SOCIALGOOD: World Moms’ Top Highlights at #2030NOW

SOCIALGOOD: World Moms’ Top Highlights at #2030NOW

Melinda Gates being interviewed at the Social Good Summit in New York City on September 22, 2014.

Melinda Gates being interviewed at the Social Good Summit in New York City on September 22, 2014.

“The Social Good Summit is the Grassroots equivalent of the UN General Assembly” – NY Times Journalist and author, Nicholas Kristof

Five editors from World Moms Blog attended the Social Good Summit in New York City this past weekend. So, what’s the best way to get a wrap-up of the event? We asked them all to tell us their highlights from the weekend.  Here’s what they had to say…

Kyla P’an of “Growing Muses” and WMB Managing Editor responds, 

Since I started writing and editing for World Moms Blog four years ago, I’ve been hearing about the Social Good Summit. Since the first time WMB founder, Jen Burden, attended — outfitted with baby sling and infant–back in 2011, I’ve been curious. Curious about the format, curious about the attendees, curious about the messaging. Today, I assuaged that curiosity by attending day two of the two-day summit. In concert with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA to industries insiders), the Summit pulls together journalists, bloggers, foreign press,  grass-roots activists and social entrepreneurs.

Together with fellow Sr. Editors, Elizabeth Atalay, Nicole Melancon and our tireless founder, Jen burden, we attended social enterprise boot camps, UN Foundation Fellows workshops, panel discussions and keynote addresses, interviews with philanthropists and entrepreneurs. The day was a series of sound bites. Presenters spoke for as little as five minutes or as long as 37. The topic and hashtag was 2030 Now but why that was chosen remains a bit of a mystery to me. And though I did not walk away from the actual summit feeling changed, I didn’t walk away unaltered.

Here are my three highlights: Robin Roberts interview with Melinda Gates; the Ugandan rappers Weasel and Radio who performed at the Every Woman, Every Child reception; and the exclusive briefing with Save the Children, the ONE Campaign, the Gates Foundation and actor Idris Elba. So would I drive eight hours round trip for 24-hours of Social Good again? In a heartbeat!

Jennifer Burden, Founder & CEO of World Moms Blog, says,

1.  The Social Media Fellows lunch with Adepeju Jaiyeoba, a human rights lawyer and activist from Nigeria. Adepeju founded motherskit.org, which has distributed over 7,000 birth kits to mothers in Nigeria. Her passion for rocketing my interest in advocating for the health of women was contagious, tearful and inspiring all at the same time. And, yes, I know what you are thinking — we immediately connected her to World Moms Blog contributor, Kirsten Zalota of Cleanbirth.org, who distributes birth kits in Laos. They are planning a Skype chat already!

2. I found the conversations that came up in our Social Media Fellows session with MAMA on the topic of family planning important and sad. My wish is that more woman can have control over when they have babies and how many they have, which leads me to my only regret about the Summit — not being able to stay later in the evening for the Engender Health event, which launched the “WTFP?!” campaign, meaning, “Where’s the Family Planning?”.  Engender Health has been working for decades towards maternal health and family planning, and this campaign focuses on women’s health in the developing world. I hope to hear more about their work on family planning in the future!

3. Seeing the Summit for the first time this year through the eyes of World Moms, Kyla P’an and Sarah Hughes. Kyla has been integral to the editing of our site for years, and I am thankful she joined us in NYC to experience the global conversations we both, report on and contribute to.  Sarah, also new to the event, has been a social media editor at World Moms Blog. She covered the Summit on Sunday on our World Moms Blog Facebook page, and I can sum up her enthusiasm in a picture:

World Moms Blog Editor Sarah Hughes

Awwwww! Go, Sarah, go!

World Voice editors, Elizabeth Atalay and Nicole Melancon, seasoned Social Good Summit attendees, were (as always!) active and important parts of global conversation!

Sarah Hughes of “Finnegan and the Hughes” and WMB Social Media Editor, writes: 

I loved everything about Social Good Summit!!  The air was filled with excitement and possibility.  The overall vibe of changing the world was apparent and obvious. Here are my top three highlights from the event!:

1. Meeting Susan Can, Director of Corporate Equity in the Global Marketing for Johnson & Johnson.  Susan and I had breakfast together and chatted about the importance of maternal health.  We chatted about J&J mobile health iniative Text4Baby and how it is helping underserved mothers in the US.

2. Listening to Graca Machel telling us we must NOT leave any woman behind!! Hearing her speak with such authority and assertiveness in her tone really left me feeling like we CAN do this and we MUST!

