Organizations Changing the World (LINKS)

 

Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public that focuses on the rapidly growing world of social innovation. It provides solutions and resources needed to help everyone become a changemaker and presents compelling stories that explore the fundamental principles of successful social innovation around the world.

 

The Hunger Project is a global, non-profit, strategic organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, The Hunger Project seeks to end hunger and poverty by empowering people to lead lives of self-reliance, meet their own basic needs and build better futures for their children.

The Hunger Project carries out its mission through three essential activities: mobilizing village clusters at the grassroots level to build self-reliance, empowering women as key change agents, and forging effective partnerships with local government.

 

 

According to the recently released United Nations report on the Millennium Development Goals, progress made toward ending hunger and abject poverty may be derailed. Higher prices for food and oil and the global economic slowdown are driving many people deeper into poverty. The Hunger Project’s approach builds self-reliant communities at the grassroots level so they have greater resilience and capacity to meet these challenges and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Assessing Progress toward the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development objectives that address the multiple facets of extreme poverty. They represent a blueprint agreed to by 191 of the world’s countries. Now, in 2008, we are beyond the half-way point between when the MDGs were adopted, in 2000, and when the targets are supposed to be met, in 2015.

 

La Leche League Philosophy

 

The basic philosophy of La Leche League is summarized in the following statements:

Mothering through breastfeeding is the most natural and effective way of understanding and satisfying the needs of the baby.

Mother and baby need to be together early and often to establish a satisfying relationship and an adequate milk supply.

In the early years the baby has an intense need to be with his mother which is as basic as his need for food.

Breast milk is the superior infant food.

For the healthy, full-term baby, breast milk is the only food necessary until the baby shows signs of needing solids, about the middle of the first year after birth.

Ideally the breastfeeding relationship will continue until the baby outgrows the need.

Alert and active participation by the mother in childbirth is a help in getting breastfeeding off to a good start.

Breastfeeding is enhanced and the nursing couple sustained by the loving support, help, and companionship of the baby’s father. A father’s unique relationship with his baby is an important element in the child’s development from early infancy.

Good nutrition means eating a well-balanced and varied diet of foods in as close to their natural state as possible.

From infancy on, children need loving guidance which reflects acceptance of their capabilities and sensitivity to their feelings.

The ideals and principles of mothering which are the foundation of LLLI beliefs are further developed in THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING, the most comprehensive handbook on breastfeeding and parenting ever published. It has provided needed answers to three generations of nursing mothers on every aspect of breastfeeding.

The 50th anniversary video (PBS 10 minute segment from Chicago Tonight) interviews some of the founders and talks about the history of LLL and where it is now.

 

 

Mothers Across America is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that empowers mothers to achieve personal goals through goal-based running programs.

The principle: by setting and achieving a physical goal you develop the confidence to tackle goals in other areas of life. Provided with a team built on the common bond of motherhood, you find the support to try.

MAAM’s founder, Charlotte Gould, created MAAM in response to an unexpected episode of post-partum depression following the birth of her daughter. Deeply impacted by her sense of isolation and loss of self-esteem, she set to work to establish a productive fitness and social support system for mothers.

Many mothers suffer from the loss of independence which accompanies motherhood. Both working and stay-at-home mothers struggle to maintain personal and career ambition from limitations which include time, money and lack of support. This can lead to depression and lowered self-esteem, lack of motivation and neglect of personal health.

MAAM shows how physically active mothers develop stronger self-images and healthier families. In just a few short years, MAAM has been nationally recognized for bringing vision to preventative health for women.

MAAM is based in New York City with a 100% volunteer staff and fast-growing national membership. If you are interested in starting a group outside New York City, please contact us at maamteam@aol.com.

 

 

HIV/AIDS is not discriminatory. It could affect anybody, and babies are not spared from this risk. When a child is brought into the world, we wish he best for the child. However, sometimes, reality hits hard. There has been debate on the interventions that should be put in place to prevent post-natal transmission, while also protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding for the majority of children who benefit from it. WABA aims to work together with UN agencies, breastfeeding groups and other interest groups including HIV&AIDS, women, and sexual and reproductive health groups, towards better maternal, child and community survival and well-being. We can help to create a safe environment where each mother can feel confident that her baby will have the best chance possible to survive and thrive.

 

 

 

            Mother to Mother© provides telephone support and encouragement to women with postpartum adjustment disorder (PPAD.) Mother to Mother© is the only service of its kind in the St. Louis metropolitan area. We serve all women in the metropolitan St. Louis area, free of charge.

Telephone Support
Free support by phone for women experiencing emotional difficulties during postpartum or pregnancy. Moms are paired with a trained phone volunteer that has experienced similar difficulties. Volunteers listen, encourage, and provide peer support. Volunteers are not trained counselors and therefore do not provide counseling or psychotherapy services. If you need additional help, a volunteer will provide resources. Please call314.991.5666 Ext. 4 for information on this service. *Please note that this is not a hotline number, but someone will return your call within 24 hours. All calls are confidential.

