World Moms Network: We’re Back!!

 

Managing Editor, Elizabeth Atalay, Senior and World Voice Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan, and Founder, Jennifer Burden on a video call to kick off the new season!

 

Welcome back, everyone!

This summer we all took a well needed “Blogcation” from the site. It was nice to take a break. The summer was busy for me and my family. We were in Europe and splashing along New Jersey’s coast in the USA, as well as, day tripping into New York City. Our adventures left very little time for sitting in front of a computer! But now that the kids are back to school, I am excited to be a part of picking up where we left off…

Getting back into the swing of things last week all started with Purnima in India posting to our editors’ group on Facebook: “Are we starting our posting schedule today?”, and then we all started scrambling into position from around the globe!

Elizabeth Atalay in the USA began organizing the schedule and surveying what had been written in the queue. She called me on the phone later in the week, and we agreed to organize our first Senior Editors meeting of the year. Kirsten was on jury duty in Canada, so we’d have to wait another week for her input. We agreed to meet on Wednesday morning. It was like getting all the Super Heros together!

Here’s how it all went down:

I chose 9:15am because it’s early enough in Purnima’s evening in India for her to attend, and it would give me enough time to get the kids on the bus, and then be back in time to fire up my computer with my cup of tea. However, one of my daughters slept in this morning, and I had to give her the full on mom physical — feel her head, take her temp, ask her questions — to see if she was ok to go to school. She was. So, after getting one kid on the bus, I had enough time to pack the other kid up, and drive her to school. So, not the calm stroll from the bus stop onto the video call that I envisioned! I messaged Purnima to let her know I’d be running late.

Once on the call, Purnima’s internet in India kept cutting out on us. It also took us both awhile to tinker and find the right mic and volume settings on each side. We FINALLY got it all going, and then out of the blue my husband comes running down the stairs and says in a panic, “I need a ride to the bus stop! I’m not going to make it, if I have to park! Sorry, I received a call I had to take a few minutes ago! Can you take me?” He had been working in the office upstairs, but needed to head to NYC for a meeting. So, I then had to end the video call. Yep. And I had to tell Purnima I’d call her when I got back from driving my husband to the bus.

It’s now after 10am. On the way back, I got a text from Elizabeth, “Did I miss the call?” She had other business this morning, and couldn’t get on earlier, but was now free. I say, “Perfect timing.”

I head back into the house, and before you know it, I’ve got both, Purnima and Elizabeth on the video call. Success!

Later, we share what we discussed in our editors’ group, and Senior Editor, Kirsten Doyle in Canada, got to add on to what we were building.

This about explains what it’s like behind the scenes, here, at World Moms Network. Did you expect something else?

We pull it all together. We always do. We’re the #WorldMoms. So, this is a note to let you know how grateful we are that you stop by here to read. We’re not in a big office building churning out editorials. We’re out and about around the globe, on the ground, and enthusiastic about making this work into our day. It really means a lot to us that you’re reading!

What can you look out for? #WorldMoms will be hitting New York City next week for events around the United National General Assembly. Elizabeth Atalay, Nicole Melancon and myself will be attending the Travel Blogger Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship. The Summit is a continuation from the White House Travel Blogger Summit that I attended in 2014. They have a great lineup of speakers and sponsors, whom we can’t wait to meet! The hashtag is #studyabroadbecause

Margie Webb in Arkansas and Tes Solomon in New York will be covering this year’s Social Good Summit in New York City hosted by the UN Foundation, Mashable, UNDP, and the 92nd St. Y! World Moms Network has been covering this event since 2011, and it’s always an interesting event to hear about the progress towards the world’s goals to end extreme poverty and more! The hashtag is #2030Now

Tes Solomon will also be attending a high level United Nations Summit on the Sustainable Development Goals, too! We are covering a lot of bases, and can’t wait to keep you posted on what we learn. Make sure you keep up with our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds September 21st-24th!

Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you’d like to hear more about from us in the year to come! We’d love to hear from you. And…Welcome Back! 

