Around the world gender equality has made great strides over the past few decades, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
The GlobalMoms Initiative (GMI) is a decentralized nonprofit organization that supports every mom to be “yourself.” This network is run by volunteers all over the world. As one volunteer says, GMI is creating social imaginations with and for moms.
The whole volunteer team currently consists mainly of mothers, females, and young professionals. GMI is by no means limited to women only. Women’s development and the realization of gender equality require everyone’s constant efforts, including fathers, men, and society at large, since the outcome of gender equality is highly relevant to the physical and mental well-being of every individual and every family.
Even though the decision to form GMI was instantaneous, it was based on many years of accumulated knowledge, discussions with key stakeholders, and reflections from the personal experiences of its founder Jane Li.
We spoke with Li to find out more about her initiative, and how others can get involved.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Jane Li, a full-time philanthropy adviser based in Beijing, also the founder and chief volunteer of GlobalMoms Initiative, and a mother of an 8-year-old boy. I like to see myself as who I am and make decisions based on my inner calling. My educational background covers international relations, political science, and nonprofit management, which enables me to see the world quite uniquely from my fellow colleagues or friends. I see myself as a global citizen who has a social responsibility to make this world a better place for everyone.
I am a super fan of music, visual art, and global traveling, it always inspires me and lifts me up when I am down or feeling stuck. My overall feeling of life is that “I think I have everything I need now,” and this feeling also urges me to give and do more to support others, especially moms who are in different challenging situations around the globe, with whom I share the mom identity.
When was GMI founded?
GMI was officially launched on Sep 27, 2021, but it took me a year before that to ideate GMI based on my earlier interest in MomQ research. MomQ is a word created by myself, compared with IQ, EQ, and many other Qs. It refers to the traits and characteristics that contribute to moms’ wisdom and attitude to overcome all kinds of life challenges or even crises regardless of who we are, where we are from.
What prompted you to start GMI?
It started suddenly one day when I was on the call with my friend Sonja, who is a mom and also a woman leader in a philanthropy organization in Seattle. We chatted about mothers’ pain points, and I asked her “what is the good thing about being a mom?” Instantly our talk froze, and we could not think of the immediate answers to the question, and then I turned around to ask my mom who happened to sit nearby, and she said, “I don’t know.”
The answer struck me so hard and then “globalmoms support globalmoms” just popped up in my mind, that is where it began. After that call, I started to use my expertise in nonprofit management to draft up a plan for GlobalMoms Initiative and asked friends around for feedback, with the progress of iteration lasting for about 12 months, I decided to kick it off.
Can you tell us about the 13 early adopters? How did this group come together?
Most early adopters are my friends who knew my thoughts from the very early beginning, and they have contributed a lot to GMI’s ideation process. To name a few, firstly my husband Eric and my brother Lionel, they show unconditional trust and support; Sonja, who now lives in Seattle with her husband and two children, who have been taken on mothering job since the day one of her first child born nearly 20 years ago and knew so deeply how challenging it is to be a mom while fulfilling her own dreams; Jasmine, who is from Hong Kong, and a new mom, a social entrepreneur as well as philanthropy catalyst; Margerat, who was full-time mothering for about five years and just came back to the workplace a year ago; and Yang Fei, my university classmate, she has two daughters who she loves deeply but also worries about their future development due to prevalent gender-based bias.
After the launch day of GMI, we also received more support from other old and new friends, and I started to answer their queries and tried to get their support. Some of them just clicked with the idea and decided to join in immediately. Basically, that is the way we came together.
Can you tell us a bit about some of the moms GMI has been able to help?
We have two flagship programs going on, the #MomStory100 and #MomCEO100 Empowerment Plans, which reinforces each other’s efforts and both aim to reach and support moms who are underserved or underrepresented, such as moms of children with disabilities, full-time moms in crisis, juggling working moms, struggling mom entrepreneurs at their -1 to 1 business stages, regardless of ages, geography, nationality, social status or so.
We reach moms in need through snowballing and social networks domestically and internationally. For example, we did one feature story on a mom with two visually impaired children. Her nickname is Dou Dou, she said this to GMI, “First of all, I think the story recorded my past eight hard years, it helped me sort it out. I guess I wasn’t so sure about my life. By expressing myself and my experiences in the form of stories, I feel clearer, and I have a stronger sense of myself, I feel better, and I feel less anxious.”
And another example is from Mai Miao (nickname) who joined our #MomCEO100Club from Day 1 and was thinking to start up a new social business to support high school students with mental health challenges. After going through the series of online brainstormings through GMI’s more to one volunteer support group, she said, “according to the group discussions, I had a clearer thought on my business plan. Despite that I was kind of pushed forward by the supporters, I have not stopped, and I tried to make it happen.”
Why is it important to help moms?
Various studies aside, it’s clear that moms need support in many ways. They, like any other human beings, have their interests and hobbies, personal and professional life aspirations, dreams, and goals. After becoming a mom of one, two, three, or more children, a woman has so much workload in life that without support from workplaces, families, and societies in general, they hardly exist, from task to task. Their mental and physical conditions worsen, their productivity decreases, and their dreams slowly fade away. You see it through your mom’s story, through your own story, through your friend’s story, through your colleague’s story, or a neighbor’s story. If you look around, you surely can see it.
And we generalized a 3D and 3U pinpoints map as below.
Are volunteer opportunities only open to women? Are there any geographical or age restrictions?
The short answer is that we welcome everyone because everyone has a mother from our birth. Right now, our volunteers are mainly moms, professional youth, university, and high school students, but we would like to draw more people’s attention, especially from youth and dads, in the end. Moms need everyone’s understanding and support to grow and shine in the family, community, and workplace.
How can people from the community get involved? What can they do to help?
We have short-term and long-term volunteer schemes.
- For short-term volunteers: complete at least one momstory interview, writing, or editing for #MomStory100 project; or complete at least one club meeting for #MomCEO100 club.
- For long-term volunteers: interview, write, or edit at least one momstory per month for #MomStory100 project; or complete at least one club meeting per month for #MomCEO100 club.
Are there any events coming up that readers can take part in?
Right now we’re in urgent need of volunteers, so we will hold an online Q&A session with potential volunteers through Tencent Meeting Room in early April, for whoever is interested to join the session, please kindly add me (WeChat ID: iamhyxljfamily) or GMI Global Partnership and Program Director Ms. Mari (WeChat ID:mariamski), or send emails to us through info@globalmomsinitiative.com.
“I was contacted by Jane, a founder of GMI to join GMI International Advisory Board. I worked for women’s organization and I volunteered my time to empower women in Beijing, specifically focusing on working moms, as they face more challenges as they strive to achieve physical and mental well-being,” Mari Sharashidze tells Jingkids. “Due to the pandemic, I had to leave China. When Jane shared about GMI and its values, I felt reconnected with the moms community in Beijing and I decided to take an active role to try to support moms in any way I can, this time online from Europe. GMI seems to be putting its heart into the work and I sense that it can truly become a global moms community.”
Whether you’re in Beijing for a few short months or settling down here for good, if you support their message, then GMI wants to hear from you.
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Images: Jane Li, Pexels
