My mother died of breast cancer. Emilie’s mother died of breast cancer. Steph’s mother died of breast cancer. I have a friend, a mum of 2 small children, who’s fighting breast cancer. The stories of breast cancer that surround us are raw and real. One in eight women will get breast cancer — some stories end happily, some end sadly. Breast cancer gives us scars — if not on our bodies, then in our lives.

What can we do? First of all — we all know that early detection is the best protection. So make sure you check yourself regularly. Next to that, be supportive of friends and relatives who are diagnosed with breast cancer, and their friends and family. Also: donate. There is still a lot to learn about breast cancer and how to cure it. Money is needed for research and awareness, and much needed support. You’ve probably heard of Pink Ribbon: you can donate from their website here using PayPal. It’s easy and 100% safe.  October is Breast Cancer Awareness month — donate NOW! I just did.

xxx Esther

P.S. And of course this weeks Top Ten is perfectly pink for the occasion!

Thank you Babyccino Kids for allowing me to share a story with you today. I have to admit I started out on a journey to empower women around the world in hopes that they will better the lives of themselves, their kids and the community they live in. The more I dug around for projects and tried to just get things done, I realized that this is actually a huge task to take on and one that cannot be done just because you have a good heart. Then, I came across The Girl Effect….and that’s when everything changed. GIRLS, they are the answer to all the world’s problems: empower a girl and the world transforms! One thing led to another and I started Hope by Twelve.  Although it’s a young organization, it all moved so fast and we are anxious to keep growing at a fast rate. We truly believe that when girls are given a chance to invest in their community, a ripple effect happens that will travel throughout that community and from one generation to the next.

Just how do we help these girls? Through the ideas, creativity and help of GIRLS. Our very own girlpods are the backbone of hope by twelve. Groups of girls come together (boys are welcome too) to brainstorm, plan and carry out a fundraiser for one of the organizations/projects we partner with. They can also choose their own project to raise money for as long as it’s directly helping an adolescent girl in poverty and we approve the organization. It’s simple: girls helping girls.

One of the projects we’ve partnered with right now is Mudula Water which is a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to deliver clean water to Mudula, a town of 10,000 people in Ethiopia. Right now, with the drought being so bad, it’s so important our financial goal is met soon. Girls spend hours every day, sometimes multiple times every day fetching water which holds them back from getting an education. If we can give them clean water, water-borne illnesses and deaths will be dramatically decreased and these girls will be given a chance to go to school. And the cycle continues, economically transforming entire communities.

We have until Friday to help Mudula Water win a fundraiser and receive an extra $8,000. You are more then welcome to donate, BUT, we’d be happy to do it for you. Go to Facebook and “like” our page, then tell your friends to do the same. For each person who likes (follows) us, we’ll donate $1 to Mudula water through Friday, September 30. If you’re interested in helping girls (ages 7 and up work best) form a girlpod, let me know and I’ll guide you through it. We also love mompods, boypods, mixedpods-anything works! Thanks so much for reading this and helping to change the world we live in.

Molly

If you didn’t know the name of Lisa Jones, you’d recognise the style of her studio’s illustrations — influenced by 1950’s design they are wonderfully vibrant and optomistic.  And now Lisa and her partner Edward Underwood have collaborated with Joanna Skipwith of Silver Jungle Books to produce 2 delightful little books about animals for little ones. I’d Chew Yew and I Choose You.

All the books published by Silver Jungle have the ambition to share enthusiasm and concern for wildlife and each one therefore helps raise money for chosen charitable conservation projects.  Sales of I’d Chew Yew will help plant Aspen and Silver Birch in the Caledonian Forest in Scotland, which hopes to help the reintroduction of Beavers into Britain, extinct since the 18th Century. I Choose You supports CERCOPAN, which aims to protect monkeys in the wild.

Aside from the fantastic work they support, Silver Jungle Books are all beautifully produced and illustrated — I really love the look of the books for older children (9+) – Rhino: Animals in Art and Tiger: Animals in Art. A great way to start getting our kids aware of protecting the world they live in.

