Supporting women for International Women's Day: Making a Good Return

Today is International Women's Day, which means a lot of different things to people all over the world.

Some see it as being about increasing the political power and influence of women.

Some are more focused on reproductive rights and the impact that has on women's lives.

There is a lot of work being done on the culture of sexual and family violence in which too many women, in all societies, live and die daily.

Some use IWD as an opportunity to celebrate the many literary, political, social and financial achievements of women over time - achievements that are all the more remarkable for the adverse conditions in which they were often made.

For me, IWD is about all these things, but most of all, it's about imagining a future in which being a woman is a matter of unalloyed and unabashed pride, certainty and wonder. I want a future for my daughters where, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns". I want the humanness of women - their full humanity and capacity - to be so natural, so embedded, that we *all*, men and women alike, share the cloak of invisibility that being "the default human" currently bestows primarily only on (straight) men.

One of the things I always think about on IWD is the reality of my high level of privilege, despite my femaleness. Yes, I am a woman - not default-person - but I'm also well-educated, financially secure, in a relatively politically and economically stable country, employed, heterosexual and temporarily reasonably able bodied. I always spend some time on IWD thinking about how much harder life is for women and indeed men who don't have the vectors of privilege that I do, and who may never have access to what are, in reality, the very modest resources needed to start them towards economic self-sufficiency.

Economic power, which starts with the power to not be poor, is a massive signal boost to women's power overall, not to mention the fact that it positively affects the lives of children, communities and men.

Australian micro-finance charity Good Return, which is one of the aid organisations I personally contribute to,  has set a target of funding 300 micro-loans to women in the Asia-Pacific region in March, in celebration of IWD.

Guy Winship, Good Return CEO notes: “In these poor communities, children are growing up in poverty and with little education, yet in these same communities are smart women with business ideas but no resources to make them a reality.
“When we pull one woman out of poverty, she takes four other people with her. We have the power to make a massive difference.”

These women are people who have no access to traditional finance - and no hope of ever paying back punitive interest schedules even if they did. Providing interest-free loans to finance business ventures is one of the most effective and powerful ways that people with truckloads of economic privilege (like me) can pay it forward to women who just need a hand extended to help them get started.

For me, on IWD, I will:
- sing my heart out to the Indigo Girls
- read and re-read Sojourner Truth
- kiss my daughters and tell them how awesome they really are
- make a contribution to Good Return to help Helena Naufahu, a Tongan farmer aiming to stabilise her business model

Because, women are great. I mean, really great - capable of mighty things - wherever they are, whoever they are. In a world that spends a lot of time celebrating male greatness, I think it's awesome to have a chance to say to another woman, I recognise your greatness, and I support it with my whole heart.

For more information about Good Return's IWD campaign, or to make a contribution, click here. And everyone - have a wonderful International Women's Day - be you a woman, a man, an intersex person, a child, or a teen. Equality is about loving us all, every one.

Relay for Life

Yesterday I did some walking laps as part of a Relay for Life team.

Relay for Life is a fundraising initiative of the Cancer Council of Australia, whereby people, in teams of 10 to 15 or more, run or walk around an oval or other venue in relays for a period of somewhere between 18 and 24 hours (depending on the event). People get sponsorship for their walk / run and the money raised goes to the Cancer Council for research into cancer prevention, causes, treatments and cure. Every year, Australian Relay for Life teams raise over $14 million for this cause through their efforts.

We only walked for a short time, really - we needed to get the kids into bed! - but our team delivered on the 18-hour commitment, and the experience was a very positive and moving one.

As dusk fell, tealight candles were lit - to celebrate survivors (of which we know several) and to remember those who have died of cancer. My girls and I weren't there for that part, dusk falling late in these late spring days, but we left candles to be lit in memory of our dear friend Dee, who died of brain cancer in 2010, our family friend Kerry, who lost a 12-year battle with breast cancer in 2005, and of my father-in-law, who died of cancer before I even met my husband. We also left candles to celebrate the survival of family friends who've been successfully treated for cancers of all kinds.

