You’re Invited: World Moms Blog’s GAVI Global Tea Party
June 30, 2012 
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Guest Post by Jennifer Burden – Founder of World Moms Blog - Do you like the idea of helping children around the world and wish you could do more? What if I told you that you could help by throwing a party? Now that’s your kind of social good, right? World Moms Blog, an organization of 50+ mothers from 20+ countries, is voluntarily helping the GAVI Alliance in Switzerland with their grass-roots advocacy efforts for life-saving vaccines for children in the developing world. We have created the “GAVI Global Tea Party”, and this party is going around the world!
Did you know that every 20 seconds a child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease? As a group of international mothers, that statistic gets us right in the heart.
A team of our global contributors has hosted and/or is planning parties this summer to kick off “The GAVI Global Tea Party”. (A documentary is even in the works!) Parties have occurred in the US and India, and parties are being planned in Indonesia, South Africa and Kenya to start!
These parties are as simple as having a handful of your friends over for a cup of tea to organizing a bigger event at a restaurant, all in the name of raising awareness for global children’s health.
Two of the leading causes of death of children under 5 years old in the developing world are diarrhea and pneumonia. Many of us have access to good health care, and when a child gets a bad case of diarrhea, we can bring them to a hospital to receive fluids to help their recovery.
The same goes for a case of pneumonia. Access to antibiotics, when needed, makes this disease more common to recover from.
But, in the developing world, access to good health care is often not the case.
According to the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign, “Seventy-five percent of unvaccinated children live in just 10 countries. For children in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, China, Uganda, Chad and Kenya, access to vaccines means the difference between life and death, a healthy life or a lifetime of struggle.”
It only costs $20 USD to fully vaccinate a child from the 4 deadliest diseases for children under five – diarrhea, pneumonia, measles and polio.
At the GAVI Global Tea Party, we’re not asking you to raise money, but to grab your friends and have a meaningful conversation to spread awareness.
So, you may be thinking, “How do I lead this kind of discussion?” It’s easy! The GAVI videos are available for download free online and are great discussion starters.
We have a list of 4 GAVI videos from the field that we have compiled for discussion. To be honest, often times we only get through the first one or two and the conversation gets rolling!
Why tea?
Globally, a “tea party” creates a type of event that can be very universal through out the world, yet so culturally different, which makes it fun to hear about all the global parties! Serving tea also creates great visuals from around the world – feel free to send us a picture of your tea party and your location!
Also, if you have another idea for an awareness event or party that you would like to do to advocate for GAVI, please tell us all about it!
The conversations that come up from country to country are so uniquely different. For example, our World Moms Blog contributor, Purnima Ramakrishnan’s party in Chennai, India wound up focusing on her country being declared polio-free this year.
If you’d like to sign up to throw a GAVI Global Tea Party with World Moms Blog, contact us at worldmomsblog@gmail.com and put “GAVI Global Tea Party” in the subject line. We will e-mail you information to get started!
To learn more about the movement for life-saving vaccinations for the children who need them most, go to www.gavialliance.org.
Footnote: We are excited to announce that The Brave Discussion will be hosting a GAVI Tea Party in Australia in conjunction with World Moms Blog. If you’d like to learn more or to attend please add your details to the comments section of this blog and we will be in touch.
About Jennifer Burden
Jennifer Burden is the founder of World Moms Blog, which was listed by Forbes Woman in their “Top 100 Websites for Women 2012”. Global mothers from 20+ countries write on the topics of motherhood, culture, social good and human rights. Earlier this year, Jennifer spoke by invitation from the UN Foundation in Washington, DC and in NYC about World Moms Blog’s advocacy and resonation with the cause for life-saving vaccinations for children in the developing world.
During the day, she is a stay-at-home mother to two young girls. And previous to becoming a mother, Jennifer was a financial analyst on Wall St. and at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the US. You can also find World Moms Blog on Facebook and on Twitter @WorldMomsBlog.
