Hello my name is Deirdre Munro. I would love to tell you about our Global Village Network Community.
It all began in Prague 2014 at the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM). I attended ICM meetings with my colleague Naomi O’Donovan, as Irish delegate observers, sponsored by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. At the time midwifery morale in Ireland was at an all time low. At ICM I met fabulous midwives from all over the world and the energy was electrically charged with positivity – which I now term ‘Protonic’ (i.e. positively charged).
I was honoured to carry the Irish flag for my country, I met Sally Goodwin carrying the English flag and many amazing inspirational midwifery leaders from all over the world. I wanted to keep this momentum alive.
At ICM conference I attended a twitter workshop where Sheena Byrom OBE and Carmel McCalmont both inspirational leaders, taught us how to tweet, we became twitter buddies. I wanted to bottle this protonic energy and had a idea… to set up a Global Village of Midwives. Sheena Byrom said ‘Just Do It’ and I did, here in Prague the Global Village Midwives was born onto twitter.
When I arrived home I stayed in contact with midwives on twitter and followed many midwives from all over the world. The Global Village Midwives has an open door policy. Everyone is welcome (#AllinThisTogether). It includes women, dads, partners, families, doulas, doctors, midwives, birth attendants, one and all. There is one rule only and that is ‘Kindness Always’. It is a network to support, listen, hear, learn, understand and action. We share research, tweet chats, think tank, inspire, design, laugh and cry. We coin new words; #myomo = when something squeezes your heart (and/or squeezes your uterus where applicable) this is called a ‘myometrium moment’ (#myomo). #Protonic = Positive thoughts and actions creates a pandemic of positivity, also known as #protonicpractice. #OxyHug = a virtual hug to increase the love hormone oxytocin which helps someone feel loved and supported.
We campaign to save lives, to promote compassion, kindness, evidence, safety. We are involved with; skin to skin campaigns, optimal cord clamping, promote colostrum globally, designed new models of holistic care for many countries. Outputs are lengthy, protonic and organically evolving. We have many Global Village Midwives tweet ups and face to face meet ups, thus creating a safe space to support, to share and facilitate a breeding ground of human connectivity, kindness virtually and in reality. Today our Global Village of Midwives connects with 42 countries.
Twitter: @GlobalVillageMw
Website: https://globalvillagemidwivesdotcom.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Globalvillagemw
World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS)
2015 Gareth Presch founded the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS). I was invited to join the WHIS team. I shared our Global Village Midwives story at the first WHIS Summit in Carlisle, Cumbria March 2016 alongside Sally Goodwin (Midwife, Professor of Kindness) and Jenny Clarke (Midwife, Skin to Skin Birth Campaigner). Here I had the courage to call the audience to action, to set up their own Global Village, special thanks to the School for Health and Care Radicals founded by Helen Bevan, Helen and her Horizons team transformed me into a change agent and filled me to the brim with courage.
Birth of New Global Villages
The call to action at the World Health Innovation Summit gave birth to the Global Village of Mental Health, founded by an amazing woman called Soni Cox, a Counsellor, Supervisor and Creator of the My Way Code Mental Health Programme . The Patron is Josh Quigley known as The Tartan Explorer, he is travelling our globe creating mental health awareness and sharing his story of suicide and survival.
Today our Global Village of Mental Health is connected to 18 countries.
Twitter: @GlobalVillageMh
Website: http://www.globalvillagementalhealth.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GlobalVillageMentalHealth/
The Global Village of Ability is founded by Wayne Donoghue, a dad of two severely disabled children, a campaigner for disabled rights. He felt there was no support for families in his situation and founded The Global Village of Ability. The goal is to focus on the ability not the disability, to support families of disabled children. Wayne states ‘we are all human and make mistakes, that is what makes us stronger, we must try and try again, never give up.’ The Global Village of Ability connects to 18 countries. Twitter @AbilityGVillage
The Global Village of Health Translation is founded by Olive O Connor. Olive is a mum, patient and carer to three daughters who each have chronic conditions and is also a promoter of practical and thoughtful communication regarding health information. Olive felt that there was a need for a Global Village of Health Translation as she ‘wanted to bring people together who were interested in simplifying medical terminology during communication processes and also making sure people understand the context in how these words were used. The Global Village of Health Translation is considerate of person and family centred experiences of health care, relating and translating their care in a family friendly and simple way.’
Twitter: @GlobalVillageHT
Global Village Network Community now and into our future:
There are many more protonic Global Villages in utero. It is such an exciting time in our lives to have the capability to connect, to interconnect and improve each others lives glocally and globally.
Our goal is to improve one life because improving one life, improves a family, improving a family improves a community, improving a community improves populations and generations. This all begins with you and me. We need to value ourselves and each other, to be kind to each other, to share knowledge, value each other and instil courage and belief that we can do this, we can improve and save lives together. It doesn’t matter where we live, who we are, it is a Global Village and we all matter. ‘Words are but leaves and deeds are the fruit’ we can connect and we can action together. Now I call on you to create a Global Village…
Twitter: @DeirdreMunro
