Talk about foreign aid feels overhwhelming.

I’m a busy mom just trying to raise happy and healthy kids. Somtimes, I can barely extend my focus beyond the walls of my own home, let alone across an ocean.

And “mom” only covers one of my roles.

The longer list of the roles I play with their accompanying demands on my time sometimes makes me want to turn from that face on the cover of National Geographic. You know? The little girl with a perfect head barely covered in hair. A tummy distended. With those big, dark, beautiful eyes, beckoning you to not move past the newsstand or the page online.

I’ll be honest. Sometimes, I look away. Sometimes, I run away. Sometimes, I put away the compassion I feel for that child and her mother in the recesses of my mind and I hug my own children, volunteer in their classrooms, donate to local charities, and don’t beat myself up over it. And sometimes, it’s OK!

Why Now Is the Time to Care About Families in Africa

But now is not one of those sometimes. You know, those times when you feel OK patting yourself on the back for doing all you can, even though you’re doing nothing to help the world’s poorest and most desperate. Why? Because 30,000 people have just died from the famine in Africa with an estimated 750,000 more at risk of death in the next 6 months.

I would like to say that I can’t relate with the mother in Africa who, while she wants to focus on her children’s future, can only focus on this moment, wondering: “Will my child have anything to eat? Can I get him the medical care he needs? Will my family be safe to see tomorrow?”

But, the truth is that though our realities are different, our concerns are based in the same desire to raise happy and healthy children who have opportunities for growth and who will be able to be contributing members of their societies. So I ask myself the question: “If I were in dire straights—really dire straights—wouldn’t I want an outreached hand? Someone to help me get back on my own two feet and step out of the struggles I face?”

And that’s where I want to continue this candid conversation if you don’t mind.

Your Volunteer Efforts Can Help Stop the Famine in the Horn of Africa

If you are like me, you don’t feel that your involvement is helping or that focusing any amount of your busy schedule on families in Africa would be futile.

But that’s where we both would be wrong! The drop we contribute to the bucket of foreign relief is saving and improving lives.

Let’s talk pregnancy for a second. This post-partum ward in western Africa I visited, made possible in part by the CDC, helps women move their deliveries from their homes to the hospital. The mosquito nets provided there and given to them to take home, prevents against Malaria. And this is just one outreach that is making a huge difference in both increasing the infant mortality rate as well as human lives.

How are these programs made possible? By one click of a button to sign an online petition, one letter or call to your congressman, one partnership from organizations like the CDC and USAID often in partnership with non-government organizations and corporations. And, it all starts with people like us—moms who took a moment to make time in their busy schedules or carved a small amount out of their budget to take action.

Isn’t it exciting to consider that your individual effort alone is exactly what the Horn of Africa needs right now? That whatever small or large step you take yields a huge return when we look at the sum of all of those individual parts. One click to sign a petition to not cut foreign aid multiplied by 100,000 other clicks can make a big difference to our government leaders. And the story goes on.

In addition, just like we can’t undervalue our own individual contribution, we can’t underestimate how one life changed can impact generations of people. For example, it only takes $40 to educate a child for a year in Somalia. Think of the potential ripple effect of that child being educated—the opportunities she’ll have, the education she can then pass down to her children, the lives her grandchildren will lead, and the change for their country they can impact.

I met with and heard from government officials in Washington D.C. over the past couple of months. While lobbying, I heard questions ranging from: “Why should government invest in foreign relief?” And I heard: “What more can we do to help?”

I walked away, pondering on the fact that less than 1 percent of the nation’s budget goes to help developing nations. And while that amount seems far from enough, I felt great knowing that I not only listened to both sides of the foreign aid argument (for and against), but I also voiced my opinion to not cut foreign aid—one small thing I could do to help.

Ways Busy Moms Can Help Fight Famine Within the Walls of Their Own Homes

So, if you’re a mom—or a mom at heart—and you want to help, stop your busy life for a second (I promise it’ll wait) and do something to reach out your hand to mothers in Africa. This digital age we live in makes it easy to lift others up without leaving our own homes. Here’s how:

• Check out the awesome new FWD campaign by USAID. They offer lots of options for getting involved. Click on the FWD site to learn more.
• Become a member of ONE.org. This will help you add drops to the foreign relief bucket without spending a cent.
• Write a letter to your members of congress, encouraging the not to make budget cuts to foreign aid.
• Consider future generations. When you see the starving child on the cover of a magazine or featured in an article you’re reading online, look at the child and consider the future generations of people that will be impacted by helping her in any way, small or large, that you can.