Walking around the oval in the cold evening air, I felt quiet and contemplative, thinking about Dee and my great-grandma and Kerry, and about the losses that friends of mine have suffered to this disease (I was particularly thinking of Veronica and Kim).

There isn't anyone who's been untouched by cancer - everyone has, to some extent or other, and as we age this will just get more and more true. It's an especially cruel disease, I think, because of the way it turns one's own cells against you, making it hard to treat without doing terrible damage to your own body in the process; and the way it lurks, waiting, in your very DNA, so you can never be sure it's really gone. (Often, sadly, it isn't). Yes, everyone has to die of something, but this is an especially pernicious and painful - and often premature - grim reaper in the modern world.

So while what we did was little, and more symbolic than anything, I'm glad we did it. I'm glad those lights were lit, to shine a little defiance for those who have won the fight, and to be a spark of remembrance for the beautiful souls that went too soon. I saw a community drawn together to do something positive on Saturday, and that is a marvellous, human thing to see.

This is post 18 in NaBloPoMo. 18 down, 12 to go!

A good return for blessings granted

I have written a lot here in the past 6 months about how I am finding life as I juggle a substantial amount of paid work with my family and other commitments. (In fact, I'm planning a short blog series, with interviews and so forth, on that very topic ... In November. When life is less intense).

I've accentuated the positive sometimes, highlighting the personal satisfaction that working brings me. I've also moaned about my time-poor existence, I've angsted about my ability to keep all the balls in the air, and, quel surprise, I've done a lot of kvetching about the messiness of my house.

One thing I haven't done nearly enough - and I want to do it now - is expressed my gratitude for having the opportunities I have, the choices available to me to decide to work and be well paid for what I do. Because I am well educated, reasonably intelligent, able-bodied, and live in a country where sexism is subtle enough to not preclude me from learning, working and speaking, I have the chance to make my own path, to "wash my own face", as some economic commentators like to put it. It's up to me to make the most of the chances, of course, but what if I hadn't had them at all?

This week is Anti-Poverty Week globally, and a week ago today was the first-ever International Day of the Girl Child. One of the central themes in combating women's and children's poverty is consistently shown to be the educational opportunities provided to girls.

Women who have access to education are able to contribute to family incomes at a much higher level, support themselves and their children, and make different decisions about their life paths. Just one extra year of primary schooling boosts eventual income levels by 10-20% (World Bank figures, 2002), while an extra year of secondary schooling will increase earnings by 15-25%.

Women who have access to education show a greater tendency to plan family sizes at a level where they can ensure an optimal outcome for their children. (Girls who receive 7 or more years of education, for instance, marry an average of 4 years later, and have 2.2 fewer children, according to the UN Population Fund, 1990).

With this in mind, what to make of the fact that a quarter of all girls in developing countries are never schooled at all?

I've written here before about Good Return, an Australian micro-finance charity that is doing stellar work in supporting business and individual development around the world. For Anti-Poverty Week, Good Return's focus is on women’s education, and the role it plays in leveraging women and their families out of poverty. Just $100 pays for a woman to take a financial literacy course, which helps her navigate the challenges of running a small business and building her income to better support her family. Good Return is challenging Australians to fund 200 women’s education and business development with whatever they can afford to contribute.

Good Return finances women who are trying to build futures for themselves. Education is a key part of this, including education in financial literacy. The story of Mary Ann is a great example of what can be achieved for a really modest investment:

Mary Ann is from the Philippines and lives with her husband, two children, and bedridden mother-in-law. She once had four different loans and was deep in debt, struggling to make repayments.

But even while they were struggling, Mary Ann believed they could live a better life. "I really wanted to do something to help improve our situation," she said.
So she attended a budgeting workshop provided by Good Return, helping her learn how to manage her income and expenses.

She now has just one microfinance loan from our partner, SECDEP, which she uses only for business purposes. Mary Ann also took the initiative to become a financial literacy trainer in her own village, and now enjoys coaching other women too.