Jennifer Burden

Founder of World Moms Network

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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What We Did During WORLD MOMS Blogcation 2017

What We Did During WORLD MOMS Blogcation 2017

You might have noticed we were a bit quiet on our website this summer as we took our annual “Blogcation.” Well, here is what some of us, World Moms, were up to during July and August of 2017!

 Tara Bergman, USA

“My family and I took a backpacking trip to an alpine lake in the Cascade Mountains in Washington State, USA. It was a lot of work to get everyone on the trail with packs, but we made it to our destination and had the whole lake to ourselves overnight. The birds were chirping until 10pm and started up again around 4am, so I guess we had some company after all.”
Tina Rodriguez, Philippines
“No holidays here in the Philippines now. I’ve been trying to juggle many things like family and home life (including homeschooling the kids), work, advocacies, etc. By God’s grace, I’m surviving! ?My family and I were even able to squeeze in some bonding time with my parents, which made for many precious moments!”
Ketakandriana Fafitoson, Madagascar

World Mom, Ketekandriana Fafitoson, of Madagascar poses in front of the temple-pyramid of El Castillo in Chichen Itza while on a business trip in Mexico. The temple once served as an astronomical observatory!

 
“My kids have just finished school but I don’t know if we will have time to go on the seaside this year (we live in the highlands). The fact is that I am 6 months pregnant now, and still have to travel a lot for my job and my activism…But I will try to manage some time to take them to their favorite place, maybe in early September…If everything goes well”
Tes Silverman, World Voice, USA
“Summer’s was busy for me & my family! My daughter, Shaina, graduated from high school in June, and then my whole family headed down south to Virginia Beach in early July to celebrate my great-aunt’s 100th birthday! What an amazing reunion of aunts, uncles & cousins I haven’t seen in years, and especially for Shaina, who met a lot of them for the first time. My most favorite moment was going up to my great-aunt Pacing (the woman of the day in pink), and after being told who I was, seeing her eyes fly wide open after recognizing me and giving me a big smile. I then moved over so I could introduce her to Shaina, and her response was, “oh so pretty!” It was so moving for me that she recognized me after so many years, and that I had the opportunity to have Shaina & Micah see her again.
That weekend spent with my relatives made me realize how precious life is & how awesome it is to have an extended family. If l live to be 100, I hope to see as much family around me as my great-aunt had. As a result of this weekend, we are now planning to get together again next year, to make sure that the 2nd generation (mine) & 3rd generation of cousins (Shaina’s) keep in touch.
To-wen Tseng, USA
“Currently pregnant with my 2nd child, I had to take some time off earlier this year because of pregnancy complications. Now into 27 weeks, I’m feeling better and trying to catch up at work. I have a new book due exactly on the baby’s due date! Wasn’t aware of the pregnancy when I sign the contract with the publisher. A busy summer for me!”
Founder Jennifer Burden, USA
“We headed to the U.K. and Italy for a month to vacation and catch up with family and friends. Here’s a photo of the girls looking out over the ruins of the Forum in Rome.”
Bessma Bader, Saudi Arabia
“Summer has been both, slow and busy. Busy because I gave birth to my 5th child in June 18th, and slow because since then I have been stuck under or beside my 5th feeding or caring for him. All while trying to make sure the other kids get to various summer camps and activities to keep them busy considering it’s averaging 48-50 C degrees outside in the daytime, so outdoor activities are not an option! Feeling happy, tired and blessed. 

Cindy Levin, World Voice, USA

“I took my family up to the San Juan islands, a remote chain of islands in the pacific northwest of the U.S. We kayaked, canoed, hiked, and watched the orcas watching us. We also got to scramble around the “bottom of the ocean” looking for sea stars. In a rare tidal event, the moon was aligned so that we could walk where the water would normally be 10 feet over our heads!”

 Piya Mukherjee, India

 

“It was a lovely summer and a bit of a milestone. My 18-year old returned home for his summer break from the hostel, and it’s been a sweet-sad feeling, cherishing every moment of family time, yet aware of the calendar telling us he will fly back to Delhi soon to his engineering studies. Best of all was the 8-day trip to Gokarna and Goa (India) – an off-the-grid, back-in-time kind of holiday, with entire days spent at the beach!”

