Moms, Wake Up to Your Power

During the final days of apartheid, and in between high school and university, Australian-born Chrysula Winegar, spent a gap year in South Africa.

Winegar, now Senior Director of Communications at the UN Foundation, said in a recent interview, “That year in South Africa really opened up my heart to social justice issues; it opened my heart to what’s possible when people come together and coalesce around things that are wrong and find ways to act. It opened my eyes to what is a lifelong journey of trying to understand race issues from the perspective of someone who is incredibly privileged—you know, I’m white, I’m well educated, I have had every opportunity thrown my way. And so to spend a lifetime figuring out what your privilege is and how you can use it and leverage it to lift other people up and support that real change of injustice.”Chrysula is quick to point out that addressing these issues and changing the world for the better is not only the work of non-profits. Business plays a part in “making those cultural shifts happen because they’re responding to the zeitgeist of consumer pressure. There’s a real interplay in terms of whatever work we’re doing, whichever sector we’re in, that this deeper work can be done wherever we are.”

In fact, it isn’t necessarily work at all—the consumer zeitgeist she references can be simply a function of how we all spend; the choices we make with our dollars can impact not just the corporate bottom line, but the world’s bottom line as well.

The almighty power of the dollar is augmented today by the power of social media. Everyone has a platform to sound off on the issues that matter to them, whether their voice is heard by five friends or 500,000. “So it might be as simple as sharing something on social media because awareness is really powerful and that’s the number one reason that my community exists—to educate and give people information.”

Chrysula encourages “mothers in particular to find voice to those issues that they see are standing in their way and in the way of their children; that is enormously powerful…I think there’s a really powerful opportunity for mothers to unite around the things that they care about and speak out in loud, annoying ways to their legislators. When we knock on the doors of those legislators, and tell them, from our perspective as mothers, whom politicians supposedly revere, they will listen. They have no choice. We’re their bosses.”

There's a powerful opportunity for mothers to unite around things they care about and speak out in loud, annoying ways to their legislators.

Under her leadership, The Global Moms Challenge tackles a wide-range of health issues worldwide. A top priority is the eradication of polio—a nearly accomplished feat, except for lingering pockets of vulnerability for about one percent of the world’s population. Educating women—particularly but not exclusively—about the implications of climate and pollution, including indoor cooking pollution. Malaria. There is work to provide surgical repair for women who suffer life-ruining obstetric injuries during childbirth, injuries that are now uncommon in the West—but which Chrysula reminded me affected our grandmothers and their antecedents not that long ago. In fact, she is quick to say that the work of the Foundation, and her community in it, is relevant to all of us, and improves our lives, not just the lives of those whom we might think of as “over there.” There is no such distinction in the modern world.

The issues are not as much a matter of geography as they are of privilege. This is the theme that runs like a ribbon through Chrysula’s conversation. Of course, geography comes into play because some nations and regions enjoy, overall, a much higher level of what constitutes privilege than others do. But even in the U.S., there are those who lack access to the systems that support abundant health. Empowering women to be able to care for themselves and their children and to guard against health hazards and gain access to critically needed care.

“We talk a lot, particularly in America, about self-care,” Chrysula says. ‘I’ve got to take care of myself.’ Well, what does that really mean? It means time and money. And not everyone has those opportunities. I’m speaking about these things from a place of enormous privilege.”

Most of us in the States do enjoy enormous privilege compared to the deprivation that reigns in many of corners of the world as well as some of the blighted neighborhoods in our own communities. It’s privilege that, as Chrysula says, we can leverage to lift others. “You cannot bootstrap yourself…you cannot bootstrap your way out of ill health. Not in this country and not in very many countries around the world.”

Help Wanted.

To listen to the interview, read the show notes, and/or download the transcript of my interview with Chrysula, click here.

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Whitney Johnson is one of the world's leading management thinkers (Thinkers50), author of the critically acclaimed Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work and host of the Disrupt Yourself Podcast. You can sign up for her newsletter here.