On the eve of International Women’s Day, I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” hosted by our friends at CARE. This bold film is the first in “Women, War and Peace,” a special five-part series on PBS that challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain.
With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we’ve asked our ONE Moms and partners to write about ordinary women who have inspired them to be better activists. In this post, Jennifer James, ONE Mom and head of the Mom Bloggers Club, writes about the passion for justice she sees in her friend, Mary.
Mary Martin Niepold
I have always been impressed by women who are go-getters. They don’t stand idly by and let others make decisions for them. They are thought leaders who create goals and go after them tenaciously. They think outside of the box and aren’t afraid to use and amplify their own voice. These are the women I look up to and after whom I want to pattern my life’s work. I meet women like this every so often. They are rare to be sure. It takes a very special woman to catch my eye and make me ponder life’s possibilities.
With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we’ve asked our ONE Moms and partners to write about ordinary women who have inspired them to be better activists. In this post, ONE Mom Elizabeth Atalay takes pride in her job as a mom and an activist.
My deep secret confession is that what I wanted to be when I grew up, more than anything in the world, was a stay-at-home mom.
I can hear all of you liberated women out there gasping in horror at this very moment, but please don’t judge me. Try to understand: This came from a little girl who grew up with a working mother with a Ph.D., the ultimate liberated woman at a time when few were. She was an amazing mother, but of course when we are children, we can only see our mothers in relation to our tiny selves, not as the whole women they are. In turn, I idealized my neighbor, the stay-at home mom who baked cookies and sewed clothes for her children, while I lived out the feral childhood of a latchkey kid. That neighbor, by the way, is now a grandmother in the process of completing her own Ph.D., so she is still my ideal!
With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we’ve asked our ONE Moms and partners to write about ordinary women who have inspired them to be better activists. In this post, ONE Mom Elisa Morgan reminds us to make use of the time we have through the story of her friend, Jane.
After what seemed to be a “routine” hysterectomy, Jane discovered she had cancer, an aggressive, deadly cancer of the uterus. Vibrant Jane, in her early 60s, was still teaching kindergarten at the public magnet school she’d helped found 15 years prior. Her daughter was about to be married, her oldest son was about to make her a grandmother, and suddenly — Jane was dying.
ONE Mom Elisa Morgan in Africa
Dying? No way!
After exhaustive and exhausting tests, Jane and her family came to terms with the poor prognosis, and Jane began treatment to prolong her life. Their goal was for Jane to attend her daughter’s wedding and hold her grandbaby.
With International Women’s Day just around the corner, we’ve asked our ONE Moms and partners to write about an ordinary woman who has inspired them to be better activists. In this blog post, ONE Mom Shayne Moore shares the story of Kimberly, founder of the Abolitionist Mama blog.
I have a friend who heard a story. It broke her heart and it filled the quiet spaces in her mind. It was sad story, even disturbing. In her busy life of mothering two children, running a home, having a part-time job and being a wife, sister and daughter, Kimberly stayed with the story. She did not push it away or ignore it.
In her sunny life in southern California, a dark cloud began following her around. Kimberly had just woken up to the reality of modern-day slavery — the reality that there are more than 27 million people in slavery today and the majority of them are women and children. There are more slaves today than ever before in the history of the world. Untold numbers are young girls being used in the sex trafficking business — a business in which criminals make billions of dollars per year.
My friend did not hear this traumatic reality and dismiss it as “too overwhelming.” One day, while driving in the car listening to her young daughter sincerely explain that slavery had ended with Abraham Lincoln, Kimberly’s heart burned for women and girls everywhere. Her daughter’s innocence and her own newly shattered ignorance awoke a sleeping lioness hungry for justice.
For the past 12 days, we’ve been tweeting, blogging and Facebooking 12 easy ways to give back and change the world right in your own community, without writing a single check. We hope you’ve been following along with our incredible cast of mom bloggers (and one dad!) who have been helping us announce these actions and take them along with us. A huge thanks to Amy Oztan, of Selfish Mom (@SelfishMom), for helping us to coordinate this campaign -– and to all of our bloggers who participated:
It only takes ONE Mom to make a difference. Sure, it happens to be the slogan of our ONE Moms program, but it also captures the sentiment of this growing group of dedicated moms who are raising awareness of ONE and truly making a difference in their neighborhoods across the U.S. Following our trip to Kenya this past summer, our ONE Moms have been working hard to keep the momentum going here at home. And there’s no better time than the holiday season to unleash the charitable spirit – but with a characteristic ONE Twist.
We are excited to announce the 12 Days of Change: 12 ways to give back and change the world right in your own community, without writing a single check. Each day, a different ONE Mom blogger from around the country will be announcing a new, simple action you can take, which we will be highlighting via Twitter and Facebook. We encourage you to take the action, retweet to get your friends and family involved and most importantly, let us know how it went!
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
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