Liz Gumbinner flew close to 7,000 miles to find that mothers in Ethiopia and those in New York City don’t want exactly the same things for their children.
“The most powerful part of trip was the time we got to sit down with the mothers and children,” said Gumbinner, an influential blogger and advertising executive. “When we asked the women what were their hopes for their children, they said health, an education, and a position of some stature in the community.
“If you asked American mothers what they wanted for their children, they would say I want them to be happy, I want them to pursue their passion. Health and education are taken for granted here. Despite all of our political issues around health and education right now, it is just assumed that your kid will live past two years old.
“So we realized it’s an environment with some pretty basic stuff to overcome. Happiness is a luxury. So as much as we could connect over wanting good things for our children, we realized we take a lot for granted here.”
It’s a simple message but one Gumbinner, 44, a Brooklyn Heights resident, editor in chief of the shopping and trend blog, Cool Mom Picks, (www.coolmompicks.com) and author of the personal blog Mom-101 (www.mom-101.com) promises to share with her readers in coming weeks. Cool Mom Picks averages about a million hits a month, she said.
That, she said, was the real point of the weeklong trip to the urban Addis Ababa and rural Bahir Dar, both in Ethiopia.
Organized by Jeannine Harvey of ONE Moms (www.one.org/moms), a Washington, D.C.-based global group of mothers organized to fight “extreme poverty and preventable disease” worldwide, the trip brought together an eclectic group of woman bloggers — ten from around the U.S., including Maya Haile Samuelsson, wife of noted chef Marcus Samuelsson — and three from Europe.
“We were interested in inviting women who are excellent writers, have strong passionate voices and large engaged communities,” said Harvey, Senior Manager of Strategic Relationships for ONE Moms.
“Liz and I have participated together on social media panels in the past and I’ve known her to be smart, well respected in the parenting community and a thoughtful, engaging writer,” Harvey continued. “All twelve women have very different voices, different styles of writing and different areas of interest. It was a remarkable experience to see Ethiopia through these women’s eyes.”
Said Gumbinner: “There was a food blogger, a hog farmer, a children’s book publisher, a brain scientist, a design blogger, so we all had different perspectives, which is so special because it allowed us to come back and tell stories through our own lenses to our own audiences, to audiences which are not expecting this context from us.
“It was not like Jeannine sent ten political bloggers who would come back and preach to the choir.”
Once the group landed in Addis Ababa they spent seven days visiting clinics, schools, farms, small businesses, and other beneficiaries of various aid programs, often visiting two and three sites a day, Gumbinner said.
http://www.nydailynews.com
“The most powerful part of trip was the time we got to sit down with the mothers and children,” said Gumbinner, an influential blogger and advertising executive. “When we asked the women what were their hopes for their children, they said health, an education, and a position of some stature in the community.
“If you asked American mothers what they wanted for their children, they would say I want them to be happy, I want them to pursue their passion. Health and education are taken for granted here. Despite all of our political issues around health and education right now, it is just assumed that your kid will live past two years old.
“So we realized it’s an environment with some pretty basic stuff to overcome. Happiness is a luxury. So as much as we could connect over wanting good things for our children, we realized we take a lot for granted here.”
It’s a simple message but one Gumbinner, 44, a Brooklyn Heights resident, editor in chief of the shopping and trend blog, Cool Mom Picks, (www.coolmompicks.com) and author of the personal blog Mom-101 (www.mom-101.com) promises to share with her readers in coming weeks. Cool Mom Picks averages about a million hits a month, she said.
That, she said, was the real point of the weeklong trip to the urban Addis Ababa and rural Bahir Dar, both in Ethiopia.
Organized by Jeannine Harvey of ONE Moms (www.one.org/moms), a Washington, D.C.-based global group of mothers organized to fight “extreme poverty and preventable disease” worldwide, the trip brought together an eclectic group of woman bloggers — ten from around the U.S., including Maya Haile Samuelsson, wife of noted chef Marcus Samuelsson — and three from Europe.
“We were interested in inviting women who are excellent writers, have strong passionate voices and large engaged communities,” said Harvey, Senior Manager of Strategic Relationships for ONE Moms.
“Liz and I have participated together on social media panels in the past and I’ve known her to be smart, well respected in the parenting community and a thoughtful, engaging writer,” Harvey continued. “All twelve women have very different voices, different styles of writing and different areas of interest. It was a remarkable experience to see Ethiopia through these women’s eyes.”
Said Gumbinner: “There was a food blogger, a hog farmer, a children’s book publisher, a brain scientist, a design blogger, so we all had different perspectives, which is so special because it allowed us to come back and tell stories through our own lenses to our own audiences, to audiences which are not expecting this context from us.
“It was not like Jeannine sent ten political bloggers who would come back and preach to the choir.”
Once the group landed in Addis Ababa they spent seven days visiting clinics, schools, farms, small businesses, and other beneficiaries of various aid programs, often visiting two and three sites a day, Gumbinner said.
http://www.nydailynews.com
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