Oh, the places you can go… when change is on your mind.
As an online influencer, I always vowed to use my powers for good and found the perfect opportunity when I met the team from Shot@Life last summer.
Shot@Life is a campaign that is sponsored by the UN Foundation and funded both privately and publicly. The goal of the campaign is simple: to save children’s lives. The strategy is just as simple: create a movement to protect children worldwide by providing life-saving vaccines where they are most needed.
What spoke to me the most was the harrowing statistic that every 20 seconds, somewhere in the world, a child dies from a vaccine-preventable illness. Diseases like polio and measles, which many people think have long since been eradicated are still prevalent in many parts of the world. Shot@Life aims to provide on-the-ground support for programs that help to facilitate and administer life-saving vaccines, often in difficult or dangerous regions of the world.
But the movement is gaining traction, primarily because it’s seeing results. Polio remains in only three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. There is a very good shot (pun intended) that we will see polio eradicated in our lifetime. But only with the right support.
As one of the Shot@Life Champions, I recently had the honor of attending the Champions Summit in Washington, DC to learn, educate, and advocate for the cause of global childhood vaccinations. Along with 100 or so other Champions (including bloggers, photographers, pediatricians, pediatric nurses, non-profit advocates), we met with our Congressional representatives to share more about the cause and why it mattered to us as constituents.
While my role as a Shot@Life Champion is a personal one, it’s thrilling to see my personal world collide with my professional one. Johnson & Johnson is a marketing partner of Shot@Life and a sponsor of the Global Mom Relay, an event that is bringing together today’s leading global and local voices to discuss the importance of strengthening the health of mothers and children around the world.
Stay tuned as we continue to bring you more details about the Global Mom Relay and how you can get involved!
Fadra Nally is a Communications Specialist for Johnson & Johnson. When she’s not working, she’s mothering a precocious 6 year old in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD. In her spare time, she writes all.things.fadra, one of the Top 100 Mom Blogs for 2012 according to Babble.com. She’s also the co-founder of Charitable Influence.