She has really researched charities and decided to sponsor some she really felt deserved support. They are smaller charities, which don’t have the massive marketing budget of some of the internationally known charities. It is such a great business model and on top of that, the clothes sold on Big Blue Cuddle are really cute. Look at this cute dress and little sleeping outfit!

-Emilie

After the Angawandi Project, Sally Test and a select group of charities in Haiti, here is another small, but incredibly important charity we would like to proudly support. In our aim to support smaller charities that don’t have the massive publicity budgets of the bigger organisations, but still achieve incredible things… we would like to introduce you to Ickle Pickles, which provides care and equipment for premature babies.

Rachael, the founder of Ickle Pickles has taken the saying “turning a negative into a positive” to the extreme. Her son Charlie was born pre-mature and had to spend the first 12 weeks of his life in a hospital, something that would turn everyone’s life upside down. Based on this experience, Racheal and her husband founded the Ickle Pickles Children’s Chairty. Here she explains her experience and a bit about the charity:

My husband and I founded the Ickle Pickle Children’s charity following the premature birth of our son Charlie in March 2008. He was born 12 weeks prematurely weighing just 2lb 4oz (1.1 kg) and he spent 34 days in Intensive Care, 9 days in High Dependency and 40 days in Special Care.

We have no idea why Charlie came so early and our lives went on hold for the entire time he was in hospital. Each week had its challenges including a problem with closing a heart valve, bleeds on his brain and issues with him regulating his temperature. However, he got through it all and was discharged from St. George’s hospital, Tooting, London on 17th June 2008, one day before his original due date and today is a thriving, happy boy who charms everyone he meets (like most parents I am maybe a little biased).

The Ickle Pickles charity aims to give every newborn a chance. We do this through the provision of new and much needed equipment for Neonatal Units, to be used in the provision of primary care for premature and sick babies. The equipment is sourced in collaboration with individual NNUs & NHS trusts to ensure that the donations meet a real and tangible need and have an immediate impact.
All donations are made in the form of restricted grants to ensure that the funds are not diverted elsewhere.

Our immense gratitude to the staff at St George’s Neonatal unit in London and admiration for the work of all Neonatal Units has inspired us to do something, however small, on behalf of all Ickle Pickles out there. In the last two years we have raised over £120,000 which has purchased much needed equipment for neonatal units across the UK including Tunbridge Wells, Sheffield, London, Portsmouth & Worthing. As a charity we are continuing to grow nationally but are focusing on working at a local level to help the parents, families and friends of premature and sick babies make a tangible difference to the neonatal unit that helped save their child.

The name of the charity was inspired by one of the Neonatal nurses who called our son her ‘Ickle Pickle’ as we were so flustered it took us a long time before we settled on Charlie! If you are interested in getting involved or would just like to learn more about what we have done to date please visit Ickle Pickles or contact rachael@icklepickles.org. And you can click here to see a photo of Charlie today!

PS – You can click here to read about the other charities we support.

Here is, at long last, the new Babyccino Kids Charity (so sorry it has taken me so long to post about it). As you may remember we want to bring attention to smaller charities which don’t have the marketing budget of the bigger ones, but also need support, as they make a huge different in people’s lives. Justyn Strother and fellow blogger and talented photographer lives in Kenya with her husband and four children. She introduced us to Sally Test, a pediatrics centre in Western Kenya. Here she will explain all about it…

My name is Justyn Strother.  I am a mother of four, a photographer, and the wife of a Medical Oncologist working in Western Kenya through the IU/Kenya partnership.  I hope today to tell you a bit about a very special place in our city of Eldoret that needs your help : Sally Test Paediatrics Center. When we arrived here 6 months ago, four little ones in tow, I had no idea what to expect.  My husband had been here to work several times during his fellowships but I was moving with four children 9, 7, 4 and 2, sight unseen.  When we arrived I was determined to make a home for the family and busy trying to set up our “home school” as well as coming to know the country and the area that we now call home.  The first part of that process for me was visiting Moi Teaching and referral hospital, the large public hospital where my husband would be practicing medicine for the next several years.

