My children don't know how lucky they are...so I'm passing it on

.. and that's not a criticism of them. They are 6 and 4 - how can they know that other children aren't as lucky as them? That they don't have a toy, let alone piles of them? That they don't get sweets, or sometimes food? Oh, and that they don't have access to water that is clean and safe, that doesn't make them ill when they drink it?

Health. It is something that they also take for granted. They don't understand that they are lucky to be well most days. That most regular diseases that could have killed them as young children are almost eradicated. That we have effectively palatial living conditions that despite the grubby nature, is clean and largely free of pathogens.

They don't know how lucky they are to have had immunisations to protect them from many killer diseases. They may not have felt lucky when sharp needles pierced their young flesh and squeezed a mystery liquid into their blood stream, although the sweets and stickers might have been worth it. But no, they don't know that because of those injections, their chances of reaching adulthood largely illness free are so much higher than children in developing countries.

But wait a minute. Is it a case that they are lucky, or the other children are unlucky not to have had their vaccinations? If my children, when adults, met someone from one of those countries - say, Mozambique - who suffered pain and poor health from childhood diseases as a result of NOT having those vaccinations, could they look them in the eye and say it was right that they were lucky? That it was right that they were UNlucky? All through an accident of where they were born?

It's not fair, is it? Truly, honestly, it's utterly unfair. But even today, 1 in 5 children receive no immunisation against killer diseases. At all. Save the Children are campaigning heavily to put pressure on world leaders who are meeting in London in June at the Global Vaccines Summit to get them to fund vaccines fully and stop this awful statistic - 25,000 children die every day, and a good proportion are entirely preventable.

To highlight this, the lovely Chris from Thinly Spread with two other bloggers, is going to Mozambique this weekend to follow a vaccine on its journey from the city to a rural community to see how it gets there intact - a challenge when it needs to be kept cold. It's going to be an incredible experience and one that will show HOW the GVS can make a difference if they put their collective minds to it.

Chris's journey will have added impact if we all add our voices to the campaign. We can't all go to Mozambique, but we can support the cause. Paula from Battling On came up with a great idea. It's called The Gift Tag.

Here's what you do:

1) Click here and sign the petition to save four million children’s lives

2) Click here to download your Pass It On gift tag

3) Print it, sign it and Pass it On, and on, and on, and on……

THEN you can either:

a) Blog about it, you can link back here or lift the instructions and place them on your own blog – doesn’t matter at all

b) Facebook it – post a pic of your signed Gift Tag to your facebook wall and tag all of your friends to Pass it On

c) Twitter – twitpic it and @ your followers to Pass It On

d) Print it out and Pass it On – to your neighbour, your mum, your local paper, your children’s school, the postman (you get the picture)

I haven't tagged anyone specifically, but if you're reading this and you haven't done this already, please consider yourself tagged.

Ultimately, my children don't know how lucky they are to have their health on top of all the possessions that they have. It doesn't have to be this way. We can change things. The GVS is scheduled to take four hours; in that time, they could make decisions that lead to the saving of 4 million children's lives every year. That's 4 millions fewer mothers deprived of their children by entirely preventable causes. In 4 short hours.

Let's make it happen. And make all children as lucky as mine, and yours. Pass it on, will you?

The Gallery - One Day in August

This week's Gallery prompt was to go out and take pictures on Sunday 29th August, which is the day that Josie, Sian and Eva left on their trip to Bangladesh to help raise awareness of the work that Save the Children do with mothers and children there and to help put pressure on Nick Clegg and other world leaders to recommit to the Millennium Development Goals. You can follow their progress on any of their blogs or you can check out #Blogladesh on Twitter.

Sunday was an odd day for me. I spent most of it alone. Monkey and Missy Woo went away on Saturday with Granny and Grandad to a caravan out in the Ribble Valley. Missy Woo comes back for a while on Wednesday (as she needs to be here for a home visit from her new teacher) and then Monkey comes home that night, to start back at school on Thursday. Anyway, enough of my family life. They're not here, so no gratuitous proud mummy pics of cute blonde children.

I was on my own also because husband was on a night shift so got to bed at 7.30am. I spent most of the day getting the house clean and tidy so that it would stay that way for more than one day, doing a workout and watching the Belgian Grand Prix. None of which is particularly noteworthy, exciting, or even photogenic. (You seriously don't want pix of me doing a workout!)

Once the house was clean and I was clean too, I had to pop out for groceries and to deliver newsletters to various NCT members in some of the outlying villages, something I do every few months. On my way, I considered stopping and taking a shot of the canal near us, but there was nowhere to stop safely and I was short of time. I went through a couple of villages and nothing struck me. I headed down to another part, and saw my shot. I just had to hope I could still do it when I came back having dropped off the last 3 newsletters and some things at my friend's house.

Well, I took it. I'm not sure it's as good as what was in my head for a picture - the light was probably better 5 minutes earlier. Here goes:

The building is the Preston Mormon Temple. It is one of only two temples in the UK and the largest in Europe. A temple was built here because Preston has the oldest continuous branch of the church, having been established by missionaries in 1837 who headed to Preston after arriving in Liverpool.

We can see the temple from our house; it's even lit up at night. Everyone who's ever travelled north on the M61 will have seen it because it is right next to the motorway and I use it as a point of reference regularly. I know I'm nearly home when I see the spire peaking out from above the trees from a distance. I've never been inside because you have to be a member of the church to enter. Before it was dedicated in 1998, they allowed public tours and I believe it's fantastic inside. The figure on the top that you can just make out is, apparently, Moroni, an ancient prophet who delivered a record that became the book of Mormon. It's traditional to have this figure blowing a trumpet on all temples and although the local rumour is that he is solid gold, he's apparently made of glass fibre covered with gold leaf. Around it is a family history centre, a training facility and accommodation for missionaries. You'd think we'd be bothered with missionaries all the time living this close to them but they've come to the door 3 times in 10 years. They are exceptionally polite and when you say "No thanks", they thank you and leave.

This is a place brought about by missionaries, who came to spread their word. It struck me that this is what Josie, Sian and Eva are doing, albeit in slightly different circumstances. They left on Sunday on an arduous and possibly emotional journey to see what Save the Children do in Bangladesh. They may not be there to convert the locals, but in blogging what they see, they are spreading the word. Except their blogs can reach around the world, raising awareness of the issues, convincing others of the need for change and asking those in power to do something about it.

So, my picture is a record of one day in August, and a parallel.