Category Archives: Health

Feb18

Ava Anderson; How A 14 yr Old Is Revolutionizing The Cosmetics Industry

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Ava Anderson; How A 14 yr Old Is Revolutionizing The Cosmetics Industry

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GUEST POST BY LISA DAVIS

About 5 years ago I started hearing about Ava Anderson, a 14-year-old girl who at the time lived right in my town of Barrington, RI. She, along with her parents, created a skincare line called Ava Anderson Non-Toxic. The reason Ava decided to make these products herself was that everything she was finding on the market contained harmful chemicals that were unsafe to use.

I recently spoke with Ava’s mom, Kim, and asked her a few questions about Ava and the history of the company. Kim imparted to me the story of how Ava watched a news segment one night in 2009 that exposed how many toxic chemicals are in teenage girls’ bodies from the products and makeup they use (there were hundreds). Ava was so horrified by what she saw that she immediately went through her home and threw out all of her personal care products. When Kim realized everything had been thrown out, she said to her daughter, “I support you in this, but I cannot leave the house without lipstick and deodorant!”

Ava even started a blog that soon had a thousand followers, in an attempt to recommend safer products for people to use.  But to her dismay, there were almost no safe products on the market. Everything contained chemicals of concern. And why were 1,342 toxic chemicals banned in Europe and only 9 banned in the US?

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Ava2 copy bear copyAva decided to create her own line of safe skincare that contained no harmful chemicals.  After the skincare line, they added the body care, hair care, and home cleaning lines as well. Now, the company is growing exponentially because people are becoming much more aware of and concerned about their exposure to toxins in their environment.  Their mission is not just to sell products, but to share the message of needed changes in chemical policy in the United States.

  Personally, the more I learned about the dangers of what we put on our skin and in our bodies, the more upset I got. Coincidentally around the same time my own skin had become increasingly unmanageable. No amount of facials, medicine, or costly skincare seemed to improve its condition.

When I switched to Ava Anderson products (that contain only organic botanicals) my skin looked and felt SO much better. I started using more of the Ava Anderson line of products (home care, hair care, etc.). I love them, the company, and how good my skin looks. And I love that it is good for myself, my family, and the environment. I believe in the products so strongly that I even became a rep for the product line, and I love the message of living toxin-free. If you would like to learn how to lead a healthy, more toxic-free life or to check out Ava’s products, you can visit my website.

Lisa Davis is a Biologist with a MA in Creative Writing, and a mother of three. She was recently selected by the United Nations Foundation as a Shot@Life Champion.Lisa copy

 

 

Feb4

How $5 Saved Two Lives

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How $5 Saved Two Lives

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Here is another story of how the efforts of one person can save lives. I am honored to be part of World Moms Blog where I write and edit with other moms from all around the world. I am continually inspired by them, and as I edit our weekly Social Good or World Voice piece that goes up each Tuesday, I often find myself wiping the tears away during an emotional or beautifully written piece. Kristyn Zalota is one of those writers and the founder of the non-profit CleanBirth.org . CleanBirth.org works to prevent the needless deaths of mothers and babies in Laos, where maternal and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world.  I am in awe of her, what she has built, and accomplished in less than two years with CleanBirth.org.

Already with a local Lao partner Our Village Association, CleanBirth.org has provided 2,000 AYZH Clean Birth Kits, served 150 villages, trained 15 nurses and 20 Village Volunteers.  The nurses trained about Clean Birth Kits and safe birthing practices, have begun passing their knowledge to women from each remote village.

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This week from February 4-7th, World Moms Blog, Multicultural Kids Blog, and Girls Globe are coming together to support World Moms Blog contributor, Kristyn Zalota’s, organization, CleanBirth.org by kicking off a crowd funding campaign to raise $7,500! These funds will help maximize a visit from Yale Midwifery students scheduled for July 2014 during which 30 nurses will be trained in the World Health Organization’s Essentials of Newborn Care. The Essentials are: clean birth, newborn resuscitation, skin to skin newborn care, basic newborn care and breastfeeding.   This information will then be incorporated into the Village Volunteers training. By providing access to the midwives from Yale, our Lao partners, the local nurses, and Village Volunteers will have more tools to improve care for mothers and infants.  This promotes the CleanBirth.org mission to make birth safer by empowering those on the ground with the training and resources they need.

For just $5 CleanBirth.org provides a mother with all the hygienic birthing supplies she needs to make birth safe. That can save both the life of a mother and a baby.  Funds also go towards training nurses and Village Volunteers to teach mothers in remote areas about safe birthing practices.   You can help by joining the Twitter Party on the 6th, and then the crowd funding campaign,  where for as little as $5 you can help save two lives, and make sure that women like Yai have safe births for both mother and child.

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Feb2

(RED), U2 & Bank of America Soup Up Super Bowl Sunday

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(RED), U2 & Bank of America Soup Up Super Bowl Sunday

The Super Bowl is all about the commercials for me.

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During this Sunday’s game my favorite was the commercial featuring U2 performing their new song, “Invisible”. You can download that song from iTunes, for free, and in doing so you will be helping out in the fight agains HIV/AIDS.  From 6pm EST Sunday, until 11:59pm EST Monday, every time the track is downloaded, anywhere in the world, Bank of America will donate $1 to the Global Fund to help end mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This Super Bowl Sunday, was an incredible moment in the fight to end AIDS as the new partnership between (RED), U2, and Bank of America launched. Check it out & download the song :

Every single dollar raised will go to the Global Fund to provide life-saving HIV/AIDS treatment, testing and prevention services to tens of millions of people in the world’s poorest countries. Over the next two years the partnership between (RED), U2 and Bank of America will mean more than $10 million for the Global Fund. 
Dec16

Samahope Gives Us The Opportunity To Do Something Remarkable

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Samahope Gives Us The Opportunity To Do Something Remarkable

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Back in 2006 Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson published an article in Wired Magazine that coined the term  Crowdsourcing by combining the terms crowd and outsourcing to describe a trend on the internet.  Of course crowdsourcing was not a new idea, but this was a new term, and the interment was making it possible to take crowdsourcing and crowdfunding to a whole new level. These days it has become an almost  mainstream launching pad from entrepreneurs to artists to fund projects and collect data through the various sites that have popped up to do so.

Samahope has a different vision for crowdfunding, and has come up with a way to give us each an opportunity to do something remarkable to transform and uplift another person’s life. Read the rest of this entry →

Dec9

#(RED) Hot Gift List

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#(RED) Hot Gift List

This holiday season (RED) products make a red hot gift list while offering a great way to really make an impact with your purchasing power. When you choose a (RED) product proceeds go directly to The Global Fund where 100% of that money is used to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

These are fabulous finds you would want to give anyway because (RED) partners with the world’s most iconic brands to produce super cool products, that happen to save lives. Here are a few of my favorites:

(RED) Hot Gifts! Read the rest of this entry →