Yolanda McCloud Gordon, USA 
“I had a great summer. First in June, I went to NYC to participate in a story telling workshop with The Moth! Totally awesome. Then I joined Cynthia Changyit Levin in DC to fight for healthcare and led a Storytelling workshop at the RESULTS Conference! Back at home I prepped for the student that I took under my wings this summer.”
Elizabeth Atalay, Managing Editor, USA

“This was an epic summer for us, having both turned 50 this past year, looking forward to our 20th wedding anniversary this fall, and sending our oldest of four kids off to college in the fall inspired us to go big with our summer plans. It was a dream come true for me to travel to Tanzania as a family with Proud African Safaris, a small Tanzanian owned company that provided a trip of a lifetime. We spent 6 nights in the Serengeti viewing spectacular wildlife, and visited a Masaai village as well as several tribes in the lake Eyasi region. Then spent a few days at the beach in Zanzibar. Soon after our family trip, I did a week long women’s trip to Israel that was incredible. Then as a family we traveled into the path of totality in South Carolina to view the Total Solar Eclipse!”

We are excited to be back, to share the global stories that we have collected and dive into a new season together!

What did you do did this past summer? We’d love to hear! 
This is an original post compiled for World Moms Network by Elizabeth Atalay.

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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2014 Highlights…and We’re off on Blogcation!

2014 Highlights…and We’re off on Blogcation!

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Season’s Greetings Readers!

As the end of December approaches, so does the end 2014. We would like to thank YOU, for joining us and coming along for the ride over this past year.  You…sharing our posts, posting comments, and interacting with us on social media…THAT is what keeps us going!

This past year has been another amazing one for World Moms Blog (WMB).  As we touch on some highlights from 2014, you will see that these world moms get around!

After all that, we are getting ready to take a blogcation break to spend time with family, friends, and re-energize for 2015.  We hope that you will get the chance to do the same.  And if you find yourself looking for something to read, come on by and catch up on posts you may have missed in 2014!

Wishing you all a joyful end of the year.  Come back on Monday, January 5th to help us kick off 2015.

Cheers!

World Moms Blog

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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World Moms Blog 2013 & Interesting Global Reads for Blogcation!

World Moms Blog 2013 & Interesting Global Reads for Blogcation!

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Last year at this time, I admit, I was burnt to the ground in exhaustion, and I thought about shutting World Moms Blog down.

It is a really tough thing for me to admit.

With a one-year old at the time home all day, who was down to one nap, and a 5-year old in only half-day kindergarten, I felt like I couldn’t keep on top of anything else.  I couldn’t.  Only by burning the midnight oil and hiring a babysitter here and there. Things got really busy, and the website was, at the time, plagued with technical difficulties that I was treading water to keep up with.  

I was a mom first. And I felt like a failure when it came to managing the website.  I felt like I couldn’t be the leader that the site needed and the stay-at-home mother of my children. My instinct was to shut the whole thing down. Really.

Friends asked me “how I did it all”, and to be honest, I cringed when they said that because I didn’t feel like I could squeeze in just enough time to keep things running. It only made me think of all of the things that I hadn’t done yet. Or the ideas to make World Moms Blog better or to bring in a cash flow that I didn’t have the time to work on.

Even my proclaimed-by-me-work-a-holic husband had found the time for us to spend together, and he was now asking me to find the time for us. Last year at this time was the roughest of rough spots when it came to being a mom, wife and leading World Moms Blog. I felt like we were a Forbes Best Website for Women that was beginning to unravel from lack of good leadership by me. 

World Moms Blog editors and contributors gave me the encouragement it took to keep us going. They loved the site and our community, and they pitched in and weren’t letting go, when I was falling.

In early 2013, Purnima won a BlogHer International Activists scholarship that would fly her to the USA. This was the motivation to keep us going until August when we would meet in Chicago at the BlogHer conference. But long before then, we were well back on track. Then the NY Times Motherlode called us a “must read”.  I cried.  We can do this.