What can busy moms do to make a difference for women and families who are struggling in Africa and other developing nations? What are you doing to make a difference?

I was a teenager in the 80s when AIDS was a big scare in the U.S. Rumors circulated about how contagious and deadly it was. But, looking back, it didn’t seem to take long before information and awareness increased, protection was identified, treatments were found, and HIV/AIDS got under control in the United States.

People in Africa and other developing countries also experienced HIV/AIDS. The only difference is that today, nearly 30 years later, Africans are still at high risk of contracting HIV and passing it on to their children. The good news is that there is hope to eradicating it.

Join today’s panel from the comfort of your own home by visiting One.org’s Youtube’s channel and gain more awareness on what you can do to make this the beginning of ending HIV/AIDS worldwide: http://www.youtube.com/theonecampaign.

I have had pneumonia. Twice. And both times, I thought I was going to die. I may be exaggerating a little bit, but there is something about struggling to breathe that gives you that sensation and it’s downright frightening.

Fortunately, neither of my children have had any respiratory challenges. But as a mom, I can only image if they did and the helplessness that I’d feel if I were to watch them struggle to breathe without being able to do anything for them.

But the reality for me is that even if they did, I could wrap them in a blanket and rush them to the doctor just like my husband did for me. And there, I’d hope they’d get a shot and an inhaler to make their lungs open up and their breathing get back to normal. (Yes! This is a pic from the doctor’s office right before I went back for my chest X-Ray. Embarrassing!)

Why We Need to Raise Awareness to Provide Aid for Pneumonia

But this is not the reality for all mothers around the world. The reality is that more than 1.5 million children die from pneumonia each year?

The Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia shares the fact that every 20 seconds, pneumonia kills another child. That’s 4,300 child deaths every day, and a staggering 1+ million child deaths every year from a preventable, treatable disease.

Yes! You read that right. Pneumonia is preventable. It’s treatable. It is one of the world’s most solvable problems. Yet without funding and action, it is unnecessarily taking the lives of more than a million children.

What You Can Do to Help Save Children Suffering From Pneumonia

Today is World Pneumonia Day. The Global Coaltion of Child Pneumonia has a phenomenal website with a virtual toolkit. You can help in many ways. Here’s a few ideas:

• For moms in social media: Promote via social media, including Twitter (using the hashtag #WPD2011), Facebook, Google+, your blog/website. The virtual toolkit provides twibbons for your Twitter avatars, buttons and badges for your blog, and lots of infographics and content for your blog.
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• For all moms: Write a letter to your elected officials, encouraging them to support foreign aid. Lobby. Sign petitions. Send emails to your friends or share the importance of supporting this cause to friends in your neighborhood, community, or mom groups.
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• For moms who want to take action: Host an event. The virtual toolkit provides ideas, steps, and even posters to get you started.

She is a blogger, a brand new mom, and an ambassador to Africa. She came into each of those things in somewhat indirect ways, but they are each direct outgrowths of the family values she and her husband decided to embrace when they got married. They were both committed to serving others, especially children and moms. She became the Community Manager of SwankyMoms.com, after the site was bought by a social media company from the Canadian woman who started it 6 1/2 years ago. She  has been a mother for only a few days as of this writing, but before that and along with it, she and her husband have sponsored two orphaned Kenyan boys, Charles and Kieran, for several years.

Her service with and for the people of Africa didn’t start with a big, direct plunge, either. The family of the man she married was involved with Christian Ministries in Africa, a small, Kenyan-based relief organization, for 20 years before she got involved, and he introduced her to it when they started dating. Though she could see the great need and spirit of the people, she was initially overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. She had a full-time job and very little time, for one thing. But she was determined to help, so she and her hubby found something they could do: sponsor a child for $35 a month. Then, one day when she had a dentist appointment, she decided to ask him to help. He donated 20 toothbrushes. And it grew from there.

