Activism not Slacktivism

My good friend Adam Ramsay had a piece in the Guardian the other day about student activism, putting forward his view that the main job of students is to save the world and have fun. Despite what many people think the two are not mutually exclusive.

I credit my time at university, and the people I met in that period of my life, with shaping my politics quite substantially. The groundwork may have been laid earlier – by compassionate parents and dinner table discussions – but uni was the time when I became more able to articulate what I believe in, and why. Continue reading →

Food for Thought

May 28, 2013 By DorkyMum in Activism Tags: #foodforthought, Enough Food IF, Food for Thought, nutrition and literacy, Nutrition campaign, Save the Children 2 Comments

I love it when nice people do good things. Nothing makes me happier. So when I saw that several of my very favourite children’s writers are backing the latest campaign from Save the Children, it put a huge smile on my face.

More than 25 children’s writers and illustrators, including David Walliams, Oliver Jeffers, Michael Morpugo and Philip Pullman have come together to warn of a global literacy crisis, ahead of the G8 nutrition summit on June 8^th.

‘Eh?’ I can hear you saying. ‘What have literacy and nutrition got to do with each other?’

Well the answer to that is ‘quite a lot, actually’. Continue reading →

Volunteer Champions

May 20, 2013 By DorkyMum in Activism Tags: Activism, art, Blogging, campaigning, charity, competition, CSV, design, V&A, Volunteer Champions, volunteering, volunteers, young people, youth 4 Comments

CSV, the UK’s Volunteering and Learning charity, have just launched a lovely campaign that I wanted to share with you.

The campaign is called Volunteer Champions, and has been launched to celebrate the people all over the country (and indeed the world) who quietly give up their time to try and make the world a better place.

Continue reading →

A Midwife For Me

May 10, 2013 By DorkyMum in Activism Tags: A Midwife For Me, AIMS, ARM, Association for Improvements in Maternity Services, Association of Radical Midwives, birth in the UK, IM UK, Independent Midwives UK, National Childbirth Trust, NCT, The BIrth I Want, UK midwives 13 Comments

I have already written more than enough on here about DorkySon’s birth, and how different the experience was to the one I had imagined and hoped for. There is no need to go over all of that again.

But I’m very pleased to have my blog as a space to mention a campaign that has recently been launched – A Midwife For Me – which I think is doing a lot to address some of the issues I encountered.

Continue reading →

Take Action: Nestle and Danone

April 1, 2013 By DorkyMum in Activism Tags: Activism, breastfeeding, Breastfeeding campaign, breastmilk substitute companies, campaigning, Danone, Nestle, Nestle boycott, Power of the First Hour, Save the Children, Superfood for Babies 4 Comments

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the launch of Save the Children’s campaign on breastfeeding, and their report Superfood for Babies, which details some of the barriers to breastfeeding in the developed world.

The focus of the campaign has now shifted to concentrate on one of those barriers in more details; the marketing tactics of multinational breastmilk substitute companies.

Despite 30 years of guidelines, there are continued reports of some breast milk substitute companies marketing their products in an unethical manner.

You can read Save the Children’s full briefing on Nestlé and Danone here, along with this article in the Guardian from Zoe Williams which details the situation in Indonesia, but I also wanted to pick out a couple of things from the report that really shocked me and highlight them in a post. Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Activism