What does she feel her biggest accomplishment is? "Paying for the fees of my college daughter," she told us. Her oldest child is attending university in Manila – the first one in their family to get a tertiary education. Her son is attending high school too.

For Anti-Poverty Week, I'm paying forward some of my good fortune, some of my choices. I've decided to fund some loans to half the amount of one of my contracting paycheques. That's still only about 5% of what I've been able to make this year because I am blessed with the education and opportunities I've had - not much, in the scheme of things. It feels like a little bit of financial justice, that I, who have so much, can share the chance to have a chance with someone else.

Good Return's Anti-Poverty Week campaign is running right now. It's full of great stories, if stories are your thing; and full of hopefulness, and let's face it, that's everybody's thing.

You can follow Good Return on Twitter (@GoodReturnOrg), on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/GoodReturn.org), LinkedIn (http://bit.ly/GoodReturnFriends), and on Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/goodreturn/)

Giving twice on Mother's Day

Mother's Day is upon us next Sunday in Australia. I'm always a little ambivalent about Mother's Day. On one hand, the idea of a day to celebrate mothering and mothers seems like a lovely one. Maternity is an odd duck in modern Western societies; both ignored and reified, privileged and profoundly disadvantaging, worshipped and sneered at. A day for mother-figures to be recognised in whatever way resonates for them by the people to whom they give their maternal attention seems kind of nice, in the abstract. (As does the heart-melting sweetness of child-made cards and gifts, and child-prepared Breakfast! In! Bed!, which never grows old for me).

On the other hand, the pretty crass commercialism of it, the blaring marketing of MORE and NEWER and MORE EXPENSIVE thingies and whatnots to buy for the maternal figure in your life, bugs me and always has. Even more than Easter, birthdays and Christmas, Mother's and Father's Days are the domain of aggressive campaigns to promote spending for no real reason. The fact that they use the sucker punch of "showing mum that you love her" adds another cheery layer of guilt to the whole business. Ah, capitalism. You're a sneaky beast.

Years ago, we decided to not give gifts to our mothers on Mother's Day, but rather take them both out to a nice restaurant for a fancy lunch. Now that we have young children, we've substituted that with a fancy lunch prepared at our house, for a guest list including (but not always limited to) my parents, G's Mum and sister, and my brother. My girls paint a card each for me and for their two grandmothers, and I give the older two $10 apiece to spend at the school Mother's Day stall to get little things they can enjoy giving to their Nanna and Nanny. Mother's Day isn't necessarily a cheap affair - when I say "fancy meal", I mean fancy meal, which includes foodstuffs of looxury - but it doesn't involve a lot of superfluous loot for anyone.

This year, though, I'm tweaking tradition slightly, because I have asked for a Mother's Day gift, and will be giving one each to my mum and MIL. None of us need any more objects in our lives (well, and this will always and ever be my caveat - except books) and we are all committed to doing what we can to help people who haven't been dealt the royal flush that we're playing in the great poker game of life. We're all white, financially stable, able-bodied, mostly healthy, property-owning, Australians - women, yes, but privileged on many more axes than we are disadvantaged.

So this Mother's Day, I'm giving my mother a gift certificate to Good Return, and my MIL is getting a gift card from Act for Peace. I've asked my husband to buy me a Giving Bowl from Foundation 18's etsy shop, so that I can put my loose change to good use.

If you are looking for ideas for Mother's Day, perhaps one of these might appeal to you too. The three I've listed below aren't an exhaustive sample of Mother's Day focused giving at all, but they are all ones that looked good to me (and are all organisations I trust due to previous associations and research).

1. Good Return
I have posted about Good Return before, and supported their International Women's Day campaign with a loan to Kalpana Poudel, a Nepalese vegetable seller. Good Return is an Australian not-for-profit that takes an empowerment approach to helping people, facilitating micro-loans that finance business and sustainable development projects that allow people to build towards their own futures. When you give money to Good Return, you're actually loaning it, and at the end of the loan period, you can have your money back, reinvest it in another loan, or donate it to the direct charity work of the organisation.

