BlogHers Act: Week Two Round Up, Next Stop - A Community Survey!

cooper and emily — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:05:34 -0500

The last two weeks have been awe-inspiring, educational and incredibly motivating as we read through every beautiful, thoughtful, brilliant suggestion you submitted for the BlogHers Act initiative. And there were lots of them, several hundred in fact! A Google search of the term â€œBlogHers Actâ€ turned up zero hits two weeks ago and today there are almost 40,000! Yowza, people, you have it GOING ON!

See for yourselves: here is what was submitted on BlogHers Act in week one, and what follows below is a summary from this past week.

First, a quick note. As of Friday, June 15, we are no longer asking for suggestions (although PLEASE keep talking about it and we will keep reading and taking notes!) since we are going to be developing a survey based on your input. The survey will be posted on June 25th and at that time we will ask you to vote for or against the global issue you want to get behind. We will be announcing the initiative you all voted for at BlogHer 07 in Chicago on July 27th.

Hereâ€™s a selection of suggestions from last week, the week of June 11th:

Several of you, like Amy Tenderich of Diabetes Mine, wrote â€œDefinitely healthcareâ€ including Erin Kotecki Vest who sees firsthand what her parents are going through, and L.I.F.E.S.A.L.A.D. (Elisa Camahort raises a great question on this subject - How do we make a difference in healthcare on a global scale? Hmmm, let' keep talking about that. )

Gloriasone wrote she would like to see BlogHers Act get behind stopping the sexual exploitation of children. Working to empower the next generation of women is Teri Tithâ€™s global issue.

Sorchaogle wrote about literacy and Crimson Wife thinks the global initiative should be around encouraging women to be more active and involved citizens.

For Liz Rizzo, the global issue should be speaking out against rape and other violence against women.

Cindy Fey said Darfur â€“ Urgent. Specific. Imperative.

Other issues that were raised include media and marketingâ€™s impact on kids, peace in the Middle East and specifically getting out of war in Iraq, sustainable world peace, a new and improved middle class, education (Daring Young Mom said someone needs to come up with an actual plan to improve education), government reform in areas such as vaccines and immigration; and LGBT family equality.

Joan Blades of MomsRising.org wrote in her post on BlogHers Act that she saw global warming is the ultimate, global family issue. For Presidential issues Joanâ€™s awesome list included healthcare, paid family leave, paid sick days and quality childcare. Gail Anderson also wrote movingly about global warming and her Presidential issues, including healthcare and education.

Donâ€™t miss Gena Haskettâ€™s post on sustainability, a topic also raised by Creatively Belle. Pundit Momâ€™s four Presidential issues include finding homes for children in foster care or orphanages around the globe, and her global issue is hunger. Aldon Hynes weighed in on the intersection of poverty, hunger, womenâ€™s rights and sustainable agriculture.

On Balance, a brilliant blog written by Leslie Morgan Steiner on WashingtonPost.com, gave us lots to mull with Leslieâ€™s BlogHers Act post, Blog to the White House, where she would like to see BlogHer focus on womenâ€™s rights and protections globally. Over 300 comments were submitted to Leslieâ€™s post, and be sure to read those, in addition to the very thought provoking global and domestic issues raised in the post itself.

In a stirring post, at the prospect of BlogHers Act Pam Mandel asks, â€œWhat, EXACTLY, am I going to DO about it?â€

Laurie Whiteâ€™s post also had us thinking all day : â€œI look forward to being a part of this project and no matter what the issues are that are officially chosen on our "ballot", the initiative has already, in some basic and crucial ways, kicked off its mission. And as far as my concerns about what kind of impact I can have, in this case I'm satisfied that the effort will have positive ends that justify these collective, very well-intentioned, passionate and committed means. The elephant might at least get moved to the side yard if not completely off the property, and I'll try to expect something at least a little bit different. I'm awake, I've got a few fifty-cent words to spare, and I'm ready to go.â€

Whew. You all rock beyond belief. This project is going to hum because it already does.

As Babz wrote in a comment, â€œThis is what women do best!â€

Here, here! And now â€“ onward, BlogHers!

BlogHer - BlogHers Act: Week Two Round Up, Next Stop - A Community Survey! - Comments

BlogHers Act: Week Two Round Up, Next Stop - A Community Survey!