Celebrate Mama’s Day Everyday!
Our Mama’s Day Brunch was a wonderful success thanks to your presence and support. The photos from our amazing shoot will be available soon!
May 13 is just around the corner, and so is another chance to celebrate the mamas in our lives. We are tired of the same commercials for cleaning products and Hallmark cards, along with the message that we just want material things for Mother’s Day. While flowers and robes are welcome, we know the mamas in our lives want and need much more — love, support, connection, and policies that support our families as they are.
Much of what we see and hear every day in the news and TV gives the impression that there is one right way to have a family, but we know that the vast majority of us living in the US today don’t live in a nuclear family behind a picket fence. Whether it’s immigration status, sexual orientation, race or class, we are asbeautiful as we are varied. SPARK, as founders of the Dignity & Wellness for Georgia Families Coalition and as a partner in the Strong Families coalition, a 10-year national initiative to change the way people think, feel and act in support of families, believes that all families matter. Yours, mine and all of ours.
This Mama’s Day, we are proud to bring you lots of ways to show and share you care:
Share Stories: Mother’s Day Celebration in South Atlanta
On May 12, Project South will host its 2nd annual Community Forum. Join mothers and their supports in the South Atlanta area to discuss issues women of color face such as lack of assistance with childcare and a decreasing number of childcare options. We will also celebrate the resilience of mothers with music, free food, and exclusive tokens of love and appreciation.
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| Strong Families E-Card available at www.mamasday.org! |
This Mama’s Day, you have a whole new way to show love to the mamas in your life. Nine artists designed cards for you to customize and share. The full set will be available on May 8th, but you can see a sneak preview here. When they are released, we hope you will send, share and savor these beautiful cards.
Media Literacy Project, Strong Families, and Thousand Kites need your help to produce Calls from Home: Mama’s Day Special, a radio project that connects incarcerated mothers to their families, friends, and communities. With your support we’ll send voices through barbed-wire to our millions of neighbors behind bars this Mama’s Day.
Sing a song, read a prayer, speak from the heart and let our mamas behind bars in our nation’s prisons know you’re thinking about them. Call to our toll-free 24/7 answering machine now at 877-410-4863 to leave a recording we’ll play over the air.
Follow Strong Families on Facebook and Twitter, and join us by tweeting #mamasday to share the love!
Thank you so much for remaining a fierce fighter for justice this year, all year, every year. We couldn’t do this without you!
Watch the Dignity & Wellness for Georgia Families Coalition present HB653 to the SI&P Committee
Presentation begins at 1 hour.
We will no longer be rendered invisible. We will no longer be silent.
The Georgia 2012 Legislative Session has already begun. In order to ensure that our policy priorities are met, we need to continue to mobilize, inform and demand policies that reflect our commitment to realizing freedom, dignity, and justice.
This year, our legislative imperative is to end the inhumane practice of shackling pregnant women who are incarcerated during transport, labor, delivery, and recovery. In coalition with medical providers, incarcerated women, activists, organizational partners, and elected officials, we are working diligently to pass HB653, The Giving Birth in Safety and Dignity Bill, which will help ensure dignity, wellness, and safety for women, children, and families in our state.
We will also continue to challenge policies that mandate that our bodies and sexualities are dangerous and should be regulated and controlled while shifting policy priorities toward a more just society. With your support, we are sure to make the changes we need to build a better, more liberatory community in Georgia!
Register NOW and join us for the 5th Annual Legislate THIS!
Shawanna Nelson was sentenced to six years in prison for credit card fraud and bad checks, she was 5.5 months pregnant at the time she was incarcerated. When she went into labor at the hospital her legs and arms were shackled to her bed despite the presence of an armed guard.
