China donation: The Library Project

It's my favorite time of the month - when we make our donation to an organization doing good work in our country of focus. 

Our donation this month will be going to The Library Project.  It's an organization that donates books and libraries to underfunded schools and orphanages in China.  They have donated over 350 libraries - and in them more than 300,000 Chinese language children's books.  Books and reading are such a big part of Whirls and Twirls that this was a natural fit. 

It was also something that The Whirl Girl could relate to.  We talked about how lucky we are to have a full bookshelf of our own and access to a library that has lots and lots of books.  And we talked about how some kids don't have any books at all.  We looked through The Library Project's website together, which has some great photos of kids receiving and reading books. 

And then for our card to send with the donation, we made a little book of our own.  I cut out some pictures from old cards and The Whirl Girl glued them onto paper, added some "words" of her own, and we stapled it all together with a note from me about our donation and our project. 

Kenya donation: Remembering Wangari Maathai

I received the news of the death of Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist on Monday night from BBC.  It brought tears to my eyes. We were part of the large community of people whose lives she touched and inspired.

We were introduced to Maathai when Whirls and Twirls went to Kenya.  A number of the picture books we read were about Maathai's work and life.  When we read these books together, they imparted an understanding of the importance of helping others, protecting our environment, and standing up for what is right.  The Whirl Girl asked lots of questions as we read them.  She learned that some people in the world have less than others and we talked about what kinds of things we can do to help. 

At the same time, I read Maathai's memoir.  I was moved by her story, and especially, of her description of how her courage grew over time.  She did not set out to be such a force in Kenyan society and politics, but rather kept responding to the great needs that she saw in her country.  It was a good reminder to me of the importance of fighting injustice on scales small and large.

We gave our first donation to her organization, The Green Belt Movement, with a card made by The Whirl Girl.  The Whirl Girl still asks me out of the blue - four months later - if Wangari got her card. 

That isn't the only way Wangari is remembered in our house.  Each night when The Whirl Girl takes a bath turns the water off quickly instead of playing so that she doesn't waste water.  She tells us that doing so "makes Wangari happy."  And as we were driving around Singapore last week, we noticed that they were cutting down a row of trees near our house to widen the road.  The Whirl Girl told us that Wangari wouldn't like that, as she remembered the description of Maathai planting trees in the books we read.


One of my main goals for starting Whirls and Twirls was to encourage The Whirl Girl's capacity for empathy and to develop her sense of responsibility to the wider world.  Learning and talking about Maathai was our first "experiment" in actively doing so.  It was just as good of a lesson to me as a parent as it was to The Whirl Girl.  I am grateful to see firsthand that there are age-appropriate ways to expose my daughter to the harsher realities of the world and to nurture her ability to care for others and our environment.  

Thank you, Wangari, for sharing your story, your dreams, and your determination with us.  Thank you for inspiring our family to make the world a better place. 

Peru donation: Awamaki

Our charity for this month is Awamaki, a Peruvian non-profit working with impoverished Quechua women weavers to improve their skills and increase their access to market, thereby revitalizing an endangered weaving tradition while affording Quechua women with a reliable source of income.

I like their work because it supports two causes close to my heart: the empowerment of women and the preservation of traditional handicrafts. While searching for a women's weaving cooperative, I came across Awamaki and was impressed by their wide range of activities including economic development, education, and sustainable tourism. They are also featured on Global Giving, a charity website that connects donors with innovative, grassroots organizations.

For The Whirl Girl, it tied in with our weaving craft and many of our books that were set in the Peruvian Andes. She liked the idea of helping aunties that make the colorful blankets, hats, and shawls that she saw in pictures and in her books. I explained that these aunties don't have very much money and by sending them a little bit, they can buy yarn and supplies. Then they can weave blankets and clothes, and sell them to make money. I can see that she is beginning to understand the concept of philanthropy, in her own 3-year-old way. (Hoorah!)

writing a note to the aunties

our card - a bit of coloring and a bit of weaving

Malaysia donation: Orangutan Foundation International

After reading books about orangutans, and then seeing them in the (semi) wild in Borneo, we were inspired to make our donation this month to an organization that helps orangutans and their habitat.

This was a cause The Whirl Girl could easily understand, especially since she saw how the "uncles" gave food to the orangutans at the Semenggoh Rehabilitation Centre that we visited near Kuching, Malaysia.


The organization that we selected is Orangutan Foundation International. It was founded by Birute Galdikas, a primatologist who moved to Borneo 40 years ago to study orangutans and has been there ever since. For my grown-up book this month, I read her memoir and found her work incredibly inspiring. Just as with our Kenya donation, I liked the idea of giving to an impressive woman that I had just learned a good deal about. Though - full disclosure - her work (and the book) is on the Indonesian side of Borneo, not the Malaysian side. But orangutans don't know the meaning of the national borders on their Bornean home, right?

As a bonus, Orangutan Foundation International offers the opportunity to "foster an orangutan." Basically, with your donation, you can choose an orangutan to support and then are given bio information and a certificate as a thanks. I thought this was a good way to make the idea of a donation more accessible to The Whirl Girl.

So she made a card to send to OFI, or as she said, "the people who take care of orangutans." I printed out a coloring page of orangutans for her to color, as her baby stuffed orangutan looked on (at her insistence).

Then, she "wrote" a note on the inside (and I deciphered it into English script on the opposite side).

And we packaged it up and sent it in the mail to OFI. Looking forward to getting something back about Omry, the baby orangutan that she picked from the website because he was described as the silly one.

Kenya donation: The Green Belt Movement

One of the things that is most important to me about Whirls and Twirls is to develop a sense of civic responsibility in The Whirl Girl. I want her to begin to understand, as best a 3 1/2-year-old can, the importance of giving back to her global community.

A couple of the picture books we read this month were about Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for "her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation." The book that made a particular impression upon The Whirl Girl was Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya. From this book she learned how Wangari Maathai helped poor women all over Kenya by planting trees, which helped provide food, firewood, and money.

I also read Wangari Maathai's memoir Unbowed as my Kenya book for the month. It was an inspiring account of her decades of efforts to improve the lives of women and the poor in Kenya.

After learning about her work, it was an easy choice to select Wangari Maathai's organization The Green Belt Movement for our donation this month. So that The Whirl Girl could understand the idea of making a donation, we made a tree collage with Kenyan fabrics. We wrote a note about how we are sending money to help plant more trees and mailed it to Wangari (and her organization).

The Whirl Girl with her card and the Mama Miti book