Today, she is responsible for helping to raise support and awareness for CMIA, which runs three orphanages, seven pre-primary schools, one academy, one clinic/lab, and various feeding stations, Bible training centers, and churches in Nairobi, Kenya. She also helps put together 5-10 teams a year of American teens carrying supplies to Kenya and Nairobi. The challenges that she’s faced along the way have galvanized and, in many ways, directed her efforts. The extensive governmental corruption and unequal distribution of power in Africa, for instance, make shipping supplies and money there very risky, and have necessitated the team trips. But those trips, some of which she and her husband have participated in themselves, have been gratifying not only because of the help they deliver to the people of Kenya, but also because of the effect they have on the participating teens, who go to Africa thinking they’ll help others, but in fact come back having done not only that, but having their eyes opened as well and their spirits touched.

2 Steps to Making a Difference in the World

So, she advises others who want to make a difference in the world but don’t have much to spare or don’t know where to start, to do these two simple things:

1. Define what you’re passionate about. “As moms, our time gets divided up alot. It’s best to define what things make you cry, cut out unessentials, and be okay with that,” she says.
2. Learn the ability to “say no in order to say yes.” It’s difficult but ultimately more gratifying.

Angela Ishmael, a mom making a difference in many ways, started out simply with a desire to help, a desire that has grown into actual, effective, direct action. Get to know her better on Twitter.

Who are moms that you know you are making a big difference in the lives of others? What are they doing and why do they inspire you?

ONE.org’s current “F Word” campaign puts a spin on the traditional definition by calling “famine” the new F Word. Why? Think about it. More people pay attention to hollywood breakups than they do to the fact that 30,000 African children have died of starvation. We’re not talking one or two kids, which still wouldn’t be OK. We’re talking 30,000, folks! And, what’s worse? The famine in the horn of Africa is threatening many more lives to the tune of 13 million people. Obscene!

Via ONE.org, “Growth in agriculture is twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth in other sectors.”

When government and non-government organizations join forces, they can make a tremendous positive impact in supporting foreign countries and in this case, helping fight famine.

On a trip this summer to Kenya, I visited an Irish potato farm…

and a dairy farm (where Karen from Chookooloonks.com milked a cow for the very first time)…

I saw the inspiring work of USAID and Land O’Lakes at work in rural Kenya. Locals, with these organizations’ assistance, were leading the agricultural growth in an effort to fight famine and provide sustainable ways to feed their people.

But these programs are at risk. Per ONE.org:

In Africa and beyond, the US government is investing in local agriculture, safety nets, risk management, and other programs so that this type of tragedy becomes history. But this fall, Congress threatens to cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that sustainably help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger. This, coupled with increased peace and security can help ensure famine never happens again.

5 Ways You Can Help Fight Famine

You may feel very far away from places like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—places at high risk for famine. But, you don’t have to travel any further than the walls of your own home to make a difference. Here are 5 ways you can help right from where you’re at:

1. Find out the facts and what you can do to help. http://usaid.gov/fwd/action.html
2. Text your support. http://one.org/us/actnow/do-more.html
3. Sign this petition to raise your voice to congress in support of foreign aid: http://one.org/us/actnow/
4. Write your congressman/woman: http://www.one.org/c/us/about/844/
5. Share your knowledge via Twitter, Facebook, email, and your blogs.

Take Part in Blog Action Day

1. On social media: Follow  discuss  and share on Twitter via the #BAD11 hashtag  or our Facebook Page .
2. Write your own blog: Write a blog, use the #BAD11 tag , register your blog with us and promote it via Twitter and Facebook using the #BAD11 tag.
3. Read and comment: Read other people’s Blog Action Day blogs and have a conversation with them by leaving them a comment.

How do global issues impact you? What can you do from your own corner of the world to make a difference for those suffering in other countries? How can you help fight the global famine crisis?

Breathing for me gets a little more difficult when I think of her.

Then I think of the school children I saw a few days later. Full of life. Laughing. Innocent. Eager to learn. And I smile at the signs of hope!

While this positive thought doesn’t entirely replace my sadness for all the desperate situations I experienced in Kenya, I try and focus on what these school children represent—hope, health, happiness and the possibility of a long lifetime of hugs for children in Africa.

Since returning from Kenya two weeks ago, I’ve been asked these two questions a lot:

1. Why am I raising awareness to help people in sub-Saharan Africa instead of focusing all of my efforts on helping people in the United States?
2. What is the benefit of spending my time, effort and energy on the US government’s investment in helping the Kenyan people?