3. I left feeling sad after the session on maternal and infant health and how far off we are on reaching MDG 4 and MDG5.  My passion is maternal and infant health and it just seems like we are failing our world mothers by not doing better.  Yes, some are trying but it’s just not enough and I want to know how to do more and WHAT to do!

Elizabeth Atalay of “Documama” and WMB Senior Editor, writes:

I had to stop and think when a friend asked what it was about the Social Good Summit that I loved so much. “Was it the connections, the panels, or the events surrounding it?”,  she wondered. I decided that most of all it was the culture of the event, where the room is full of innovators and change makers that I find so inspiring.

The Social Good Summit makes me feel like I have a finger on the pulse of the Social Good movement.

I confess to at times being torn between socializing with all of the amazing people there doing cool things, sitting in the auditorium taking notes and hanging on every word of the amazing speakers in the line up, or catching sound bites, and photo ops in the media lounge. It is always refreshing to spend the couple of days with like minded global optimists as passionate as I am about making a difference in the world.

My highlights this year were:

1. Attending the Every Woman Every Child #MDG456Live event where we ran into our friend Phil Carroll from Save the Children, danced to Ugandan pop stars and then got to catch up with other World Moms and friends at an amazing South African restaurant.

2. Sitting in with the Social Good Fellows and Shot@Life director Devi Thomas to learn about another UN Foundation initiative the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action referred to as MAMA.

3. Listening to my hero Melinda Gates talk about her plans for putting women and girls on the forefront of the global agenda and just being in close proximity to her greatness.

4. Getting a debriefing at a round table discussion with ONE, Save The Children and the Gates Foundation on the Ebola crisis from Actor Idris Elba,  President of Save The Children Carolyn Miles, Jamie Drummond co-founder of ONE, and Dr. Chris Elias President of global Development for the Gates Foundation. Discussing the “Trillion Dollar Scandal” report on transparency, and the continuing Syrian refugee crisis.

As always I leave the Social Good Summit completely inspired and at the same time a bit overwhelmed with information. Amazing, powerful, and hopeful information.

Nicole Melancon of Thirdeyemom and WMB Editor says: This was my third year attending the Social Good Summit and each year it gets better and better. After two, highly intense and emotionally charged days I walk away inspired to use my voice to promote good and help change the world. For me, the key highlights were the fact that we are fortunate to live in a world where we have a voice so let’s use it. Let’s engage in the issues that mean the most to use, and use our voice to disrupt the system and ignite change. So many people around the world do not have this power and freedom to use their voice and now it is more important than ever to be heard. Where do we want to be in 2030 is up to us. So what kind of world do we want? It is up to us.

World Moms, Elizabeth Atalay, Kyla P'an and Nicole Melancon at the Social Good Summit in NYC.

World Moms, Elizabeth Atalay, Kyla P’an and Nicole Melancon at the Social Good Summit in NYC.

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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GREECE: From Pythagoras To Purgatory – Education in Modern Greece

GREECE: From Pythagoras To Purgatory – Education in Modern Greece

8677750589_79cb31e6a1_zWho hasn’t heard of the name Pythagoras before? Or, for that matter Archimedes, Aristotle, Plato or Hypatia? Even if you don’t know exactly what these people believed or taught, those ancient names probably ‘ring a bell.’ For those of you fortunate enough to have had a good level of education you will probably be  familiar with the Pythagorean Theorem. Remember those maths lessons back then when we were teens? Most of you will recognise the above names as originating from Ancient Greece. Pythagoras, for instance, is best known as a mathematician who lived in the 500’s BC and also pursued knowledge in the fields of music and philosophy.

Well, I’m really proud to live in a country which has such a  history of academic and cultural excellence. In addition to the world of academia, remember that the first Olympic Games took place in Olympia in 776 BC! Can you imagine that?  Most people think of the Games as being a much more recent creation. However, the concept of combining physical excellence and political and social benefits had its inception in Greece many centuries prior to the modern day games that we are currently familiar with.

So, with such an impressive and honourable history in sport, teaching and education, how does Greece’s glorious past influence its present generation of scholars?

Tragically, the politicians and educators who are responsible for the education system in modern Greece seem to have forgotten ancient past glories.

Pupils who want to continue to tertiary education really have to suffer years of hell in order to get the grades they need for university or colleges. The state education system has been a disappointment to teachers, parents and pupils for decades, REGARDLESS of which political party has been in power. Teachers are ridiculously underpaid considering the years of hard work and expense they’ve invested in getting their degree. Parents are forced to pay for private tuition and students miss out on many areas of their childhood due to running nonstop  from day school to evening tuition.

