Which causes do you support?

[Ceres]

This is an opportunity to let us know about the campaigns, organisations and causes that are close to your heart.
Do you volunteer, donate money, or work for a campaign that you'd like to let people know about?
Much of my time lately has been spent with letter writing and attending consumer forums with the changes to legislation surrounding homebirth.. but I'm sure this is not news to any of you!

[Janet]

Atm my time is pretty much consumed with supporting birthing women in various ways from the hands on to the provision of information, writing of letters that get totally ignored, and all the various things which those entail.

[battlecrumpet]

DH and I are members of The Wilderness Society (http://www.wilderness.org.au/) and I've volunteered for them in the past. Friends of the Earth (http://www.foe.org.au/) is also worthwhile. Whereas TWS focuses on wilderness protection, FoE has a wider range of "green" issues that it works on, including campaigns that also have health implications e.g. nanotechnology. FoE is also a bit more grassroots than TWS in terms of when you volunteer for them, it's easier to get involved with the organisation's decision-making processes, compared with TWS, which has a greater reliance on paid activists. I think both types of organisation have their advantages and disadvantages. Lately I've been more busy with climate change campaiging, and the Qld Greens.

I support the birth choices campaign also - but my involvement to date has been limited to signing petitions, and arguing the issue with some of my more conservative friends on Facebook :)

[homebirthmum]

I work for the Australian Breastfeeding Assoc. as a volunteer, to support BF mothers and their babies.

i also support the local maternity coalition group both as a volunteer and as a paid facilitator of the Choices for childbirth classes. I just love getting paid to spout the stuff that comes so naturally to me!

Rach

[Eostre]

We have always sponsored children but more recently I have enjoyed the letter/email/publicity/meet the local member campaign to protect our birthing/human rights. I am starting to learn more and more about the myriad causes that there are needing support and feeling a little overwhelmed!

[battlecrumpet]

Yep it can be hard to choose which cause to spend the most time / effort on! I had to write a list of all of them and then prioritise.

Or the other thing you can do is to support an organisation like The Change Agency, which gives training and support to activists from across a whole range of progressive causes.

[Mama_Kaz]

I've been a member of Greenpeace for a few years now and I supported our choice to birth where we want by travelling to the canberra rally and sent a letter to my local MP etc

[Sarasvati]

Homebirth and I do stuff for the Greens sometimes. I am keenly into wildlife/animal stuff but have trouble deciding who to support as some orgs have policies I disagree with *sigh*. I also want to become more active in supporting people in other countries, and refugees, but at some point it all overwhelms me!

[anaturallearner]

Bush Heritage, Trees for Life

[Janet]

I think most stuff in our lives we can start out small and it grows. Sarasvati just living a carbon-thoughtful life means we're already supporting the wider community and trying to not privilege our lives over those of others. We could just live petrol guzzling, tree guzzling, water guzzling, who-cares-who-made-this lives but in the main we try to be thoughtful about that and in itself we are thus making a difference.

And this is what I tell myself. :lol

[irishwillow]

Amnesty International, Greenpeace and The Wilderness Society have set monthly contributions (we've adopted a giant tree in the Tarkine). Anything else is subject to finances and the particular cause at the time. Feel strongly about the right to homebirth and signed the petition..anything else to do for that???
Susan

[irishwillow]

Oh yeah, we also receive all the emails from Avaaz, Getup and stuff for the Traveston Dam Campaign and sign a lot of the petitions there.
Susan

[cgull]

I volunteer with ABA, too!

Financially we support:
World Vision (sponsor child and disaster relief)
TEAR (Useful Gift Catalogue at Christmas)
Destiny Rescue (we sponsor a rescued sex slave)
Scripture Union
Salvos
Save The Children
Baptist World Aid's Share an Opportunity (used to be another sponsor child but the project changed)

We've thought about supporting an environmental group as well, but I always think I should add Amnesty International to my portfolio first and I've never gotten round to it/felt I could afford the time/money. The environmental thing has solved itself as the aid organisations are becoming much more environmentally conscious and lobbying on behalf of the world's poor because climate change affects the poor first/worst, so I'm a 'World Vision Climate e-monitor' and I get involved with their climate campaigns. I also follow along with Micah Challenge/Make Poverty History.
But mostly all I've done in any political forum so far is sign petitions. We've signed a couple of GetUp things.

I sent a letter to the senate enquiry re home birth and 'virtually' attended the rally and sent along my sisters in the flesh.