 

 

The mission of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is to stop drunk driving, support the victims of this violent crime and prevent underage drinking. http://www.madd.org/

 

 

 

Become a Blogger for Human Rights

Human Rights Watch has been committed to upholding the right to free expression since its beginnings in the 1970s. The Internet, and blogs in particular, have made it easier for people to express themselves to a potential audience of millions. They have also created an enormous opportunity for disseminating information about, and ending, human rights abuses around the world.

If you are a blogger, you can use your bully pulpit to stand with the victims and activists to prevent discrimination, uphold political freedom, protect people from inhumane treatment in wartime, and campaign to bring offenders to justice. You can expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. You can challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. http://www.hrw.org/blogs.htm

Here’s some information that may interest you…

     We are considerably older than our mothers were when we were born, and there are some very specific reasons why.
     First, women are more healthy now than ever before.  We live longer and the fear of having a child and not helping it into adulthood has lessened dramatically.
     Second, over the last twenty years many of us in our early twenties and thirties opted for career advancement rather than starting a family.  Now in our forties, the biological clock that is ticking is not only psychological in nature, but a very real physical one.
     And third, divorce.  The Bureau of Vital Statistics tells us that the average age of a women going through divorce in the United States is 33 years of age.  The same source tells us that most people wait approximately five years to remarry.  (33+ 5=38)  Allow a 38 year old woman a couple of years to become adjusted in a new marriage and you now have a 40-year-old woman contemplating starting a new family.

 

edicine for Humanity

Dedicated to Women’s Health around the World

Medicine for Humanity’s mission is to improve the health of women in underserved populations by bringing much needed medical care and creating sustainable programs of education, prevention and treatment. We seek to achieve this goal by:

•Dispatching qualified medical teams to provide recurring on site surgical training to doctors and nurses serving needy populations. 

•Development of a Global Medical Education (GME) program using internet based communications for delivery of up to date, much needed medical education content.

•Assisting clinics and hospitals in developing sustainable programs that will address all aspects of womens health care including prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of women’s cancer and maternal birth injuries. Our goals include lowering maternal death rates and the incidence of urinary fistulas.

http://medicineforhumanity.org

 

AND FROM: DEFENDING WOMEN-DEFENDING RIGHTS.ORG;

http://defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/links.php (THEIR LINKS)

