Care-Aware

November 25^th, is:

On November 6^th, 2009, UNIFEM launched the global advocacy initiative: “Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women.” The program & website will join people together from around the world to take actions to end the violent acts against women & it will also spotlight those global efforts & demonstrate the groundswell of support for this important issue. UNIFEM & “Say NO – UNiTE” are organizations established under the United Nations’ umbrella.

Actress Nicole Kidman is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNIFEM & also a SayNO – UniTE Spokesperson. Here are two videos for the day, with her in them – the PSA & welcome videos for SayNO – UNiTE:

No is No in Any Language

Say No - UNiTE Welcome Message

(Click to view video, if missing here.) 

Up to 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime — with the abusers usually being someone known to them. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it harms families & fractures communities, stalling human development, undermining economic growth. Violence against women and girls has far-reaching consequences, & it devastates lives.  Everyone has a role to play in combating this global pandemic; the time to act together is NOW. 

[Source: UNIFEM.org]

Learn more:

Facts & Figures on Violence Against Women [click] 

www.saynotoviolence.org

November 25^th also marks the start of the “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence” – which began in 1980.  This campaign pointedly begins on the same day as the International Day To End Violence Against Women & ends on  International Human Rights Day; & it originated at the Women’s Global Leadership Institute (WGLI) organized in 1991 by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL).

Over 2,800 organizations in 156 countries have participated in the “16 Days…” campaign, and the movement continues to grow.  There’s a full International Calendar of Activities; & it’s available on FaceBook, as well.

The 2009 theme for 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence is:

“Commit ▪ Act ▪ Demand: We CAN End Violence Against Women!”

Read more about the 16 Days campaign here. 

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The 3^rd weekend (Fri-Sun) in October is…

The United Nations’ 2015 Millennium Campaign

Stand Up Against Poverty

Have you been following the Stand Up and Take Action (to end poverty) campaign, this weekend? It’s now in its’ 4^th year, and millions of people around the world are Standing Up and Taking Action to show their support for the fight against poverty and for the (UN’s) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

• 1.4 BILLION people around the world exist on less than $1.25 per day! 

• One woman dies EVERY MINUTE as a result of pregnancy & childbirth!

• More than 1 BILLION people lack clean drinking water!

The problem is huge; yet, we CAN change it – TOGETHER!!

You Can End Poverty

I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up on it, if you haven’t been following Care-Aware™ on Twitter* (if not, you should – as I’m doing most of the postings from there, now). There’s still time to join in!

This global campaign is gaining so much attention and so many local events that the official numbers of attendees for it’s numerous events are being submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records!  You can still be a part of that, too: Submit your event-numbers before 23:59 GMT on Oct 18^th, 2009 to be counted (http://tr.im/CaRU).

STAND UP and TAKE ACTION 2009

There are lots of other things we can do to help the movement against global poverty – year-round! For more info, visit:

www.standagainstpoverty.org

* To follow/view (&/or get RSS feeds of) Care-Aware™ on Twitter – go to http://twitter.com/Care_Aware (@Care_Aware). You can also view most-recent updates (“tweets”) in the purple box in the upper right-hand corner of the Care-Aware home page (just click the arrows on it to scroll through more tweets).

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H1N1 Swine Flu

Updates, Prevention Tips, Facts, News & Links

(…& Widget!)

You’ve probably already heard that the H1N1 flu  was declared to be a pandemic, back in June, 2009; & that the vaccinations for it (which have recently been approved by the FDA) are supposed to be effective with one dose/shot (although not 100% [probably between 70+ & 90+% effective?]), instead of the two which they were originally predicting everyone might need.

The situation can change daily, however, so instead of posting multiple updates over the coming months, I’ve posted the CDC's H1N1/Swine flu widget on the Care-Aware™ home page (rt-hand side of page).

You can also go to the CDC’s H1N1 flu website for tons more comprehensive-information:

2009 H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu)

H1N1 Swine Flu information is also available on Twitter at @CDCFlu & @FluGov.

Don’t forget to follow the basic flu-prevention strategies: 

• Wash, wash, WASH^Ŧ your hands (often/with soap & water - &/or use alcohol-based antibacterial products*)!

• Avoid touching your face/eyes/nose/mouth.

• Sneeze into your sleeve/elbow or a tissue (throw that in the trash AND wash your hands afterwards).

• Get your flu shots (seasonal & H1N1. ^◊

• Stay HOME if you get sick^« & limit your contact with others in the home, too.

^Ŧ A handwashing step-by-step graphic is available in the Care-Aware™ “Shigella & Norovirus Outbreaks” post. That said, the virus is spread through the air via coughing/sneezing; so staying away from people who are doing that (good luck), covering it when you do, getting a flu shot (seasonal one, too), & avoiding touching your face with your hands are all important strategies to keep in mind.

