Category Archives: Motherhood

Mar27

Screening of Girl Rising With Maternova

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Screening of Girl Rising With Maternova

As I watched my 10-year-old daughter practice cartwheels with her friends, I could not help but reflect on a girl the same age whose story I viewed in a film a couple of weeks ago. These carefree girls who whirl in front of me today are pure joy in motion.  They are all giggles and silliness, while arms and legs whip past.  The girl I reflect on was an 11-year-old pregnant child bride, and  pretty much the antithesis of the scene before me now.

Meg Wirth Founder of Maternova with Cable Car Cinema Owner Daniel Kamil.

Her stolen childhood was depicted to me in the Rhode Island premier of the groundbreaking documentary film Girl Rising.  Hosted at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence by Maternova. Girl Rising, was directed by Academy Award nominee Richard Robbins, and tells the story of 9 girls from around the world, girls living a very different reality than the one that I faced growing up, or that my daughters live today.  The girls in the film each take on the unique challenges of their lives, and are rising up despite those challenges, through determination and education.  It is the strength of their human spirit and will to move forward that gives the viewer hope for the girls of the world as well, and lets us envision better childhoods leading to successful lives for all girls worldwide in the future.   Each girl’s story was written by a known writer from her country and narrated by a well-known actress.  The stories were then woven in an innovative format that combines animation with documentary footage.  Statistics are threaded into each poignant narrative to help the viewer grasp where the girl child stands today, and what the possibilities are if we support her.

Girl Rising spotlights the stories of nine unforgettable girls born into unforgiving circumstances. Girls like Sokha, an orphan who rises from a life in the garbage dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to become a star student and an accomplished dancer; Suma, who writes songs that help her endure forced servitude in Nepal and today crusades to free others; and Ruksana, an Indian “pavement-dweller” whose father sacrifices his own basic needs for his daughter’s dreams. -10×10.org on Girl Rising

One of the exciting aspects for me of being part of the Shot@Life campaign with the  United Nations Foundation, is learning about all of the other amazing United Nations Foundation initiatives taking place as well.   I head heard about the film Girl Rising as a centerpiece of the UN Foundation Girl Up campaign in partnership with the film’s creators at 10×10, a global movement promoting the education of girls in the developing world.   When I looked into a local screening I was thrilled to learn not only that Maternova was located right here in Rhode Island, but that they were hosting the Rhode Island premiere of Girl Rising at the Cable Car Cinema. Maternova is an amazing  mission-driven company committed to saving the lives of mothers and infants by providing healthcare innovations directly to frontline workers where they are most needed.  Maternova concurrently incubates new products in their field, and has established a non-profit to assist in their mission of promoting maternal and infant health in developing nations. The attendance roster in the theatre that night really highlights the innovative global humanitarian hub that Rhode Island is becoming.   With leaders in solutions to poverty, maternal health, and hunger  from Edesia Global Nutrition Solutions, Solar Sister, and our hosts from Maternova, these women are change agents who are coming up with solutions to some of the worlds most vexing problems, and I was honored to be in their company.  As a woman, as a mother, or as a global citizen with an interest in the future of our world, you will want to see Girl Rising.  The film is sure to deepen understanding of the challenges our girls face, and lead us toward solutions.  The Cable Car Cinema has one more screening of Girl Rising scheduled on the evening of April 1st, and Girl Rising will be broadcast by CNN Films this summer.  View the Film Trailer below and read 13 facts you should know about Girls and Education from 10×10 here.

Mar22

March 22nd Is World Water Day

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March 22nd Is World Water Day

Photo by Elizabeth Atalay

Many years ago traveling in Africa I took this photo of young girls carrying these huge jugs of water through their village to their homes.  This is a snapshot of a scene that I saw played out time and again in my travels through the continent. Lines at village hand pumps, and heavy jerry cans balanced on heads, hours fetching water that could otherwise have been spent by these young girls in school, or by the women earning a living.   By being there, at times the amount of effort put into accessing the most basic of human necessities, and the conservation required once obtained, became my own reality as well.  Having grown up with an abundance of water, this was a sharp learning curve on what a precious commodity water is.  It is easy to take it for granted when you have it, until you don’t.  According to statistics from WaterAid the average North American uses 400 liters of water every day, while the average person in the developing world uses 10 liters of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC)) So, while I returned home to the many taps of flowing water inside my house with a new appreciation for that luxury, 783 million people around the world are without clean water to drink.  Combine that fact with the lack of proper sanitation in many of the same regions and the result is 2,000 children who die each day from water related diseases.