There was a lot of publicity this summer when a bright 16 year old girl wrote a letter to parliament complaining that she was a human being and not a robot! She also expressed her fury that the new system implemented this year was EVEN WORSE than the previous one. Now students grades are counted in the last THREE years before finishing secondary school. That means if you mess up in one or two lessons when you’re 15/16, those grades will haunt you through school till you’re 17/18 and lower your whole grade average. You don’t have the option to rewrite the lesson either! Too much pressure for too many children. This both saddens and amazes me! Those who are responsible for the national curriculum are highly educated and experienced in their fields. So why has there been such a public outcry this year at the new “improved” system?

Well, quite frankly, it’s dreadful!

Virtually all Greek children who want to get good grades follow a similar programme. They go to their state run schools till around 2o’clock. As state secondary schools don’t have dining halls or refectories, the children then go home to eat lunch or take their own packed lunch to school. In the afternoon the lessons continue as most tuition in the day school isn’t adequate to prepare students for national exams. This means parents are obliged to hire private tutors, if the family budget can afford them, or children have to go back to “Frontisteria” or private tutoring schools. The second option is usually a little cheaper than the first. I know many families who have 2 children and the monthly tuition fees are at least ONE of the parents salaries. Imagine other families I know who have 3 or 4 children!!! It’s pretty common for parents to get bank loans or sell property for their offsprings education BEFORE they go to uni/college. The Greek State has prided itself for decades on its free education system. In practical and realistic terms, I don’t know any child who has entered university without doing private lessons, going to a private day school or following  courses at the evening “Frontisteria.”

So the idea of a free Greek education system is a farce in reality. The tragic thing is that with a crushed economy, in some demographics we have an unemployment rate of 40-50%. Many families now have only one breadwinner and its not uncommon to have families with both parents out of work.

So how can these families afford education? Basically, they can’t. They have to rely on the goodwill of state school teachers to give extra homework or work through breaks to cover the material which comes up in state exams.

Their kids also have to make super human efforts on their own if they want any kind of realistic job prospects.

I’m a private tutor myself and some years ago I worked in the UK doing language summer schools. I had teens from all over the world but I remember that some of my shiniest stars were from Greece and Japan. The Greek kids were very knowledgeable in many areas and I assumed the Greek education curriculum must rock! That was just before I came to live here when I realised that those students usually came from middle class homes and could afford all the extra tuition not included in the state system.

So what’s happening internationally about our right to free education and knowledge until at least the age of 17/18?  I’m British so I take it for granted that compulsory education should be till 16 and all levels of education should be free until the end of secondary school. Acquaintances from around the world have told me similar stories about education in their countries. The general consensus is that state curriculums are getting worse and trying to guarantee your child’s entry to tertiary education means forking out an awful lot of money! Friends in the USA, UK and Germany have put their children into private day schools or boarding schools. Colleagues who live in Denmark praise their system but this is only one that I know of personally which gets a glowing report!

I hope that your system isn’t like our Greek system.

As my ambitious 14 year old son says:”Going to school here is like being sent to PURGATORY!”

I’d be really interested to know about the education system in your part of the world. Do you have to pay fees or is everything provided by the government?

This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Ann Marie Wraight of Greece. Photo credit: Tom Brown. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Ann Marie Wraight

Having lived in 4 different countries, Ann Marie finds it difficult to give a short answer about where she's from. She regards herself: Brit by birth, Aussie by nature, with a sprinkling of Greek and German based on her insatiable appetite for tasty food and chilled beer! This World Mom has been married to her Greek soulmate for 16 years and they are the proud but constantly challenged parents of two overactive teenage boys. (She secretly wonders sometimes if she was given the wrong babies when she left the maternity clinic.) She can't explain the fascination and ability that her 13 and 14 year-olds show in math and physics or that both boys are ranked 1st and 2nd nationally in judo. Ann Marie can only conclude that those years of breastfeeding, eating home cooked meals and home tutoring really DO make a difference in academic and physical performance! The family is keeping its fingers crossed that---with the awful economic crash in Greece---continued excellence in math and/or judo will lead to university scholarships... In addition to writing, enjoying a good glass of wine and movies, Ann Marie also works as a teacher and tends their small, free-range farm in the Greek countryside.

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ONTARIO, CANADA: Hoping For The Best, But Fearing Heartache

ONTARIO, CANADA: Hoping For The Best, But Fearing Heartache

DSC_0114This week, a story in the news made me cry. It was not the kind of story that makes it big in the mainstream media. It was not about mass devastation or loss of life, war or missing jetliners. It was, however, a story that has a big impact in my little corner of the world: the autism community.