^◊ Flu shots are not completely-without their own potential risks (though statistically very-rare).  If you have any concerns ask your doctor, do some research, & weigh the risks/benefits for you.  Most healthy people handle them well (& most vaccines are now made from killed/non-active viruses); & it helps those with chronic health problems when others in society aren’t spreading the flu around (especially if they-themselves are not able to take the vaccine due to health issues/allergies, etc.)!

* Be careful when using alcohol-based hand products with/around younger children, as there have been incidents of alcohol-poisonings when they’ve sucked on their fingers, licked their hands, or even have drunk the solution from the bottles!

^« You actually remain contagious for as long as you have a cough  (so usually at least 10 days)!  This is MUCH longer than the previous advisory that people could return to work/school as soon as they’d been free of a fever for at least 24 hrs (without it being lowered by medication).  So stock up with plenty of staple supplies which you might need, should you or a family member get sick!

Be well, Everyone! 

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September 16^th  is...

Wife Appreciation Day! 

There are just NOT enough days out there to show wives the appreciation they deserve, right?!   BUT, Wife Appreciation Day is a great way to add to all of the other possible opportunities to do so, throughout the year.

There’s still plenty of time to plan some appreciation, Husbands!  So get busy!! …. Wait a minute.    Perhaps I should rephrase that-all!!   This is WIFE Appreciation Day, after all!   But not to worry, guys – in case you’re wondering, there is also a “Husband Appreciation Day”:  It’s held on the third Saturday of April.

Have a great day, Men!  No amount of appreciation which is given out with genuine intentions, gratitude & affection is ever lost on a wife; so it’s really a good day for everyone’s health.

Wife Appreciation Day is held each & every September 16th.

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Share Awareness:   Pass on the URL/address to this blog post (below) &/or to the main Care-Aware™ Space (above); or post this HTML clickable-link code to the Care-Aware home page: <a href="http://care-aware.spaces.live.com" target="_blank"> Care-Aware™</a> (Click to Visit)<br>

The Third Tuesday of September is…

Get Ready Day

&

Take A Loved One To The Doctor Day

Get Ready Day is sponsored by the American Public Health Association (APHA).  Its’ purpose is to help Americans to prepare themselves, their families and their communities for all of the hazards they could potentially face:  including pandemic flu and other emerging infectious diseases or hazards or disasters.

Get Ready Day has lots of fact sheets available at their site:  these include some for info on the H1N1 virus (AKA swine flu), plus earthquakes, floods, heat waves, power outages, work emergencies, winter storms and other disaster-preparedness; and they’re available in Spanish, as well.  They also have a blog, podcast, & quarterly e-newsletter, & are available on Twitter.

The GRD website also has a special section for children:  you can download games & puzzles, print out a kids’ preparedness guide & family checklist, & check out their other fun & educational links for kids, there.  They also ran a song contest for GRD, in 2007, & you can listen to their winning entries.  Just click on the links below for those:

Get Ready Kids Fun Site

Listen to the winners of the Get Ready Song Contest!

Visit the Get Ready website:

APHA Get Ready

The MONTH of SEPTEMBER is also National Preparedness Month.  You can find more information for that by going to Ready America (www.ready.gov).

The Third Tuesday of September is also…

Take A Loved One to the Doctor Day

Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day is part of a national campaign by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health’s “Closing the Health Gap” campaign (& is also part of its’ part of its’ “Initiative to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health”) which focuses on the health gap between minority populations and the general population.  

Take a loved one to the Doctor Day is used as a day to encourage individuals to see a health care professional or to make an appointment to see a health care professional and begin taking charge of your health!  So if you’ve arrived at this info late in the day (or even some other time of the year), take heart – and make an appointment! – because the point is to rally others you care about to take care of themselves & their health by seeing their doctor(s) regularly, as they should.  Any time’s a good time to start doing that!

For more info on the day, visit:

“Closing the Health Gap” [click] 

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September 15^th is…

World Lymphoma Awareness Day (WLAD) began in 2004, & is a global campaign sponsored by the Lymphoma Coalition – which is a non-profit organization of networked patient groups from around the world.

There are more than 35 types of lymphoma.

About 360, 000 people worldwide are diagnosed with it each year.

WOW!:  According to the Lymphoma Coalition, “less than 50 per cent of people know anything about this potentially life-threatening disease” & “almost three quarters (74 per cent) of people do not know that lymphoma is a form of cancer”!  (I wouldn’t have thought! …  Definitely need an awareness day!!)

If untreated, some lymphomas can be fatal within six months.

Nearly 200,000 people die from lymphoma every year.

“Know Your Nodes.”  Two years ago, the Know Your Nodes campaign was launched for WLAD. fun and interactive to help people learn about nodes, & the lymphatic system… and, most importantly, the signs and symptoms of lymphoma.

