Joellen's article on Global Citizenship

MAU Published in World Pulse MagazinePosted by Joellen Raderstorf
12:00 AM Dec 03, 2008
Raising Global Citizens
Featured in World Pulse Magazine Winter/Spring 09 (Subscribe)Easy things you can do to help any child get a better appreciation of the world she lives in Ask a class of fourth graders to check the labels in each other’s t-shirts, and you’ll find at least fifteen different countries listed after “Made in . . .” Our world’s children are inextricably linked: They breathe the same air, listen to the same music, sleep under the same stars, and wear t-shirts from each other’s countries. I was not raised in a family of world travellers, so my global experience as a child was limited to a trip with my high school a capella choir to the U.K. My own children have had the opposite experience; they’ve traveled literally around the world, meeting people of all faiths, cultures and economic circumstances. I am a mother committed to raising global citizens. The roots of Global Citizenship can be traced back as far as Ancient Greece. Two and a half millennia later, the definition of it, declared by Oxfam Education school curriculum, is:understanding the need to tackle injustice and inequality, and having the desire and ability to work actively to do so. It is about valuing the Earth as precious and unique, and safeguarding the future for those coming after us. Global Citizenship is a way of thinking and behaving. It is an outlook on life, a belief that we can make a difference. Over the years, I have accumulated a raising-global-citizens treasure-trove: books to read, games to play, and school activities to bring to the classroom. I’ve also discovered some golden rules to raising a global citizen. #1: Teach by example: If you are engaged in making the world a better place, your child will be too. #2: Learn from your children: They understand acceptance and diversity better than we ever will. #3: Expose children to many forms of action, but let them choose their causes for themselves. A few items from my trove:Start with reading. Children’s books hold life’s most precious secrets. Find books with the most beautiful messages, ones that highlight different cultures, faiths and lives (see sidebar). Expose your children to stories with powerful environmental messages and characters who undergo transformation from greedy antagonist to compassionate protagonist. As a brand new mama, I spent most of a 2,500 mile road trip in the back seat reading Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, by Verna Aardema. I can still recite the rhythmic verses and see Kipat standing on one leg, like a big stork bird. It made me yearn to visit Africa and I imagined the same hunger instilled in my sweet, gurgling son.Bring lessons into everyday activities. Integrating global awareness into everyday events makes it a natural part of life from the get-go. Watch movies that depict life in faraway lands. Host a lemonade stand to buy mosquito nets for children in malaria-prone countries. Start a giving-circle tradition, allowing each member of the family to gift money to non-profits. Help your child identify what they are passionate about. The best way is to listen. I recognized my middle son's passion for animal rights when he said, "Mom, we are all animals—humans are no better that any other animal."Role play. When we put ourselves in the shoes of others, our eyes begin to open. At my son’s school I organized an event called “The World Sits Down to Lunch”. Each child was randomly given a ticket determining what lunch they would receive. The number of tickets in each group proportionally represented the world’s population. That meant that the majority of children were sent to the “Not Enough Area”, with no table, used yogurt containers for bowls, a pot of rice and a large pan for collecting water. The “Just Enough” group were shown to a crowded table with rice, beans, one very small cookie per person and a Dixie cup of juice. And the “More Than Enough” children—only eight of the 54 students—were served by high school students gesturing to sit at a beautifully set table, urging: “Help yourself to all the burrito fixings and dessert you would like.” The classroom transformed into a microcosm of our world: scarcity, war, stereotyping, begging and plenty of emotion. But the children got it.In the following weeks they shared this experience over and over again. I witnessed the beginnings of an authentic sense of global family. Experience the world first hand. Step one: place a large map on a promenant wall in your house. Now ponder adventures your family might have and track where you’ve already been. Start a travel fund and check out travel books from the library. The options are vast—from a one week service trip to a round-the-world adventure. With our sons aged 12, 10 and 7— each carrying their own backpack—we embarked on the learning experience of a lifetime, visiting 14 different countries. Six weeks into our six month trip, we found ourselves running from a Tsunami. Travel as close to the ground as your appetite allows. My children preferred the temples of Angkor in Cambodia to the museums in Italy. Our time spent in orphanages in South Africa and befriending working children in Cambodia left a lasting global imprint.Whatever you do, acting as members of one global family will transform your children’s lives – and yours. SIDEBAR: Resources:Books:The Giving Tree, by Shel SilversteinA Life Like Mine, by UNICEF and Dorling KindersleyBringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, by Verna AardemaThe Quiltmaker’s Gift, by Jeff Brambeau and Gail De MarkenThe Wump World, by Bill PeetThe Milestones Project: Celebrating Childhood Around the WorldGames: Games for Change highlights digital games for social change. www.gamesforchange.orgCurriculum: Oxfam's curriculum for Global Citizenship and more. www.oxfam.org.uk/education/gc/Philanthropy: YouthGive is building a community of giving, created and guided by young people. www.youthgive.orgTravel: Globe Aware offers volunteer vacations for families. www.globeaware.org
digg_url ="http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/api/blog/comments.jsp?blog_entry_KEY=23253&t=";
digg_skin = 'compact';