I am in love with this model, and I know my Mum will be too. I know she'll spend time carefully choosing where her loan should be placed, and that she'll reinvest it again and again, helping more women reach their goals, fill their childrens' bellies, and escape deep-seated poverty that seems so insurmountable sometimes.

You can follow Good Return on Twitter (@GoodReturnOrg), on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/GoodReturn.org), and on Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/goodreturn/).

2. Act for Peace
Act for Peace is the international aid agency of the National Council of Churches in Australia. Probably their best-known single activity is the annual Christmas Bowl appeal, but their work is much broader than that, with a strong focus on assisting refugees around the world in a variety of ways. For Mother's Day, Act for Peace is offering a Maternal Care pack, which provides maternity care to women in Pakistan and Palestine (Gaza), for $15. These are women who have not had access to maternity care, and for whom childbirth-related injuries and deaths are terrifyingly high. Supporting clinics that help address this, and give women a chance to survive and thrive in birthing, for just $15 has got to be a bargain however you cut it.

You can follow Act for Peace on Twitter (@actforpeace).

3. Giving bowls - Foundation 18
Many Australians are already aware of the work of Cate Bolt and Foundation 18. Cate's own story is an amazing one, and a real, living model of putting your money (and time, and energies, and heart) where your mouth is. The work that Foundation 18 and its youth arm, The You Crew, is doing is important and potentially transformatory, and the mountains that Cate and her family have moved to make it happen are vast.

Cate makes a variety of truly lovely ethical products, the sale of which supports the running of the Foundation's group home for girls in Ringdikit, Bali. Her Giving Bowls are beautiful objects in their own right (particularly the felted ones ... I am so enamoured of them) but the concept behind them, of a simple, everyday way to collect the loose change for a worthwhile purpose, is even better. It's this kind of practical approach to charity that helps the most, I sometimes think. Not in grand gestures and impassioned flourishes, but in quiet daily kindness and mindfulness, is the world transformed.

You can follow Cate and Foundation 18 on Twitter (@catebolt and @Foundation18).

So what are you doing for Mother's Day? Will it include breakfast in bed?

Supporting women on International Women's Day

Today - 8 March - is International Women's Day. First recognised in 1909 in the US (as National Women's Day), for over a century, 8 March has been a day for celebrating womens achievements, highlighting the challenges faced by women around the world, and focusing activism and aid for women-centric social and political endeavours.

A well-meaning male friend asked me recently why there was an IWD when there is no corresponding International Men's Day. (What he in fact meant, when questioned, was that there is no Day that celebrates his particular demographic - ie International Middle Class Able Bodied White Men's Day - because, clearly, this is a very marginalised and unrecognised cohort. /end sarcasm :-)

My answer to him was that, while women in the first world have certainly made great strides in many areas in the past century, there is still some distance to go before women and men are truly equal (or, at least, where biological sex and expressed gender, which may or may not equate, are no longer determining factors in how people are treated, the opportunities they have, and the respect they are accorded). Women do not have pay partity with men, even in first-world economies. Women suffer disproportionately from crimes of violence globally. In many countries, women do not have legal rights that are equivalent to men's, or even close to it. Women are constrained in many ways that men are not, and are subjected to much closer and crueller scrutiny (and not just in regard to appearance, although, certainly, in that area too). Women, far more than men, must deal with an attrition of their social standing and perceived worth as they age.

And even in countries that we are accustomed to regarding as equal, such as the USA, issues of reproductive freedom that have been considered more or less settled for decades - not just abortion, which has never been entirely uncontroversial, but, dismayingly, access to contraception - are suddenly back on the table as debatable rights (debatable, naturally, by men). Women bear the burden of reproduction in a way that men do not and cannot; issues of family planning and choice impact them more profoundly, and interference with a womans freedom to decide her own reproductive life is a very fundamental restriction on a woman's right to be a free human being.