“Know Your Nodes” Interactives [click]

Lymphoma is the most commonly occurring blood cancer

and the third most common childhood cancer.

One million people worldwide live with lymphoma.

The Beacons of Hope program was created in 2006 to celebrate inspiring people around the world who have been affected by lymphoma. The people chosen by the Coalition become ambassadors who spread hope for lymphoma across the world.  The the LC is now creating a photo album to reflect the ‘Beacons of Hope’ theme (you can view those photos here).

For more information, visit:

The Lymphoma Coalition

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The Second Full Week* of September is…

(* Mon. thru Sun.)

National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week

They’re EVERYWHERE!  They're at the store, at church, at the park, in the movie theatre, in their cars... they may be at your school, your children’s daycare, or even in your workplace!  Everywhere.  You wouldn’t know it, either; because – while they, themselves, are not invisible – the illnesses which people with invisible chronic illnesses (PWICI’s) have are NOT visible.  That’s right:  no canes, no walkers, no wheelchairs, dogs or other devices… no pasty-pallor or other-wise strange coloring; no appearance of illness or give-away lack of hair to clue you in, either.  PWICI’s are very visible (usually... within their better days/moments, anyway?), despite their very invisible illnesses.  PWICI’s could be anywhere around you any day (and they are).  They may look like the average Joe, a young athletic guy, a cute kid, a business person or even a mega-model.  They could look like… well, anybody!  Because that’s exactly who they are – PWICI’s are simply people – here, there, & everywhere – who happen to have a chronic illness which isn’t perceptible to you or I or to our naked eyes.

1 in 2 people in the USA live with a chronic condition,

and 96% of illnesses are invisible.

You may be tempted to tell someone whom you’ve come to know as being a PWICI, “you’re looking good!”  DON’T.  While this is a common faux pas (& often well-intentioned &/or mistakenly thought of as complimentary or encouraging), it actually has the affect of making things worse by implying that they must not be all that ill, being that they look so well & all – which is not at all helpful, & can actually feel downright discouraging & unsupportive to the PWICI’s.  In fact, recently, National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week (NICIAW) surveyed 1200 PWICI’s to compile a collaborative list of possible responses to that statement (you can read those here).  It’s that common of an occurrence, unfortunately.  Another organization, The Invisible Disabilities Advocate®, uses the statement as the title of an informative booklet which helps others better understand what PWICI’s go through – it’s entitled, “But You LOOK Good!™” (you can find that here).

FREE webinars are available this week (starting @ 9 a.m. PDT, Mon. 9/14/09) on various invisible illness topics. Previous webinars are also available there, to listen to.  Just click on the widget below, for those:

You can also use this link:

Invisible Illness Virtual Conference & Webinars

Invisible Illness Week - A Little Help Gives a Lot of Hope

Visit these websites for more info:

National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week

The Invisible Disabilities Advocate®

Related Care-Aware™ Posts:

A Week of Visibility for People with Invisible Illnesses (Sept. 8-14, '08)

…and  about a bazillion more references to various invisible illnesses, throughout the Care-Aware™ blog (feel free to browse).

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“Go for the GOLD – Wear Gold Lamé?!” 

National Childhood Cancer Awareness Day

September 12, 2009

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness MONTH

I was on Twitter, yesterday (...just signed up a few days ago – wanted to do so in time for Childhood Cancer awareness, especially), & I noticed that Oprah (yep – I shamelessly am “following” some of the larger celeb-accounts for awareness’-sake) had tweeted about the 9/11 anniversary.  Here’s Oprah’s tweet (is it still called a “retweet” when you repost it in a blog?):

“Woke up. got dressed & thought about every one of the 2970 who did the same 8 yrs ago. Let's have a tweet of silence to remember them all.”

“2970.”  The number suddenly jumped out at me… because about that very same number of children – around 3,000 – die EACH YEAR, from childhood cancers!  So, I tweeted back this reply to O’s tweet:

“@Oprah Please pause again: ~3,000 kids die EA YR in US! Wear GOLD for Nat’l Childhood Cancer Awareness Day (9/12). Thx. http://bit.ly/YCZgw”

In just these 8 years since 9/11/01, that number would multiply out to around 24,000 children who have died from childhood cancers.  That’s MORE than the 21,000 people that it took to do the recent (& pretty awesome-to-watch, I’ve gotta say) “flash mob dance” to the Black Eyed Peas’ song “I Gotta Feeling” which took place on Oprah’s 24^th-season opening show, along Chicago’s ‘Magnificent Mile.’  Those numbers just cover the US statistics alone, by the way – worldwide statistics are MUCH higher (…as survival rates are much lower, worldwide – see link below*):  more than 160,000 children die of cancer each year, around the world!  Doing the math, that would make 1,280,000  –  ONE MILLION, TWO HUNDRED & EIGHTY THOUSAND!!! – who’ve died in just the last 8 years around the globe (and, actually, all of these statistics may be higher than that, even, due to the fact that survival rates have been even lower in the past).