I’m not going to lie. I’m struggling with the fact that anyone even broaches those topics. I could write an entire post on how the US benefits from assisting developing countries, but why? Aren’t we a global family? Shouldn’t foreign aid be about helping our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world instead of focusing on how we, here in the US, are going to be more economically stable or safe? Isn’t it about people with means helping those who can’t help themselves?

Why Helping Sub-Saharan Africa is Urgent

In our imperfect world, we often place hierarchy on people and things. But in a perfect world, in my opinion, every human being holds equal weight and is worthwhile and therefore, worth helping.

To me, whether I am helping my own child, the neighbor next door, a child in my community who is in need of diapers, or a child hoping to breathe another breath in Kenya, it is all the same. The only difference in my mind is that in some parts of the world, people seem to need more help and some needs are more life threatening. It shouldn’t be about where the person is from. It should be about whoever needs help the most and what needs are most urgent.

Here are some facts about urgent global needs from ONE’s website:

• An estimated 12,000 people die every day from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Two-thirds of these people are living in sub-Saharan Africa.
• In the world’s poorest countries, mothers risk their lives giving birth and millions of children die each year from treatable, preventable causes like diarrhea.
• Of the 67.5 million children out of school around the world, 95 percent live in developing countries.
• Across the world, 884 million people do not have access to clean water and 2.6 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation.

The Benefits of Helping Kenya

Why do we feel the need to justify why we give, how we give, or to whom we give? A soul is a soul.

I hear global funding and volunteerism talked about in the same sentence as return on investment as if the African child whose life is forever altered by aid is a product, a campaign, or a number. But, she is not any of those. She’s a child, someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s future wife, someone’s future mother… or maybe the baby I hugged at the hospital two weeks ago or the one who hopefully is running around playing today instead of struggling to breathe. She could be a leader in her community. She could change the world if only she had her basic needs taken care of, starting with the opportunity to live to see adulthood.

Ways to Help

My recommendation for people who have something to give — whether it’s their voice, their time, their resources, their creative ideas, their leadership, their hands, their energy, etc. — is to find ways to balance your giving efforts. It’s not about judging whether watching your sister’s kids or giving to your local food bank is more valuable as signing a petition to help decrease the infant mortality rate in Kenya. It’s about doing what you can, where you can, with the talents you have. Here’s some ideas:

• At home: Hug your children or call a family member you haven’t talked to in a while and say “I love you!”
• In your neighborhood: Identify someone in need, and meet that need (e.g., take in a meal, include someone in your group, smile at someone who’s lonely).
• In your community: Volunteer, raise awareness, make a difference for a need that you’d like to champion.
• Abroad: Sign a petition, write your congressman/woman, and take steps to support foreign aid. Find a charitable organization to support.

What will you do today to make a difference?

Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat. I hate the word “slum.” It sounds so dirty, depressing, and socio-economically divisive. I’m sure the word isn’t intended to convey that meaning, but in my mind it does.

So, I went to Kibera today ready to defy the perception the word conjures up in my mind and excited to see a beautiful culture and the community that exists within its walls.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

Before entering the neighborhood’s interior, we visited an organized called Carolina for Kibera whose purpose is to “advance health, education, and ethnic cooperation, gender equality, and economic empowerment, and equip leaders with tools to strengthen the community.”

While there, I met Anjella Nancie, who volunteers with the organization. Of all things, we bonded over eye shadow. Her blue sassy shade perfectly matched her shirt. If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a lot obsessed with MAC.

What I found was that talking about something as seemingly inconsequential as eye shadow helped me to first and foremost connect with Anjella. We had fun talking make-up shop. And second, in an odd way, helped me find hope in the situations I was about to learn about—extreme poverty, rape, teenage pregnancy, mortality rates, and the like. And ultimately, what I saw was a community rich in color—richer even than our eye shadow, with people wearing big bright smiles, and welcoming us into their homes, where I was fortunate to hold 4-year Nicole on my lap while talking to her mother, Mercy, about what a typical day looks like in her life and her goals and the dreams she has for her daughter.

Tonight, Anjella friended me on Facebook where we can connect more about both trivial and complex issues like eye shadow and teen leadership and hopefully make people like Mercy’s goals and dreams come true.

