Blugger? Chlogger? Who cares? This is a good cause

I ran away from home once.  I was about six and I’d taken extreme umbrage over something (I forget what but, trust me, it would have been trivial to the extreme). I marched purposefully down the street until I got tired and then I sat on a wall and waited.  Waited for someone to come and find me.  Depressingly they didn’t and so I slunk home and just pretended nothing had happened.  Nobody ever knew. 

It’s a funny, sad, silly little story.  But I was lucky.  I never had a real reason to run away.  And when I did nothing happened, except a little wounded pride maybe.  But other children?  Ah hell, they aren’t so fortunate. 

According to the charity, Railway Children, 100,000 under 16s run away or are forced to leave their homes every year. A scarily  high number are under twelve.  And they often end up living on the streets because they have nowhere to go and no one to turn to.   Railway Children aims to help them – both here in the UK and internationally.

 

I dunno about you but the idea of my son living rough on the streets, open to abuse, violence, exploitation, cold, hunger, fear…turns me cold, it really does. Can you imagine your child?  Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?

I know times are tough and there are endless appeals from charities – which do you choose, how do you give?  I don't want to become a blogger-chugger.  A blugger? A chlogger? Whatever.  But actually, in this case, you don't even need to stick your paw in your wallet - someone else will give for you.  All you need to do is click your mouse to get funds to this rather vital charity.

You can also strut your stuff, should be of that persuasion. The charity's campaign Street Dance for Change is looking for people to show off their best dance moves.  All you have to do is record your own 30-second street dance video and share it with your friends.  Aviva will donate £2 to Railway Children every time it’s viewed.  Yeah, two quid!  And it’s not all altruistic as the most viewed videos will be in with a chance to win tickets to Diversity’s 2012 tour and to meet the group. 

You can find the Facebook page right here.  

Personally, I rather like this one...

And, if you really can’t be doing with street dance (yeah, I know, it’s not everyone’s shuffle) then why not get your Christmas cards from this bunch – or even just a wrist band…

Thanks

A different story...

A few days ago I received an email about Mother’s Day that took me back twelve years to when James was born.


Like many first-time eager-beaver parents-to-be, Adrian and I went to NCT classes. We did quizzes about pain relief, stifled giggles as we watched breasts being constructed out of bits of ribbon and beading and practiced panting. We discussed water births, pondered the perfect aromatherapy oils with which to welcome our baby into the world and drew up birth plans with stern invectives against nasty drugs and rotten old doctors intervening. And I’m sure that, for many people, that works just fine and dandy. Not for us.

It went pear-shaped. Pear is probably the wrong word as I simply don’t have child-bearing hips and James, it transpired, was one gargantuan baby (12lbs 8oz). It was an equation which, frankly, was never going to balance. To cut a 14-hour story short, he got wedged, we both got into difficulties and I ended up being hurtled into surgery. I remember clearly being annoyed that the surgeons wouldn’t let me watch my own C-section. Adrian, meanwhile, turned several shades of green. I had transfusions; James had a ridge round his head but, by heck, we were alive and, really, that was all that mattered.

But I do wonder. What if? We lived in a very remote place back then. If I hadn’t been in hospital? Would the air ambulance have got to me in time? Would we be alive today?

And then, this email. From AMREF, the African Medical and Research Foundation, asking if I could help raise awareness of the 280,000 mothers who die each year in pregnancy and childbirth in Africa because they lack basic medical care. What does that mean? We’re not even talking about mothers like me, who needed rapid surgical intervention, but hale healthy normal women who died from lack of basic midwifery and hygiene. I ponder charity requests very carefully but this one chimed and friends in Africa said that, yes, AMREF do great work. So I asked them to tell me more – and they sent me a matchbox. Yup, a matchbox. In it were the items needed to deliver a baby safely. 

• A piece of plastic sheeting to lay on the floor.

• A sliver of soap and cotton wool for hygiene.

• A piece of string to tie the umbilical cord.

• A razor blade to cut the cord.

• Matches to sterilise the blade.

That’s it. That and a trained birth attendant.  The keys to saving a mother’s life and that of her child. All it might take to turn a potential tragedy into a happy ending.


I’m not going to pontificate. If you are interested, check out their website 
It's not just about seeking donations.  It's about spreading awareness and they’re running a campaign at the moment called Status of Africa - linking in with Facebook and other social media. You choose a mother or midwife with whom to share your Facebook status for five days – twice a day the app will update your status to show theirs. By lending your status, you can let your followers know what it’s like to be a mother in Africa.

So, this Mother’s Day, I’m going to be grateful for being a mother. I'm going to be grateful for being alive and for my strapping very much alive twelve-year old. I’m going to be grateful to the midwives and nurses and doctors and surgeons who helped me and my baby. And I’m going to be finding out what it’s like to be a mother in Africa.  What it's like giving birth without all those people on hand...but hopefully with trained midwives and a matchbox of hope.

Bloggers for Haiti

People deride social media. They mock blogging and roll their eyes at Twitter. I seem to spend a lot of time encouraging people to use this media, for a variety of reasons – for self therapy, to battle isolation, to build business. But this weekend I realised that social media can save lives too.
Like most people I watched the horror of Haiti unfold with disbelief and an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Then a positive deluge of emails appeared in my inbox. I logged onto Twitter and my online friends were getting together to do something. Could I join in? Of course I could and Englishmum sent me the info. How simple a thing – a blog post. How amazing if all our blog posts could transform into practical, lifesaving, help for the people in Haiti.

We’re all sitting in our homes or Internet cafes or whatever on our computers. How feeble my winging about the Bonkers House seems when you think about the chaos in Haiti. No water, no food, no shelter. Can you imagine how it would feel not to be able to feed your child? No, I can't either.

Just take a moment – seriously a couple of minutes is all...and help us send out Shelterboxes to Haiti. Each box costs £490 and Haiti needs as many as we can send. This is real practical help.

Each box includes:
* A ten-person tent.
* Thermal blankets and insulated ground sheets.
* A life-saving means of water purification.
* A basic tool kit containing a hammer, axe, saw, trenching shovel, hoe head, pliers and wire cutters.
* A wood burning or multi-fuel stove – that can burn anything from diesel to old paint.
* Pans, utensils, bowls, mugs and water storage containers.


Every item is durable, practical and new, including the box itself, which can be used for anything from water and food storage containers to a cot for a newborn baby.

How to donate

It couldn’t be simpler. Just click on
http://www.justgiving.com/Bloggers-For-Haiti

Give whatever you can. It doesn't have to be a fortune - every little bit helps. But please do it. Don't fall into the trap of thinking, 'oh, everyone else will' and don't get cynical, thinking your help will be siphoned off elsewhere. This is not a scam - it WILL help.


As the wonderful Dulwich Divorcee says on her blog: "Let’s show that blogging does have a purpose and a point. Let’s turn compassion into action."