We try to buy FairTrade cocoa/chocolate and coffee and we shop at Oxfam a bit (but less than we could/should). We try to think a bit about food miles and such too, and we've decreased our meat consumption.

[battlecrumpet]

Interesting what you say about aid organisations taking on more enviro work CGull.

Reminds me of some debates I've had with my brother - our political views are broadly similar but he works for Oxfam, so has a strong "international development" bent, while my leaning has for many years been environmental.
The way he sees it, I'm sometimes putting the environment before people....and while finds this a bit frustrating, he respects my political activities.

But the way I see it, environmental imperatives underpin all human development, including in poorer areas.
As the general public's (and the development community's) understanding of ecology / environment grows, we should see more "joining forces" btw the enviro and development activists. Like with climate change as cgull described, but there's also a lot of room for this with other enviro issues eg deforestation.

[Ceres]

Interesting. The two certainly overlap a lot. Global food storages for instance are an environmental problem causing a social problem (although it could equally be argued that the social problems caused the environmental problems). There really is very little point managing each one in isolation.

[cgull]

The way he sees it, I'm sometimes putting the environment before people....and while finds this a bit frustrating, he respects my political activities.

But the way I see it, environmental imperatives underpin all human development, including in poorer areas.
As the general public's (and the development community's) understanding of ecology / environment grows, we should see more "joining forces" btw the enviro and development activists. Like with climate change as cgull described, but there's also a lot of room for this with other enviro issues eg deforestation.


I find it a difficult line to walk. Bill Mollison's permaculture values are 'Care for the earth, Care for people, Return surplus" and I can see the logic, the simple fact that there's no point caring for people if they have no earth to live on. But at the same time I feel I can't put the people second... Maybe your family's got the best balance - one person focusing on each. :)

The development orgs are aware of other environemntal issues, too, but with the international talks, climate change is a focus at present. And it's a handy umbrella to put most other environmental issues under. For example, You can buy carbon-offset trees in the Smiles gift catalogue, which works in with the reforestation needed for development in those places. Obviously there has to be a balance, not all forests can be locked up as carbon stores because the people need to burn wood to cook with. So you can also buy fuel-efficient stoves. And TEAR are really pushing a general need for decreasing unsustainable overconsumption of world resources while the economic crisis is in everyone's minds. So they're trying to integrate, and this makes a place where I feel comfortable to sit.

But I think I'm glad there are people like you about, battlecrumpet, who can view it from the other angle. Hopefully there will continue to be increased cross-fertilisation.

[Sarasvati]

I agree with battlecrumpet. I think a lot of intiatives that try to better disadvantaged people in a financial sense by exploiting their natural resources in an unsustainable way are doing them a great disservice. To me environment underlies everything. There ARE ways of serving people and the environment in tandem and in harmony. It relies on people thinking outside the square (and often outside their own culture's superiority mindset - for example flushing toilets are not ideal in countries with little potable water, whereas a composting loo situation makes far more sense). Too often something is touted as for the people when it's actually for the global economy. I don't see it as putting "the environment" first, it's a big interconnected system where one can't survive without the other, not an us vs them.

[battlecrumpet]

Yeah, as Sarasvati kinda implied, it's all too easy to see development through a Western lens, as something that involves westernisation. And therefore forgetting that the most sustainable cultures of all (indigenous ones), some people would label as "undeveloped". This is part of the reason why many enviro activists I know don't refer to the developed / developing world; they refer to "majority" / "minority world" (this is seen through the lens of population: "minority world" being the affluent nations).

OTOH I've seen a bit of the some of the places where my brother has worked...once you see these levels of poverty, you can understand how enviro problems there don't get fixed because when people are totally struggling with their family's day-to-day existence, they cannot turn their attention / focus to enviro issues. So from this point of view also, enviro and develpment issues are closely linked.

I once read that it's the world's poorest, and the world's richest, ppl who do the most enviro damage. The responsibility of the richest ppl is obvious (ie through overconsumption). The effect of the poorest ppl was supposedly through activities like cutting down trees for firewood etc. So, the logic goes, once you pull these people out of dire poverty, hopefully their enviro impact would lessen :shrug

This isn't to say that, just because the world's poorest people are totally unable to do anything about the enviro problems surrounding them, that they're unaware of them. When I went to visit my bro at his work in Dhaka (Bangladesh) once, a local guy paddling us on the main river that runs thru Dhaka conveyed to us how upset he was that the river was so polluted. He was aware of the problem but totally powerless to do anything about it.

:soapbox Whereas in the western world, most (mainstream and in a global sense, very wealthy) people are vaguely aware of enviro problem, but still couldn't be bothered to do anything about them. grrrr......

