WORLD VOICE: Paying My Grandmother’s Work Forward

WORLD VOICE: Paying My Grandmother’s Work Forward

My grandmother, Amelia, has been gone 3 years now. It is weird that she is not here, yet, I can still here her voice in my head. I remember how she would say an old fashioned, “How do you do?” to me and my toys or call soft serve ice cream “custard” on a hot Brooklyn’s summer’s day. She was always up for a walk after we ate, and one time we got lost, but eventually made our way back home! She always loved to read and talk and go. She got bored very easily. And, of course, there was always candy coated gum, “Chicklets”, in her purse to share. In fact, our 2nd post on World Moms Network, then World Moms Blog, in 2010 was about her life!

My favorite story was about how the family had run out of money during the Great Depression, and then she received a postcard in the mail from the State of New York to apply for free nursing training. It was her ticket out of upstate to come to the great, big city and pull her family out of the breadline. She was the responsible one in the family, ahead of her brothers (as she always told me!). And she knew what she needed to do. Amelia, my grandmother, answered the call, and was on her way to New York City to become a nurse.

Nursing was so important to my grandmother, and so far, no one in the family has carried on her torch in the medical field. So, when World Mom, Kristyn Zalota, had formed the nonprofit, Cleanbirth.org, and was looking for donations to train much needed nurse midwives in Laos, I decided it was the perfect way to pay tribute to my grandmother. It is a great feeling to be able to provide a woman today an opportunity of life changing healthcare training, like my grandmother had once received. It is our family’s way of paying it forward.

Cleanbirth.org was founded in response to Laos having one of the worst maternal death rates on the planet. Attributing to these rates was the lack of adequate or accessible health care in rural areas and absence of sanitary supplies needed to prevent infection during birth.

Today, Cleanbirth.org in cooperation with Yale University, has trained over 300 midwives and provided over 5,000 birth kits. It has been incredible to see Kristyn’s dream to help woman and babies be carried out as the organization grows.

This year Cleanbirth.org is seeking to train in 43 clinics this year! Every dollar helps. Whether you can chip in for or towards a $5 birth kit, or train a midwife for $240, no donation is too small or too large! Just five dollars donated pays for a sanitary birthing kit, which also includes transportation for the midwives to attend a birth.

Here is a message from Cleanbirth.org founder and World Mom, Kristyn Zalota:

 

World Moms Network community, please join me, as we seek to raise $1000 for the training of nurse midwives and birth kits this year! Whether you’d like to contribute to train a nurse midwife for $240 or chip in toward a $5 birth kit or anywhere in between, no donation is too small!

Here is the link to World Moms Network’s Cleanbirth.org funding page. Won’t you join us to help save the lives of more moms and babies, as well as, give more woman the opportunity to midwife training? Let’s do this! (And thank you!)

This is an original post to World Moms Network from founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden in New Jersey, USA. 

Cleanbirth.org is a 501c3 with no paid staff members. In the USA donations to Cleanbirth.org are tax deductible. 

 

 

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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NIGERIA: A Muslim Mother Recounts News of the Paris Attack

NIGERIA: A Muslim Mother Recounts News of the Paris Attack

2015 WMB Quote Hijab in Paris Aisha

My husband came into the room while I was still sleeping on the morning of the attack and told me of a deadly attack in Paris. In my half state of sleep I blocked the news out. I didn’t want to take in another pain. My body wasn’t ready to grieve.

I slept on hoping I would wake up, and it would all have been a mistake or a dream. I woke up and refused to watch the news or go onto social media. I didn’t want what I thought I heard my husband say to be true. I lived in cowardly denial.
I finally put on my phone which I had switched off, and I then had a call from a friend. They said, “Yes, there has been an attack. And, yes, many died!” “Oh God!”, I cried out.

“Has anyone claimed responsibility?”, I asked fearfully. “ISIS.”, my friend told me. “Not again,” I groaned.

To lose a loved one so brutally is horror. To know that somebody somewhere decided to kill your loved one who never offended them and whom they probably had never even seen is painful. An accident, I can understand, but that I can never.

In a month’s time my daughter will be going to France for a ski trip. Will she be looked at differently because of her hijab? My thoughts are that someone in Paris may look at my daughter in her hijab differently from the rest when she is as much victim.

When an attack happens in places like Paris it’s not that their lives are more important, but that the outcry is high even from other countries that have their fair share of terrorism. It’s fear! With all the security in such places? How can this occur?

If these tragic events can happen in places like Paris with their state of the art, high level security then they can wipe us out, here, in Nigeria with our best security. This is what goes through our minds.

It can embolden some to attack with all the copycat crimes going on. We have had so many attacks in recent times. It leaves a palpable fear in the air.

I then saw outrage on social media of people who felt that too much emphasis was placed by the world on the French lives rather than on all lives. I couldn’t find it in me to be outraged. The French cried out to the world and the world joined them in their moment of grief.

