SOCIAL GOOD: Save The Children’s 2014 State Of The World’s Mothers Report #SOWM

SOCIAL GOOD: Save The Children’s 2014 State Of The World’s Mothers Report #SOWM

State of the Worlds Mothers Report Cover Photo By Phil Moore

State of the Worlds Mothers Report Cover Photo By Phil Moore

The 15th annual State of the World’s Mothers Report was released last week by Save The Children, just in time for Mother’s Day, and World Moms Blog was there at the launch. The focus of the 2014 report is on saving mothers in humanitarian crisis, and the launch of the report in New York City was co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations. In his welcome address to the room Permanent Representative H.E. Mr. Libran Cabactulan of the UN Mission of the Philippines acknowledged from first hand experience, that women and children suffer the most in crisis situations.

The report notes that worldwide women and children are up to 14 times more likely than men to die in disaster. In fact it is no surprise that also according to the report more than half of all maternal and child deaths world-wide take place in countries suffering conflict or natural disasters. As Werner Obermeyer, Deputy to the Executive Director of  the WHO office to the UN stated, It is not the armed component in conflicts we are worried about, it’s those who are suffering from the armed component.

The purpose of the annual report is to further the mission of Save The Children in protecting the worlds most vulnerable mothers and children. The State of the World’s Mothers report does so by highlighting where we are failing, what effective solutions need to be put in place, and recommended policy changes towards progress. Despite the fact that 80% of the countries are not on target for achieving MDG 4 and 5, maternal and child health goals, the extreme progress seen in other countries previously failing, tells us that it is possible.

Ethiopia for example has reduced its risk of maternal death more than any other African country, by nearly two-thirds. H.E. Mr. Tekeda Alemu of Ethiopia stated that the progress there was due to a well crafted policy based on the participation of people on the local level. 48,000 health extension workers were fanned out throughout the country to mobilize women volunteers in what they called the Women’s Development Army to reach remote villages.  Afghanistan has also cut maternal death rates by 60-70 percent, moving up 32 places on the Mothers’ Index Rankings of the best and worst countries in which to give birth. This proves that the combined investment of minds and funding works.    If these countries with terrible track records have been able to make such significant improvements, there is no reason we can not see this type of progress universally with proper programs and support.

Photo Credit: Save The Children

Photo Credit: Save The Children

Climate change is the wild card that threatens even the countries that have made the most progress in maternal and child health. Climate related disasters and extreme weather are factors that can cause severe set backs in development.

The recommendations of the report call for a collaboration between governments, donor countries, international organizations, private sector and civil society to take responsibility, and each do their part to ensure mothers, and children in crisis situations have the best chance to survive, and thrive. Here is what we need to do:

1. Ensure that every mother and newborn living in crisis has access to high quality health care

2. Invest in women and girls and ensure their protection

3. Build longer term resilience to minimize the damaging effects of crises on health.

4. Design emergency interventions with a longer term view and the specific needs of mothers and newborns in mind.

5. Ensure political engagement and adequate financing, coordination and research around maternal and newborn health in crisis settings.

Save The children’s 15th annual State of the Worlds Mothers report comes at a pivotal moment in history, when humanitarian crises have focused a spotlight like never before on the needs of mothers and children who are struggling to survive. With record numbers of people displaced by war and conflict and increasingly severe natural disasters causing unspeakable destruction, it is clear we must do more to help the worlds poorest and most vulnerable families. We must give mothers the support they need to keep their children safe and healthy, even in the darkest times. -Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save The Children USA

You can read the State of the Worlds Mothers report in full here. See where your country falls on the Mothers’ Index Rankings here.

World Moms Blog Founder Jennifer Burden and Senior Editor Elizabeth Atalay at the State of the Worlds Mothers report launch in NYC.

World Moms Blog Founder Jennifer Burden and Senior Editor Elizabeth Atalay at the State of the Worlds Mothers report launch in NYC.

This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Elizabeth Atalay of Documama.

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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SOCIAL GOOD: World Immunization Week 2014 #VaccinesWork #RUuptodate ?

SOCIAL GOOD: World Immunization Week 2014 #VaccinesWork #RUuptodate ?

Jen's card

This week of April 24th through April 30th as we recognize World Immunization Week, the world is entering an exciting new phase. The upcoming expansion of vaccine programs will build on the momentum gained to this point against the most lethal killers of children in the world. Vaccine preventable diseases.  According to GAVI Alliance 440 million children have been vaccinated since the year 2,000, saving around six million lives.

