Hot off the presses....

Here it is, drum roll please...the 2008 Annual Report, MAU's first ever! MAU celebrates mother leadership -- MAUs share their stories of action and visions for the world.

A journey of exploration, of the world and self

2009 MAU Calendar Portrait Camille Hook and her family are spending this month travelling through Southeast Asia visiting microcredit programs, while exploring the world. Visit their blog at www.Hooktrip.blogspot.com as they share what they learn, adventures, photos and videos.

Here’s a snippet from one of Camille’s postings before they left:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness” by Mark Twain
I ponder this quote daily. It was to my surprise that I would start to feel the truth of it so quickly by creating a blog! Sharing the experience of our travel has already widened the borders of the stereotyped family/friend "comfort zone conversation" to include topics such as global politics, immigration, geography, history, human rights, "poverty and despair vs. poverty and dignity," economy and my favorite topic: advocacy.

As a result, I've learned of the wisdom of your own journeys. Eloquently, you all have spoken with inspirational worldliness, open-mindedness and appreciation of culture and countryside. Thank you.

These kinds of conversational moments open doors in our fundamental relationships and build intimacy and trust from which I am finding all kinds of energy to act...explore further...discover more...share again. Whadyaknow...it's a cycle!

Raise Your Voice Against Poverty

October 17 is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Add your voice to the chorus calling for the end to global poverty. Take action with:

CARE's National Day of Action: Join CARE and send a strong message to the next President of the United States that Americans care deeply about the plight of the world’s poor. Then, host a National Day of Action event to explore concrete actions we can all take to advance U.S. policies to empower women and end poverty and injustice in one community after another. CARE's website has the resources you need to make your National Day of Action event a resounding success! CARE is hosting events around the world on Oct. 17. To host your own event, view a listing of events or to take action online, click here.

Stand Up: Stand Up with your community – family, friends, coworkers, teammates, classmates, those at your house of worship – along with millions of others around the world against poverty. Stand Up is a global mobilization to end poverty and inequality. Last year, 43.7 million people joined Stand Up worldwide, setting a new world record. This year, we are asking people to Stand Up and Take Action on October 17 through October 19 to ensure governments worldwide hear our demands to end poverty.

We are the first generation to have the tools and resources to end extreme poverty. Let's create true security for our global family and make poverty history!

Mother's Day wrap up!

