Category Archives: Blogging

Apr24

Happy Birthday Shot@Life! #BirthdayBash

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Happy Birthday Shot@Life! #BirthdayBash

Shot@Life’s #BirthdayBash starts today- a 3 day Social Media celebration of Shot@Life’s 1st year!  To celebrate along with us check out the Shot@Life Storify page, the Shot@Life Facebook page , and follow the celebration on Twitter @shotatlife #BirthdayBash!  This week as the world celebrates Global Immunization Week, the Global Vaccine Summit begins today in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayes, the Crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and in partnership with the United nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Bill gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda gates Foundation.  The Summit will endorse the critical role that vaccines and immunization play in saving lives, and protecting children for a life time.  In conjunction, the United Nations Foundation Shot@Life campaign celebrates its 1st birthday!  Shot@Life is a call to action for Americans towards a global cause, it educates and empowers Americans to advocate for and to donate towards vaccines. Immunization is one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries.  Shot@Life aims to decrease vaccine-preventable childhood deaths around the world, and to give every child a shot at a healthy life. I was thrilled to become a Shot@Life Champion this past year and to join this important initiative. Together we can save the lives of 1.5 million children a year, and see the erradication of deadly diseases such as Measles (WHO statistics show measles deaths dropped 71 % in the past decade)  and Polio (we are 99% there!) within our lifetimes.

A few ways that YOU can help to give all children a shot at a healthy life:

1. Global mom relay: http://www.unfoundation.org/globalmomrelay/ Every day from now until May 3rd there will be a new blog post in the Global Mom Relay, and each time you share it over email, FB, or Twitter, Shot@Life gets $5 from the Gates Foundation and Johnson & Johnson. It’s that easy!

2. Sign up for the free Charity Miles app on your mobile device. You select from a number of charities they doante to, and each mile you run, walk, or bike, gets sponsored and your charity gets a little money. Win/Win right?! For example, UN Foundation sponsors my dog walks/runs for Shot@Life, and every 4 miles = 1 polio vaccine!

3. Sign up to support vaccines for kids in developing nations! www.shotatlife.org

4. Follow Shot@Life on Facebook  or Twitter 

5. Donate to my Shot@Life TeamIMMUNITY donation page and help me reach my goal of providing 45 kids immunization against vaccine preventable diseases for life. Just $20 will provide a life worth of vaccines for one child.

6. WATCH The Global Vaccine Summit ONLINE in LIVE-TIME as it begins today in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayes, the Crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and in partnership with the United nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Bill gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda gates Foundation.  The Summit will endorse the critical role that vaccines and immunization play in saving lives, and protecting children for a life time.

Apr16

It Needs To Begin With The Mothers; Join The Global Mom Relay

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It Needs To Begin With The Mothers; Join The Global Mom Relay

Jennifer Lopez is seen in a Global Mom Relay video message on the Toshiba Vision Screen in Times Square, New York, April 11, 2013. (INSIDER IMAGES/Stuart Ramson for UN Foundation) — in New York, NY.

I am a Boston girl, and aching today for the city I grew up in. I watched the Boston Marathon run through my town of Brookline each year, and my heart is breaking for those lives lost, and those injured by the terrible act of terrorism yesterday, for the city now in mourning, the runners in a daze, and all of us as global citizens who live in a world where this could possibly happen. I am hesitant to post this today as I mourn, but at the same time feel the need to come together for change in the world.  I feel strongly that that needs to begin with women working together to raise children not to hate,and  not to fear those different from themselves. Rather we need to teach love, tolerance, compassion and understanding. As women who may become mothers to the men of the world it needs to begin with us.   Motherhood bonds you to all other mothers. As mothers we share so much that supersedes geography, culture or language. We share the love of our children and the desire for them to grow up in a peaceful world, all of us navigating through the best we can. So I do feel strongly about still telling you about The Global Mom digital relay going on, because  The Global Mom Relay is a race we all can win.