I am a white, reasonably intelligent, able-bodied cis-gendered woman - born into a healthy female body, raised in Australia, a country with good opportunities for women generally and bright white women in particular. I was reared by lower middle class conservative parents who loved me and valued me and encouraged me to pursue an education and a career, but also taught me that marriage, family and child-rearing should be a part of my life (a major part). I have been generally fortunate in my employers and my relationships, but I have been discriminated against, both subtly and overtly, because of my gender, and I have been constrained in some of my choices in a way that I might not have been, had I been male.

For all that, I believe my life has been wonderful - I am lucky in my partner, blessed in my daughters, privileged in my economic status and my career opportunities. I hope my three girls will have even more oppportunities and freedoms than I do. I see a major part of my life's work, insofar as I have a real sense of that, to be in helping them to find their paths and in developing tools to overcome any obstacles; to help them to understand privilege, in its multiple axes, and recognise their place in it (they, like I, are privileged in so many ways); and to become ethical human beings with the committment and capacity to achieve their potential without injury to other people. I have no ambition to raise good women, with all that phrase implies; rather, I want to raise good humans (I would've wished to do the same if I'd had sons!)

I know, however, that many, many women around the world don't have the incredibly fortunate set of circumstances that we have. On International Women's Day, I'd like to draw attention to just three of the many initiatives that are available to let women help other women - to stretch out a hand or a thought to a woman whose life is probably really different to yours, but who deserves no less in terms of opportunities.

1. Good Return
Good Return is an Australian not-for-profit with a difference - instead of soliciting donations, it facilitates micro-loans from people who want to help to people in need of assistance. In March, Good Return is running the Connecting Women, Building Better Futures campaign, aiming to loan money to 200 women-led initatives in the Asia-Pacific region, which will benefit over 1,000 people directly and more indirectly.

The great thing about Good Return is that the money you commit is a loan, not a donation. When the money is repaid (and so far 100% of loans have been), you can keep it, reinvest it into another loan project, or donate it to a more traditional charity, as you think best.

Good Return's website is at http://www.goodreturn.org/

You can start with as little as $25. My daughters and I have decided to contribute to the loan amount needed by Kalpana Poudel, a Nepalese vegetable seller who needs to access a bigger range of wholesale vegetables to enable her roadside stall to support her family and pay fort her children's schooling. The girls are excited that we'll be receiving reports on Kalpana's business and her family's progress towards achieving their goals.

2. Amnesty International's Women's Health, Sexual and Reproductive Rights program
Educating yourself about the issues in this area is important, and Amnesty's multiple programs are a great place to start. When women's reproductive rights are limited or controlled, this has huge impacts for women's health, economic and social status, and ultimately survival. Amnesty's projects in this area are many and varied, and the website offers lots of opportunities to get involved - writing letters, joining groups and organising, as well as donating money.

3. Fitted for Work Australia
One of the key areas of disadvantage for women as compared with men is in the economic area. It can be extremely difficult even for professional, qualified women to maintain careers in the mix of child-rearing and family duties; many women leave the workforce, believing it to be temporary, then find getting back in hard.

This is massively exacerbated for women who have other vectors of disadvantage, to the point that some women mayh never be able to enter or re-enter the workforce without assistance. Fitted for Work gives such assistance in a very practical way - outfitting women with clothing suitable for job interviews and work, mentoring women and helping their transition to employment, and advocating for employment opportunities and access.

Fitted for Work accepts donations of both suitable clothing and money through their website and their locations in the Melbourne CBD and Morwell. I think this is one of the most practical ways to support women that I can imagine in our own community.

So on this International Women's Day, I guess I would just reflect, as that great feminist (not!) Rudyard Kipling wrote, that 'Julie O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under the skin.' Supporting other women is an imperative for me; an integral part of my feminism and my humanism. We are many and we matter, and let's celebrate that today.

Christmas elves and human kindness

Today, one of the nicest - just plain kindest - micro-stories I have ever seen on the Internet unfolded right before my eyes.

