#Moms4MDGs MDG #7 With Esquel Foundation in Brazil

#Moms4MDGs MDG #7 With Esquel Foundation in Brazil

 

#Moms4MDGs Button copy

 

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.

MDG7

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! 

#Moms4MDGs MDG7 Feb 19

 

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

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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WORLD VOICE: So Long, Farewell, 안녕히계세요, Goodbye

WORLD VOICE: So Long, Farewell, 안녕히계세요, Goodbye

IMG_1107

After several very happy years here in Seoul, we are returning stateside. As I reflect on our time here and the coming transitions ahead I am feeling a bit anxious, a bit sad, and quite sentimental. I’m digging deep, hoping to find some excitement in there too, but so far no luck.

The day we left Seattle and moved to Asia we showed up at the airport with four large bags, three cats, and one golden retriever. I’m sure adding the 32-week pregnant weepy lady to the mix and the concerned husband trying to keep us all together, we were quite a sight to behold.

This time, we’ll be showing up with some more large bags, three cats, one toddler, and yet again, a weepy pregnant lady, this time 28 weeks pregnant.

Apparently I am destined to only move to the other side of the world while very pregnant.

Like everywhere else in the world, there is a lot to love about Korea as well as a lot of room for improvement, but it will always hold a special spot in my heart as it is where my husband and I first became parents. Being so far away from our families and friends as we made that huge transition was both challenging, and freeing. It was hard, but we had lots of space to make mistakes and figure out who we were, and who we wanted to be in those roles with no outside, though well-meaning, pressure or advice. That was and is priceless.

Seoul is an incredibly comfortable place to live. It’s a massive city with every amenity you could ever imagine and many that you couldn’t. (Cat café, anyone?) There is abundant, affordable, and efficient public transit, the streets are clean and safe, and you could never run out of things to do and see.

The things I will miss most:

Accommodation of and attitudes towards children. Probably partially due to the low birth rate and partially to the deeply emphasized culture of family, children are valued here in a way that I have never witnessed elsewhere.  Thoughtful amenities for mothers and small children abound. There are public nursery spaces in department stores, train stations, bus stations, and elsewhere that offer clean and comfortable places to change a diaper, feed a hungry baby, or lay one down for a nap. Beyond this there is a general attitude of celebration and excitement surrounding babies, even if they are cranky and loud. I’ve never gotten anything other than sympathy and supportive offers of help when I’ve been out and about with a crying baby. Children have their own holiday here, Children’s Day, and it is a very big deal. The phrase “it takes a village” to raise a child is one that seems to be taken to heart here.

The greater good is more important than individual. This one can be a double-edged sword, obviously, but it is, in my humble opinion, the secret to the rapid economic growth and progress that Korea has seen in the last 50 years. Koreans take a great deal of pride in their “all for one and one for all” attitude and they have a lot to show for it: a 97% literacy rate; some of the highest test scores in the world in reading, math, and the sciences; a low unemployment rate; and national health insurance. This means Koreans have access to health care, quality education, and work at greater rates than many other developed countries. The value of this cannot be underestimated. Again, there are two sides to every coin, but for someone like me, coming from a country that focuses more on the rights of the individual this has been an interesting thing to observe. It reminds me of how my grandparents used to describe the American spirit during and immediately after WWII.

The food. Oh how I could go on and on about the food. Korean food is just amazing. It is simple, mostly healthful, colorful, and delicious. I will miss it terribly.

The things I’m looking forward to:

Friends and family. While it has been nice to have our space as we became parents, we’ve also deeply missed our loved ones. To have them closer, to be able to visit more frequently, will be a very welcome change. Especially with a new baby on the way! I have no idea what it’s like to have a new baby and have friends and family at the ready to offer help, food, shoulders to cry on, and ears for listening.

The food. Ok, so I love Korean food but I’m also going to love having easy access to all the old familiar and favorite ingredients. I’ve learned to do without in the years we’ve been here, but I’m pretty darn excited about easily getting my hands on pretty much anything I want.

Green, green, green. Speaking of double-edged swords, the rain in the Pacific Northwest may be a particular challenge to my constitution, but the luscious green it brings with it cannot be ignored. I love Seoul and I love big cities in general, but I am looking forward to that crisp mountain air, the beauty and peacefulness of Puget Sound, and all those evergreens.

As we slowly pack our things and make preparations for our departure, I feel so very grateful to have experienced this culture, which is so completely different to the one I was born into. The thing I have learned first and foremost is the abiding truth that humans are all much more alike than they are different.