Naturally I gravitated towards the pediatric area of the hospital and was truly shocked by what I saw.  The most shocking bit was not the sight of several children to a bed, the babies crying unattended in cribs or the smell… it was the lack of normal childhood sounds.  No laughter, no play sounds, no toys.  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a lively toddler being walked back to the ward, colorful picture in hand and a huge smile on his face, hand in hand with a smiling nurse.  The difference between what I first saw when entering the ward and this “ray of sunlight” might as well have been night and day.  I continued down the hall following the sounds of singing and came to a brightly colored room just off the main corridor filled with color, windows on three sides and, most importantly the sounds of happy children.  It was the Sally Test Paediatrics Center.
In 2000, two doctors’ wives began going to the pediatric wards at Moi Teaching and referral Hospital with toys and coloring for the children. Gradually a full fledged afternoon play program was held between nursing stations each afternoon.  In 2005 Sally Test donated money to build a playroom for hospitalized children which was completed in 2006.  Soon it became clear that the mission of STPC needed to be enlarged to include the many abandoned babies brought to MTR Hospital each month.

Workers began to go to all the wards and it became evident that the children needed more than diversion: they and their caretakers needed explanations of what was happening to them and why (not a common part of treatment in Kenya). Nurses were hired in 2007 to move towards a full fledged Child Life program.  In addition, in 2007 a program was begun for nearby rural clinics and in 2008 workers also began going to Webuye District Hospital.

The services being offered are not available ANYWHERE else in Western Kenya.  In most public and district hospitals pediatric treatments are offered without explanation.  Children who are in the hospital for long periods of time forgo education and babies and children abandoned at the hospital can only hope to receive the very minimum of sustenance and almost no interaction let alone play.  It is a scene nothing like what one would see in any pediatric area in any hospital in the west regardless of the wealth of the hospital. The resources in this part of the world are too small and the need too great.  In response to this, STPC offers the following services:

Classroom activities: During ward rounds children come to the Sally Test play room and choose from a variety of activities on their own.  When a critical mass arrive children are involved in “units” that include story time, music, outdoor activities, crafts, dance problem solving and more.

Preparation for hospital procedures: Sally Test Child Life nurses spend time with children before procedures explaining what is to happen to them and ways to make it less scary of painful.  Before children go to the Operating theaters or radiology they receive details pictorial and experiential explanations of what to expect.

Abandoned Babies: During the day abandoned infants ( up to 15 on any given day) and children brought to the hospital are cared for in the STPS Baby Area where they are bathed, fed, changed, weighed and taken for immunizations.  Help is provided as children find foster parents or are committed to children’s homes in the Eldoret area.
Parent Classes: Twice weekly health classes are conducted for the parents of sick children covering a wide range of topics from disease processes, nutrition, the law or child development issues.

Ward Activities: Each day volunteers take toys, colouring activities, games , puzzles, books and crafts to the MTRH wards, surgery and anywhere that children are hospitalized but unable to come to the STPC.

Outreach: Teams from STPC go weekly to three nearby rural health centers and to the Webuye district hospital to conduct classes for both parents and children.

Library Services: STPS provides a lending library (there are no other such libraries in western Kenya) to the AMPATH and MTRH staff.  Our children’s library has over 3000 volumes which are available for use in the classroom, on the wards and within the MTRH community.  Individuals may borrow three books a week.

Sewing Lessons: Purdue university Doctor of Pharmacy students won a grant that provides sewing lessons by a teacher from AMPATH’s Imani workshop for the parents of young patients on the MTRH wards.