Global Citizens

Dear MAU Mavens,
As children and families gather for holiday celebrations, it's a good time to discuss how we can collectively raise Global Citizens...Luckily, MAU's own Joellen Raderstorf has written an article on that very subject! How very prescient of her!Find the article in the magnificent new edition of the World Pulse Magazine or read it here. The article contains tips, golden rules, resources and quotes like this: "Acting as members of one global family will transform your children's lives - and yours." What's not to like?Yours in spirited partnership,The Mavens at MAU Central P.S. Give the gift of engagement this holiday with a 2009 Calendar and a subscription to World Pulse Magazine.
Mothers Acting Up (MAU) inspires and mobilizes mothers* to advocate on behalf of the world's children.*mothers and others, on stilts or off, who exercise protective care over someone smaller. You have received this email because you are on the Mothers Acting Up Action mailing list. If you no longer wish to receive emails from us, please visit this link.

Al Gore's NYT climate crisis plan

Here’s what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth. What follows is a five-part plan to repower America with a commitment to producing 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. It is a plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis — and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced. First, the new president and the new Congress should offer large-scale investment in incentives for the construction of concentrated solar thermal plants in the Southwestern deserts, wind farms in the corridor stretching from Texas to the Dakotas and advanced plants in geothermal hot spots that could produce large amounts of electricity.Second, we should begin the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with “smart” features that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid — $400 billion over 10 years — pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.Third, we should help America’s automobile industry (not only the Big Three but the innovative new startup companies as well) to convert quickly to plug-in hybrids that can run on the renewable electricity that will be available as the rest of this plan matures. In combination with the unified grid, a nationwide fleet of plug-in hybrids would also help to solve the problem of electricity storage. Think about it: with this sort of grid, cars could be charged during off-peak energy-use hours; during peak hours, when fewer cars are on the road, they could contribute their electricity back into the national grid. Fourth, we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting. Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States come from buildings — and stopping that pollution saves money for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by mortgages that exceed the value of their homes. Fifth, the United States should lead the way by putting a price on carbon here at home, and by leading the world’s efforts to replace the Kyoto treaty next year in Copenhagen with a more effective treaty that caps global carbon dioxide emissions and encourages nations to invest together in efficient ways to reduce global warming pollution quickly, including by sharply reducing deforestation. Of course, the best way — indeed the only way — to secure a global agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead the world toward a solution. Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves. In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18. This year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm electrified Barack Obama’s campaign. There is little doubt that this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in this project to secure our national future, once again turning seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.
Al Gore, the vice president from 1993 to 2001, was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He founded the Alliance for Climate Protection and, as a businessman, invests in alternative energy companies.

This Mama is behind OBAMA!

Dear MAU Mavens,
Yesterday was a monumental day! Never before in the history of our nation have so many people participated in our democracy. For two years, mothers and others have been volunteering, organizing in their communities, talking to friends about what has been universally declared the most important election of our lifetime.We have elected a new president, one who speaks of hope and unity, not red states or blue states, but the United States of America.From Barack Obama's speech to 200,000 people in Berlin, Germany.This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands... This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.Mothers Acting Up (MAU) was born out of fear after the Twin Towers fell: fear of perpetual war, widening wealth gaps and dwindling resources. Fear that children's wellbeing would slide right off the radar screen. And it did.Today for the 1st day in the life of MAU, we have the opportunity to take action under an umbrella of hope, unity and renewed engagement.This is our moment, mamas!In hope filled partnership,Joellen and the Mavens at MAU Central

MAU 2009 calendar video!

http://www.mothersactingup.org/video/2009_calendar_promo.html

MAU 2009 handbook

The Moment: a calendar and guide for advocating on behalf of the world's children
The 2009 Calendar is here!The 2009 MAU calendar, The Moment, is dedicated to moments of personal change that shift the direction and purpose of our lives. Often these extraordinary moments are heralded by very ordinary tasks. They arrive -- when we're cradling babies, grocery shopping or bicycling -- and begin magically transforming us into passionate advocates.
The Moment is a weekly engagement calendar that also offers tools, information, weekly actions and most importantly, portraits of people who inspire our own activism – from the mom next door, to new moms, to Isabel Allende, Paul Hawken, Mukhtar Mai and Julie Chavez Rodriguez. This calendar and guide is a tribute to pivotal moments of change, designed to incite your own year of Moments

VOTE!

Vote, as if your child's life depended on it!

Check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtHwWReGU0

Now, isn't that inspirational, please send it to at least five friends!