Korean culture is valuable on it’s own, of course, but seen more generally in contrast to Western culture, it has given me an opportunity to observe a very different way of approaching society and the world in general. The way societies choose to organize themselves offers deep insights into what they value most. As with everything, these values are constantly changing and I look forward to being a keen observer of both Eastern and Western values as I age. Both have much to learn from each other and a balance between the two seems to me to be ideal. I’d like to see a deep and abiding commitment to the family structure without preset ideas of who and what makes a valid family; an emphasis on the common good that also allows for free expression and individuality; a high value placed on education and literacy that does not put undue pressure on students to seek perfection. I could go on but I will end here by saying that I look forward to incorporating the best of both cultures into my life and family, as a start.

I’ll be writing again from our new home in Washington State, once we get settled. In the meantime, be well!

This is an original post to World Moms Blog.

Have you ever lived abroad? What are the things you miss about where you were or home?

Ms. V. (South Korea)

Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states. Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.

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$5 Saves Lives with Cleanbirth.org, Multicultural Kids Blogs & Girls Globe!

$5 Saves Lives with Cleanbirth.org, Multicultural Kids Blogs & Girls Globe!

Over a year ago, World Mom, Nicole Melancon of Thirdeyemom, introduced me to Kristyn Zalota, an American mom who was dedicating her time to help save the lives of mothers in Laos.  I’m embarassed to admit, I wasn’t exactly sure where Laos was.  (It’s next to Vietnam.) I also didn’t know that the country has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality on the globe.

#CleanBirth Twitter Party!

Kristyn has introduced our staff and community to both, the mothers who she has met in Laos and the nurse midwives who she has trained through the organization she founded, Cleanbirth.org. Last year, World Moms Blog helped her raise over $700 to provide clean birth kits to the moms who needed them most.  It was such a fun, fantastic global moment for our contributors. We changed our Facebook profile pictures to the Cleanbirth logo, and we Facebooked and tweeted our hearts out! But that’s not all…

Since that time, World Moms Blog was the conduit that brought Kristyn Zalota and Dee Harlow, our contributor in Laos, together.  Dee started volunteering for Cleanbirth.org and helped the organization secure a $2000 loan, and she also wrote about maternal health in Laos during our #Moms4MDGs campaign on the Every Mother Counts website. In fact, here is a photo of Dee and Kristyn in Laos advocating for maternal health with the US Ambassador to Vientiane!

US Embassy Vientiane & Cleanbirth.org

This year we are back and excited as ever, to lend Cleanbirth.org our hearts and our social media voices to help kick off their 1st month of fundraising in 2014!  But, we also have fantastic news — we are not alone!

Two equally awesome organizations — Multicultural Kid Blogs and Girls Globe — will be joining us!  Together, our three sites will be synergizing our social media power together and rallying our communities and readers to help Cleanbirth.org in their campaign to raise $7500 this February, which is earmarked for the much-needed training of 10 nurses, 25 volunteers and 500 birth kits.

Inspired by World Mom, Kristyn Zalota’s, enthusiasm to do more than her fair share to help our fellow moms on the planet,  World Moms Blog is happy to join Multicultural Kid Blogs, Girls Globe and all of our combined contributors participating in making some noise for safe births for the mothers in Laos.

How can you join in?  Share this post.  Donate.  Join the Twitter Party on Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 1pm EST! Hashtag is #Cleanbirth.  

Just $5 USD goes a long way — it buys a birth kit which includes sanitized necessities and the cost of travel for the nurse midwife to attend a birth. Kristyn has launched something amazing that saves lives and empowers women.

  • For just $5 you can provide a life saving Clean Birth Kit
  • For $100 you can train a Village Volunteer who serves her village
  • For $250 you can sponsor a nurse who serves as many as 10 villages

See more at: http://startsomegood.com/cleanbirth#sthash.gp7YuaeW.dpuf

If everyone who reads this post just donated $5, we could make a very large difference in the life of our fellow World Moms in Laos.  For almost the equivalent of a cup of fancy coffee, we can have a feel good, mother earth kind of day together.

Cleanbirth Donation Button

 

I hope you will join us and help us spread the word!

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Founder, Jennifer Burden in New Jersey, USA. 

Photo credits to Cleanbirth.org and Dee Harlow.

Jennifer Burden

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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#Moms4MDGs How it Went & the Impact for #SocialGood

#Moms4MDGs How it Went & the Impact for #SocialGood

#Moms4MDGs #MDG6 ResultsSo what kind of impact can you make with a Twitter party for social good?