We now have a “historical opportunity to go even further and secure a healthy future for a generation of vaccinated children in developing countries, a generation that hold the keys to their countries’ futures.”-   Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance

Each year this week serves to remind communities of the importance of vaccines and to spread the word that #VaccinesWork. Immunization has proven to be one of the best returns on investments in world health, yet one in five children will still die before their fifth birthday due to a vaccine preventable disease. According to GAVI Alliance there are still over 22 million kids who have little or no access to the vaccines that could save their lives.  For those of us with access to vaccines the World Health Organization is promoting the campaign tag line to “Immunize for a healthy future – Know. Check. Protect.” By making sure that you and your family are up to date on all vaccines,  everyone is given the best chance for a healthy future.

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Vaccine cards have been around for a long time to help families stay on track. These days new methods and technologies are being put into play like the new mobile phone app by the WHO, or the bracelet reminders for the babies to wear in South America being developed by Alma Sana. No matter what the method used, keeping track of immunization schedules is an important part of ensuring good health.

Vaccine Card

 

To highlight the importance of global vaccines the GAVI Alliance has shared a photo gallery of vaccine cards from around the world, so we decided to share some of our World Moms Vaccine Cards here for you too. We would love to see yours! If there is one thing we are here at World Moms Blog, it’s well vaccinated!  Share your vaccine card with us by Tweeting to #VaccinesWork #RUuptodate #WorldVaxCards, and check out the story of immunisation cards around the world hosted on the BBC.

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Do you have a vaccination card for you or your children? If you’d like to share it just tweet or post it to #VaccinesWork #RUuptodate #WorldVaxCards

This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Elizabeth Atalay of Documama.org.

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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SOCIAL GOOD: World Moms Take On The Live #BelowTheLine Challenge

SOCIAL GOOD: World Moms Take On The Live #BelowTheLine Challenge

www.livebelowtheline.com

www.livebelowtheline.com

One could barely think straight after five days she was so hungry. Another who is pregnant, was sapped of all energy after only one day.  Me, I caused a stink at the grocery store checkout over 65 cents, …..yes, we were impacted. I don’t think any of us will think of extreme poverty in the same way ever again.

 Live Below The Line is a campaign created to change the way that people think about extreme poverty. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on under $1.25 per day, something that 1.2 billion people in the world currently survive on. These are the poorest of poor, and to truly understand what it means to live that way, you need to experience it. Five World Moms took on the challenge, and in each of our own words here is what we found:

Hannah Ashton – USA

I’m six months pregnant, which is hard enough in itself, particularly when my day is spent running round after my toddler, Maggie, and I hadn’t been sleeping very well, for just one day, I thought I would give the challenge a go.  I could, of course, always stop, unlike the many pregnant women around the world, who sadly don’t have that option.

The day started well enough with oatmeal made with water, 2/3rds of a banana and a mug of green tea.   I used the tea bag to make 3 more mugs of tea which were like green water by the third and fourth cup.  This filled me up until lunchtime which was a kidney bean and carrot burger, using the recipe from “a girl called jack blog”, 1 oz. rice and two flatbreads.   Immediately after eating lunch I was still hungry.  It was a small amount of food and there was no more food until dinner.  I generally eat dinner with my husband when he gets home from work at 8pm.  Instead I was too hungry so I ate at 5:30 with Maggie when she ate her dinner.  My dinner was a kidney bean, carrot, onion and tomato stew with 2 oz rice.  Even though I had soaked the kidney beans overnight, boiled them for 20 minutes and let them simmer in the stew for an hour, they were still very hard, but I ate it all anyway.

  Later, as my husband cooked himself a delicious looking steak sandwich, a radish salad and drank a glass of red wine, I cooked up my two remaining flatbreads and made a fresh mug of green tea.  “It’s like we’re living in two different worlds tonight,” he commented.

At 3 am I woke up with a splitting headache and was extremely hungry.  I came downstairs, took two Tylenol and had a large piece of the blueberry pie that was left over from the weekend.   The next day, it is fair to say I really struggled even though the challenge was over.  The LBTL diet of the day before had really affected me.  I rang my husband at work in tears asking him to please come home from work earlier to help with Maggie’s bedtime routine as I didn’t have the energy to do it by myself (I have a nightly battle with teeth brushing but usually take it in my stride). I had to cancel a play date with a friend and I went to bed at 8:30.   It was only by Wednesday, that I felt back to normal.