Subscribe to http://ONE.org/us/actnow/moms as it partners with organizations like Carolina for Kibera to provide medical, educational, agricultural and other help to developing nations.

This picture shows me and Emily McKhann from TheMotherhood.com and two “TB Ambassadors”—a CDC organized community volunteer program with a focus on helping decrease the number of TB-related fatalities in rural Kenya. The woman on the right recovered from TB and is now a support and resource to the gal on the left. They are amazing examples of community, strength, and sisterhood.

We met one woman who shared about her own battle with TB and how she lost her mother to the infectious disease. She passionately claimed how without volunteer workers, people would not take on the treatment. But through them, they are able to help the bed ridden stand up, walk again, and ultimately recover. 

In the US, many think that TB is a thing of the past. But  2 million deaths worldwide annually show otherwise. So the question is: “What can we do?”

The answer seems difficult: funding, funding, and more funding. But, really, it is easier than that. I am in Africa with ONE.org, an organization that asks for your voice and not your money. No! Really! By simply subscribing, you can sign email petitions, get suggestions for letters to write to your congressman or woman in an effort to help raise awareness and government funds for important global issues, including programs like the TB Ambassador outreach in rural Kenya. Visit ONE.org/us/actnow/moms to learn more and to sign up. You can make a huge difference!

Sometimes, helping people halfway across the world feels difficult. The distance divides us. Getting there requires lots of time and money. Options to help feel limited. What if you knew you could make a difference right from your home and without spending a dime? You can!

I leave for Kenya in just a few hours. Want to come? Regardless of where you are, you can virtually travel with me and the ONE.org team as we make our way through cities and villages, visiting amazing African women and their families in hopes of both learning about and raising awareness for important global causes like maternal and child health care, education, agriculture, government, and more.

Lots of moms are joining in the trip—and many without even leaving their homes. Join us! Here’s how:

• See the chatter on Twitter at http://search.twitter.com/ONEmoms.
• Add to the conversation when you tag your tweets #ONEMoms.
• Join the movement on the ONE.org site (http://www.one.org/us/actnow/moms/).
• Read about the wonderful people we’re meeting in Africa and share your feedback in comments on the blog
• Share your feedback on the ONE Facebook page.
• Post a comment here to share how you’d like to make a difference.

There are so many global issues we can raise awareness for and help. Visit http://one.org to learn how you can make a difference.

For those unfamiliar with the organization:

ONE is a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa, by raising public awareness and pressuring political leaders to support smart and effective policies and programs that are saving lives, helping to put kids in school and improving futures. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African activists and policy makers.

What I love about ONE is their emphasis on voice. Your voice, regardless of how small or in whatever way you choose to raise it, can make a meaningful difference in the lives of others. A simple act like signing a petition, writing a letter to your congressman/woman, and/or calling your local representative goes a long way in helping fight HIV in Africa, for example.

The more I become aware of global women’s issues, two things happen: 1) My gratitude increases for things I may have taken for granted in the past: immediate access to medicine and healthcare, the safe delivery of both of my children, that I don’t live in fear of contracting or delivering a child with HIV, and that I have enough food to put on the table to feed my family—all things the vast majority of African women have to worry about on a daily basis. And 2) My awareness grows for the needs of women all around the world—both here and abroad. And with that, a call to action surfaces to do more; to learn more; and to share my talents, my skills, and my resources to help those who cannot help themselves, even if it’s as simple as sharing their stories to help raise greater awareness.

This July, I’ll be joining ONE.org along with a small group of bloggers on a trip to Kenya, Africa, where I will get up close and personal with global women’s issues there. More importantly, I’ll get to know the women who are facing and fighting those issues. ONE reminds us that:

African women are leading a movement. They are the driving force behind Africa’s economy, and mothers in particular have an enormous impact on the future of Africa. Moms in the US are also leading a movement. They recognize the enormous power that they have as the key decision makers in their households – they can decide what foods their families eat, where their kids go to school, whether their child can be vaccinated against the deadliest diseases, and more. Get educated, engaged, and activated. Use your voice on behalf of the world’s poorest.

I’m excited to virtually pack you in my suitcases and take you on my journey! Together, we can all make a difference.

In the meantime, Happy Mother’s Day! What will you do today to make a difference in someone’s life?