Amnesty International (AI) www.amnesty.org AI is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognised human rights to be respected and protected. It is concerned with the impartial protection of human rights, envisioning a world in which every person enjoys all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. On 5 March 2004, it launched the Stop Violence against Women campaign, which focuses on violence against women in the family and in conflict. In partnership with women’s organisations and other groups, it seeks to address discrimination as a root cause of violence against women and intends to take action on behalf of particular individuals to stop these violations. Through this campaign, AI has developed and used campaign tools to highlight the profiles and cases of women human rights defenders.
		Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) www.apwld.org APWLD is a network of lawyers, academics, social scientists, grassroots women and other activists from across Asia Pacific. It aims to promote women’s human rights enshrined in the UN international human rights instruments and to enable women in the region to use law as an instrument of change for equality, justice and development. With a membership of close to 150 individuals and organisations, it operates through task forces than run programmes on women’s human rights, violence against women, women’s participation in political processes, labour and migration, women and environment and rural and indigenous women. It has recently adopted a campaign on women human rights defenders, focusing on the concerns of its activist-members facing threats and violations as women human rights defenders. It hosts the women human rights defenders website  www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org
		Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM ASIA) www.forum-asia.org FORUM ASIA is a membership-based regional human rights organisation in Asia with 36 member organisations in 14 countries in the region. It strives to empower people by advocating social justice, sustainable human development, participatory democracy, gender equality, peace and human security through collaboration and cooperation among human rights organisations in the region. It has a programme on human’s defenders, which aims to protect human rights activists and practitioners by supporting their work and strengthening both domestic and international human rights protection mechanisms in accordance with established human rights standards and norms.  It has integrated women human rights defenders concerns in its training programs, and it organises regional consultations on human rights defenders with the participation of women human rights defenders.
Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) www.cwgl.rutgers.edu CWGL at Douglass College, Rutgers University seeks to develop an understanding of the ways in which gender affects the exercise of power and the conduct of public policy internationally. The Center aims to build international linkages among women in local leadership. It conducts various activities that support women’s leadership and transformative visions as crucial in every policy area.  It develops effective policy alternatives which demand the full inclusion of gender perspectives and women in all decision-making processes and requires an understanding of how gender relates to race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation and culture. Together with the IGLHRC, it released a report Written Out: How Sexuality is Used to Attack Women’s Organizing.
Information Monitor (INFORM) INFORM is a Sri Lankan human rights organisation with a special focus on monitoring, documentation human rights in the country. It also functions as a library and documentation centre for journalists, students and others seeking information regarding the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. It was the local host of the International Consultation on Women Human Rights Defenders and it took the initiative to begin writing this guidebook.
		International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) www.iglhrc.org IGLHRC works to secure the full enjoyment of the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation or expression, gender identity or expression , and/or HIV status. A US-based organisation, IGLHRC engages in advocacy, documentation, coalition building, public education, and technical assistance. Particularly, it helps educate its constituencies about human rights and sexual orientation/gender identity. It co-published with CWGL the report Written Out: How Sexuality is Used to Attack Women’s Organizing.  It also runs international alert on lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and other activists at risk.
		ISIS Women’s International Cross- Cultural Exchange (ISIS-WICCE) www.isis.or.ug  ISIS-WICCE is a global action oriented women’s resource centre with the aim of promoting justice and women’s human rights through documentation of women’s realities and sharing of information and ideas to improve women’s status and overcome gender inequality. Since its relocation in Kampala, Uganda, it has focused on building women’s capacity in documentation, peace building and conflict resolution; and the use of information and communication technologies for networking, lobbying and advocacy. It has been the subject of harassment from conservative forces in Uganda as a member of the V Day Host Committee that planned to stage the play “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler.
		The Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM) www.cladem.org ISIS-WICCE is a global action oriented women’s resource centre with the aim of promoting justice and women’s human rights through documentation of women’s realities and sharing of information and ideas to improve women’s status and overcome gender inequality. Since its relocation in Kampala, Uganda, it has focused on building women’s capacity in documentation, peace building and conflict resolution; and the use of information and communication technologies for networking, lobbying and advocacy. It has been the subject of harassment from conservative forces in Uganda as a member of the V Day Host Committee that planned to stage the play “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler.
		Women Living under Muslim Laws (WLUML) www.wluml.org WLUML is an international solidarity network that provides information, support and a collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. The network demands for women’s equality and their rights, especially in Muslim contexts. It aims to increase the autonomy of women by supporting their local struggles from within Muslim countries and communities; linking them with feminist and progressive groups at large; facilitating interaction, exchanges and contacts; and providing information as well as serving as a channel of communication.  WLUML produces analytical pieces on fundamentalisms and runs urgent appeals for women human rights defenders at risk in Muslim countries.
		World Organisation against Torture (OMCT) www.omct.org OMCT is an international coalition of over 260 NGOs in 85 countries, including the SOS-Torture Network, fighting against torture, arbitrary detention, summary and extra judicial executions, forced disappearances and all other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. In response to the increasing number of cases on gender-specific forms of violence, OMCT established in 1996 the Violence against Women (VAW) Programme, which addresses and analyses the gender-related causes and consequences of torture and other forms of violence against women. The OMCT VAW Programme issues urgent appeals concerning gender-based violence; submits alternative country reports on violence against women to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; and mainstreams a gender perspective into the work of the UN treaty monitoring bodies. Together with FIDH, it runs The Observatory for Human Rights Defenders, which issues urgent appeals on human rights defenders and other defenders under threat.
		Front Line  www.frontlinedefenders.org            Front Line is an international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders, defending those who champion the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its main focus is on human rights defenders at risk, either temporarily or permanently because of their work. It aims to address some of the needs identified by defenders themselves, including protection, networking, training and access to the thematic and country mechanisms of the UN and other regional bodies. Every two years, it hosts the ‘Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders’, which provides an opportunity for human rights defenders, including women, to come together from an international exchange of experiences and issues. Front Line also provides emergency support and funding to defenders at risk.
		International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)  www.ishr.ch                  ISHR is an international association that promotes the effective protection of human rights defenders and aims to empower human rights organisations and individuals to access and use human rights mechanisms at regional, national and international levels. It services human rights defenders by providing analytical reports on the UN human rights mechanisms, training on how to use the international norms and procedures, strategic advice for effective lobbying, contributions to human rights standard-setting, practical information and logistical support to enable human rights defenders to take full advantage of international human rights law and procedures.  It organises consultations on women human rights defenders in many countries in Latin America, Middle East and Africa.
Human Rights First www.humanrightsfirst.org           Human Rights First is an international human rights organisation based in New York and Washington D.C. It helps promote and protect human rights and the rule of law through the following strategies:  advocacy for change at the highest levels of national and international policymaking; seeking justice through the courts; raising awareness and understanding through the media; building coalitions among those with divergent views and mobilising people to act. Human Rights First runs a programme on human rights defenders through which it has established a human rights defender alert network.  The network includes urgent appeals for women human rights defenders at risk.
		Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights (UAF) www.urgentactionfund.org  UAF is an independent organisation with a strategic mandate to protect and promote women’s human rights through rapid response grantmaking.  It also engages in collaborative initiatives, research and publications.  Grounded in a human rights framework, and focused on women in civil society, UAF supports women human rights defenders responding to conflict and crisis around the world.  It offers emergency funding to respond immediately to the needs of women human rights defenders at risk.
		www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/themes.htm   UN Special Rapporteur mandates and contact information.