Dearest Joy Warriors & Apron String Revolutionaries; The MAU Mother's Day stories and photographs keep rolling in! Thousands of mothers acting up gathered in cities and hamlets across the nation to celebrate the day in the spirit of Julia Ward Howe: advocating for the world's children. We've gone public with press aplenty, witnesses to the powerful force that is mother leadership! And in a year when many events partnered with 1Sky on their collective Mother's Day Action, it's no surprise that the weather played a large role in the festivities. Here are a few reports: From Teresa in Snohomish, WA: Our Mother's Day Gathering for Peace was a huge success! We had well over 125 people and it didn't rain! Our tradition is to have a girl/woman from every decade read a portion of the Mother's Day Proclamation by stepping up onto a tree stump. We even had our spry, mid-70s grandmother step proudly up on the stump! From Kate in Northern Michigan: A great group of area women came together to celebrate and collaborate during our annual Northern Michigan MAU Mother's Day event. This year, we focused on a simple recipe for success with our theme, "Just Add Water." We honored five local women who have been passionate advocates for our lakes and rivers, and were fortunate enough to hear their inspiring stories of activism. Our bazaar brought in $8,000 -- a fantastic kick off toward our $14,000 goal to bring a PlayPump well system to a village in Tanzania. From Paige in Nashville: Gale force winds (up to 30 miles per hour) radically altered our plans for our 3rd Annual Peace Parade. Two trees fell while we were at the park to set up. Mother Nature was to be respected and lived with in all her wonder. We opted to go out for coffee instead of setting up, then gathered for our parade and cake and a spirited reading of the proclamation. We had a surprisingly large crowd, given the weather. It was wild and great and we went from one stilt walker last year to two this year. We nearly blew away. But didn't. From Juliana in Boulder: Mother's Day began the week before in Boulder with Girlcotts celebrating local fair trade stores, a performance of (M)other and Janna on TV! Then on Sunday, the Raging Grannies led a parade of stilt-walkers and strollers to gather for music, kids activities, cake and a thousand fair trade roses from Transfair/USA. Eight other organizations joined MAU in the celebration; talking with participants and hearing the eloquent words of MAU Co-founder Erica Shafroth and Jen Parsons. The entire crowd enjoyed stirring music from Danea Shanti and Ancestral Voices, including a troop of belly dancers! A festival atmosphere prevailed, culminating in an hour-long interview with Dr. Daddio! From Kate in Bend, OR: I am very inspired and unbelievably satisfied: we had a splendid Reclaiming Mother's Day event. Our first annual MAU celebration of Julia Ward Howe's original vision started off with gusts of wind, snow and chilly temps. No matter though: families still came to picnic, play and participate in the movement. David in Oklahoma City: In the midst of a rainy month we were blessed with an absolutely beautiful sunny afternoon and had a crowd of 75-100 people -- women, men and children -- who enjoyed being on the grass and even under a large shade tree, so everyone stayed comfortable. [We had] a wonderful speech by State Senator Connie Johnson, whose birthday it also happened to be. Our two elementary-school essay contest winners read what they had written on the subject, "I Want To Live In a World In Which . . . " and they each received $40 in gift certificates for their efforts. Laura in Austin, TX: Adorned in colorful tutus, feathers, and flowers, Austin mamas marched across the pedestrian bridge, which spans our beautiful Town Lake, declaring, "There ain't no power like the power of the mama, and the power of the mama don't stop!" Cheers to mamas, papas, mini-MAUs and all who answered Julia's call to "Arise!" Yours for the JOYFUL revolution, The Mavens at MAU Central P.S. MAU Central gives a huge shout out to Paige for all the encouragement, support and guidance she dispatched along the planning route to Reclaiming Mother's Day. On June 1 MAU Central will say goodbye to Paige as Outreach Coordinator, sending love and blessings to her next adventure. On behalf of all MAUs who have been touched by her spirit, we thank Paige for her incredible leadership, passion, exuberance and her wonderful laugh! We hope to hear it often in the years to come...

Healthy Child, Healthy World.

No one organization will make the changes we need to be and see in order to have the world's children best cared for. That's why it's so very important to know the truth of We're all in this together! It will take all hands on deck from domestic to international efforts, sometimes one baby step at a time, to co-create the kind of world and social environment that we want for our children. ALL our children.

Here's but just one such domestic organization's message of hope.

The moms came marching one by one....

Publish Date: 5/12/2008

Jennifer Parsons of Longmont helps her daughter Sedona, 1, wipe her eye Sunday before the start of the seventh annual Mothers Acting Up parade in downtown Boulder. Janna Vance of Longmont, right, and Parsons are members of Longmont Moms Go Green. Lewis Geyer/Times-Call

Mom Movement
125 gather in Boulder to march for a better future

By Scott Rochat
Longmont Times-Call

BOULDER — The moms came marching one by one — and then some.

About 125 people paraded through Boulder on Sunday, from moms on stilts to kids in strollers. It was Mother’s Day and that meant it was time for Mothers Acting Up to go on the march.

“We’re just having a lot of fun out here, while doing something worthwhile for everyone,” said Isabel Cousins of Boulder, wearing a bike helmet that had been turned into a crown of flowers, with bright purple and orange blooms.

Mothers Acting Up got its start seven years ago...(more)

Northern Michigan MAUs to reclaim Mother's Day at Annual Tea.

Making A Difference: Mother's Day Tea will raise money for international water group

By Kate Bassett - Harbor Light Newspaper

Clean water. Those two words flow so easily off our tongues in northern Michigan. From the beautiful vistas of the bays and Great Lakes to the ever-flowing artesian wells found in downtown Harbor Springs, fresh, clean water is, simply put, a given in this area. Local resident Copland Rudolph knows that while she only has to turn on her tap to provide that life essential to her children, other mothers across the globe lack that luxury.

Rudolph, co-chair of the non-profit group, Northern-Michigan Mothers Acting Up, said this issue— the severe lack of clean water for much of the world’s women and children— is the central theme of this year’s Mothers’ Day Tea and Bazaar, being held on Saturday, May 3 at the First Presbyterian Church in Harbor Springs.