What happened was that a pair of teens persuaded a 15-year-old boy with autism to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. They sold him on how generous it would be, how cool it would be, how fun it would be. As he stood there trustingly, expecting to be drenched in freezing cold water, the teens poured a bucket filled with human feces and urine all over him. (more…)

Kirsten Doyle (Canada)

Kirsten Doyle was born in South Africa. After completing university, she drifted for a while and finally washed up in Canada in 2000. She is Mom to two boys who have reached the stage of eating everything in sight (but still remaining skinny). Kirsten was a computer programmer for a while before migrating into I.T. project management. Eventually she tossed in the corporate life entirely in order to be a self-employed writer and editor. She is now living her best life writing about mental health and addictions, and posting videos to two YouTube channels. When Kirsten is not wrestling with her kids or writing up a storm, she can be seen on Toronto's streets putting many miles onto her running shoes. Every year, she runs a half-marathon to benefit children with autism, inspired by her older son who lives life on the autism spectrum. Final piece of information: Kirsten is lucky enough to be married to the funniest guy in the world. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Be sure to check out her YouTube channels at My Gen X Life and Word Salad With Coffee!

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INDONESIA: Helping Children Cope With Divorce

INDONESIA: Helping Children Cope With Divorce

Divorce is difficult for adults. Divorce is difficult for children. It is difficult for everyone. No doubt about it. I had sailed through it. Not a smooth sailing – mind you – but I learnt so much through the process. (more…)

Maureen

Founder of Single Moms Indonesia, community leader and builder. Deeply passionate about women empowerment.

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SOUTH AFRICA: Welcome to Planet Parenthood #WorldMoms

SOUTH AFRICA: Welcome to Planet Parenthood #WorldMoms

Mom in South Africa
Today we welcome a guest post from South Africa! Karien Potgieter is a full-time working mom of two kids aged two and under.  She loves nothing more than to load up the double jogging stroller and set off on adventures with Little Miss K and Baby J – together they dream of running the world!  You can follow their adventures at www.runningtherace.co.za.  Here, she introduces us to what she calls, “Planet Parenthood”. It’s a hoot! Read on…

Becoming a parent for the first time is a bit like entering a whole new universe.  For nine long months little old ladies scare you with old wives’ tales; complete strangers feel enticed to make unwanted comments about your body shape; and discussions with your caregiver border on TMI.  But no-one tells you about Planet Parenthood – it’s one of the best-kept secrets of humanity.

A parent’s first encounter with Planet Parenthood happens even before the birth of an offspring.  Whether you have a natural home- or hospital birth, or a C-Section, you’ll quickly find that there is no such thing as dignity in your new galaxy.  What was once considered to be, ahem, private business, isall of a sudden out in the open for entire medical teams to see.  And the weirdest thing about it?  No one bats an eyelid.  Not even you, because meeting your bundle of joy is way more important.  Welcome to parenthood.

The second sign that you now find yourself in a new solar system, is the fact that sleeping, which was once regarded asbeing vital to performing your daily tasks with gusto, is all of a sudden optional.

Who wants to sleep when you can party around a crib all night anyway?  And don’t let the fact that others, who are not from the planet of parents, intimidate you with their well-rested physiques and bushy-tailed appearances – looking fresh is way overrated anyway.

But those are just your initial weeks on Planet Parenthood.  It gets way, way more interesting than that.  Squeamish?  You’ll soon get over it.  Because there is no such thing as being prissy about bodily fluids on Planet P – everything goes.  In fact, everything goes all over you!  Gone are your days of going to the shops without boogies on your sleeve.  Or in your hair.  Or organic pumpkin puree artistically smeared all over your shoulder.  It’s your new normal – and you’re okay with it.

Strings and strings of hard-earned tertiary qualifications are furthermore also of zero relevance on your new planet.  Because instead of having hoity-toity discussions with others about the nation’s contribution to global warming, or the pros and cons of fracking the Karoo, the majority of your conversations for the next three or four years will revolve around Pajanimals.  And Telly Tubbies.  And the risks involved with sitting too close to the sofa’s edge.  And what will perhaps surprise you the most, is that you will actuallystart looking forward to your daily dose of Shaun the Sheep.  And Justin’s House.  Don’t you even try to fight it.

Perhaps the reason why everyone is so hush-hush about PlanetParenthood is the fact that it grows on you.

After the initial shock that comes with finding yourself in completely foreign surroundings, you find yourself adapting.  And growing.  And liking it more and more.  Until suddenly, one day, you realise that you don’t want to live anywhere else.  Viva Planet Parenthood!

This is a guest post from South African writer, Karien Potgieter of www.runningtherace.co.za.  

Photo credit to the author. 

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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