I’ve not known what it’s like to be really hungry before; I’ve never dieted or not had enough money for food.   I can’t say if I was affected by this challenge more than others because I’m pregnant.   In a few years, I plan to revisit the challenge and complete the five days. What I can say is the experience has profoundly affected me.  No one should have to function on such little calories and the thought of a child having to go through this, especially, is completely heart breaking.

Item Total cost ($) Per day ($)
1 lb. dried kidney beans 1.69 0.34
1 lb. white rice* 1.07 0.21
24 oz. tomato sauce with basil and garlic 1.00 0.20
5 instant apple and cinnamon oatmeal* 0.89 0.18
1 lb. carrots 0.66 0.13
1 lb. flour* 0.65 0.13
1 lb. bananas 0.59 0.12
10 green tea bags* 0.50 0.10
0.5 lb. onions 0.33 0.07
Total 7.38 1.48

*items bought with a friend so we could split the cost.

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Deborah Quinn- Abu Dhabi

When I agreed to try living below the line for a day, I mostly had in mind trying to teach my kids about their relative privilege—that their status as “picky eaters” was in fact the ultimate luxury, given that a person only refuses one kind of food if he knows that another sort of food is available.  In Abu Dhabi, where I live, $1.50 converts to about 5 dirhams, or about the cost of a large loaf of bread.  I had decided that I would make a sort of vegetable, and as I selected one onion from India, one potato still crusted with dirt from Lebanon, two small carrots grown here in the UAE, I wondered whether the people who picked the vegetables were themselves living below the line in those countries.

My “soup” consisted of a chopped carrot, onion, and potato simmered in water with a bullion cube for flavor.  I confess that I used my immersion blender to puree the vegetables when they were soft, so that the soup felt a bit thicker and more filling.  I used another onion and some dried staples—lentils and rice—to make mejadra, a dish from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook.  Families all over this region have their own mejadra recipe, each with slightly different proportions of spices, but the dish is quintessential feed-a-lot-of-people-on-not-much: fried onions stirred into lentils and rice.  With my soup and my lentils and rice, I wasn’t hungry, but I wasn’t terribly satisfied, either: I wanted sugar, I wanted coffee, I wanted fresh green lettuce and ripe tomatoes.

I thought about the migrant workers in Abu Dhabi, who come from desperately poor towns in places like Goa, Kerala, Islamabad, or Peshawar, who work here for a pittance but are nevertheless making more money than they would at home.  What are they filling their bellies with, in order to face another day of work in Abu Dhabi’s broiling sunshine?  And given the world’s insistence—and reliance—on global capitalism, with its relentless emphasis on bottom line profits, how will we ever bring about permanent change, so that boullion soup is something you eat only when you have an upset tummy and not because it’s all you can afford?

 

Alison Fraser- Canada

 

My first attempt at living below the poverty line was much more challenging than I had anticipated. I had visions of making creative dishes to spread the $1.50 as thin as possible. It didn’t work. The bottom line is that $1.50 doesn’t get you much in terms of food in Canada. My meals consisted of small spooned amounts of peanut butter just to keep me going. I tried to drink lots of water to conquer the hunger, but that didn’t help much either. Fruit and vegetables were much too expensive to include in my meal plan, as winter in Canada results in costly produce.
In the end, my mind kept drifting back to my time in Tanzania where I met women who lived below the poverty line every single day. Some of these women were sick, and were forced to choose between their life and the needs of their children, as many HIV medications can only be taken with food. I can’t even imagine having to make that choice. So unfair.
This was an incredibly emotional experience and next year, I am determined to do it for more than just one day.

Elizabeth Atalay- USA

I could feel the color rising in my cheeks as the cashier called over the store manager. I had $7.50 to spend for my five day Live Below The Line food budget, and the misleading sale sign had just caused my order to ring up 65 cents over my carefully calculated bill. I could see them exchanging exasperated looks as I explained that the (crappy) instant coffee I had purchased was advertised for less than it rang up. The hunger pangs I felt later in the day were not what stuck with me from this challenge, those took place in the privacy of my home. It was the sting of humiliation as  the line of people behind me built up while I caused a scene over 65 cents at the grocery store. I was mortified, and imagined having to swallow my pride like this on a regular basis. I can describe the tightening in my chest, the flush of my cheeks,  and acid rising in my throat better than I can explain the emotion that moment made me feel…powerless, small, ashamed?   The manager explained that the sale was only for purchases of $25  or more.  They said they would give it to me anyways since I had told them, without going into detail, that I only had $7.50 to spend, and it was false advertising.  As much as I wanted to save face, I certainly wasn’t going to take the time to try to explain that I was doing it as part of the Live Below The Line campaign then, with the impatient crowd waiting for their turn. I plan to take the full 5 day challenge when it officially runs between April 28- May 2nd. After doing it for just one day I can see how impactful  it is in deepening empathy, and understanding on the issue of hunger, and what it means to live in poverty.