Last night, after our #Moms4MDGs chat, we ran a TweetReach report.

In the past week, our collaborative efforts under the #Moms4MDGs hashtag have reached over 1.1 million Twitter accounts and made over 5.8 million Twitter impressions. There were also 160 contributors to the hashtag and 569 retweets. Tweeters from North America, South America, Europe and Africa joined in!

The #Moms4MDGs campaign was announced last July at the BlogHER conference’s International Activist’s Panel by World Moms Blog Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.  We were answering the call to action to keep moms engaged with the world’s goals on topics such as eradicating extreme poverty and empowering women and girls. There are 8 Millennium Development Goals, and we have been covering one per month and have teamed up with a different organization each month that works year-round toward a particular goal.

The topic of yesterday’s #Moms4MDGs chats was on the UN’s Millennium Development Goal #6, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.  The key to tackling the world’s most pressing problems is teamwork. In the first party, we were joined by cohosts, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent Magazine, Girls Globe and our featured organization of the month, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who tweeted from @gateshealth.

World Moms Blog and our contributors got the party started by welcoming guests!

#Moms4MDGs World Moms Blog Welcome

#Moms4MDGs Documama

#Moms4MDGs Gates Welcome

#Moms4MDGs Sisters From Another Mister

Then we passed the baton to cohost Multicultural Kid Blogs, who educated us on the targets for HIV/AIDS and statistics on progress and what still needs to and can be done to fight the disease.

#Moms4MDGs Multicultural Kid Blogs HIV/AIDS

#Moms4MDGs Think Ten HIV/AIDS

Multicultural Kids #Moms4MDGs HIV/AIDS Question

(By the way, the answer is c.)

This was a very popular and important tweet from the HIV/AIDS discussion:

#Moms4MDGs Gates Health HIV/AIDS

Next, the baton was passed to cohost InCulture Parent Magazine, who announced the targets for malaria, the seriousness of the disease, and what can be done to help.

#Moms4MDGs InCulture Parent Malaria

The UN Foundation and their campaign, Nothing But Nets, entered the twitter feed, which was really helpful to the conversation.

#Moms4MDGs UN Foundation

Nothing But Nets #Moms4MDGs Bed Nets

And the smart people chimed in!

#Moms4MDGs Nelly Lukale HIV Malaira Quote

Great tweets on malaria from the PM chat:

#Moms4MDGs Clean Birth Malaria

#Moms4MDGs Emma Salor Malaria

#Moms4MDGs Erin Threlfall Malaria

Some moms were already connecting with Nothing But Nets during the chat about getting their children involved in #MDG6! (This made us feel great!!)

#Moms4MDGs Taking Action on Malaria

#Moms4MDGs Diana On Malaria

And more great conversations!

#Mom4MDGs Playtime Malaria Prevention And…

#Moms4MDGs Culture Beliefs Medicine

Then, cohost Girls Globe took the baton and asked the party some powerful questions to stir up ideas and action towards #MDG6.

Girls Globe #Moms4MDGs World Moms

The Shot@Life campaign was also present and invited people to join them in the fight against disease and to become a Shot@Life champion when Girls Globe asked how moms of the world could get involved to reach #MDG6 goals.

Shot@Life #Moms4MDGs Be a Champion

And Girls Globe brought up tech and MDG goals!

Girls Globe #Moms4MDGs Tech

#Moms4MDGs Emily Bosworth #Mhealth

Our interview was cut short during the first party with @gateshealth, but it left everyone something to come back for later that evening! Later, we learned how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation came about and more about their global blog, Impatient Optimists.

Gate Health Impatient Optimists Tweet

And, they provided a mind-blowing statistic on polio, given that India was just declared polio-free for 3 years in a row this week.

Gates Health #Moms4MDGs Polio Stat

But, perhaps, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s biggest, most powerful message on #MDG6 was this:

Gates Health #Moms4MDGs Global Health Tweet

With two months still left in the 8 month #Moms4MDGs campaign, we are thrilled about how much MDG8, a global partnership for development, has played a role in all the parties throughout.  World Moms Blog is proud to be meeting interesting people on Twitter, connecting with other websites geared up to make a difference and partnering and featuring foundations that are making year-long contributions to the vital goals to end extreme poverty and increase global health that the world has set.

#Moms4MDGs Lauren Supina Quote

Our next twitter party takes place on February, 15th, 2014 on MDG7, the environment from 1-2pm EST.  We hope you will come out and join the momentum. Mark your calendars…!