“Our goal is to publicly and passionately advocate for the world’s women and children, and one of the ways we do that is by focusing on the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (set to cut extreme poverty and hunger in half by the year 2015). Clean water is fundamental to five out of eight of the Millennium Development Goals, crucial to everything from fighting HIV/AIDS to providing primary educations to girls.”

As Mothers Acting Up’s goal is to give people an opportunity to come together and make a difference(...more here)

Memphis MAUs reclaiming Mother's Day.

Memphis mamas are mobilizing!!

Join their yahoogroup to build community and plan for Mother's Day, and check out their blog. Get involved!

MAUs in Community.

Finding MAU Communities has never been easier.

If you don't see your community listed on the click on map, give Paige a yell.

The year to engage.

Dearest Joy Warriors and Apron String Revolutionaries, Happy New Year and oh mamas, we're off to a good start with the highest number of actions taken in MAU history with January's MAU pledge, a promise to help bring security to the forefront of all conversations! Congratulations, and keep those pledges coming: sign if you haven't yet and/or invite your circles of friends to sign. See if your community can have the most signatures by February 15, and I'll send you a grab bag celebration package to share with your community of mamas. As Mothers Acting Up, we're serious about our celebrations, and celebrate our seriousness. To that end, my dears, after signing the pledge, I ask that you put your hearts toward what it is that makes YOU a MAU. We'll share your thoughts on this hot topic on the MAU national blog, and you can further expand your thinking by joining in spirited dialogue on the brand new list serv for MAUs nationwide. Come by and introduce yourself and start composing your list of the top ten ways to be a MAU. From the Mothership, to jumpstart the conversation, our top ten ways to be a MAU: Join MAU and receive monthly actions & newsletters. Participate in collective actions, strengthening the impact of what we all do TOGETHER. Buy the MAU Handbook for daily inspiration. And then buy one for a friend. Memorize the MAU principles and apply them in your discussions, visions, plans and actions. Make a cheat sheet and xerox it onto card stock to hand out! Contact your Members of Congress at least three times a year (bonus points if you show up with kids and share cookies or homegrown tomatoes with the staff; they will remember you!) Publicly Reclaim Mother's Day in your community, from radio shows to parades: Arise! Girlcott EVERY DAY: Use money to create social change! Write a letter to the editor and/or op-ed about one MAU action and get it published! Need encouragement? Give a yell. Participate in the annual MAU collective postcard action. Sign and send your own, then pass them out at library story-time and coffee house knitting parties! Get inspired by attending MAU Live! or by hosting a presenting MAU event. Spread the mighty Word of MAU to five friends — invite them to begin at #1! Click here for the MAU top 10 ten list with handy links to get started! We look forward to hearing from you, and encourage you to share this missive with your friends and family. It's time for all hands on deck, mamas. There's big work to be done, and we're just the ones to do it. The children say: YES! Yours for the Apron String Revolution, Paige, AKA Ms. Booty Homemaker, for the MAU Mavens Janna Vance of Longmont, CO is championing MAU as her charity of choice in Parade Magazine's America's Giving Challenge. Make a $10 donation to MAU via Janna's link and MAU has a chance win the challenge! If 1 in 4 MAUs gives and/or tells 3 friends, we'll win. Read Janna's appeal.

Celebrating Mothers.

A PROJECT OF MOTHERS ACTING UP, Celebrating Mothers: Global Portraits to Inform and Inspire will showcase 20 mothers of young children around the world who are involved in social advocacy and are initiating positive change in their communities. Please see our website and send us your stories of exemplary mothers who are making a difference. Submission deadline for nominations is October 12, 2007. www.celebratingmothers.org Contact: amie@celebratingmothers.org

Nashville MAUs put together 41 school kits for the MCC!!

This just in from Kate at Nashville Mothers Acting Up:

WOW! I set a goal of 5 school kits early in August, and by the end of the month we'd made 41! When the kids and I dropped them off at 10,000 Villages yesterday, the volunteers and assistant manager were overwhelmed by the bags and bags full of kits we kept lugging through the door. While we helped to unload them in the back room, Priscilla, one of the volunteers, told us what would happen to them next. They'll take a ride up to Indiana, where the MCC home office is, and then will travel by ship over to Iraq, where they will be distributed by the MCC workers over there. I'd love to see how they're received by the children themselves, and what they allow the kids to do in school. Such a small gift, but I'm sure it means so much to them.

