Make up or war paint, mothers all over the world are at the centre of our collective universes. When we celebrate women making changes in the world, the most unsung and most influential group of women are mothers.This year, we're celebrating some tough, but quietly spoken Mums - not famous Mums taking selfies - but everyday Mums, going about their work, making a difference to their corner of the planet. They aren't all eco warriors, but they are all making a huge positive difference.
As we discovered on Invisible Farmer, there are actually a surprising number of female farmers in Australia, farming all kinds of livestock and food. Meet organic farmer, Amy Paul, from Ruby Hills Organics, mother of four, who began her journey to organics when it was ignited by the transition to parenthood and she's never looked back.
As well as running her farm and raising her four children, Amy devotes considerable time and energy to raising awareness around issues of sustainable land use and alternative farming methods.
When we first discovered the IAPF Akashinga women in Africa, we were immediately drawn to their story because of their chosen dangerous job as anti-poachers - defending rhinos, elephants and cats. But they are a relatively new team and the impact of their work is already astounding. This community driven model has trained a group of disadvantaged women - an all female team to manage an entire nature reserve. The results have been transformational on many levels. Firstly because the women are less combative than their previous male counterparts, with more of a community driven interpersonal focus. The women are trained as both rangers and biodiversity managers so they now also protect the reserves that were previously financed by trophy hunting. (Interestingly, they are all converted vegans as well.)
Many of the women are single mothers, bringing up kids alone. One of the interesting insights of the team has been that women invest up to 3 times more of their salary than a male into their family. This means that 3/4 of the operational cost of running the reserve actually now go back into the community.
Pretty much every new baby product eco business is started by a new mother trying to solve a product or service problem that is affecting the health and well being of their children. Anna Scullie from Frankly Eco developed a Nipple Ointment because when she went to find some for herself, there literally was no decent eco Nipple Cream products available so she set about making one. Of course, others have now followed her, but Frankly Eco has gone on to release many more gorgeous plant based products for Mum and Bub over the past couple of years.
Stay at home Queensland Mum, Jody Allen started a Facebook page in 2011 with her friend Nic Millard. The page turned into a website, which evolved from a blog to a huge information portal for anyone wanting tips on cooking, cleaning, money saving, health, lifestyle and parenting. (Including exploring topics that others don't dare to like sex and vaginas.) Jody now has nearly 530,000 Facebook fans, 31,500 on Instagram, is now the author of 4 books - Once a Month Cooking; Live Well On Less; The $50 Weekly Shop and The $50 Weekly Shop Weekday Dinners - and has book number 5 in the works!
Here's one mother putting on war paint most days as she elbows for space in the ultimate boy's world. As a co-founder and global head of sales at StratosMedia, Anthea Noonan has landed in the cutting edge of new age boys. StratosMedia is an ambient grid compute engine that ingests, distributes & monetizes digital communication & data in absolute real time. On buses, train stations, universities. Everywhere. (And if you understand what this means, you must be a customer!) Because StratosMedia are Google, Microsoft & NEC partners with customers all over the world, she now juggles two children and air travel most weeks, visiting customers and pitching the cloud platform.
When she left her white collar city job 10 years ago to set up an Orchid Greenhouse outside Geelong with her husband and 2 children, Debbie Parsons had no idea she'd end up building a Farm Gate for chemical free local produce as well as running Bread & Cheese Making Workshops and a massive fresh produce delivery service. Debbie's home based enterprise got a little out of control, but her big joy, apart from her children participating in the growth of the Farm Gate (oh, and her husband's orchids!), is that she has become both an advocate and a buyer of local farmer's produce, which she aggregates and sells via delivery boxes to Melbourne and the Farm Gate each week.
So many studies confirm that women are the single biggest force in positive sustainable change and these are just a few of their stories. Will you please share your favourite mother with all of us below?
Note: ekko.world supports all and anything ecol We do not take commissions or charge for the promotion of any products, services, people or events. If you have a worthwhile story, tip or news, please contact us. We'd love to hear from you.Images: IAPF Akashinga | Invisible Farmers | IAPF Akashinga | Frankly Eco | Stay at Home Mum | Anthea Noonan | Magic Meadow