One of my very favorite things about October is the DonorsChoose Social Media Challenge. All year long I look forward to encouraging EVERYONE to donate $1 or $5 or $10 or $1000 to a public education project.
It’s the easiest way to donate money for a good cause and never wonder whether your donation actually made a difference. You know it made a difference because the teachers and the kids will send you mail and tell you just what a difference your dollar made.
See the right side bar? That widget contains links to giving pages in major cities in the US. Pick your city or a city you’ve visited or one you’ve always wanted to visit, or do what I did and choose them all – and then donate your dollar(s).
Let’s get these projects funded. The sooner they’re funded, the sooner the kids can get started on their projects.
You may have noticed the new widget in my sidebar, or maybe you saw my post on BlogHer on Wednesday? The DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge stuff? Maybe I even sent you an email about it?
Don’t pretend like you haven’t heard about this. You have. Now it’s time for you to DONATE and BLOG about it yourself. Or maybe even created your own giving page for the challenge.
I created a giving page that features five projects, from five schools, from five cities where our kids have gone to school.
There’s a school in Fairfield California. Jenn and Chris both went to school there.
There’s a school in Burlington NJ. The actual school Jenn graduated from.
There’s a school in Anderson SC. The actual school Michelle attended.
There’s a school in Gainesville Fl. The actual middle school Michelle got suspended from – twice. Hah.
There’s a school in Evanston Il. Prince J, RJ and Liz attended Evanston schools now.
Donate – even $1 will help these classrooms, these teachers, these kids. And in most cases, kids who attend those schools in years to come.
When I was building the landing page for our BlogHers Act – GlobalGiving campaign I went ahead and made my donation before we officially launched. It’s always good to test these things, I like testing things.
I looked closely at all five projects and thought about whether I wanted to donate to all of them or just one of them or a few of them. I’m going to be really honest and say that it was super easy for me to donate money to some of them – how do you say “no” to $10 paying for a year of health care for five women or children? That’s just too easy. There’s a huge “wow! my money can do that!” factor. But, when I got to the PWN Project to End HIV/AIDS Stigma in South Africa and saw “$50 provides counseling and education for two women with AIDS” there just wasn’t a “Wow” factor. HIV/AIDS is an issue I care a lot about and if I didn’t feel the “Wow” then I’m guessing most other people didn’t feel it either.
Then I noticed that Erin had assigned this project to me to blog and I spent two days wondering how to bring that “Wow” to you – so that you’d give. But a strange thing happened to me as I was researching, I got angry and I felt sad and I was proud of my donation to this project – “wow” or no “wow”.
Let me show you what I found.
First stop, the project landing page at GlobalGiving for the basics.
The Positive Women’s Network helps HIV-positive women, who are often ignored or blamed for their infections, to support themselves and their families and fight against the AIDS stigma in South Africa.
I clicked over to the PWN external project home page where I saw a link to an audio interview with Prudence Mabele. (You should click over to it and turn it on to listen to while you read the rest of this post. Some music will play and a little newsy type of blip, and then the interview will start. Be patient, it’s worth it.)
While I was listening, I launched a google search for PWN, AIDS South Africa and Prudence Mabele and this is where I began to feel frustrated and sad and angry.
Women are at a greater risk of contracting HIV than men because of social, cultural and biological factors like child marriages, polygamy, rape, defilement, wife inheritance, poverty, exploitation and ignorance.
Sigasa was found with her hands tied with her underpants and her ankles tied with her shoelaces, with three bullet holes in her head and three in her collarbone.
The most obvious next stop was more information about the woman whose voice I was listening to. And here’s where the inspiration comes.
Prudence Mabele, one of the first African women to say publicly “I am HIV+” and founder of the Positive Women’s Network.
Ten years ago, when Prudence Mabele discovered she had HIV, she was told to abandon her studies. She was working towards her degree in analytical chemistry at a time when HIV was neither understood nor tolerated in South Africa. “There were a lot of problems then”, she said. “They didn’t understand a lot about AIDS, so they told me to leave what I was doing because I was going to infect staff and students. They thought if I was at the laboratory I would infect people.”
This woman started something amazing in a country where women are property of their husbands and can become property of their husbands brothers if their husbands die.
Babweteera says a major concern in her area is the practice of wife inheritance. When a man dies, his wife can be inherited by his brother, which when combined with polygamy, can lead to a greater spread of HIV.
And then, I found this youtube video created by a 16 year old girl who supports the work of PWN.
If that wasn’t enough, a couple of hours after I’d finished my research and was wandering around BlogHer – reading posts, catching up on forum entries, I stumbled into a very personal story about AIDS in South Africa.
One four and half year old from an ordinary suburb, with a dog and a pool, was being treated for AIDS.
Now, let me show you just a few more things. Go and read Jenn’s post about Mommybloggers helping Mommybloggers. Go and listen again to Maria Niles talking to Eve Ensler about the power of women and did you see what happened when Jen Lemen asked her community, many of whom are BlogHer members, for help? And imagine, just imagine, what Laurie and Nordette are getting involved in while they’re at SuperLove this weekend.
Women are changing the world through writing, through action, and through donations.
Go on – blog this. Please, tell people about what PWN is doing to help women and families in South Africa and then make a donation to PWN.
Michelle wasn’t at SFCC yesterday, she was at work. She did however hear all about the gun on campus from friends. She did not hear about it from administrators of SFCC.
She did not get an email in either her SFCC account or her personal account.
She did not get a phone call on her cell phone or on her home phone.
The emergency text message service was not used.
A friend of hers was at school, attending classes and roaming the campus, and she didn’t hear about the gunman until she got home from school…
I’ll be interested in hearing what was discussed at the meeting that occurred today, at 11:30am and at the Student Government meeting going on right about now.
To all of the people who publish their Deli.cio.us links to their blogs… I cannot tell you how many times I’ve found great links just by skimming through my feedreader. I’m tempted to link some of you, but there would be too many and I’m afraid I’d leave someone out so…
Hanks Yarn & Fiber opened today in the shopping center very close to my house. We were there and it was fun. I’m not a knitter or a crocheter but I can’t wait to go back tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. Hanks is all about yarn and fiber but it’s a lot more than that. It’s about people. And community. And I’m not just saying this because Ginger, Lorena and Sharon are my friends.
I watched all three of them talk to people they had never met before and help them feel welcome in the store – whether they bought anything or not. The two young girls sitting in the middle of the floor with their Nintendo DS’s were welcomed. Men in kilts, welcomed. Women new to knitting and crochet and spinning, welcomed.
When we walked in the store, from the Publix side, the couches and chairs were full of knitters. Lorena is helping a customer while Sharon laughs the way only Sharon can laugh. Who knows what they were talking about over there…
Ginger was busy at work, spinning a skein of yarn into a ball (Bless her for spinning TW’s new sock yarn and the yarn I bought for my mom’s birthday into balls. The latter, in particular, was not an easy thing to do – and I really really appreciate her patience and her help.)
Sharon, again, happy and laughing. She’s like that in general but opening Hanks is like a dream come true.
The “bouncer” looking serious about making sure people enjoyed their visit to Hanks.
Care to join me at Hanks tomorrow around 3? Or next week, Tuesday – Thursday, around noon? If you don’t live in Gainesville, and you need some yarn, you can order online. It won’t be the same, but it will still be a great experience.