This is an original post by World Moms Blog Founder, Jennifer Burden in New Jersey, USA. 

Photo credits to the author. 

Jennifer Burden

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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#Moms4MDGs: MDG # 6 With The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

#Moms4MDGs: MDG # 6 With The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

#Moms4MDGs Button copy

 

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 goals of MDG #6 are to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases. This month we are thrilled to continue our #Moms4MDG campaign  by joining forces with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to take on the topic of preventable infectious diseases.

MDG-infographic-6

The goals of Millennium Development Goal # 6 are:

  • A. To Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • B. By 2010, to have achieved universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
  • C. To have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  works tirelessly to support research, solutions and implementation towards improving global health.

 Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.-www.gatesfoundation.org

Meet us over at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation blog Impatient Optimists  today to read the guest post by World Moms Blog contributor Erin Threlfall! 

We will be co-hosting two #Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties with The Gates Foundation, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent and Girls Globe tomorrow, January 15th at 1-2pm EST and 9-10pm EST, so please join us! 

#Moms4MDGs Jan 15 Twitter Parties MDG6

A big THANK YOU, to three amazing sites, Multicultural Kid Blogs, InCulture Parent and Girls Globe for joining us in the rally towards the UN’s Development Goals this month with The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!

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

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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WORLD TOUR: Daria’s World Music for Children

WORLD TOUR: Daria’s World Music for Children

Raising Respect & Love

Daria and her music speak to our mission, here, at World Moms Blog, and she has also supported our #Moms4MDGs campaign.  We recently invited her friend, Lisa from The Squishable Baby, to give us the full scoop on Daria’s World Music! 

Have you ever been in the car and a song comes on the radio that brings a huge smile to your face? No matter what mood you are in – good, bad or indifferent – you feel totally at peace and happy. And if you could just bottle up that song and play it over and over, you would? Have you met someone who must have a voice from Heaven? Whose beautiful voice advocates peace, tolerance and love. Someone whose voice celebrates the human experience in all its differences?

I am lucky enough to know someone like that. Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou makes children happy through her music that advocates peace, love, and multiculturalism. As a homeschooling family where art and music are at the core of our curriculum, it’s easy to see how Daria makes such an important contribution to this world. You go on her website where there are a myriad of resources for you to teach, enjoy and spend quality time with your children. I can’t think of anything better than someone whose very foundation and message is love. And she does it in a way to educate about others and celebrates everyone’s differences.

We listen to Daria’s CDs in the car all the time. The kids know the songs by heart. They are written in different languages and are about different topics but all of them have the same undertone; to love one another and to celebrate the differences (whether good or bad) that exist in each one of us. This is the message all children should be receiving in a world that screams intolerance.

It’s time to start raising a generation of children that can respect and love the differences in others; no matter the customs, religions, colors, heights, weights, etc. These are the messages in Daria’s songs. Daria has become a part of our lives and our homeschool in a big way. We use her website a lot.

When I am teaching about a subject or an area of the world, we listen to music from that area. We look at art, and then we see what Daria has in store. Daria always has fun crafts, coloring pages and special songs available on her website. It’s there and free for everyone. The items on Daria’s website are so fun and enriching for children … and adults. I learn just as much from Daria as the kids do. The most important thing is that we do everything together. It‘s a way of bringing our family together.

Here are examples of crafts we made from Daria’s website. The kids had fun making and playing a Cajon and a Didgeridoo (instructions given on Daria’s Website) from Peru and Australia, respectively. The instructions were clear and also allowed for some innovation and creativity! Check out all the fun we had making and playing the instruments.

Having fun playing Instruments
You can see the full review I wrote about Daria here.

Daria empowers children. She makes them want to be better for the world. No other music artist I know will provide children with such fantastic family-friendly upbeat music that they can dance to; and an overreaching positive message of hope and peace, while promoting and providing a well-structured, well-rounded multicultural education in the musical arts unmatched by anything else. I am so proud of Daria and everything that she has done to bring different cultures to children in all parts of the world. I am honored that she calls me a friend. — Lisa 

Daria biography For the last 20 years, Daria has traveled the globe sharing her music of hope, love, multiculturalism and tolerance. In the United States she has won several national awards; including, The National Association for Parenting Publications Award (NAPPA), a Parent’s Choice Award, and a Children’s Web Music Award. Her songs have been used in educational curriculum the world over, including Australia (respecting others), South Africa (teaching on tolerance) and the United States (a special song written to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.).
You can visit Daria on the web: Facebook Twitter Website Pinterest

World Moms Blog

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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