Sometimes you walk into a room and passion overwhelms you.  I don’t mean that kind of passion. I mean the passion for the greater good – passion with purpose. That happened this week as the United Nations (UN) Foundation unveiled its Shot at Life campaign. With a simple elegant phrase they sum up the need for basic vaccines in the developing world and ask Americans to take notice that the rest of the world’s children need the same shot at life that our kids have.

The program asks mothers and fathers, concerned citizens et al, to think about the milestones in kids lives and how many are missed by children who do not survive because they die from otherwise preventable disease. 

Shot at life will raise awareness, ask for money and do the work. 

Peg Willingham, 
Executive Director, Global Vaccines Campaign, hosted a group of primarily women bloggers to draw us into her cause. The program is partially backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation along with UNICEF, the Red Cross and others. It was her passion that seeped into our skin.

Shot at Life tugs at your heartstrings. It’s a movement to protect children worldwide by providing life-saving vaccines where they are most needed. Peg asks, “Why can’t every mom see her child grow up?” If that is a dream, then she asks us to take action to make that dream come true: Donate. Act. Share. This is the kind of social good we can do from our desks no matter how many hours we work.

The numbers speak for themselves: a child dies ever 20 seconds in the developing world from a disease that could have been prevented by a common vaccine.

In addition to Shot at Life, the United Nations Foundation is partnering with ABC News on ‘Million Moms Challenge” – the idea of connecting a million mothers in developing nations with a million moms in the US to help supply basic needs of all kinds including vaccines. 

Both programs were launched in conjunction with the UN Foundation’s Social Good conference underwritten by the digital leader, Mashable, and as the United Nations Security Council was meeting in New York City, with President Obama and others negotiating the needs of governments and the Clinton Global Initiative, hosted by President Clinton, which says its mission “is to inspire, connect, and empower a community of global leaders to forge solutions to the world's most pressing challenges. “ and creating partnerships to make things happen.

President Clinton’s guests are wide-ranging from President Obama and Desmond Tutu to Britain’s former first couple Prime Minister Tony Blair and Cherie Blair, a women’s rights’ activist, Geena Davis, actress and activist on issues surrounding girls and women, and social media entrepreneur (and our workmom friend) Emily McKhann of The Motherhood.

Members in CGI later publish their commitments to following through.

While the world’s leaders are dealing with the politics that often separates us, it’s clear others are designing grassroots concrete programs to get something done now. For most of us, the ability to do an act of charity comes down to what we can while going about our days raising families and working for a living. “Shot at Life” and “A Million Moms” gives us a chance to do just that.

Here are a couple of tweets:

Together we can help children around the world celebrate 1st birthdays. Join @unfoundation @shotatlife http://shotatlife.org #workmom

ABC News Launches Million Moms Challenge, How You Can Join #amillionmoms http://t.co/1u1AxTiG

Will you find a way to join these movements?