Sorry, I'm not meaning to get stuck into ppl who focus on other issues rather than enviro ones, as every issue needs people to fight for it....it's ppl who do nothing about anything that annoy me!

[evelynn]

i am a training ABA counsellour at the moment, i have been volunteering for a lot of things involved with them.
[i am rganising the ABA BBQ on the 28th of november which will be at the bunnings in mount barker if any one in SA wants to come along for a sausage and drink :lol]

i do a lot of stuff to promote/normalise breastfeeding but not really with the ABA, as i have to stick to a heap of ethics and codes that i don't necasarily agree with, so i do it outside of ABA.

[Ceres]

Anything vegetarian on the BBQ?

[evelynn]

*sigh* no :( i suggested, but aparently no one wants to donate vego sausages.

[Sarasvati]

I refused to do the sausage sizzles with my local branch for that reason.

[Ceres]

Would a local fruit and veg donate some corn or something maybe? I love BBQ'd corn.

[cgull]

i do a lot of stuff to promote/normalise breastfeeding but not really with the ABA

Would you like to elaborate? What sorts of things have you been doing?

[evelynn]

nothing too formal, just making up posters and sticking them up on noticeboards or sticking them under the doors of the CYH [or sticky taping it to their door overnight :lol] or hospitals.

i once had a friend who birthed in ahospital and when i went to visit her i snuck a heap of posters of breastfeeding in and stuck them in their postnatal ward. don't know how long they stayed up for butthey're not there now.

i invited a few pregnant friends around [not all at once] when my daughter was really young, so they could see me breastfeed and get it normalised kind of thing. i've actually had a ocuple of them tell me that if it weren't fo rme normalising it for them and blabbing on about it all the time they would have gone straight to formula and not even thought of it. :shock

i have stuck a few notices or stickers on the formula shelves in my local shop, but i prefer to normalise breastfeeding rather than make formula feeding mothers look bad yk?

[mummabare]

Im mostly active in the local aboriginal community (deaths in custody rallys and actively oppose the intervention). We are also involved in our local landcare (canning district) and visit the eco education centre regularly where we can be involved in water quality testing etc. Its all quite easy to do at the moment as its incorporated into Dj's learning.
Im on the board for Artsource WA (its a volunteer position) where I try my best to advocate for the rights of other Indigenous artists, its not easy though. I have a lot to learn about how CEO's etc operate ( I tend to find they say one thing and do another). Im learning though :)

More recently I've been moving into education, I started my masters in education and am doing research that will hopefully benefit the community, Im interested in the experiences of Aboriginal students in the school system and how we can incorporate aboriginal pedagogy (learning styles) into mainstream schools. So far Ive attended a few education conferences to be involved in discussions about education for Aboriginal people. I have my first guest lecture at a university next month, Im really *really* nervous about it.

I don't know how far I will get with these big plans I have, but I think its worth a shot :) Im a busy girl, I don't get to be as involved in the natural parenting community as I used to because of these commitments, but I always make time to get dj to his homeschool playgroups and reconnect with other homeschoolers.
I wish more people from my community would consider homeschooling, but so far its just me.

[zenifa]

We give to CARE monthly, have used their and TEAR's catalalogue's for gifts, plus the others mentioned like TWS, WWF, Greenpeace and recently we donated to MSF (Doctors without borders) for their work in Haiti plus we routinely give to other doorknock appeals when they come by.

[battlecrumpet]

MSF are supposed to be really good; my FIL has worked in trouble spots round the world for years (he's an army psychologist) and he reckons MSF is the first, and perhaps only, charity he'd give any $$ to.

......

Im interested in the experiences of Aboriginal students in the school system and how we can incorporate aboriginal pedagogy (learning styles) into mainstream schools. So far Ive attended a few education conferences to be involved in discussions about education for Aboriginal people.

There was a really interesting article about this in the Greens mag that I got the other day. Well it was mainly about how, in NT I think, the govt is forcing schools even in remote indigenous communities, to teach in English for the first 4 hours of every day. And about how stupid, and against good educational practice, this "4-hour rule" is (as the kids would learn much better in their native language of course).

[mummabare]

yep, its a strange dance backwards and forwards with bilingual schools. A change of government and anything can happen :blueroll
My brother told me this morning that Arakun school (Cape York) has a 100% literacy and numeracy curriculum. And that they *might* bring in some art or sport at the end of the year :uhh
Thanks Noel Pearson :wanker

[cgull]

:roolseyes