It started with Marita and her daughter Annie. Annie, who has Aspberger's Syndrome, was struggling to understand why her younger sister Heidi, who is also autistic, had been provided with an iPad to help in her learning and development, via the FaHCSIA Helping Children with Autism Funding. Rather than trying to explain this further, I recommend you read Marita's post, and, more importantly, listen to Annie herself talk eloquently and passionately about the inequities in autism funding.

The next day, the beautiful Kim of Frogpondsrock wrote this post, drawing attention to the situation and saying simply, well, why can't Annie have an iPad? I think she can, said Kim - and if we all think so, then we can make it so.

I read Kim's post on my Android while trotting from one committment to the next, and made a mental note to come back to it once the madness of our end of school year party had subsided and I could get to my PC (I don't do financial stuff on the phone. Call me paranoid, I just don't).

But when I sat down at 4:30 to go to it, I found that it was all done and dusted. The money was raised in 4 hours flat, a discount was negotiated by the lovely Nathalie of Easy Peasy Kids, the iPad and apps had been bought, and a dream had come true, an inequity been rectified.

At that point, I had a serious case of something-in-my-eye.

There is so much I find wonderful about this story. Annie's articulate and passionate speech; Kim's simple and immediate statement of the need; the instant response and generosity of so many people; Nathalie's participation to arrange the transaction; and Annie's delight at her new tool, as shown in the photos Marita tweeted. What I found so moving about it all was how rapidly, how sweetly, how beautifully it all all came about. Just plain human lovingkindness, displayed as purely and perfectly as you'd ever want to see; no carping, no cavilling, just people seeing a need and reaching out to fill it.

This, for me, is what blogging is about when it's at its best - being part of communities (often several intersecting ones), communities that can support and grow and educate and entertain and, yes, love each other (in that peculiar, but not false, online kind of way). It's not always or even often about money, but it is about lessening each others' loads, whether it's with shared humour, venting, information, conversation, or just the acknowledgement of the voice of people who may not have another one.

The friends I have made - and I do call them friends, even though I've never met some of them IRL - through my blog and through Twitter are hugely important to me, and I care about them and their worlds. The communities I'm part of here, on the flickering screen, are none the less real for being virtual.

Enjoy your iPad, Annie. You deserve it, and we all wanted you to have it so much.

And to all my online friends - merry Christmas to you all.

Human Rights Day: No more turning away

Today is World Human Rights Day. This is a day to mark the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (63 years ago now) and to reflect on how far we have - or haven't - come in recognising and realising these principles in daily life.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to hear about the work of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and its staff and volunteers in helping asylum seekers in Australia. The ASRC is non-federal-government funded, fuelled by donations, volunteers and a small amount of state government support (95% of the funding is derived from philanthropic and community sources). Initiated 10 years ago as a student project, ASRC was originally primarily a food bank for asylum seeking refugees but is now much broader in its activities, offering asylum seekers English language services, counselling, legal aid, employment assistance, health programs, support at hearings and more. The activities of the Centre are built on 4 pillars: Aid, Justice, Empowerment and Community.

The philosophy of the Centre is this:

The ASRC recognises the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family. It is the vision of the ASRC to enact the change we want to see in the world and to build a community which defends the ideals of dignity and justice for all.

It seems to me on Human Rights Day that turning my mind towards the work of ASRC and the situation of many asylum seekers in Australia is peculiarly apt. Refugees are a group of people whose human rights are regularly, even routinely, disregarded in Australia. Asylum seekers are confined, treated as criminals, when in fact it is not illegal under international or Australian law to be a refugee. Some portions of the media and some voices in the community - often the loud ones, unfortunately - engage in awful, inhumane, selfish rhetoric in which refugees are the kicking post for larger fears and deeper prejudices.

Hearing about the work of ASRC last night reminded me sharply of the work my grandparents did in the 1970s and 1980s, helping Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees come to Australia (and be allowed to remain). I can remember, as a child, playing with the children of these families, children who had literally nothing except what they were given by aid agencies, often possessing no more than one change of clothes. I can remember, as a teenager, being numb with shock at the stories that some of them had to tell about what they had gone through to come here, and the circumstances that had driven them from their countries of birth.