The Relay was initiated on March 8th on International Women’s Day and will be running through May 8th, inspiring, and connecting us along the way.  This past week in Times Square the Global Mom Relay launched its video PSA featuring Jennifer Lopez on the Toshiba big screen! Times Square is one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions and it is estimated that up to 300,00o people may pass through  on any given day.    It is appropriate then that the Global mom Relay video should play in what is known as the “Crossroads of The World”, and it will run every ten minutes through May 8th. It will be exciting to see the social media impact as the message to join the virtual relay plays throughout each day for the next month.

Through daily posts by moms, experts, celebrities and advocates, the Global Mom Relay is mobilizing the conversation, awareness, and actions of participants to change the state of the startling statistics on women and children’s health in this world. Nearly 7 million children under the age of 5 will die from preventable diseases each year, and every two minutes a woman will die from complications due to pregnancy, unless we  act together to change things.

Each time a Global Mom Relay piece is shared on Facebook, Twitter, or by Email, or a donation of $5 or more is made by clicking on the share graphic on the post, a $5 donation (up to $62,500 per week or $125,000 every two weeks) will be donated by Johnson & Johnson and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Health(MAMA) through April 18th. From April 19th through May 2nd the donations will be going to Shot@Life. (Additional Partners Girl Up and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves benefited from the first month of the relay)

Co-chairs for the Global mom Relay Arianna Huffington, Jennifer Lopez, Lynda Lopez, Elizabeth Gore, and Sharon D’Agostino, are connecting moms everywhere through this virtual relay, and the power of social media in support of the United Nation’s Every Woman Every Child Movement. The Every Woman Every Child Movement was launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to save the lives of women and children in line with the Millenium Development goals to be reached by 2015.

The energy in the room overlooking the square in the Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel on the day of the launch was palpable as we counted down in New Years Eve fashion. 10, 9, 8….. and the button was pushed to light up the towering Toshiba screen visible through the panoramic windows with the premier of the Global Mom Relay video.  I was thrilled to be there for the launch event, to meet up with friends from the United nations Foundation,  Shot@Life, and some of the amazing partners and contributors taking part in the Global Mom Relay.   Jennifer Burden, founder of World Moms Blog , had two posts that ran in the Global Mom Relay just days after on April 13th on the Huffington Post and BabyCenter  pages.   The posts generated over 900 shares around the world from Asia, to Africa to Europe with type of collective energy that puts change in motion. Today writer Jennifer James, of Mom Bloggers For Social Good and Global Team of 200 has a post on Jill Sheffield, and the inspiration for her life’s work in Kenya. Each time a post is read we learn more about each other, and each time a post is shared we help others,we need to work together as mothers to make this world a better place for our children.

With Olivia Culpo, Miss Universe 2012 from Rhode Island

 

Pictured L to R, Elizabeth Atalay, Documama, Holly Pavlika, Momentum Nation, Nana Meriwether, Miss USA 2012, Lynda Lopez, Lopez Family Foundation, Elizabeth Gore, UN Foundation, Jennifer Burden, World Moms Blog, Olivia Culpo, Miss Universe 2012, Sharon D’Agostino, Johnson & Johnson, Chrysula Winegar, Million Moms Challenge, Yoshi Uchiyama, Toshiba America Inc, and Jill Nystul, One Good Thing by Jillee, at the launch of the Global Mom Relay video messages on the Toshiba Vision Screen in Times Square, New York, April 11, 2013. (INSIDER IMAGES/Stuart Ramson for UN Foundation) — in New York, NY.

For more information, visit www.unfoundation.org/globalmomrelay.

Watch the video below that plays in Times Square and prepare to be INSPIRED! If you are in New York, be sure to check it out in person!