Then, Forbes Woman listed World Moms Blog as a Best Website for Women for the second year in a row. Our contributors and I were on cloud 9.  We worked together and they helped me bring World Moms Blog into 2013! 

The blog was founded by me, but exists today because of the World Moms editors and contributors who nudged me on, knowingly and unknowingly, to get through the tough time and continue to volunteer their best work.  And to the organizations who told us in their own way that our work is valuable to society. 

The paragraphs above were not the paragraphs I set out to write. They were written after I decided that the year in review post was finished.  They are the words inside that I wasn’t sharing with my blogging community, peers and readers.  I don’t just get by easily. I have no secret to doing it all.  Some things will fall through the cracks. I stayed up very late for many nights in 2013. But, we made it. 

We hired technical help and made more volunteer editing positions available to our contributors. We also reorganized our editing and scheduling system, which empowered our regional editors. These moves also helped relieve the pressure and free up my time for my life and for leading the blog. And then October came, and both my daughters were at school, and I had office hours. 

This year was my toughest, time-wise.  I got through it, we all got through it, and we’re headed enthusiastically into the future. I can assure you, we’ve come along way, and World Moms Blog is here to stay! If I had a magic ball last year to tell me where World Moms Blog would be today, when I really needed it most, the paragraphs to follow are what it would have told me. So glad everyone helped me through the tough time and our year turned out more than incredible…thank you, everyone.   

This year World Moms Blog made it onto Forbes Woman’s “Best Websites for Women” list for the second year in a row,  and we were called a “must read” by the NY Times Motherload.  Did that really all happen??!!  But oh wait, there’s more…our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, won a BlogHer International Activist Scholarship to come to the US and speak, and Mama B.’s post from Saudi Arabia on women’s rights won a BlogHer Voice of the Year award!

Also, as our founder, I received a scholarship as a “Global Influencer” to the Social Good Summit this year, where some of our moms were onstage for Shot@Life, and for the first time EVER, we were invited to the UN by the ONE Campaign and the GAVI Alliance. The UN!!! A dream come true!!!

Here in 2013, famous sex therapist, Dr. Ruth posed with our Lady World Moms Blog logo and World Moms Blog’s Middle East & Africa editor, Susie Newday, while Susie was reporting from the Israeli Presidential Conference in Tel Aviv.

susie and dr. ruth

And there were too many global contributor meet ups to mention — Jakarta, NYC, Walt Disney World, Toronto, Dar es Salaam and more! Our World Moms are truly, beyond grateful for this catapulting momentum!!!

Here we are with a new addition to our writing team and the former Miss World Africa, Nancy Sumari of Tanzania and Carolyn Miles, the CEO of Save the Children!

#Moms4MDGs -- Nancy Sumari, Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children, Nicole Melancon, Elizabeth Atalay, Jennifer Burden and Jennifer Barbour just after a discussion on children refugees from the Syrian conflict. September 23, 2013 in NYC.

#Moms4MDGs — Nancy Sumari, Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children, Nicole Melancon, Elizabeth Atalay, Jennifer Burden and Jennifer Barbour just after a discussion on children refugees from the Syrian conflict. September 23, 2013 in NYC.

 

Here’s when Purnima from India was in Chicago, USA for the BlogHer Conference, and we met with Sheryl Sanberg of Facebook!

World Moms Blog Sheryl Sandberg

We attended the Disney Social Media Moms weekend in May at Walt Disney World in Florida.  Guess who also happened to be in the park? One of our editors from Africa, Kim from Mama Mzungu! It would be awesome if all of you could have been there! Here’s a photo of World Moms Blog editor, Nicole Morgan of Sisters from Another Mister, me and Kim at Disney’s Contemporary Resort!

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There are too many World Moms Blog contributor meet ups to mention, so here’s a compilation of some that happened in 2013! We should make a whole page for these, shouldn’t we?! My heart sings looking at this collage:

WMB Meetups 2013

Also, the World Moms Blog community helped provide over 100 birth kits this year for CleanBirth.org to help better maternal health in Laos. We attended many conferences including Moms+Social in NYC, where I was honored to present a panel. A group of our moms also attended and helped lead advocacy training at the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Summit in Washington, DC, USA, where we lobbied the United States Congress for aid for global health. World Moms Blog was also a finalist for the Bloganthropy award, which led us to the Champions for Kids conference in Arkansas, US this year, too.