When we are attacked in Nigeria a lot of us within Nigeria seem to not care. Even our government. So how would the world cry with us when we have refused to cry for each other?

An attack happened a while ago in which over a 100 were killed it took more than 3 days before there was an official statement from the President condemning the attack. There was outrage from a few of us, and we were attacked by so many for demanding the government acknowledge an attack and death of Nigerians.

With such callousness from our own, how would the world acknowledge our grief?

When the world gets no official statement from Nigerian government, how can they grieve with us when we haven’t even acknowledged that ours were killed?

I am a pragmatic person and would always tell myself the truth no matter how it hurts. I cannot begrudge the French and the world supporting them when we haven’t supported our own. Until we take our lives seriously no one else will, and it would always be painful when my government within hours would commiserate with other countries when they are attacked and refused to acknowledge attack in our own country until days later.

I have been shown I matter by individuals reaching out to me when there is attack from different parts of the world, especially the World Moms Blog family. You would not understand how touching those moments are. It shows I am a member of the human race.

My daughter asked me just yesterday if she would still be going to Paris next month. I told her, “YES!!!” No one will make us live in fear.

Do they have heart? Do they know what it is to lose a loved one? Why do they inflict such on others? What is Islamic about terror? NOTHING!!!

Islam preaches peace. Islam enjoins a right of environment & animals on us. One is not allowed in Islam to cut down a tree.

God said in the Qur’an to kill one human is like killing humanity. We have to unite and let the goodness in us all outshine the few evil ones. Terrorist attack to anyone anywhere in the world is terrorist attack to everyone everywhere in the world.

God rest the souls of the dead and console the families of the departed all over the world. It’s not easy.

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by contributor Aisha Yesufu of Nigeria. 

World Mom, Kristyn Zalota of Cleanbirth.org, is on @BabyCenter Today!

World Mom, Kristyn Zalota of Cleanbirth.org, is on @BabyCenter Today!

Kristyn Zalota Headshot 640

Kristyn Zalota is a contributor for World Moms Blog from the USA. She is also the founder of Cleanbirth.org

As part of World Moms Blog’s collaboration with BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™, our World Moms are writing posts on maternal health around the world. In today’s post, Kristyn Zalota of Cleanbirth.org in the USA writes about the very first time she witnessed the results of her tireless work to help mothers and babies in rural, hard to reach areas of Laos.

“From 2009-10, I lived and worked on the Thai-Burma border and Cambodia. While there, I learned that mothers and babies die regularly of preventable things like infection.  Laos, a country I had visited many times, has the highest infant and maternal mortality in the region…When I returned home to the United States in 2010, I began to brainstorm how I could help mothers in these rural areas.”

Read the full post over at BabyCenter’s Mission Motherhood™!

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 VOICE: Landmark Day for Global Health – Over $7 Billion Pledged to @GAVI #VaccinesWork

WORLD VOICE: Landmark Day for Global Health – Over $7 Billion Pledged to @GAVI #VaccinesWork

Today was a landmark day for funding for the GAVI Alliance, which provides life-saving vaccinations for children around the globe. Over $7 billion US Dollars was pledged to GAVI, with the UK and the US leading the way. A group of our contributors have been working with Shot@Life, the ONE Campaign and RESULTS to put pressure on the U.S. government to fund GAVI. World Mom, Cindy Levin, also on the Board of RESULTS, is celebrating the lives that will be saved with this funding with her daughters in Missouri, USA. Read her reaction, as well as that of her daughters’, on her blog, The Anti Poverty Mom.

And World Mom, Michelle Pannell, writes from the UK about the momentous funding to save lives. It was a spiritual reminder for her on why she continues to write. Read her post at Mummy From the Heart.

In Missouri, USA, World Mom and activist, Cindy Levin, celebrate the importance of pledged funding to the GAVI Alliance for global vaccination programs for children.

In Missouri, USA, World Mom and activist, Cindy Levin, and her daughters celebrate the importance of pledged funding to the GAVI Alliance for global vaccination programs for children.

 

Michelle Pannell in Ethiopia advocating for world poverty with the ONE Campaign in 2012.

Michelle Pannell in Ethiopia advocating for world poverty with the ONE Campaign in 2012.

 

Thank you for your hard work, Cindy, Michelle and fellow World Moms!!

This is an original post to World Moms Blog. 

Photo credit to Cindy Levin. 

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 Launches 8 Month MDG Campaign!

World Moms Blog Launches 8 Month MDG Campaign!

World Moms Blog Speaks Out…

…Millennium Development Goals

We announced our new campaign at BlogHer Chicago at the BlogHer International Activists Panel! Join us for our monthly twitter parties with hashtag #Moms4MDGs to keep the conversation flowing about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)! Back in April our Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan asked, “What if we keep writing about the MDGs?”, just after two rounds of twitter parties that we hosted for the Momentum 1000 campaign last April. The campaign made a lot of noise for good, while reminding the world there were only 1000 days left until the 2015 deadlines for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Purnima’s question led to more brainstorming, and here’s what we we launched in July: #Moms4MDGs Button

An Exciting All Volunteer, 8 Month

MDG Awareness & Action Campaign!

