Important Holidays To Remember

March is Women’s History Month.

Feminist Coming Out Day/International Women’s Day March 8th

What is International Women’s Day?

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8th of every year. It is an occasion marked by women’s groups around the world. This date is also
commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women all over the world, often divided by national
boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, and political differences, come together to celebrate their day, they can look back to a tradition
that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace, and development. To read more about this, go to the “International Women’s Day” page.

What is International Day Of The Girl?

International Day Of The Girl is celebrated on October 11th of every year. International Day Of The Girl is about celebrating, highlighting, discussing, and advancing girls lives and opportunities all over the world. When girls
come together to talk about what really matters to us, we can teach other people a new way of thinking about issues like gender stereotypes, discrimination, and opportunity. International Day Of The Girl is to help galvanize worldwide enthusiasm for goals to better girls lives, providing an
opportunity for them to show leadership and reach their full potential.

Earth Day-April 22, 2008

You can search Google for more information on Earth Day, just type in “earth day” in the search box.

Here are some ways that you can celebrate Earth Day. These can be found here: http://www.wikihow.com/Celebrate-Earth-Day

1.) Plant trees. As the date also roughly coincides with US Arbor Day, over time Earth Day has taken on the role of tree-planting. Planting trees helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, clean pollution, secure soil in place to prevent erosion, and provide homes for a lot of biodiversity.

2.) Make nature crafts at school or home. Get together with your family and build a birdhouse or make a bird feeder to encourage the local bird population, which plays an important role in every ecosystem. Use objects that would’ve otherwise been thrown away to create beautiful works of art…Here, the possibilities are endless:
*Turn used guitar strings into a centerpiece,
*make a basket from an old orange juice carton,
*convert an old floppy disk into a Starship Enterprise,
*or wear a skirt made out of old umbrellas

3.) Learn more about the environment. Earth Day is a good time to make a commitment to learning more about the environment and how you can help to protect it. Borrow some library books and read up on an issue such as pollution, endangered species, water shortages, recycling, and climate change. Or, learn about a region you’ve never considered before, like the Arctic, the deserts, or the rainforests. Think about the issues that concern you the most and if you haven’t done so already, join a local group that undertakes activities to help protect the environment in your area.

4.) Reduce, reuse and recycle all day long. Buy as little as possible and avoid items that come in lots of packaging. Support local growers and producers of food and products – these don’t have to travel as far and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Take your drink container with you, and don’t use any disposable plates or cutlery. Recycle all the things you do use for the day or find other uses for things that you no longer use. Carry a cloth bag for carrying things in and recycle your plastic bags.

5.) Get children to recycle their old toys and games. By giving their old toys and games to younger children who could make use of them, older children learn two lessons: One is about giving to others and the second is about reusing and recycling instead of throwing things away. Adults can also do this with clothes, electrical items, books and more. Learn about product exchange communities like Freecycle and other alternatives.

6.) Rid Litter. Rid litter from our roadways. Many groups use the weekend of Earth Day to clear roadways, highways and neighborhood streets of litter that has accumulated since the last clean-up day. Many companies donate gloves and bags for clean-up groups and villages organize bag pick ups. Once the group has collected the trash and placed the recycled bags along the road, get the village public works department to pick the bags up. It’s a wonderful community project. Great for scout troops, rotary clubs and the like.

7.) Sing or listen to “Earth” songs. There are many Earth Day song lyrics available on the Internet. Many follow well-known tunes. These make a fantastic classroom activity and help younger children to become interested in environmental topics. For listening, even iTunes has songs about the Earth for downloading: try searching for words such as “planet”, “Earth”, “endangered”, “pollution” etc.

8.) Hold an Earth Day fair. Maybe your school, your street, your local neighborhood is interested in getting together to have an environmental fair. Things to have at the fair include demonstrations of environmentally-friendly products, children’s artwork, healthy/locally grown foods to eat, animal care demonstrations (including wildlife rescue), games for the children made of recycled products, musicians and actors performing environmental music and skits, stalls which are recycling unwanted treasures and books, local environmental organisations presenting their issues and wares. Money raised can go towards a local environmental restoration project or to an environmental group agreed upon by all the participants running the fair.

9.) Teach others about the environment. Teachers, professionals, students, in fact anyone who cares about the environment and is willing to teach others, can all provide environmental lessons for others. Most schools already celebrate Earth Day in the classrooms with activities but there are many other ways you can teach about the environment. For example, give a speech at your local library on how to compost with worms; take a group of children down to the recycling center to show them how things are recycled; recite nature poems in the park; offer to teach your office colleagues how to make environmentally-friendly choices at work during one lunch hour. Everyone has environmental knowledge they can share with others.

