Tag Archives: Global team Of 200

Nov13

Giving Tuesday Helps To Balance Out Black Friday & Cyber Monday

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Giving Tuesday Helps To Balance Out Black Friday & Cyber Monday

 

With the National Movement of Giving Tuesday being created I now know for sure that I am not the only out there who feels like the commercialism and excess of the holiday season in this country has gotten a bit out of hand.  It is not even Thanksgiving and I am hearing Christmas music playing throughout the mall.  We seem to have lost a bit of the message in the madness of “the giving season”.   Everyone is just so busy trying to keep up with the expectations that we have created, and I’ll admit that I am as guilty as the rest.  We want to stir up excitement and memories for our family, sometimes giving extravagantly to show how much we love each other.  I fall into the same commercial frenzy despite the pit in my stomach telling me we don’t need more.  There are many people out there who do need more, and this year I feel hopeful, because there are some new tools in place to help us turn things around, and head in the right direction. The inaugural Giving Tuesday is a great place to start.

“On Tuesday, November 27, 2012, the collective power of charities, families, businesses and individuals will transform how people think about, talk about and participate in the giving season. #GivingTuesday will create a national movement around the holidays dedicated to giving, similar to how Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become days that are, today, synonymous with holiday shopping.”-www.givingtuesday.org

Giving Tuesday provides a way to harness all of the grateful energy amassed over Thanksgiving and transform it directly into the spirit of helping others.  Having lost both of my own parents before having my own children I know that nothing in life matters as much as your loved ones, and sitting around our Thanksgiving table I am always struck with deep gratitude for my family, our health, our safety and comfortable life.  These are not things that I take for granted.  Extensive travel through developing nations gave me an acute awareness of our good fortune to live in a place where food security, education and housing are the norm. There are still those even in this country to whom those basic needs do not come easily, and I feel that it is our basic human responsibility to extend a hand if we can.   There are so many positive ways to give to either family members or strangers in need, and this year, as always I will try to teach my kids the true meaning of “The Giving Season”.  I know I will still happily take part in picking out gifts for each of my family members, because there is true joy in finding something great to give someone you know they will love.  I will also try to be somewhat practical in my gift giving, and on Giving Tuesday make sure my family marks the day by giving back to others in need. Here are a few ideas:

There are still many on the East Coast who need supplies due to the storm, and we donated coats and canned goods to help fill three school buses that brought supplies from our town to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Our local food bank has many collections this time of year and I make sure each of my four kids brings in contributions to donate to the Girl Scouts Food Drive or Student Council, or whichever one of their activities is collecting.

We have adopted a family in past years where we get a list of family members to purchase gifts for so they have something to give their children and receive for the holidays. I have my kids think about and pick out the gifts for kids closest to their ages.

This year I feel like there are so many gift-giving options that are gifts that give back. Tom’s shoes for example, where for each pair of shoes you buy one pair is donated to a child who needs them. I am going to try to give as many of those types of gifts possible to family and friends. Other companies that offer some great gifts that give back options are UNICEF, FashionABLE, FEED, Alex & Ani Charity by Design bracelets.

 

What are some other ways that you can think of to help celebrate Giving Tuesday?

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.

 

Nov10

I am Malala

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I am Malala

This past October the world was shocked and saddened by the Taliban assassination attempt on a 14 year old schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai.  Malala had been a thorn in their side since the tender age of 11 when she wrote a blog about the oppression under Taliban rule in her town of Mingora, Pakistan.  She became an activist fighting for the right of girls to education in Pakistan, something the Taliban stands vehemently against. Instead of killing Malala as they had intended, by shooting her in October, they sparked an education movement that has gone globally viral. Instead of snuffing her one small voice, they have ignited a firestorm of education initiatives that span the globe.  The UN has designated November 10th as Malala Day, and United Nations Special Envoy on Global Education Gordon Brown has pledged to help Pakistan formulate a plan to provide education to all of Pakistan’s children by 2015.    Malala is on her way to recovery, reading, writing and walking again, and sure to be fighting for her cause again soon. She has unwittingly become an international symbol of girls right to education worldwide.  Today I stand with Malala to defend the right of girls everywhere to equal education, and signed the global petition to make my voice count.   You can stand with Malala today too.

CLICK ON THE PHOTO OF MALALA TO WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW 

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.

 

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

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.