Through the end of the month products with a purpose will be highlighted that give back to the environment from the oceans to the forests to the wetlands. If you are a wine drinker, here are five wine companies whose charitable giving goes to bettering the earth and help you drink for great causes.
Continue reading 5 Wines That Give Back to the Environment #EarthMonth
Reframing Poverty by Eric Meade
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Poverty in all its multitudinous forms is not an easy subject to broach. An age-old problem, poverty, its root causes, as well as poverty reduction have all been studied and theorized, it seems, ad infinitum. It is not often that someone presents poverty in a more nuanced way than generalized and ubiquitous thinking on poverty. In Reframing Poverty: New Thinking and Feeling About Humanity’s Greatest Challenge, Eric Meade takes a deep dive into how poverty is more of an emotional construct that evokes feeling as opposed to the more widely read and globally accepted set of data points. Meade’s conclusions take some time and thinking to wrap your brain around to be sure. In fact, I had to put this book down several times to keep from seething. I do, however, appreciate new ideas that can be engaged in rather than reading the same poverty reduction principles that seem to keep vulnerable communities trapped in a cycle of poverty with Sisyphean tendencies.
On Tuesday the first congressional caucus on black maternal health launched on Capitol Hill. Led by Democrat congresswomen Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) and freshman Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Il.) the caucus’s mission is to ensure black women are not dying senselessly during or after childbirth
As has been noted here many times before black women experience maternal mortality rates four times higher than white mothers no matter black women’s socioeconomic status or even the level of education achieved. In general, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country. Black women fare the worst.
Continue reading Congressional Black Maternal Health Caucus Launches on Capitol Hill
After recently receiving a press release about a pregnancy docuseries on Facebook Watch I have been hooked! As a maternal health advocate, it takes a lot to stop me in my tracks, but 9 Months With Courteney Cox has really opened my eyes on the realities of pregnancy in America. After all, it has been twenty years since I had my last child, so things have definitely changed!
My proclivity these days is to focus on vulnerable communities when it comes to maternal health and mortality and yet there are so many women who have to deal with pregnancy complications and care, health issues, and disparities, as well as fertility options and disappointments when it comes to carrying a baby full-term. The most important thing for all of us to remember is that women the world over have personal struggles with pregnancy. Those experiences are certainly different from one country to the next, and most certainly from one woman to the next. They all are valid for those who are carrying a baby or are desperately trying to.
9 Months With Courteney Cox has honestly shone a brilliant light on pregnancy in the United States in its docuseries from a mother who found out she was pregnant and had cancer at the same time, to a couple who have tried for years to get pregnant, only to miscarry time and time again, to a mother who couldn’t imagine ever delivering a ninth child to add to her already eight children. These are just a few of the couples’ experiences of the ten that are laid bare in this riveting Facebook Watch show.
Want to watch? Start on episode one and enjoy. I will admit, I wish the episodes were longer because I really want to know what happens, but they are timed perfectly for busy people. Each episode is about 15 minutes.
We often think about poverty and how to fix it. There isn’t one magic bullet that moves people out of poverty. However, there are a few tenets about reducing poverty in families who live in underserved communities that work nearly every time and those are working directly with women and giving them financial tools to empower their lives and those around them.
Kiva, a leading lender in micro-loans financed by everyday people, is celebrating International Women’s Day by highlighting how they facilitate this year’s theme of “Balance of Better”. While women make up 40% of the world’s workers globally, 75% of them do not have access to credit, loans, and savings. To help women-owned businesses, you can give money to finance their businesses and today on International Women’s Day your donation will be matched to fund 10,000 businesswomen. Generous funders will match up to $1.5 million dollars today, March 8.
One woman who has been helped by Kiva, Regina, survived human trafficking – and now her clothing store is also a sanctuary for those affected by it
Regina Evans, Oakland resident, owns a store called Regina’s Door, a theater and apparel shop that also serves as a community spot and a haven to those affected by human trafficking. In the past, she’s hired survivors of trafficking, and put on in-store programming for survivors including healing circles, improv, spoken word, and poetry. When Regina’s doors first swung open, she had no back stock, working with only 35 pieces of clothing and a 3-month lease. A month later, 193 Kiva lenders supported a $5,000 loan for Regina to purchase stock and buy simple necessities like hangers and an “open” sign. “That was like a million dollars to me,” Regina says of the loan.
Click here to donate to a woman in need as low as $25.