The United Nations has established March 22nd as a day to examine water issues around the world.

WaterAid is an International non-profit organization that helps the world’s poorest people to plan, build and manage their own safe water supplies and to improve their sanitation and hygiene.  These basic services transform lives.

“Water is just the beginning of the road out of poverty.  Hours spent carrying water can instead be spent with family, tending crops, raising livestock or starting a business.  Simple changes to sanitation and hygiene practices save thousands of babies’ lives and keep children in school.”- WaterAid.

How you can help:

  • Watch, and share the below video:

 

 

 

Follow WaterAid America on Twitter and Facebook and share their posts on the #20ways that water is just the beginning of the road out of poverty.

  • Join the World Water Day Google+ Hangout at 1.30pm EST on March 22 where WaterAid and other water organizations will be discussing the world water crisis and solutions in a celebration moderated by YouTube star Justine Ezarik.
  • Make a donation: as experts in practical, hands-on water solutions WaterAid has brought clean water to 17.5 million people. But they need your help to achieve their aim of helping 1.4 million more people this year.

 

Visit www.wateraidamerica.org/worldwaterday for all the latest World Water  Day news.

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.


Mar8

International Women’s Day

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International Women’s Day

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.

Photo By Elizabeth Atalay

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.

Photo By Elizabeth Atalay

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!

 

Photo by Elizabeth Atalay

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb26

Kaboom! Playgrounds And The Power Of Play

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Kaboom! Playgrounds And The Power Of Play
 I Must have spent nearly a quarter of the past decade at playgrounds with my kids, so I am thrilled to write about the nonprofit organization,Kaboom! that believes in the power of play.  The neighborhood playground was my office, my social interaction, my snack bar, changing station, and my sanity as a mother.  It was the place we could always go when we needed to get out of the house, and we were there daily.  We could be sure to meet up with other kids and moms wether we planned ahead or not.  For a few hours the kids could climb and shout, and spill their juice boxes all over the ground, which was a few hours less of them doing the same inside our house. As a mother some of my most memorable bonding moments with other mothers took place on the playground, and that’s just what the playground meant to me as a mom!
Playgrounds are really all about the kids and their need to play.  Kids need the freedom to explore and climb, and be physical in a safe place where they can have fun. Growing up my neighborhood playground was such an essential part of my own childhood, I still feel nostalgic when I drive by it. There is the same swing set with the long chains on which I soared and dreamed as a child. The same water fountain is still there where I stood in line on a hot day for a drink, and then got bit by a spider when it was my turn, but tried to act cool because of all of the big kids in line behind me. The climbing castle from which we would jump off the top, and the same fountain where we cooled off in its spray in the summer still stand.   It is hard to imagine where all of that time I spent as a child, and then spent with my own children, would have been spent if we did not have access to the parks we did.

 

Kaboom! is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the United States dedicated to saving play for children, and was founded by Darell Hammond in 1996 after he had read the story of two children who suffocated while playing in an abandoned car.  They had no where else to play.  Not only do children need safe environments for play,but there is extensive research and data on the power of play, and the difference that unstructured play can make on the health and well-being of a child.
“At KaBOOM! we create opportunities for the collaborative sharing and continued improvement of knowledge and tools that anyone needs to build or improve upon playspaces on their own. As advocates of play, we recognize the importance of each child not only having access to a safe and engaging place to play, but also having the time to play—knowing that it makes children happier, fitter, smarter, creative, and more socially adept”
.- KAboom! Website

 

Watch this video about Kaboom! and how it helps provide play spaces for children:

Through Kaboom! communities in need of playgrounds can build that space or their children, and provide those years of essential activity and free play that all kids need.  If your community or a neighborhood you know of is in need of a playground update of a new playground check out the KAboom! Website to find out how you can make kids dreams come true.  If you are passionate about the power of play you can follow Kaboom! on Facebook, and  if you would like to help support Kaboom! and its mission to provide safe play for all children you can donate here.  

 

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.

Follow along with us here on Tumblr, on Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook for the latest Global Team of 200 news.

Feb21

ONE Sweet potato Day

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ONE Sweet potato Day

Photo Source ONE.org

Today I am sharing my favorite Sweet Potato Recipe along with a group of bloggers in conjunction with ONE to call attention to the star of their global nutrition campaign, the Sweet Potato.

Why The Sweet Potato?

Although more than 7 million tons of sweet potatoes are produced each year and are widely eaten in Africa, they’re not the kind that have essential nutrients. They’re white in color and low in vitamin A, a vitamin that helps prevent blindness and infant mortality. Read the rest of this entry →