Thursday, March 21st, at 9pm EST. We hope you will join us to talk about and learn more about global health and the importance of giving more children around the world a healthy chance at life! The hashtag is #changeagent. See you there!
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 Jennifer Burden | Feb 24, 2013 | Shot@Life, Social Good, Uganda, Uncategorized, World Voice
It takes a lot for me to leave my family behind for a week like I did to go to Uganda. Actually, it was the only time I’ve ever done it, sparked by an URGENT matter. Did you know that every 20 seconds a child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease?
Doesn’t sound pressing enough?
Well how about some math…:
In the time it takes for the Shot@Life 28 Days of Impact campaign to run through the blogosphere, statistically,120,960 children will succumb to vaccine-preventable deaths in the developing world.
And February is the shortest month.
That is 1.5 MILLION children in a year will die a death that we could have helped prevent for a few bucks. Yes, a few bucks, even just one buck, in some cases. It’s so simple.
Last October I left my family for a week and flew to Uganda with a delegation from the UN Foundation’s
Shot@Life campaign.
(more…)
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 | Jan 22, 2013 | Childhood, Cultural Differences, Health, India, Motherhood, Shot@Life, Vaccines, World Events, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Younger Children
The Author’s Mother
She had one leg shorter than the other. Not in such a glaringly obvious way that one would immediately notice, but you could tell if you studied her walk or she pointed it out to you, like she did to me when I was little.
I couldn’t fully understand the story as a child, but my mother had contracted Polio when she was around three years old, and almost died. I remember that part because she had two names. Mildred was the name she was given at birth, and Goldie was the name she was re-named after she had recovered, as is customary in the case of near death experiences in the Jewish religion.
By the time I was born, the Polio vaccine had been developed and was administered widely to children in the United States. Polio was nearly eradicated in this country by then, and so the story of my mother’s near death from Polio became to me a long-ago folk tale from her childhood.
Sadly, that has not been the case for the rest of the world. Sure the numbers have dropped 99% since 1988 when there were 350,000 known cases around the world, to the 218 reported cases in 2012. Still, the fact is, that as long as Polio remains in even one child, children the world over are at risk of contracting the disease. The victims of the highly infectious Poliomyelitis virus that attacks the nervous system are usually children younger than five years old.
(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 Jennifer Burden | Oct 30, 2012 | Africa, Eye on Culture, Health, International, Shot@Life, Social Good, United Nations, World Moms Blog, World Voice, Younger Children
Yesterday, I found myself donning a hijab and touring the inside of a mosque in Mubende, Uganda. It was not my ordinary Friday afternoon as a stay-at-home mom in suburban New Jersey…
By invitation of the UN Foundation, I’m on an observatory trip to Uganda with the Shot@Life campaign delegation to take a first-hand look at UNICEF‘s programs in the country.
This past July UNICEF began bringing the medicine to the people, instead of trying to get the people to the medicine. They’ve had great progress in partnering with religious organizations to make this happen because 90% of Ugandans attend a church or mosque every week according to UNICEF.
So, our first Family and Child Health Day stop was at Mubende Town Mosque on Day Two.
(more…)
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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World Moms Blog: Where do you live and are you from there?
