Mile for Mothers – small steps
forward…
Where are people, there are stories… Where are
mothers, there are touching stories.
Let me catch some to explain the idea behind
Mile for Mothers.
background
The whole story began three years ago, when
some mothers in Slovak Mother Centres network thought about a special
celebration of the Mothers Day. One of the ideas were to set up a new Guinness
World Record in a category: “Pram-pushing – mass participation” – successfully
implemented in the year 2004 (108 prams) with a repetition in 2005 and finally
on 13th May 2006, where 7 more countries from Europe joined and 2015
parents walked a mile altogether from Austria, Bosnia, Czech, Germany, Italy,
Slovakia and Netherlands in the first international campaign of mine network under the slogan “Move the
pram, move the world”. The event had a big response both from media and public –
for example, in
the question, which changed
everything
When presenting the campaign at GWIA in
Since that this question has been coming to my
head very often – yes, the world is more and more colourful and diverse we can
imagine… Actually, what can we move if we want to move the world? At first, we
have to move our minds…
the answer was
born!
The answer for this difficult question was born
surprisingly easily at one of the workshop at international conference conducted
by mine “How do we want to raise our
children” in Nov.2006 in
to make the world a better place for our
children
Therefore was the event Mile for Mothers
included in the results of the conference – Platform of Actions. It was the last
autumn – jus a half year before this year’s Mother’s Day.
What has happened since then?
when zero is not
zero
This year’s Mile for Mothers is called “a zero
year’s volume” - since November 2006 more than 10 countries have expressed a
wish to join, but not everywhere the wish will come true this year. Eventually,
the mile will be walked in 7 countries:
how is it going – stories
behind…
Greetings from the women in
As far as the march is concerned, we are going
on with the preparations for the 16th of June as I told you. These will coincide
with the Day of the African child. We are arranging the march in 10 IDP
(Internally Displace People's Camps). These are the largest Camps with over
15000 families each. We are going to march from the camps to the Administrative
Headquarters of each area where the camp is located. We are mobilising both the
fathers and the mothers and each participant will carry a child on the back the
African way. We have also registered some parents with disabilities who
will carry their children at the back the back of their wheel chairs. We shall
keep you informed of the proceedings as we go along. We shall also send you some
of the pictures of the events at the different Camps.
Well then, keep in touch and Good luck to you
all.
God Bless.
I love the idea of the event Miles for mothers
on Mothers day, we do have a lot in common, we all are mothers and we have to
support each other and be that strong voice for our children's
future.
The Hungarian team for organizing the event in
our town, Godollo, was set up (7 mothers), a Hungarian name and slogan was
invented :( Mamamerfold- Merd fol, mit jelent" : a play with words: Mile for
mothers - Take the measure of it). We wrote our Hungarian mission statement and
planned the route and the program. We will start in the old city market and walk
to a big meadow in a city park near the
We haven' found sponsors, and it is unlikely anyone of us will have the time to start fundraising now. Next yearJ.
We are very enthusiastic and happy to have
joined Mile for Mothers.
While preparing for "Mile for Mothers" we
decided to take one a bigger initiative in which we will start a discussion on
to what degree our country, our cities and various public spaces are small
children mothers'/parents' friendly. In cooperation with the biggest national
daily we plan to publish series of articles on the subject whether there are
young children mother friendly places and how it is in Poland (either we are
going to cover all Poland, or start this year in Poznan and continue next year
in all the country). Then throughout the week mothers will be visiting different
public places such as restaurants, offices, ambulatories, drug-stores, etc. For
one week the daily is going to publish articles on their experiences which we
don't expect to be very optimistic, as there is a lot to do in this area in
We are preparing the Mile for Mothers for the
1st of June – to the International Children’s Day. Our new centre
will be already reconstructed, so the end of the mile would be there. We are
preparing a small concert there with various activities for children.
We in
if not this year, the next for
sure!
Barbara,
At the end of March we moved to a new
space to begin to offer Mothers' Center services, so we have been packing and
unpacking and we were without telephone lines for 3
weeks.
As
would understand, the plans for the walk had to be put aside - it is hard to
organize an event without landline services! Sorry we can't join you this year,
but next year we hope to be with you!
I can not participate in this activity but I am
with all in my heart.
I hope to be in the next one and I wish to all
my best wishes.
Rhonda, U.S.A:
I would like to say that the NAMC is
considering a national campaign for Mothers Day 2008 [next year] calling for the
…so we could not organize the miles for mothers
this year. But we want to organize it for the next year. I wish all of you a
good walk and we sure will join the next year!
Thanks for all your contributions and effort.
Looking forward to all your “after – Mile” stories and pictures. Good luck!
Elena Bakosova,
Slovak
Coordinator of Mile for
Mothers