Our #Moms4MDGs campaign on the web and on Twitter has been amazing.  We have been working with non profit organizations to raise awareness on how to help end world poverty and support global health initiatives. And we’ve brought many new people into the conversation through social media.  There are still 3 months of the 8 month #Moms4MDGs campaign to help the UN raise awareness about their Millennium Development Goals. We’ve made our promise to keep the conversation going after Moms + Social! We hope you will join us!

2013 has been a great year for us in so many ways. Thank YOU to our readers for being along for the ride.  You are our inspiration!

As we take a much needed “blogcation” break to recharge for 2014, check out some fantastic great reads on World Moms Blog that you may have missed!

Did you catch this story from Nihad on her motherhood experiences since the coup in Egypt?

Or when Melanie in Japan posted about trying to protect her children from pornographic images in Tokyo?

Can an Ave Maria played at 6pm on the radio in Brazil help a mother get through the toughest part of her day?

Do you approach danger the same way Karyn in New Zealand approaches danger with her kids?

What would it be like having been raised in a communist state and now raising your daughter in a non-communist state? Read Olga Mecking of Poland’s motherhood experience!

Does what Mama B. in Saudi Arabia thinks is appropriate and inappropropriate for girls the same as what you think is appropriate?

Despite cultural Asian norms, should Ruth in Singapore find a nursing home to help her care for her mom with dementia?

What values do you think bond Hispanics from many different countries together? Read what Eva Fannon in the USA has come up with!

Does your child’s dad play a part in helping you out?  Tina in the Phillipines sent a shout-out to all the World Dads this year!

Need to cry and just let it out? Our editor Susie Newday in Israel interviewed her good friend Neta on the realities of living with metastatic breast cancer.

More in the mood to change the world with World Voice, our social good and human rights column edited by Elizabeth Atalay? Check out these things you can do with your child to celebrate world human rights by Jennifer Prestholdt in the USA!

And, check out the latest dates for our moms’ campaign, #Moms4MDGs,  to help raise awareness for the UN’s goals on world poverty and global health!

Wondering what our contributors are up to behind the scenes?  Here’s a look into World Moms Blog at the UN this year!

Last, but not least, need a motherhood pick me up?  Then search no further from this self-examining, truthful motherhood post by Polish Mom Photographer — you’ll be glad you did!

We’ll be sharing more great posts from 2013 on our World Moms Blog Facebook Page and Twitter, too, this week chosen by our Social Media editors! And there are way too many great posts from 2013 to mention — so have a poke around our site!

Meet us back here on Monday, January 6th to kick off 2014 running with our moms’ resolutions on World Moms Blog!  See you then!

Signed,

World Moms Blog’s Reenergized and Now Fearless Leader Going into 2014 with the Always Awesome WMB Editing & Contributing Team, Jennifer Burden 🙂

P.S. I really can’t wait to see what the mothers at World Moms Blog will accomplish in 2014!

 

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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World Moms Blog is on Vacation!

This week the writers and editors of World Moms Blog are taking a much-deserved break.

There is a lot happening at this time of the year. Those in North America are observing Canada Day and the Fourth of July. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is summertime – and a hot one too! Many schools are out for the summer holidays and people are going away for vacations and long weekends. Our friends in the Southern Hemisphere are bundling up and turning on their heaters as they go through their winter.

For the week of July 2nd, we at World Moms Blog will be taking a time-out to focus on whatever is happening in our necks of the woods. We will be back in full force the week of  July 9th. Check back on Saturday, July 7th for the next travel itinerary!

— World Moms Blog

Our World Moms Blog logo was designed by the creative Erica Joyner Designs in Virginia, USA.

The World Moms Blog Travel Itinerary is written by Kirsten Doyle @ Running For Autism 

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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