It’s stunning, isn’t it?  THAT many children are dying… but even those numbers don’t even begin to touch on all those who are currently in treatment, those who have been through it previously & survived… and all of those who’ve survived but who continue to struggle, daily, with the after-effects from those treatments – which are often debilitating, painful, & life-long.  Yet, childhood cancer – here in the US – is called “rare”… granted, NOT by those whose families have been impacted by it!  One father I know, Bob – who founded the awesome grassroots PAC2 group to help other kids & families, after their own son, AJ, died from childhood cancer – just had an article which he wrote (with that same title: “Rare”) published in Stand Up to Cancer’s (SU2C’s) online magazine.  Please click below to read that (it’s not only profoundly-poignant but full of unexpected facts & fallacies about childhood cancer(s), plus there’s a link to a great FREE printable September calendar from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation):

“RARE” by BOB PINIEWSKI [click]

(or go to http://www.standup2cancer.org/node/3738)

Bob with his son, A.J.  SU2Cmag 2009

Wearing Gold:  I was thinking, last night, about wearing gold in support of childhood cancer awareness, & what popped into my head was, “HEY!  We could all wear GOLD LAMÉ!!”  THAT might draw some attention, aye??!     Which simultaneously makes me laugh, but I am also totally serious about it.  Laughter: there’s something we should honor in our little ‘heroes’, right?!  They have an amazing way of finding a way to smile throughout some unimaginable circumstances… ‘though, they are not without their tears  (who amongst us wouldn’t cry, going through that-all? - I cry just ‘watching’ from afar!).  Granted, yellow works, too (it’s often substituted for CC’s gold; plus it also is the color of lemons… as in ALSF [above], & it’s King JuJu’s favorite color [as I mentioned in a CA posting last year^Ŧ]); but I figure that some flashy gold lamé could really make an impact… besides-which, there’s probably a TON of it out there in holiday-wardrobes & retro-wear (backs-of-closets) & thrift/resale & fabric stores!!   So, how ‘bout it, everyone?  We’ve got the rest of the month (and, hey, why not all year, for that matter?) to wear it!  Could be a lot of fun!!  (‘Though, maybe we should make sure to pin on something which says “Childhood Cancer Awareness”, too, when we do!)  We’ll definitely be in fashion… in the fashion of trend-setting to “Go for the GOLD”, & “Champion the CURE for Childhood Cancers!”

Speaking of FUN:  This was the tweet on Oprah’s Twitter-site, today:

“Wanna learn our Mag Mile dance? To be performed at your next group gathering. http://tinyurl.com/n5ngg4”

Hmm.  Can you guess what I’m gonna tweet-reply to that one?    Hint:  Can you envision how even-more-awesome that dance would be with the HUGE mob of people doing it all wearing GOLD LAMÉ for Childhood Cancer Awareness??!      Well, gotta go – I need to finish this up so that I can go make that suggestion, in reply!   

In the meantime, here’s a fun project for ya:  Gather a mob near you; learn the dance; dress everyone in gold lamé; get in on video; post it on YouTube; & make it go viral!!!      

“GO FOR THE GOLD!! Champion the Cure for Childhood Cancers!”

Do You Tweet?  Follow Care-Aware™ on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Care_Aware

PS I know… probably hard to believe that I actually manage to “tweet” at ALL – considering – isn’t  it?!! LOL

RELATED CARE-AWARE POSTS: 

Go for the GOLD! “The Roar of the Crowd: ‘SEPTEMBER IS CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS MONTH!’"

* International Childhood Cancer Awareness Day

"Go for the GOLD!" - Event #4: Bring in the Media

^Ŧ "Go for the GOLD!" Series - Event #3: "Opening Ceremonies"

Go for the GOLD! - Event #2: Filling the Stands: SU2C - Beyond a Spectator Event

GO FOR THE GOLD!! Champion the Cure for Childhood Cancers -- Event #1: Petition Pentathlon

"Lemonade Day" & Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation

© Care-Aware™ 2008-9  http://care-aware.spaces.live.com  http://twitter.com/Care_Aware  BOOK-MARK Care-Aware™ as one of your Favorites! «

Visit the Care-Aware™ home page (if you’re not already there).   Follow Care-Aware™ on Twitter  

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FREE Care-Aware™ RSS Subscriptions are available:  Just click on “Subscribe to RSS Feed” (in same strip as “Alerts”, above).

Share the Awareness:   Pass on the URL/address to this blog post (below) &/or to the main Care-Aware™ Space (above); or post this HTML clickable-link code to the Care-Aware home page: <a href="http://care-aware.spaces.live.com" target="_blank"> Care-Aware™</a> (Click to Visit)<br>