At Suzanne's encouragement, we'll continue to work with the MCC and branch out into other types of kits. Here's a list of all the kits they request and distribute . I recommend that we make newborn kits next... More on that soon.

In the meantime, thanks to all of you who participated in this project -- it's quite an accomplishment, and so beautifully illustrates our mission to advocate for the world's children.
Kate

As You Are.

Mother's Day fast approaches, with MAU events taking place in more than twenty cities!! It's a very exciting time for all of us as the anticipation mounts and good times roll....

You can learn more on our spectacularly redesigned and made-over website with RSVP ability for each event and recipes to build your very own MAU communities!

And just today, here we are in As We Are Magazine online.

MAUs in Northern Michigan.

Kate and Copland, community organizers and facilitators of the Northern Michigan MAU community have started a blog! Check them out.

MAU at Compass Conference this weekend.

This weekend I’ll be leading the workshop MAU Now: The Joy of Activism—Mobilizing the Mamas. You can see below for a full on description of my workshop and a number of other wonderful workshops and events of the Tennessee Alliance for Progress annual Compass Conference. Nashville's Mothers Acting Up community organizers will be providing childcare w/ snacks and activities for the smalls so mamas and papas can do some activating. Childcare will be available from 9 AM – 2:30 PM with the understanding that parents will check in and take their children during breaks and mealtime. If you require childcare or intend to take my workshop, please holler at me, as it will allow better planning on my part.

More on Mothers Acting Up: www.mothersactingup.org

More on Nashville Mothers Acting Up: www.nashvillemau.blogspot.com

I hope to see some of y’all this weekend!!

In peace,

Paige La Grone Babcock

paige@mothersactingup.org

How would you like to spend this Saturday day listening to inspired speakers, networking with like-minded people, engaging in passionate discussion about pressing social issues, watching informative documentary films, grooving to great music and browsing a unique bookshop with hard-to-find books you've been looking for?

If this is your cup of tea, you need to attend the Compass IV Conference this Saturday, April 14, 9 am to 4 pm at Cohn Adult Learning Center, 4805 Park Avenue in West Nashville. The action packed agenda includes 12 workshops, including a free workshop on Global Warming, films, music, a bookshop and Keynote Speakers David Sirota and Paul Waldman. You can register at www.tennesseeallian ceforprogress.org. Cost is $25 per day. If you need financial assistance in order to attend, contact nellrose@earthlink.net.

Here's the agenda for Saturday.

Compass IV Workshops – Saturday, April 14, 2007, Cohn Adult Learning Center

Registration: 8 AM to 9 AM

Welcome and Report from Friday’s Strategy Session: 9 AM - AUDITORIUM – Dan Joranko, Tennessee Alliance for Progress Board Chair

Keynote Address: 9:15 AM – AUDITORIUM – Paul Waldman, of Media Matters for America, author of Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.

Break and Paul Waldman Booksigning: 10:15 AM

Morning Workshops: 10:30 to 11:50 AM

Doing Justly – LIBRARY – a workshop on faith, spirituality, morality and politics organized by TAP’s Doing Justly Project: Integrating Our Deepest Spiritual Beliefs Into Our Professional and Public Lives. Presenters: Dan Joranko, Tamara Ambar Losel, Ted Parks, Melissa Spas, and Harmon Wray.

Reducing Poverty and Inequality in Tennessee: What Works - ROOM 209. This workshop will look at successful programs and policies that are being used here and abroad. Presenters: Martha Wettemann of Tennessee State Employees Association, Rebekah Jordan, Midsouth Interfaith Network for Economic Justice, Jerry Lee of Tennessee AFL/CIO, and a representative of the Vanderbilt employee living wage movement.

Activism 101 - ROOM 201. Want to get active and make a difference but don’t know where to start? This workshop is for you. Presenters: Keith Caldwell, Coordinator, Nashville Peace and Justice Center, Jen Cartwright, former Education Director, Nashville Peace and Justice Center, and Megan Mecaraeg, Organizer, Jobs with Justice.

MAU Now: The Joy of Activism— Mobilizing the Mamas – ROOM – tbd.
(Fathers and all others who care about & for children are warmly welcome).