What $7.50 bought after sales, coupons, and making a scene.

What $7.50 bought after sales, coupons, and making a scene.

Jennifer Burden- USA

They (LBL) got me.  Big time. I’ve read about poverty, tweeted about it, gone to the far reaches of Uganda with the Shot@Life campaign, where I met children who are fed their one and only meal a day at school. I’ve also donated to local food banks, here, in NJ, USA.  I felt like I knew how important it is that there are people near and far who go hungry and that 1.2 billion people on the planet live below the poverty line, and that I was doing enough.  So, like a “know-it-all teenager” I naively went into this challenge thinking that I wouldn’t really learn much. Boy, was I wrong. Really wrong.

Originally, I signed up for a day of the Live Below the Line Challenge, and then, by Day 2, I had committed myself to the full challenge — 5 days. I thought I’d be celebrating on Day 5 that I had gotten that far, but there was a whole transformation. Check out my video from Day 5:

Every global health advocate, college student, mom, dad, teen, blogger, journalist, CEO, teacher, living human who is living above the poverty level, etc., should consider experiencing the challenge. The impact on eliminating world poverty would be profound if even more people were involved. It would be incredible. The challenge was a REAL eye-opener and new motivator for me. You’ve gotta do this!!!!!

 

Visit our World Moms Blog Team  Live Below The Line Page to benefit UNICEF, where you can donate to help those less fortunate, or see the impact we’ve already made in the challenge.

 

The Live Below The Line Challenge will run from April 28th to May 2nd and you can sign up here  as an individual or team.  Will you take the challenge?
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Elizabeth Atalay, Jennifer Burden, Hannah Ashton, Deborah Quinn, and Alison Fraser.

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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Saturday Sidebar: The Question Oxfam America Is Asking On #InternationalWomensDay

Saturday Sidebar: The Question Oxfam America Is Asking On #InternationalWomensDay

wmbmeetups copy

I know what you are thinking, and you are right, Everyday is International Women’s Day for us here at World Moms Blog, isn’t it?  However, today, on March 8th, International Women’s Day is celebrated by many countries around the world, so our global moms are joining Oxfam America in honoring the women who have inspired us in our communities or in our lives!

Today’s Saturday Sidebar question is:

Is there a women leader who is helping to strengthen her community by whom you are inspired?

Here are the women who have inspired some of our World Moms …………..

Karen Van Der Zwet in New Zealand: was inspired by Mother Theresa, the legendary Catholic missionary and Nobel Peace Prize winner who was known for her selfless work with the poor.

Jennifer Burden, USA Wrote: I am inspired by a young college woman, Vivian Onano. We met on twitter, and she never ceases to amaze me of her commitment to the people of Kenya, where she is from and her advocacy for women and girls worldwide with the ONE Campaign and the Half the Sky Movement. Most recently, she interviewed Bono at a ONE Campaign event. Need I say more? This soon-to-be graduate is a woman to watch!!!

Kristyn Zalota in Nicaragua says: Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a Burmese opposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma who had been previously on house arrest during the 1990 general elections. She was released in 2010, becoming one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners.

Suu Kyi received the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.” The list of her awards is long, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilan honor in the United States. She plans to run for President of Myanmar in 2015. — Wikipedia.

Alison Fraser of Canada wrote a post about her inspiration, Eleanor Roosevelt, for International Day of the Girl Child on World Moms Blog.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”  – Eleanor Roosevelt

Purnima Ramakrishnan in India Wrote: There are two women whom I really admire. One is World Moms Blog’s very own Jennifer Burden. She started out our community as a blog. And now, look, with about 60+ moms from 25+ countries, there is no stopping this wonderful conglomerate of World Mothers united in their spirit to do the best for their own children and to all the children all over the world!

From India, I admire Mother Teresa. Though not originally from India, this short lady with beautiful compassion within her worked for the downtrodden all over our country. Making Kolkatta her home in India, she said that the best gift we could give to others is our love and compassion because God never stops giving this to HIS children.

These two wonderful women, one from my own community of Kolkatta, India (now no more, she passed away) and the other from my own world community, who is trying to make the world smaller and smaller in unifying this amazing gender of women by love and compassion are, both, women I admire today on International Women’s Day.

