Global Soccer Mom: Changing the World Is Easier Than You Think - eBook

Shayne Moore, MA is an author, speaker, mama of three, and outspoken advocate in the fight against extreme poverty and Global AIDS. Shayne is one of the original members of the ONE Campaign, The Campaign to Make Poverty History. www.one.org. Moore sits on the executive board of directors for Upendo Village, an HIV/AIDS clinic in Kenya. www.upendovillage.org and on the board of directors for Growers First, which empowers rural farmers in the developing world. www.GrowersFirst.org Shayne has written for ONE's blog, Christianity Today's Gifted for Leadership, and pens a column in the magazine, FullFill. Check out her personal blog at www.GlobalSoccerMom.com. Shayne is a member of Redbud Writers Guild. www.RedbudWritersGuild.com.

1. Become a member of ONE, www.one.orq. By becoming a member of ONE, you are immediately in the conversation, receiving email alerts, blogs, and "What We're Reading" lists. ONE does the sifting of information and delivers articles and points of action in manageable pieces for the average American.

2. Read books and articles to expand your personal understanding of extreme poverty and global disease and how to combat them effectively.

3. Support small indigenous projects. Find organizations that are run by the people for the people. Give of your resources and your time.

4. Join Facebook "causes" pages of your favorite organizations and follow them on Twitter. In this age of online social networks, we have unprecedented ways to receive and share information quickly and effectively.

5. Participate in a local HIV/AIDS walk/run, or any race or marathon to raise money for your favorite cause.

6. Learn who your Congressional representatives are and write letters to them expressing your concerns. Did you know your representatives keep local office hours and you can make appointments to talk to them in person about what is important to you?

7. Get involved locally with issues of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Get tested for HIV yourself and set an example that everyone should know their status. Help create a community that can modify the experience of being tested-for instance, advocating home-based HIV testing so that this experience is safe and accessible for all people. Reach out to the HIV/AIDS community around you and encourage your church to do the same.

8. Buy (RED) products, where proceeds go to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. (RED) products can be found at places like Starbucks, Apple, Dell, Converse, Hallmark, American Express, and Gap.

9. Get involved with World Vision and its Women of Vision programs. Sponsor an at-risk girl, and she will get an education through twelfth grade. The single best way to get a nation out of poverty is to educate the girls. Go to World Vision's website and explore the programs and the opportunities for meaningful involvement. Learn how World Vision fights to stop gender-based violence and how it fights for gender equality with a goal of empowering both men and women in areas ravaged by poverty and disease.

10. With what you have learned, travel to other churches or women's groups and give presentations to educate, inspire, and mobilize other women to get involved.

Shayne Moore, a stay-at-home mom of three, shows her fellow moms how they can make a difference in a world of overwhelming problems in her new book Global Soccer Mom: Changing the World Is Easier Than You Think. She's calling for a movement of "global soccer moms" to start right where they are and help change the world. Shayne attests that everyday moms care deeply about heartbreaking issues such as poverty and disease. They long to engage the world in a meaningful way but often don't know where to start. Her own first steps were tentative and fumbling, but her work has since taken her far beyond her comfortable suburban home outside Chicago to Africa, Honduras, Russia and to international economic summits. As she moved into the arena of global advocacy, she's worked alongside superstars such as Bono, George Clooney and Julia Roberts and with African HIV/AIDS activists such as Ugandan nurse Agnes Nyamayarwo.

Shayne's wake up call came when she heard that Bono would be speaking at Wheaton College - right there in her hometown, at her alma mater - and her inner fangirl determined to see him. "Bono did something that woke up the sleeping woman and the compassion from deep within me. He called the American church to action. A non-American, non-evangelical, non-mainstream Christian stood on the stage of an elite Christian college and took the role of prophet, calling the church to action."

Galvanized by what she learned that day about the extent of global poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Shayne began taking steps to do something about it. Way out of her comfort zone at the first advocacy meetings she attended, she found that just taking the risk to show up yielded fruit. She kept going, kept praying and kept learning.

That's Shayne's advice to her fellow moms. Even today, she admits she can feel overwhelmed at her ignorance - the world of global advocacy and policy is complicated and the problems enormous. But the first step is to become part of the conversation.

Shayne thinks of herself not as a feminist, or a liberal or a member of the religious right, but as an everyday housewife, mother and friend. An evangelical Christian, she believes that the issues can unite people, rather than divide them. "I may never have all the answers when it comes to what divides the church or our nation," she says, "but if I am sure of one thing it is this: I am not wrong if I am working on behalf of the poor and the oppressed."

"I see a new kind of global woman's movement much bigger than simply raising money for favorite causes," Shayne says. "I have come to believe that this passion, this heart, this new way to be a full time mom is a conversation God is having with women all over America. The women I talk to want to do more than just write a check. Women are expressing their broken hearts for the world, the desire to get involved in a meaningful way."

"I am convinced more than ever that real change happens right where we are. It starts with the obedience of a compassionate heart. There is no limit to what our one compassionate voice can do when it is shared with others in making the world a better place. I am only one woman, with one voice, who lives in one town, and goes to one church - but all our "ones" add up. Together we can change the world."

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