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These are My Weapons Against Child Poverty #WorldVisionGifts #TMMWVC
There is a saying in martial arts that my kids repeat over and over each time they grade. My husband knows it too. I am paraphrasing a bit but it’s a little like this – I come to you with empty hands. If I should be forced to use them. These are my weapons: my empty hands. It’s the end of 2014 and so everyone is wrapping up their year with little red bows and packaging it away to start fresh on January 1st. There is beauty and peace in that. We are building our resolutions, hopes and plans. We are collectively hopeful on January 1st each year and it…
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My Meaningful Christmas Gifts #WordlessWednesday With #WorldVisionGifts
This is my Wordless Wednesday for today. I hope some of you have read the posts over the last few months about meaningful Christmas gifts and the importance of choosing gifts that give back to children and families globally. I choose to support World Vision Canada in 2014, 2015 and for as long as I am able. I have seen so much good done with a simple gift from the World Vision holiday gift catalogue. I have shared many posts and tweets about this great charity. I believe wholeheartedly in the organization because I have seen the difference these meaningful Christmas gifts make to families living in poverty around the world.…
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World Vision Canada Christmas Gifts – Party RSVP November 19 at 8 p.m. EST
Many of you who are regular readers here know that this September I travelled with World Vision Canada to Colombia. While I was there for the better part of a week I toured many of the area development programs where the work of volunteers and staff at World Vision Canada is changing lives. The experience was life altering and heartbreaking all at once. I saw children who had grown up with World Vision Canada sponsorship and become leaders in their communities. I recently wrote about Johan Espinosa who impressed me so because he has spent his life working with World Vision and has inspired others to do the same. It was an…
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My Traditional Christmas Gift Guide 2014 #TMMGG2014
Several weeks ago I announced my Gifts with Heart gift guide here on Thrifty Momma’s Tips. That Christmas gift guide 2014 is meant exclusively this year for gifts that give back to the world, or the community. Right now that means that it is dominated by World Vision Canada gifts. A gift from the catalogue there gives back to children and families living in poverty around the world. I have launched that guide and asked all my personal friends and family members to buy things such as artisan gifts from the World Vision gift catalogue. Many of my friends have informed me they are already doing that. Margarita Ibbott has picked…
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The Most Meaningful Holiday Gifts #worldvisiongifts Twitter Party Save The Date Nov. 19
This is a twitter party with a difference. We at Linked Moms, often tackle hard topics, like infertility, adoption, advocacy and poverty. It’s one of the things that makes us unique. We have a voice, a platform, and an audience too. We care about topics that matter. We care about families and issues. We never underestimate our readers. We know they want to hear about things that matter. We know several of you are just like us parenting kids with special needs, trying to make a difference in the world and struggling with the reality of aging parents. Life is rarely simple, or easy, but it is a gift worth…
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The Importance of Uniforms In Sports #TMMWVC #WorldVisionGifts
At first glance this field seems pretty unremarkable. But first glances can be deceiving. This is a field built with love, sweat, volunteer hours and some financial investment from Canadian donations. This is another tangible space made real and safe for children, because of the help of World Vision Canada. This is a field of dreams where we are about to learn the importance of uniforms in sports in Colombia, and the need for children to have a field of their own. We have driven to a field outside Santander De Quilichao near Taminango. This is an area that is extremely vulnerable to drugs. It is the area of Colombia…
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The Strength of Women in Morales Duque, Colombia #TMMWVC #worldvisiongifts
The women of Morales Duque, in the south of Colombia, have gathered us inside a community centre. I am here to listen to their stories, as a representative of World Vision Canada visiting this country of contrasts. They hand us treats, and a traditional Colombian corn drink and a certificate signed by each member, thanking World Vision Canada. I thought I knew what strong resourceful women looked like. I know a lot about strong women in the context of Canada and the United States. I have never had to look far for brilliant female role models. My Mother, my grandmother, my daughters, my friends. I am surrounded, and I was…
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Two Hands are Enough – My Experience Travelling with World Vision Canada
People told me I’d be changed after travelling with World Vision Canada. That’s fair, of course and true and yet also trite. Inadequate. Changed Words sometimes are so thin, evasive and even limiting. Changed doesn’t begin to capture the depth or range of emotions that I felt when walking through Asimiflor, a brand new area development program in Bucaramanga. the saddest place I have ever seen children living. My week in Colombia with World Vision Canada was jam packed with big adventures and interviews and so many stories shared that I will be recounting them for a decade or more. Eye opening? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Exhausting and heartbreaking and…
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When I Sponsor a Child With World Vision Canada Does My Money Really Go To Them? Child Poverty #TMMWVC
When I sponsor a child with World Vision Canada does my money really go to them? This is the number one question I am asked most in the days leading up to my trip to Colombia. I spent a week finding the answer to this question inside many impoverished Colombian cities where violence and drugs are a threat to childhood and family health. I witnessed extreme child poverty and the work World Vision is doing to try to help. I hope these posts help answer that question and many others too. Meet Miguel and Juan. I introduced you to them briefly yesterday in a post about soccer balls and World…
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How Soccer Balls Make an Impact in Taminango Colombia
I never thought a soccer ball in Taminango Colombia could make me cry. Let me explain… How Does the Gift of Sports Change Lives? This is what the gift of a soccer ball looks like in Colombia. A team in the middle of a dirt field practising every night. Two young men, sponsored as children, now coaches, committed and clear-headed. Mentors in every way. This is the living breathing outcome of presents from a World Vision gift catalogue. A vulnerable space made into a soccer field in a community where drugs, gangs and crime are extremely big threats to a child’s safety. Poverty lives here every day. It can easily…