These simple explanations do not begin to draw light to the huge amount accomplished by the STPC.  ALL of the work is funded by private donations and occasional grant monies.  The many supplies, diapers, staff and programs require an operating budget that is becoming more difficult to sustain through private donations during these difficult economic times.  The private donations are getting smaller, while the need in an area stricken by drought and HIV is growing greater by the day.  I humbly ask that if you are considering a charitable gift that you keep the STPC in mind.  For many of these children, particularly those abandoned to the care of the hospital, the staff at Sally Test represents their family.  The touch, food, clothing and love these babies and children receive is invaluable, but providing this care requires money.

In order to contribute please visit www.iukenya.org . The red “how to donate” button at the top of the screen will take you to the form for donations.  If you put Sally Test in the “comments” section of the form you can be assured that 100% of your donation will come DIRECTLY to the STPC.  No money will be used for institutional overhead.  While you are on the site please feel free to browse the many videos, images and articles on the rest of the AMPATH / IUKenya work and how you can visit or get involved.  THANK you for your consideration.

Justyn

The Angawandi Project helps build pre-schools for children in the Gudjurat state of India. Jodie, an Australian interior furnishing designer and founder of the fabulous brand Bholu, has worked a lot in Gudjurat and developed a strong bond with the country and its people. She realised the desperate need for a decent environment for children to come to and thrive in every day. With the help of volunteers and generous donations — both local and foreign — she has now managed to open 8 schools.

Here are a few words from Jodie, and a few photos to show you where all her hard work as gone:

A big thanks to all the very generous Babyccinno crew for posting and spreading the word! Bholu 8 School’s doors opened with a bang a few weeks ago. The design is simple and beautiful focusing on using all recycled materials and creating a water feature for educational use which encourages the children to wash their hands and water their vegie garden at the same time. The architects started building the playground from old tyres and found objects which the children loved and started playing  in even before it was finished being built!

Bholu 9 School is currently under construction and is going to be a school and also a women’s health centre providing a private and safe place for women to access health facilities and education. You can see the beginnings of the building, the site and the plans here.

Here’s her story:

When I told my kids I was going to send money to Haiti, their faces fell.  “But Mama, “ my son said, “will we have enough left for us?”
Before you leap to conclusions about the little monsters I’m raising, let me add one thing.  My six and seven year olds know what life is like in Haiti, and have some awareness of how much it will take to bring standards there anywhere near normal.  Two and a half years ago, they lived in an orphanage in Port au Prince.  Before that, they slept on the streets in one of the city’s worst slums.

It’s easy to forget, even for me.  I look up at breakfast and see two petits Parisiens sloshing croissants in hot chocolate,  their former diet of rice and beans a crazy, fairytale memory.  We spend Sundays at the Louvre, urgently debating Titian versus Tintoretto, never mind that before in Haiti they had scarcely ever seen a single pot of paint in their entire life.

But they remember.  The first thing they asked when I told them about the earthquake was whether anyone in the orphanage had been hurt (luckily no, though many buildings collapsed).
That night, as I put them to bed, my son held me tight.  “Mama,” he whispered, “when I grow up, I want to stop people being poor.”
My daughter, younger by a year, overheard.  “And I,” she said with a flourish, “am going to be the boss of television and wear sparkly dresses every day.”
Maybe she still has a way to go.  Maybe we all do.

Giving to Haiti

There is so much need in Haiti, not just for emergency relief but for long term support in constructing a viable, safe and democratic society.

• One charity I can particularly recommend is Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health (PiH).  For over twenty years they have brought modern medical care and deep compassion to Haiti.  You can learn more about their work in Tracy Kidder’s wonderful book Mountains Beyond Mountains, and on the PiH website.
• I adopted my children from the orphanage Foyer de la Nouvelle Vie, which is supported by a US charity, Reach out Haiti.  They help find adoptive families for Haitian orphans and run a safe haven where single mothers can live with their children and be trained in a variety of trades.
• Other orphanages I know of personally are God’s Littlest Angels, and Brebis, which is supported by another US charity, Answered Prayers .

Thank you so much Fionnuala.

