Oct11

October 11 Has Been Declared The International Day of The Girl

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October 11 Has Been Declared The International Day of The Girl

Photo by Michelle Amarante

The U.N. has declared October 11th as The International Day of The Girl.   We live in a world where some of us can take for granted the rights of our daughters.  While in other areas, girls live in oppression and subjugation.   In Pakistan, just the other day, a 14 year old girl was shot for speaking up about girls rights to education.   When watching the documentary Half The Sky last week, one of my favorite points made was that to educate a girl, is to educate a community.   By excluding their girls from the education process, a nation is really cheating itself out of half of its full potential.  Just  imagine the possibilities if these countries educated their girls along with the boys.  Only then can a community truly rise to its full potential.

On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.

For its first observance, this year’s Day will focus on child marriage, which is a fundamental human rights violation and impacts all aspects of a girl’s life. Child marriage denies a girl of her childhood, disrupts her education, limits her opportunities, increases her risk to be a victim of violence and abuse, jeopardizes her health and therefore constitutes an obstacle to the achievement of nearly every Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and the development of healthy communities.-UN.org

Click here to learn how you can help to empower girls around the world.  With the support of the world behind them, I cannot wait to see how our girls around the globe will change the world, and what they will accomplish!

Photos:  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.

Oct10

Twitterpated About The ONEMoms In Ethiopia

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Twitterpated About The ONEMoms In Ethiopia

Photo by Gabrielle Blair

Photo by Rana DiOrio

Photo by Liz Gumbinner

Photo by Alice Currah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cannot tear myself away from my twitter feed these days! I am pretty much a twitter neophyte, (usually I tweet out random things with misspellings to my thousands of followers that I immediately regret), but with the ONEMoms/ONEMums in Ethiopia this week, I am completely hooked on twitter. It has been so much fun to be able to truly follow along with them on their trip to Ethiopia, and to get real time photos and stories from the field.

 

FashionABLE scarf

From their arrival in Addis Ababa, to a visit to Mary Joy Center,  where ONEMom, Supermodel, and Activist Maya Haile and her husband celebrity Chef Marcus Samuelsson of Red Rooster sponsor ten children. To the FashionABLE factory, where gorgeous scarves are literally saving the lives of the women who make them, giving them an alternative to exploitation and providing a sustainable  business, and education. Those of us following along got a peek at the visit to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital where 90% of the women who are seen and treated are cured.  Each new place bringing photos and stories of hope flying home to us to share. The stories are all bursting with hope brought on by visiting these amazing facilities that are changing lives, saving lives.   The ONE Moms & ONEMums, are part of ONE.org,  “a movement of moms everywhere using their extraordinary power to spread awareness for the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease. These moms are leading a movement to promote education, engagement and activism on behalf of the world’s poorest”.- ONEMoms  ONE.org does not ask for money but for voices.

ONEMoms in Ethiopia

Voices for those without the ability to amplify their own voices. The children, the oppressed women, the ones with no outlet for their grievances but acceptance.  The twelve moms on this trip to Ethiopia are all women with strong voices in media and in their fields, a Publisher, a Pig Farmer, a Lawyer, a Scientist, Food Bloggers, Mom Bloggers, a Supermodel/Activist, and a designer, their diverse backgrounds coming together to send a shared message.  These programs are working, look at the progress, and the possibilities.  You too can add your voice by joining ONEMom.

 

 

 

 

 

You too can follow their amazing journey  and share it with others via SoundCloud, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, ONE Moms blog and the members individual blogs listed below. But I warn you; you may not be able to tear yourself away!

Gabrielle Blair, DesignMom @designmom
Alice Currah, Savory Sweet Life @SavorySweetLife
Rana DiOrio, Little Pickle Press @LPP_Media @RanaDiOrio
Asha Dornfest, Parent Hacks, @parenthacks
Cathleen Falsani, Sojourners @godgrrl
Liz Gumbinner, Cool Mom Picks and Mom101 @coolmompicks @mom101
Jennifer Howze, BritMums @jhowze
Christine Koh, Boston Mamas @bostonmamas
Michelle Pannell, Mummy from the Heart @michelletwinmum
Diana Prichard, Righteous Bacon @Diana_Prichard
Maya Haile Samuelsson, MarcusSamuelsson @GateHaileMaya
Kelly Wickham, Mocha Momma @mochamomma
Karen Walrond, Chookooloonks @Chookooloonks (the trip photographer)

Oct10

Trick-orTreat For UNICEF Provides An Alternative To Candy #T0T4UNICEF

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Trick-orTreat For UNICEF Provides An Alternative To Candy #T0T4UNICEF

It feels like blasphemy to say that Halloween had become my worst nightmare as a mother. I know I am supposed to love it, and for a long time I did. I loved it while my children were little, and so cute in their little costumes as they held my hand and we went Trick or Treating as a family. I could edit their candy score without protest. It was all very Norman Rockwell until we hit the Tweens. These days my kids are a little older, the cute costumes for my oldest daughter now come in Packages labeled “sexy vampire”, “sexy witch”…I mean have you seen the options for a young teen girl these days?! Horrifying! Not to mention that my kids no longer wish to Trick-or Treat when it’s light out, and only the younger two want me to go with them. It gets dark, we head out, and they run off with their friends leaving me frantically trying to find my four dispersed children in costumes, in the pitch darkness. Like I said, a mother’s worst nightmare. They do miraculously make it home safely with their massive hauls of candy, but does any child really need that much candy in their possession? What if all of that candy was money to go to UNICEF, it would certainly add up, even if half of what they brought home were donations. Although the UNICEF boxes have been around for 62 years, I had forgotten about them, so when I was reminded about the UNICEF Halloween boxes this year, I ordered them right away! Finally, I hope to have found a solution to what feels to me like a cute, fun tradition gone completely amok. The UNICEF Halloween boxes are a great way to teach children to give back ,and to feel good about helping other kids around the world. They can get some candy, sure, I bet they will still collect more than enough candy, but they will also be contributing to the over $160 Million dollars already collected by children through the UNICEF Trick-or-Treat box program over the years, money that goes to orphans in Nepal or to provide clean water to a child in Central America. If you are ready to get back to the basics this Halloween too, you can order your UNICEF Trick-or-Treat boxes here today. They offer a great alternative to all the sugar!