Horrific circumstances. Terrors and traumas that no-one should have to live through, not a child, not a woman, not a man.

I believed then, as I believe now, that people do not choose to become refugees. It is a last-ditch decision that's made in the face of adversity so severe that most of us here are blessed to be unable to really imagine it.

I believed then, as I believe now, that our shared humanity should prompt compassion, not turning away, from suffering like this; that refugees' dignity should be respected and their hurts tended, that to do otherwise is cruelty, and is a failure to recognise the humanity in others.

I think that the work the ASRC is doing is incredibly valuable, important, life-valuing and humanity-affirming work. And on this Human Rights Day, I salute them and all their volunteers (more than 600 people in all different fields) for what they are doing. They are not turning away. None of us should.

C is for cookie (and community)

It's good enough for me :-)

The inaugural Community Blogging event is on tomorrow night at the Victorian Archives Centre. This event happens to fall in the busiest week of the busiest month of the year for me (especially because of the kids' school concert yesterday, which, being on school council, meant jobs aplenty for me - but it was awesome and so much fun). I wondered if I might reach this point of the week stressed out and a bit over myself, without much verve left for the day.

Happily, the craptastic portion of my week, complete with full-scale meltdowns, seems to have discharged itself harmlessly on Tuesday afternoon, leaving yesterday as a productive and wonderful school concert day and today free for finishing Christmas shopping (done), laundry (doing), wrapping prezzies (doing), baking - so much baking! - and singing Christmas songs to myself in the quiet house. (I am still not used to not having C here on Thursdays, even after 8 months' practice).

I decided to put together a tray of gluten free cookies for tomorrow night's event. The catering, which is going to be delicious, is all savoury food, including gluten free options, but as others are bringing sweets for the "normals", I thought it would be nice if anyone with dietary issues (and - ahem - moi) could have a sweetie as well.

This kind of planning ahead is something that, frankly, I never used to do before I was diagnosed as a Coeliac. Knowing that I will need to either make & bring, carefully investigate food options, or go without has concentrated my mind wonderfully on the pre-production and stockpiling of food. As I'm sure most Coeliacs would agree, there is nothing worse than being hungry, being offered yummy-looking treats and having not one SINGLE thing you can safely eat. It's the pits. So rather than booking a table at Pity Party for One, I get around it now by baking things I like to eat and bringing them along.

(If you are going tomorrow night, allow me to beat my own drum for one second and say that if you like gingerbread, you should try mine. It's pretty good. /boast :-)

Community Blogging

This has been a monumental month for me, full of words, and almost-job-offers-that-didn't-quite-come-off, and words, and concerns over aspects of one of my children's behaviours, and words, and festive activities kicking into overdrive, and words, and entering two skill-based competitions nervously but with hope, and words, and starting early pre-reading with my toddler (which involves words), and extra volunteering shifts at school, playgroup and other places ...

Also, words. Just a few :-)

One of the things that has given me the greatest satisfaction this month, though, hasn't been so much about words as action - collective action in a positive direction by a group of Melbourne bloggers. Created and directed by the ever-wonderful Nicole of Planning With Kids fame, the Community Blogging initiative is an effort by a group of bloggers to work with, support and draw much-needed attention to the needs of not for profit organisations. The idea, to use a hackneyed yet fitting expression, is to give something back, to use our blogs and our skills to create momentum and light for important organisations that are often woefully under-resourced to do the work they do.

The Christmas function, which will be held at the Victorian Archives Centre, will be on 9 December and will support the work of the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre and St Kilda Mums, two groups who are heavily engaged at this time of year in creating relief packages for people who really, really need them.

I feel really privileged to have been asked to be part of this as it's just starting; I feel energised about its potential, I feel like there is a mass of positive charge out there that can be harnessed to do something special. I have been looking for more opportunities to get involved in helping out, in ways beyond donations of money and locally-based volunteering. Being involved with something with the dynamic potential of Community Blogging is a massive step in this direction for me.

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. 29 down, 1 to go!