Apr14

My Visitor from The Seychelles

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My Visitor from The Seychelles

I wrote about my Flag Counter over a year ago when I started this blog, and it is thrilling for me to see the countries that have found their way here  since then. Today I noticed that someone from the Seychelles had visited documama, and I got all excited because I have been to the Seychelles, and it is one of my favorite places on this earth!  It was the end of six months traveling overland through Africa from Morocco down to Botswana, and I had heard of the stunning beauty of the Seychelles, so a couple of friends and I decided to check it out before heading home.  We were three backpackers, looking pretty scruffy,with little money to our names, but we jumped on a boat from Kenya, and made our way to Mahe, the main island.

On our boat ride over

We decided to stay on one of the smaller islands of the archipelago called La Digue. . There was only one (pricey) hotel on the island but we were unfazed, and unrolled our sleeping bags out on the beach to camp out.  We found what we thought would be a nice safe cove tucked away on an empty beach, (here I need to interject that all of the beaches were empty and the epitome of paradise with white powder sand and warm aquamarine water.) In the middle of the night we woke up to waves lapping at our feet, soaking our sleeping bags as we realized we could have easily been washed away!  When we awoke again in the morning, after adjusting our spot, a local young man, eager to practice his English, had sweetly brought us coffee, and breakfast after observing us setting up camp the day before in a what he may have recognized as not such a great spot. He showed us a better place where we slept safe and dry the next night.

Waking up on the beach

There were no cars on the island, only carts pulled by oxen, so we rented bikes and rode our way to the one hotel to lounge by the pool, and have some drinks at the pool bar. (Clearly we had our priorities!) Everyone assumed we belonged to one of the yachts docked offshore, because apparently they did not get too many back-packers in the area.  Despite our protests they would not believe that we were sleeping on the beach.  One day we took a day trip to Praslin island which was thought to be the original Garden of Eden by explorer Charles Gordon in the late 1800’s. With its exquisite and verdant tropical forest it certainly could have been. The day we went out on a fishing boat our friend Glen caught a huge Marlin within 10 minutes! It was crazy!

Island transportation

We enjoyed eating grilled fish on the beach with our toes in the sand, idyllic days on the beach or at the hotel pool. The Seychelles seemed to us to be paradise found.  So I want to say thank you to my visitor who stopped by documama today, for the hospitality of your people all those years ago, and for bringing those treasured memories back to me this evening.  My father in law travels the world and blogs at http://www.bulentatalay.com , and also has the Flag Counter on his site; whenever we travel we look up each other’s sites to give each other another flag.  This week I may see new flags from Qatar and Dubai from him, but I’m pretty sure he’s not in the Seychelles right now.

The Flag of The Republic of Seychelles

My Flag Counter now

My Flag Counter then

With the catch of the day!

Apr5

What Are The Millennium Development Goals?

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What Are The Millennium Development Goals?

The Millennium Development Goals are 8 international development goals set after the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000. These goals were agreed upon by all 193 United Nations members to be achieved by 2015. At the time it must have seemed very far off in the future, but today marks 1,000 days until the goals are to be met. Millennium 1,000 has filled a schedule of 1,000 minutes of digital programing today to mark the goal and inspire momentum in achieving the 8 Millennium Development goals globally. You can join the conversation, or learn more by following the hashtag #MDGMomentum. I will be taking part in 1/2 hour Twitter chats with World Moms Blog at 6pm on the topic of #MDG2 Education using @worldmomsblog and #MDGMomentum, again at 9:30pm with Social Good Moms (where I am a member of Global team of  200) on #MDG5 “Picturing Maternal Health: A Look at Maternal Health Through Facts and Photos.” using #SocialGoodMoms & #MDDGMomentum hashtags, and then again at Midnight with World Moms Blog on #MDG4 Child Survival  using @worldmomsblog & the #MDGMomentum hashtag. I hope to see you at one or more! Below are fantastic infographics on each of the Millennium Development Goals from the United Nations. Much progress has been made, already extreme poverty has been halved since 1990, but we have so much farther to go by 2015, we need to work together to achieve these goals.