 

I am thrilled to be writing this post as a member of the newly formed Global Team of 200. “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”.-The Global Team of 200       visit the website, follow on Twitter or like on Facebook.

Oct7

Reading With Robin

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Reading With Robin

To celebrate my friend Julie’s birthday the other night, we went to the annual An Evening With Authors event hosted by Robin Kall of Reading With Robin.  An Evening With Authors is one of my favorite nights out, it is always a fantastic event featuring amazing writers, and this was the third year we have attended. Each year we emerge just blown away by being in proximity to such rock stars of the literary world.   We are thrilled to have heard their behind the scenes stories, tricks of the trade, and details of their writing processes.  As Avid readers my girlfriends and I are always fascinated and inspired hearing glamorous bestselling authors tell us their “dirty little secrets” of  the really not so glamorous writing life.  Spending all day writing in their pajamas, not always having a say in the jacket design of their books, renting hotel rooms to find the peace they need to write. This year we heard stories of the writing lives of featured authors Elizabeth Berg, Chris Bohjalian, and Amanda Eyre Ward.

Left to Right on the Authors Panel: Robin Kall, Amanda Eyre Ward, Elizabeth Berg and Chris Bohjalian

Discussions are based on questions that the authors themselves write to ask each other, and this year some of the  questions were about their relationships with editors, and how the stories unfold as they are writing. Following the discussion attendees have the opportunity to purchase the writer’s work and meet the Authors as they get their books signed.   The evening serves as a fundraiser to support Breast Cancer Research through the Love, Carol Foundation.  The Foundation was set up to honor Robin’s mother whom she lost to Breast Cancer in 1997, when her mother was only 53 years old.

With Robin Kall (center) at An Evening With Authors

Julie getting her book signed by Chris Bohjalian

I love that Robin Krall has created a successful career for herself based on her love of reading and books. In 2002 she launched Reading With Robin a RI radio talk show she hosts, that airs on WHJJ 920AM and is devoted to authors, readers, and the books they love.  She also writes the  “Well-Read” column for  www.golocalprov.com which appears every Tuesday.  I am so grateful that she creates events for readers and lovers of books in the community, bringing authors to our area, and enriching the depth of our reading lives.

The Author (of this blog post) with Amanda Eyer Ward and Elizabeth Berg

 

Oct4

Wine Not Whine; Love My Mommy Juice

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Wine Not Whine; Love My Mommy Juice

At the risk of sounding like Honey Boo Boo…… I love my Mommy Juice!  I have mentioned before one of the fun perks of blogging is being sent products to test out and to review on occasion.  I have to say, hands down, this was my favorite package that I have received yet!    These wines were so fun, that my plan was to save the bottles of Mommy Juice wine to  help celebrate my friend Julie’s upcoming birthday.  So here is my confession, after my final school Open House of the season (did I mention that I have four kids?!) I came home….tucked them all into bed….and I broke open the Mommy Juice. That’s it, there it is, (I am sorry Julie, there is still a bit left that I am willing to share with you!) but I have never tasted such a luxurious glass of wine! O.K., that may be the frazzled open house mom talking, but the truth is, it was really good wine!  I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it so much. Then I read about founder Cheryl Durzy, mother of 2,  who has worked in the wine industry since 1999 (hmmm, the year my oldest child was born).

Cheryl Durzy, founder of Mommy Juice Wines

Cheryl works at her family’s Central Coast Winery, Clos LaChance,  she sits on all sorts of fancy wine boards, and she passed with Merit the Advanced Certificate level of the Wine and Spirits Education Trust. In other words the wine tastes good because she knows what she is doing!   She decided she had to produce a wine called Mommy Juice because her kids would point to a wine glass whenever they saw one and exclaim “That’s Mommy Juice!”. How funny that we all call it that!

 

So now I had to break open the  bottle of  White to see if it lived up to the deep, rich, full bodied red.  The White Wine Mommy Juice is a Chardonnay, which is my favorite type of white to begin with, and the Chardonnay Mommy Juice tasted as good as the red! Crisp, not too sweet. Lovely. Is it wrong to be excited that I’ve found  a wine brand where I love the label as much as the taste!?

These are great bottles of wine to bring along as gifts for all sorts of occasions.  Your mommy friends, or friends who know what a busy mommy you are, will love them. Mommy Juice Wines can be purchased online , or ask for it at your local wine shop.  I guess I can’t show up with two opened bottles of wine to celebrate with, that would be as  uncouth as showing up with a half eaten birthday cake! I do plan on ordering more, so girlfriends don’t worry, I promise I will share next time!

 

* I received a complimentary bottle of red, and bottle of white Mommy Juice to review.