Elizabeth Atalay in the USA says: I was recently inspired by Angela Maiers who brought her program #Choose2Matter to our local high school where she showed kids how they can have an impact on others lives and encouraged them to make the world a better place.

Eva Fannon,USA wrote: Melinda Gates. As a World Moms Blog representative at the #GatesSocial for International Mother’s Day yesterday, I learned so much about the different areas of focus for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today. Amazing!

Tinne De Beckker in Belgium wrote: Marie Popelin, first woman – in Belgium – to obtain a law degree. Isala Van Diest, first female doctor. We’ve come a long way – and have a long way to go – when it comes to education for women/girls. Let’s not forget the pioneers!

You can join Oxfam in honoring a woman who has inspired you in your life and help raise awareness about women’s efforts to change the world. Do you have a story of a woman to share?  Post it on the Oxfam site and read some of the inspiring ones already collected there. Together, we can change the world!

This post was compiled by World Moms Blog editor of World Voice (human rights and social good), Elizabeth Atalay of “Documama” in the USA.

Photo credit to World Moms Blog of some of our 2013 contributor meet ups around the world!

 

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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SOCIAL GOOD: Helping Kids Choose2Matter

SOCIAL GOOD: Helping Kids Choose2Matter

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“You Matter”. The revelation that those two words can change the world seems so simple, so intuitive, yet those are not words that young people are used to hearing. Angela Maiers a long time educator, and founder of Choose2Matter decided that those two little words could be revolutionary.  With her passion and enthusiasm behind the idea that we each have a unique genius to contribute, it is no wonder that her 2007 TEDx talk went viral. Thus the Choose2Matter movement was born.

“We were created for significance and one of the most dangerous things that can happen to us is the feeling that we don’t matter.”- Angela Maiers

Angela points out that she is not talking about an ego thing, studies show that feeling like you matter is a basic human need. The genius she sees in all of us is each individuals’ ability to problem solve from their own unique personal perspective.  What started out as a digital community has now evolved into Choose2Matter Live events at schools across the U.S.A. In my mind perhaps no one needs to hear this more than high school kids who are in the process of self-discovery, so I was thrilled when the two-day Choose2Matter Live workshop came to my daughter’s public high school in Rhode Island.

The first thing the kids learned was the Choose2Matter Manifesto: You are enough, you have influence, you are a genius, you have a contribution to make, you have a gift that others need, your actions define our impact, you are the change, you matter.  If they did not believe it before, they were now introduced to the idea that their voices and their actions can help others. The examples shown to this new group of kids of ways in which students have already made an impact through Choose2Matter are remarkable.

Honestly though, who doesn’t need to hear this manifesto? Even as adults the feeling that we matter is essential.  This is an ideology that we frequently see first hand here at World Moms Blog, the power of one person, one idea brought to fruition, and how it can positively impact entire communities. Kristyn Zalota launched CleanBirth.org  to provide safe birth for mothers in Laos, Alison Fraser started  www.mom2momafrica to support the education of women and girls in Tanzania, and the founder of World Moms Blog Jennifer Burden created this global community of mothers from around the world when she couldn’t find what she was searching for online. These are just three examples of the many ways World moms Blog Contributors and Editors are using their passions and voices to make the world a better place. Their accomplishments inspire me to strive to do more in my own life, through their achievements I can see the possibilities when one puts their mind to solving a problem.

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A Heart-Break Map

After the introduction, when the kids broke out into groups of “heart-break mapping” to narrow down what breaks their hearts about the world, and then come up with solutions of what they can do about it, my heart burst open. Kids narrowed down their heart breaks into solvable problems, some chose to be brave about sensitive issues they knew first hand to use their experience to try to help others. Due to a snow-day a room full of high school kids chose to voluntarily return to school on the saturday before vacation week to follow through on their ideas.  It was truly amazing to watch these kids come together and talk through some of the major issues impacting society. I witnessed at least three new websites being born to begin to address some of their heart breaks , self-harm, depression, and body image issues for girls. These kids got it. As Angela and her colleague Mark told the kids, these ideas may not be the ones to solve a problem, but you are just building your muscles here, you are just getting started.

The lessons the kids at my daughter’s high school learned in those two days are sure to stay with them. The empowerment of knowing that they do matter, that they are capable of making a difference is huge. The students were left with the message that they are the ones who will need to come up with the answers to the world’s most pressing problems, because us adults just may not have all the answers. (But that is one thing I think all teenagers already seem know.)

This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Elizabeth Atalay of Documama.

Do you have any great examples of the power of one person who made an impact to share?

Elizabeth Atalay

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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