Right now, thousands upon thousands of women and children like these (above) who took shelter in a Buddhist temple need our help.

This morning, BlogHers Act and GlobalGiving expanded our Mother's Day fundraising initiative to save women's lives to include the tens of thousands of people devastated by Cyclone Nargis. Now, in addition to donating to hand-picked and carefully vetted programs to help women and children in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Darfur, Nepal and South Africa, you can use the BlogHers Act donation widget (see below and the left-hand column on every page of BlogHer.com) to help get water and shelter to thousands of people whose lives are in danger. And we'll help!

"In Geneva, a United Nations spokeswoman, Elisabeth Byrs, said that Myanmar had said it would welcome aid supplies and that disaster assessment officials were now awaiting visas to enter the country.

“Our biggest fear is that the aftermath could be more lethal than the storm itself,” said Caryl Stern, who heads the United Nations Children’s Fund in the United States."
Source: Aid Flows to Myanmar as Death Toll Rises to 22,500 By Seth Mydans, NYTD, 5.7.08

Here's how BlogHer and GlobalGiving will match your donation:

Whichever of the now six projects recommended via the BlogHers Act fundraising widget receives the most donations between now and the end of the week will get a $1,000 donation from BlogHer, which Global Giving has agreed to match. The other five worthy projects will also get a donation of $200 each from BlogHer.

We are very proud that to date the BlogHer community has donated $2,930 and growing!

Now we have an opportunity really make a difference -- Won't you please help by donating and/or blogging this initiative? Globalgiving accepts donations of as little as $10 or $15. Here's how:

Take Action Now:

1) Grab a button or donation widget to place on your blog.

2) Share this information with your readers by blogging about maternal health, or this BlogHers Act initiative, or the individual project you're supporting.

3) Leave your link at the bottom of this post, using Mr Linky, so
others can hear your thoughts on these issues. (We'll also be featuring
many of you on BlogHer.com and in our newsletters.)

4) Donate to save women's lives, today.

Get the widget here: http://www.clearspring.com/widgets/47f4f6fb77077b5d

Now, just in case you want it for your blog, and I anticipate that many of you will, here's more about each of our programs:

Provide Emergency Relief - Myanmar Cyclone Victims: Donate as little as $10 to support urgent disaster relief efforts by helping provide food, clean water, and supplies for those affected by the cyclone, which has killed thousands and caused extensive flooding and damage.

Our Maternal Health Projects:

* Mother and Child Clinic in Nepal: $10 - 2 days' operating costs for the Clinic OR a year's worth of care for 5 women and children

* Help Afghan Women Deliver Healthy Babies Safely: $25 - 20 women will have improved quality of life through reproductive healthcare and education

* Ensure Healthcare for 40,000+ Displaced Darfurians: $25 - Trains 2 Traditional Birthing Attendants (includes 3 training sessions and training materials)

* Empower Women to End HIV/AIDS Stigma, South Africa: $50 - 2 women living with HIV/AIDS can receive counseling

* Noon Meal Improves Girls' Learning in Burkina Faso: $15 - Provides a noon meal for 50 students for one day.

Finally, in response to a terrific question from a blogger about the local politics of these initiatives, I recently blogged about why BlogHer chose to work with the extraordinary team at GlobalGiving:

As you may be aware, BlogHer is a non-partisan organization. Our mission is the same one we wrote at a kitchen table in 2005: To create opportunities for women who write and comment on blogs to gain greater exposure for their writings, opinions and beliefs -- and we find that our membership embraces the entire political spectrum. We have pro-life members. We have pro-choice members. We have every permutation of politics under the sun and we love that. This is why we partnered with GlobalGiving on BlogHers Act, our community's initiative to improve the world by harnessing the power of women online (more here). GlobalGiving is key because:

1. GlobalGiving investigates every project to make sure that:
* Their work has significant social impact.
* They have a track record for delivering on promises.
* They are not listed in any terrorist databases.
* Their projects are eligible for international philanthropic donations — so donors in the US receive full tax benefits.
Read more about GlobalGiving's due diligence here: http://www.globalgiving.com/dd.html

2. GlobalGiving offers us donors a money-back guarantee that our money will go to helping people via specific projects, not paying for administrative overhead. Read the guarantee here: http://www.globalgiving.com/guaranteed/index.html

You can read more about individual programs here: Pro-life? Pro-choice? Pro-Saving women's lives? Here's how we can work together

Now -- please, won't you help?

Photo credit: Hla Hla Htay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Image, via The New York Times