Six Words for Passion to Action

As continuously growing early educators I believe these words describe our passion for quality care!

Profile of a Volunteer

 

One if my greatest accomplishments was creating a “rap session “ called Sister 2 Sister. I asked for permission from my daughter’s high school, parents  and boss if I could be granted the time to facilitate an after school meeting for girls who simply wanted  to  talk. I would leave work early on Mondays to meet with Sister 2 Sister  and stay at work on Tuesday to make up the time.

My intention was getting the “challenging girls” involved, but what I got in return were girls of all kind of backgrounds volunteering to talk in their own time. By the time the program was a year old I reached out to the mothers and other professionals to invest in my girls with their time.

The impact of running this group was very STRONG and POSITIVE. 

·         I was able to walk a girl through pregnancy

·         Another through self –hate because of body image

·         Peer-pressure from family to excel through high school

·         Another dealing with the temper

·         And not giving in to sex

Everyone had their own baggage they brought to the table and everyone developed a relationship and looked out for each other during the school day.. My own take –away message working with this group for two years was listening to their circumstances with an awaken that they really did have problems. BUT the glory of the story was the sisters learned how to support each other and I earned their trust , they  also gave back by  volunteering  in  the community . We visited the retirement center to bring smiles on the elderly……. When you advocate for someone or a group  it comes back in a 100% fold in the form that is meant for purpose!

 

 

Using Social Media to Get Connected

My past experience with social media started off interesting. I had a Facebook page and connected with friends from high school, former colleagues, relatives that I had not seen in years and felt in the loop with current friends and co-workers. As time went on, I found  the benefits of the site were posting a one-time announcement or invitation, one click and the word was out.

Great right! Well the down side was I could not control the crazy things that people would post (arguments and unhealthy competition). I found myself wanting to quickly get out of the loop and I did, I haven’t been back on Facebook for four years now.

As for social media, in terms of advocating,  blogging would be the way to go . When I first started my blogging in the graduate program, I thought this would be a fine way of sharing information with parents … you know having resources, articles and stories to share. Yet through a parent meeting, I found out they do not want this…. to sign on to one more thing is not worth their while, wow!

Back to the drawing board……..

So now I’m back at Facebook…. Although I have not used it in four years I could create an educational site, I could not use my child care centers name but  if parents are on  the Facebook  media site they can link in without any problems.  Oh, just typing “link in” made me think of the site linkedin site  …. It’s not really advocating (more of networking) but I assume I could be an advocate on the site,

Meagan, as my colleague…. Can you provide some thoughts….. Help!

Advocacy Messages

Challenging ourselves…… my blog focuses on two areas of concern Community and Safety!  The campaigns that I’m sharing are effective enough to cause us to  REFLECT AND ACT

1. Diversity & Inclusion

·         People of color = Latinos , African American  still sense that discrimination is a major problem.

·         Communities = LGBT feel they are still not accepted into the community.

The power message in this campaign is effective because it states something that is of great possibility

“The reason might be that we're actually discriminating unintentionally--some call this implicit bias.”

If our past influences form our behaviors (for however long that has been going on) then it may take that much long to work on acceptance of what we don’t understand or fear.

This campaign of ……. “The Diversity & Inclusion campaign encourages everyone to reconsider the biases that we don't even know we have.”  http://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Family-Community/Diversity-Inclusion

If we are up for the challenge … then it is consider effective!


2. Sexual Assault Prevention

Other assaults include; Bullying, dating and domestic assault prevention.

The campaign makes it very clear “it’s on us,  This campaign aims to raise awareness and inspire action against sexual assault in communities and on campuses nationwide. We are reframing sexual assault in a way that inspires everyone to see it as their responsibility, big or small, to prevent it.” http://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Safety/Sexual-Assault-Prevention#sthash.gtKWXhnH.dpuf

Take this paragraph and plug in any verb of assault … does it read the same?… yes! This message is effective enough for change because we all know of someone who has experienced this awful act (or is an overcomer of it)………..If we don’t stand for something we will fail in our greatest /finest  hour  for change.