For Mother's Day, Honor Your Mom by Helping Another Mother in Need

Mothers' Day is Sunday. If your mom is hard to shop for—and cares about other mothers in the world—here's an idea.

---

The International Rescue Committee has launched their From Harm to Home campaign that lets you take the money you might spend on flowers or a fancy meal for ma and put it toward services for refugee mothers who may not be seeing their children any time soon. Your mom gets a sweet card and a warm fuzzy feeling, the woman above, and her family of five, stay warm. That's for a $28 donation. The site has more than 20 items you can "buy" for refugee mothers and children around the world ranging from pocket money to $5,000 to equip a rural maternity clinic, pictured below.

Katherine Dillon of the IRC explains, “it's just a nice way to send your mother a card and recognize your mother in a thoughtful way.” Or for $52, the IRC can provide pre-natal care for a new mother living in a war-torn region.

For a donation of more than $50, your mom can get her own "Wake Up" bag.

"It's modeled after bags we distribute in Jordan to women who are at risk of domestic violence," Dillon says. "It has the IRC phone number inside, so women can carry it discretely, because if husbands or fathers found our card in their purse... it could have dangerous consequences. This way they can carry it discretely and reach out to us if they need.”

If you prefer to get the story of the bag's creation in video form, straight from a mother's mouth, watch it here.

Last year the IRC filled more than 1,000 orders. They're hoping to expand this Mothers' Day season.

And yes, this is a fundraising pitch, plain and simple, but the IRC is a vetted, high-impact organization doing good work—as we posted, recently named one of Devex's Top 40 Innovators. This campaign reveals how refugee aid work is done by turning the tools of the IRC uses into consumer "products" to buy for your mom, each with a pretty reasonable price tag. "It’s really about providing a window into work we do with women around the world and the tools we use." Dillon says.

Contemplating the need for the "Wake Up" bag, for example, shows how good we—and (most of) our moms—have it in the United States. And lucky as we are, I should note, there's still room for improvement here.

Save the Children just released its annual State of the World's Mothers report, ranking Norway at the top of the list of best countries to be a mom. Afghanistan was last and the United States dropped three places to 31st out of 43 developed countries.

So as you plan out how you will honor your own mother this weekend, consider what you can do for other mothers as well and what American could do overall. Let us know what you have planned.