Mothers Acting Up will facilitate a conversation about parental activism: where are we on our current journey? What are the barriers and obstacles to parental activism? How can we overcome them? We will view Mothers Acting Up, the movie and participants will receive a copy of the Mothers Acting Up 2007 Mother Leadership Handbook and Engagement calendar. The Mother Agenda will be addressed and issues of the workshop include community building, Mother’s Day Reclamation, tabling, and advocacy for children in the offices of our representatives. Children’s activities and daycare provided.

Please contact nellrose@earthlink.net if you will need childcare. Presenter: Paige La Grone Babcock. paige@mothersactingup.org

Media Reform – ROOM 203- Learn what’s wrong with the corporate media and how you can become a media activist. Presenters: Ginny Welsch of Radio Free Nashville, Mary Mancini of Liberadio(!) and Elliott Mitchell is of Metropolitan Educational Access Corporation.

How to Write Op-Eds That Get Published - ROOM 204. - Get read! Get heard! Get blogged! Learn how to bring your activism onto the opinion pages of Tennessee’s newspapers, on airwaves, and into cyberspace. This workshop that will show you how to leverage your activism through the commentary continuum. The Forum is working to increase progressive voices in the mainstream media. Presenters: American Forum Executive Director Denice Zeck and Elizabeth Barger Chair of the Tennessee Editorial Forum.

Lunch: Noon to 1 PM – DOWNSTAIRS CAFETERIA

Films: 12:10 PM to 1:00 PM – DOWNSTAIRS CAFETERIA.
Collateral Damage: Bad Medicine in Tennessee
Scenes from Eternal Vigilance: The Fight To Save Our Election System, Q&A with filmmaker David Earnhardt.

Afternoon Workshops: 1:00 to 2:30 PM

Global Climate Change – AUDITORIUM - A Powerpoint presentation based on Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Presenters: Jennifer Tlumak, a graduate of Al Gore’s Climate Project and Rev. Jim Deming of Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light and Northwest Earth Institute. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Part of the Step-It-Up April 14 Campaign.

Afternoon Workshops: 1:10 to 2:30 PM

Passing the Torch: Youth Activism – LIBRARY - This workshop will be led by youth and adult staff working with Oasis Community IMPACT (OCI). OCI works with young people from two East Nashville High Schools, Stratford and Maplewood, to promote educational and economic equity for urban students, schools, and neighborhoods by cultivating grassroots leadership through a youth organizing strategy. This workshop will provide participants the opportunity to learn more about this work, to better understand why working with youth is critical, and some effective strategies for working with a new generation of change-makers.

Progressive Blogging – ROOM 121 - Sandy Smith Madsen of the award-winning blog, Tennessee Guerilla Women will bring together bloggers to share the secrets of their craft. Presenters: Chiara at Thoughts of an Average Woman, Callie at Red State Exile, and Rick at Coyote Chronicles.

Election 2008 – ROOM 203. Discussion of local, state and national candidates, voter suppression, paper-trail ballot boxes and other issues. Presenters: Dr. Sekou Franklin, MTSU Political Science Department, Jim Grinstead, Democracy for Tennessee, Chick Westover, Gathering to Save Our Democracy, and Seanna Brandmeir, President Tennessee Young Democrats.

Tennesseee’s Health Care Crisis – ROOM 201 - Discussion of uninsured problem, TennCare, single payer proposals and other options. Presenters: Dr. Jim Powers of Vanderbilt Medical Center, with Lori Smith of Tennessee Health Care Campaign, Jim Hudson of Physicians NAT Health Plan and Dr. Richard Braun.

The Politics of Crime and Punishment in Tennessee – ROOM 204 - Topics will include prison privatization, death penalty, racism in the criminal justice system, and restorative transformative justice as an alternative to our present retributive system. Presenters: Harmon Wray of Vanderbilt Program on Faith and Criminal Justice, Stacy Rector of Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing and Gail Tyree of Grassroots Leadership of Memphis.

Break: 2:30 to 2:45 PM

Music: 2:45 PM - AUDITORIUM - Renown Songwriter/Artist Robert Ellis Orrall will perform his hit “Al Gore” and other selections.

Keynote Address: 3:00 PM – AUDITORIUM – Activist and Media Commentator David Sirota, author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government – and How We Take It Back.

David Sirota Book Signing: 4:00 – 4:20 PM

Shut down: build community, save energy.

Here's what this blogger will be doing this weekend instead of spending time here.