January Just Posts

It's nearly impossible to describe how beautiful our second Just Post Roundtable is. A mixture of old and new voices, singing about children, our planet, compassion, love, and perception. This many voices in one place can only mean one thing:

We Are Powerful Beyond Comprehension. Just Imagine What We Can Do.

And it keeps growing. Andrea and Kim of The Whole Mom have been shifting their webzine's focus towards moms who are active in social justice issues, and starting with the March re-launch you'll see the Social Justice Roundtable and all of our posts on social justice featured there, too. It's an honor, sisters.

Before we get into the Just Posts, I wanted to speak for a moment about AIDS in South Africa. It's been on my mind a lot recently, and the crisis and statistics are heartbreaking.

Did you know:
On average, 600 people die from AIDS each day in South Africa
21.5% of the entire South African population is living with HIV. This is among the highest infection rates in the world
The HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women is currently estimated at 27.9% nationally and 27.1% in the Eastern Cape
250 babies are born HIV positive each day
The provincial unemployment rate is 32%
Because of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, the average life expectancy in South Africa is expected to drop to 36.5 years by 2010. It was 68.5 years before AIDS. 2010 is three years away.

Think for a moment about what that means. The average life expectancy has been cut nearly in half. Children in South Africa today will grow up without knowing their families, their history, their culture. It's more than a disease, it's an erosion of a culture. And the burden is left on the children. Everybody's children. Our children.

Imagine if you were the oldest person you know.

We can do more to help. Donating money to good organizations goes a long way to provide medications to keep people symptom free. Nutrition is just as critical. I could go on and on but there are many other places you can look to see how you can get involved. There is so much more to say about this, and what I've written doesn't even come close to doing it justice. I will post more about this when I return from my trip.

And without further ado - The January Just Posts:

Alice at And She Wrote with How many more reasons do we need to take our oil dependency seriously?
Andrea at Garden of Nna Mmoy with but what do we do
Beck at Frog and Toad are Still Friends with Genius and her November post that sets the context, Lost Children
BubandPie with a follow-up to her wedding post, I Would Hate to Have Your Job
Chani at Thailand Gal with Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery
Collecting Tokens with Opportunities
Emmie at Better Make Mine a Double with Setting My Sights a Little Wider Than the Road
Karen at Troll Baby with And Guilt begat Pride
Kerry at Crunchy Carpets with Can the World be Fixed?
Jill at Not So Sage Wisdom with Imperfect Activism
KC at Where's My Cape with The n ACH person
Mimi at Mimi on the Breach with Why I Love My Job
Mother-Woman with Riviera
Mouse at the Mouse's Nest who has started a series called Global Warming Wednesdays. You can read a month's worth here, here, here, and here.
Susanne at Creative Mother Thinking with Handicapped

Nominators: Thank you for not only writing about Social Justice, but for pointing out others who are as well. The village grows. All are welcome.

Bad at Her Bad Mother
BubandPie
Collecting Tokens
Jen at One Plus Two
Jessica at Oh the Joys
Jill at Not So Sage Wisdom
KC at where's my cape
Mama Tulip
Under the Mad Hat

Thank you everyone for lifting your voices higher, for speaking the truth, and for standing tall together on the side of good. I will be toasting you all under El Salvadorian skies.

And don't forget to check out what Mad talked about over at the other end of the table.