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Empower Women, Empower The World

Today is International Women’s Day  and to honor this day I wanted to share some of my photographs of women that I have taken from around the world.  Today the United Nations Foundation , Johnson & Johnson, The Huffington Post, BabyCenter, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are connecting women globally to help support women’s initiatives by kicking off the Global Mom Relay.

“From now until May 8, moms are powering an online conversation about motherhood to unlock donations. Every time you share a relay post on Facebook, Twitter, or email or donate $5 or more as part of the relay, a $5 donation (up to $8,000 per day) will be donated by Johnson & Johnson and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to one of four initiatives that are helping women and children lead healthy and happy lives – Girl Up, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), and the Shot@Life campaign. The Global Mom Relay is in support of Every Woman Every Child, a movement launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015.”– United Nations Foundation

Photo By Elizabeth Atalay 

 It always amazed me in my travels how we were able to communicate even though often we did not share a common verbal language. Somehow stories were still told and questions still asked.  The first question women everywhere always asked me was if I had children or a husband. They were often fascinated that at that time in my life, my early twenties, which was considered an old maid in many of the places I visited, that I did not yet.  Often they were truly concerned for me on this matter, which I found touching. The women I met were strangers who frequently ended up housing me, hosting me for a visit, or feeding me, and I am eternally grateful for their global sisterhood.

Much has changed in the decades since my extensive travels, and in many places the quality of life for women around the world has improved.  Women are generally marrying and having children later in life allowing them to stay in school longer, and have better economic opportunities in general. Increasing numbers of girls are receiving education, and increased access to vaccines has prevented millions of deaths from preventable diseases.   There is still so far to go, the problems of violence and  inequality for women remain.  Countries around the world need to realize that they have the opportunity to tap into a large source of economic growth in the women, whoever figures that out has the potential to double their National output.

Things have changed  for me as well since those wanderlust days of travel, I am now a wife and a Mother, which I think those women would be glad to know.  Motherhood is a universal language and women can learn so much from each other.  I look forward to the wisdom from around the world in the Global Mom Relay!

 

I wrote this post as part of The Global Team of 200, a highly specialized group of members of Mom Bloggers for Social Good that concentrates on issues involving women and girls, children, world hunger and maternal health.

Our Motto: Individually we are all powerful. Together we can change the world. We believe in the power of collective action to help others and believe in ourselves to make this world a better place for our children and the world’s children.