Our first charity is the The Anganwadi Project, founded by my dear friend Jodie. Jodie is the owner of Bholu, a fantastic interior furnishing company based in Australia. She started The Anganwadi Project when she was visiting Gujarat in India and saw the urgent need for safe, clean pre-schools (locally called ‘anganwadis’). This being Jodie, an energetic girl to say the least, she did not hang around too long musing about it. Within 3 weeks the first of 66 new pre-schools was built…

Here is her story:

I never thought that something as devastating as an earthquake could turn my life around in such a wonderful way and send me on a new mission of understanding of people, poverty, humanity and childhood. It was a few years after the horrific 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, India that I stopped what I was doing at the time (costume designing) to help rebuild the homes and lives of communities on the border of Pakistan and India. I had never experienced such a raw perspective on humanity, and being with people who have absolutely nothing but their clothes on their backs but still want to give you everything. I was fortunate enough to have lived and worked with the most beautiful families during this time, and it was during this time that I met the traditional Kaatchchi women whose skill is incredibly traditional embroidery which they use only for their own clothes and their daughter’s dowry.

I knew I had the opportunity to give something to these women and help get them back on their feet. I starting designing cushions and beds throws, which were merely a canvas for these women to do their embroidery. Little did I know, they found my minimalist and graphic designs quite amusing and likened the designs to the drawings of their own children, who they affectionately called their “Bholu’s”. ( Literal meaning is a term of endearment to a small child, or a descriptive word for niaviety or innocence). The light went on in my head and I realised that their children could become involved by drawing the designs and then I could turn these into the embroidery for the textiles. It was from here, Bholu was born.

Now, every year I spend time going into slum communities and taking art/craft workshops with young street children who are not in school and are being deprived of a childhood. I come bearing fruit and fresh water, crayons, paper, stickers and glue, and for a few hours these children can just be children. It is complete chaos but so incredible to see them forgetting to work. After many of these workshops I ended up with mounds of golden ideas and divine illustrative creatures which could only ever be imagined by a child. From here came the Bholu Bubalah range, a delightful and quirky range of children’s toys, designed by the children and hand made by their mothers, aunts and grandmothers. A wonderful circle of creativity had started.

Inspired by how little the school cost and how little time it took to make, that The Anganwadi Project began. An “anganwadi” is the name of these preschools, where young children between the ages of 2 and 5, receive one meal a day, education, hygiene, discipline and love in some of the poorest and lowest socio-economic communities in India. The Anganwadi Project is set up to rebuild preschools for slum children and is now run hand in hand with Manav Sadhna, an NGO based in Gandi Ashram, Gujarat and AWF, Architects Without Frontiers- Australia.

Through The Anganwadi Project we aim to rebuild and renovate 66 anganwadis in the slum areas of Ahmedabad, Gujurat, India. Our architect volunteers transform a tiny, ill-ventilated, galvonised iron lean-to into beautiful, safe, clean, ventilated and light space for the children. Often the design of the Anganwadi has educational elements including water catchments, hygiene games like snakes and ladders mosaics ( made by local artisan women) on the floor of the school which sends a dirty child back into the bathroom and many more architectural elements to make learning fun.

We make sure the anganwadis are constructed by local labourers, sustaining local employment and use largely re-cycled materials in order to support the Manav Sadhna philosophy of ‘Re-Use, Re-Cycle, and Reduce.’ It is so exciting to think that since September 2007 The Anganwadi Project we have completed the build of 8 Anganwadi’s with over 300 children now in school. This is all possible thanks to an earthquake, the time and skills of incredible volunteers, part profits from the sale of Bholu products and generous donations from companies and individuals. We aim to make this project sustainable for the teachers, mothers, children and the local contractors for the next 5 years with our goal to complete all 66 anagwadi’s in the area.

When you see the children’s faces and you see them getting a little bit fatter and healthier every year and you hear the happy voices coming from the schools, it is such a treat and all so rewarding. It certainly makes you really think about how lucky our children are and how a little goes a long way.

If you are interested in sponsoring the Anganwadi Project or helping out in any other way, click here for more information.

- Emilie