10.) Wear green and/or brown. Dress in environmental colors for the day; think “tree”! Wear badges if you have them that carry pithy summaries of your environmental views.

11.) Engage others in conversations about your environmental concerns. Don’t be bossy or pushy, just tell people some facts and then explain your feelings about them. Encourage them to respond and if they have no opinions or they seem to not know much, help them learn some more by imparting your environmental knowledge in a friendly and helpful manner.

12.) Cook a special Earth Day meal. Plan a menu that uses locally produced foods, is healthy and has minimal impact on the environment. Favour vegetable and bean products, as these use less resources to grow than mass-farmed meat. If you still would like meat, look for locally produced, organic meat. Try and have organic food completely. Decorate the table with recycled decorations made by you and your friends.

13.) Consider buying a carbon offset to make up for the greenhouse gas emissions you create on the other 364 days of the year. Carbon offsets fund reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through projects such as wind farms, that displaces energy from fossil fuels.

14.) Ride your bike. Use your bicycle or other forms of human powered transportation to commute to work or school and to run errands.

15.) Remember: Every day is Earth Day. Anything to help our environment is a perfect thing to do on Earth Day and every day. Don’t restrict yourself to just one day a year; learn about how you can make a difference to environmental protection all the time. And put it into practice – every day!

The Herstory Of Mother’s Day-I found this here.

The History (AKA Herstory) Of Mother’s Day

Celebrating motherhood is a historical tradition dating back almost as far as mothers themselves. A number of ancient cultures paid tribute to mothers as goddesses, including the ancient Greeks, who celebrated Rhea, the mother of all gods. The ancient Romans also honored their mother goddess, Cybele, in a notoriously rowdy springtime celebration and the Celtic Pagans marked the coming of spring with a fertility celebration linking their goddess Brigid together with the first milk of the ewes.

During the 17th century, those living on the British isles initiated a religious celebration of motherhood, called Mothering Sunday, which was held on the fourth Sunday during the Lenten season. This holiday featured the reunification of mothers and their children, separated when working class families had to send off their young children to be employed as house servants. On Mothering Sunday, the child servants were allowed to return home for the day to visit with their parents. The holiday’s popularity faded in the 19th century, only to be reincarnated during World War II when U.S. servicemen reintroduced the sentimental (and commercial) aspects of the celebration American counterpart.

In the United States, Mother’s Day experienced a series of false starts before eventually transitioning into the “Hallmark” holiday that we celebrate today. In 1858, Anna Reeves Jarvis was the first woman to hold an official celebration of mothers, when in her home state of West Virginia, she instituted Mothers’ Work Day to raise awareness about local sanitation issues. During the Civil War, she expanded the scope of Mothers’ Work Day to include sanitary conditions on both sides of the battlefield.

Meanwhile Julia Ward Howe, author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, attempted to institute a national celebration of mothers that honored women’s inclinations toward peace (rather than cleanliness). In 1872, she initiated and promoted a Mother’s Day for Peace, to be held on June 2, which was celebrated the following year by women in 18 cities across America. The holiday continued to be honored by Bostonian women for another decade, but eventually phased out after Howe stopped underwriting the cost of the celebrations.

Then in 1905, Anna Reeves Jarvis passed away and her daughter, Anna Jarvis, took up her mother’s torch. Anna swore on her mother’s gravesite that she would realize her lifelong dream of creating a national day to honor mothers. In 1907, Anna launched her campaign by handing out white carnations to congregants at her mother’s church in Grafton, West Virginia. In 1908, her mother’s church acquiesced to Anna’s request to hold a special Sunday service in honor of mothers; a tradition that spread the very next year to churches in 46 states. In 1909, Anna left her job and dedicated herself to a full-time letter-writing campaign, imploring politicians, clergymen, and civic leaders to institute a national day for mothers.

In 1912, Jarvis’ efforts met with success: Her home state of West Virginia adopted an official Mother’s Day; two years later, the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, signed by President Wilson, establishing a national Mother’s Day emphasizing the role of women in their families; and not, like Julia Ward Howe’s campaign, in the public arena. Ever since, Mother’s Day has been celebrated by Americans on the second Sunday in May.

Perhaps the country’s greatest proponent of motherhood, Anna Jarvis ironically never had children of her own. Yet that didn’t stop her from making the celebration of Mother’s Day her lifelong mission. In fact, as the holiday took on a life of its own, Jarvis expressed frequent dismay over its growing commercialization. “I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit”, she is quoted as saying.

Women’s Month: March

Feminist Coming Out Day and International Women’s Day: March 8th

International Women’s Year: 1975

Earth Day: April 22nd

Women’s Equality Day: August 26

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: October

National Coming Out Day and International Day of the Girl: October 11

Human Rights Day: December 10th