World Moms Blog is organizing a global “walk around” the MDG’s called “World Moms Blog Speaks Out…Millennium Development Goals.”  What is that?

Well, every month, for 8 months (1 per the 8 MDGs), one of our World Moms will answer the question, “Why is (the month’s MDG) important to me as a mother?”

Her post will be hosted by an organization’s web site that is working relentlessly, year-round toward that particular MDG. For example, our first post ran on August 13th on the ONE Campaign’s site by our editor, Nicole Melancon, for MDG 1, to eradicate extreme poverty.

How Can You Help Save the World?

This project brings awareness to the MDGs and showcases an organization working toward an MDG goal per month. By sharing the post of the month, writing your own post about the campaign, joining the monthly twitter parties or carrying out each month’s action items when possible, together, we can make a difference!

#Moms4MDGs Grand Finale EDT UpdateAnd when the World Moms get together to chat…it’s always fun!

The next twitter party will take place on Wednesday, March 19th from 1-2pm EST on MDG, forming global partnerships for development! The hashtag is #Moms4MDGs, and we encourage all moms around the world to join in the discussion! We are lucky, again, to go out with a bang with cohosts, Girls Globe and Multicultural Kid Blogs!

Haven’t been to a twitter party? You can do something as simple as tweet what the MDG of the month is, ask questions, share ideas and meet other people interested in the same global issues. What a great reason to join and to socialize with our World Moms! How to come to the party: You can search for the hashtag (#Moms4MDGs) to join in on twitter from your phone, or if you’re at your computer, go to www.tweetchat.com and enter the #Moms4MDGs hashtag to follow and participate in the thread! Don’t forget to use the hashtag #Moms4MDGs. (We are not being paid by any organization to work on this campaign. This service is part of our mission statement stated at the bottom of our site.)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

 

IT WAS A BLAST! –> JULY 2013: Join our #Moms4MDGs twitter party on July 31, 2013 at 9pm EST until 10pm EST.  Say hello to the World Moms and learn about or see how well you know the MDGs! 

 

1) WE KICKED OFF MDG1! –> AUGUST 2013: MDG1, To Eradicate Extreme Poverty at ONE.org with World Mom, Nicole Melancon of thirdeyemom to post on August 13th, plus a twitter party on Wednesday, August 14th 9-10pm EST! —>

READ: MDG1 POST by Nicole Melancon at the ONE Campaign! 

 

2) 57 MILLION CHILDREN WITH NO ACCESS TO PRIMARY EDUCATION –>:SEPTEMBER 2013: MDG2, Achieve Universal Primary Education with World Mom, Martine deLuna at Save the Children. 

READ: MDG2 POST by Martine deLuna at SAVE THE CHILDREN! 

 

3) OCTOBER 2013: MDG3, Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. Girl Up and Plan International in the USA stepped in to cohost our Twitter Parties!  This month’s post was by World Mom, Mama B, in Saudia Arabia on her volunteerism with Al-Nahda.

READ: MDG3 POST by Mama B. at World Moms Blog!

 

4) NOVEMBER 2013, MDG4: Reduce Child Mortality: We’re at the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Campaign with World Mom, Purnima Ramakrishnan in India! We kicked off 2 twitter parties on World Pneumonia Day for child survival! 

READ: MDG4 POST by Purnima Ramakrishnan at the Shot@Life Website! 

 

5) Improve Maternal Health: World Mom Dee Harlow in Laos Speaks Maternal Health at Every Mother Counts!

#Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties December 18th at 1-2pm EST and 9-10pm EST 

READ: MDG5 POST by Dee Harlow in Laos on the Every Mother Counts Web Site!

 

6) Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases.  Meet us at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with World Mom Erin Threlfall! 

#Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties January 15th at 1-2pm EST and 9-10pm EST

READ: MDG6 POST by Erin Thelfall on malaria on the Impatent Optimists blog! 

 

 7) FEBRUARY 2014, MDG7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. Meet us in Brazil as Esquel Foundation with World Mom, EcoZiva! 

READ: MDG7 POST by EcoZiva on environmental sustainability posted at Esquel Foundation! 

 

NEXT UP!! — > JOIN US FOR THE GRAND FINALE MDG8 TWITTER PARTY! –>

8) MARCH 2014, MDG8: Global Partnership for Development. The Last MDG with World Mom Elizabeth Atalay on the GAVI Alliance Blog

Mark your Calendars for THE GRAND FINALE!: #Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties March 19th at 1-2pm EST with our cohosts Girls Globe & Multicultural Kid Blogs!

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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