Shot@Life Summit Snapshot: 5 Things I Learned This Week

I’m writing this post on the plane ride back from Washington, DC, where I attended an incredible summit hosted by the UN Foundation, to help prepare for the Spring launch of the Shot@Life  campaign. I shared some details about this growing movement in a previous post here, and I’ll be talking more about this movement in upcoming posts. But for now— while it’s fresh in my mind and before the reality of life back at home kicks in — I want to share a few (of the many) takeaways:

1. Global Vaccines Matter 

Each year, nearly 2 million children die in developing countries from vaccine-preventable diseases; To put this into context, this is nearly half of the children enrolling in kindergarten each year in the U.S., or one child every 20 seconds.

Shot@Life , which will officially launch in April, educates, connects, and empowers Americans to champion vaccines as one of the most cost-effective ways to save the lives of children in developing countries. This growing movement is led by the UN Foundation, and powered by an incredible team of partners which include Unicef, World Health Organization, & GAVI Alliance.

As Executive Director Peg Willingham notes, “These children are not so different from children in our own lives, and we want to help them experience universal moments and milestones of childhood.” It’s quite clear to me now that we can all play a role in giving children around the world the shot at life that they deserve.

2. We’re A Diverse — and Dedicated — Crowd. 

One of the most powerful aspects of the summit, by far, was having the opportunity to connect and collaborate with such a diverse and passionate group: among us were physicians, nonprofit & business leaders, educators, parents & mom bloggers, and even a 9th grade student and her mom. Wow!

The perspectives and personal/professional experiences we have are unique, but we all share one underlying belief: that every child deserves a shot at a healthy life, no matter where they live. I’ll be profiling some of my fellow attendees in future posts and can’t wait for you to meet them.

3. Milestones Matter

Sibling Rivalry. Tempter Tantrums. Messy Eating. Trust me: as a preschool twin parent, I have no shortage of these in my life. But I admit, I hadn’t really thought about them as “milestones” — because there’s not exactly a chart on the wall to commemorate when one of your darling daughters stabs her sister in the cheek with a chopstick, now is there?  But over the course of our summit we began to realize what an absolute luxury it is even be in a position to break up your children’s arguments for the 300th time, drag a screaming toddler out of Trader Joe’s, or scrape pudding off the sofa.

It’s a luxury that I don’t plan to take for granted anymore. The bottom line for me now is this: moms in India, Nigeria, China, and Indonesia — just a few of the many countries where access to vaccines literally means the difference between life and death — deserve to experience their children’s milestones, too. And all kids deserve a shot at experiencing them.

4. This Global Issue Is Actually Quite Local. 

I am deeply involved and committed to supporting local causes that support children in our community. That certainly won’t change. But what I’m realizing is that it’s all connected. This clicked for me in a big way early on in the summit, when we started sharing stories of our own personal experiences with vaccine access.

I’ll admit up till this point I was feeling a bit disconnected from the statistics I was learning, and my own personal connections to them. But then we heard from from Felisa Hilbert, (that’s us in the left photo) a fellow Mom Congress Delegate from Oklahoma, who lives not far from my in-laws in Oklahoma. She’s originally from Mexico and spoke of her experience as a health worker in communities where vaccines were not available. We then heard from Dr. Padmini Murthy, an Assistant Professor and Global Health Director at New York Medical College, who happens to live near the town I went to college in, She shared with us a story about delivering a stillborn baby to a mother in India who hadn’t had access to a Polio vaccine. A completely preventable death of a baby…due to lack of access to a $5 vaccine.

We also heard from Charlene McGee, who spoke of her family’s experience as Liberian refugees. Guess where she lives? Practically down the street from me in Portland. I am so looking forward to collaborating with her! (That’s us in the photo to the right with Portia Mount of BossMomOnline and Rhonda Stewart of Gavi Alliance.)

These are just 3 stories of the many I heard about people who live in communities that are part of my own personal story, and there were so many others I connected with, too. But it’s not just about their stories: it’s about my own. I have a million thoughts about this but for now I’ll just say that as a parent, I want to raise globally-minded girls who understand, and care about, the world around them. I also want their lives to be filled with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and community members from around the world, like mine has been.  This can’t happen if the almost-5-year-olds in development countries aren’t surviving their childhoods.

5. Social Media Starts the Conversation, But Nothing Beats the In-Person Connection

Many of us (guilty as charged!) are active bloggers, facebookers, tweeters, and more. There’s no doubt social media will help us stay connected and engaged with one another and share the campaign with our personal networks. But nothing replaces the in-person connection, and spending time “unplugging” (ok, so I tweeted a few things here and there…) to really dive into these issues was a powerful experience for us all.

Charlene I will be planning some local Portland events to support the official launch of Shot@Life in April; contact me anytime at oneoregonmom@me.com if you’d like to get involved or help out in even the smallest way.  And if you are interested in finding out about programs in other cities, let me know so I can connect you with some of the other incredible people I met…

I’ll pause now as the plane begins to descend — and reality soon stares me in the face. For this Oregon mom, it’s a reality I have a brand new perspective on, for sure. I’ll have more to share in a post soon, I promise!

Until then…if anything you’ve read above inspires you to do more, I encourage you to visit visit Shot@life.org, “Like” them on Facebook and Follow them on Twitter.

MY PERSONAL PLEDGE: VACCINATE 40 KIDS IN HONOR OF MY 40tH BIRTHDAY!

I have also set a personal goal — in honor of my 40th Birthday and my daughter’s upcoming 5th birthday — of getting 40 kids vaccinated before Global Immunization Week (April 23). For only $5 you can vaccinate kids against Polio & Measles for life. If you are interested, here is a link to my personal campaign page.

 

I’m also planning some future posts and efforts for April and May to celebrate the movement’s national launch. Send me a note in the Comments below or get in touch at oneoregonmom@me.com  to learn more about getting involved!