Momentum Partnerships

social marketing & corporate responsibility (CSR) & business and human rights

Money can’t buy happiness

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Money can’t buy happiness

Or can it? The saying ‘money can’t buy happiness’ isn’t always true…

If you live below the poverty line money will ensure you can buy yourself physical security and feel emotionally better due to the reduced stress that lack of money brings with it.

Disposable income can also be used to help others. Research suggests people who help others are happier than people who spent all of their money on themselves. Spare income allows us to donate to causes close to our hearts and leads to happiness.

Once we pass a certain threshold, namely $75,000US according to Economists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, we won’t be any happier when we earn more and upgrade existing and add more possessions to our own private empire.

The things that bring long-term satisfaction and contentment can’t be bought with money, on the contrary, instant gratification particularly can actually have the opposite effect. [Read more…]

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International Women’s Day: girls and women – where to from here?

Here we go again, it is International Women’s Day 2016. A great day to celebrate women’s achievements and their place in the world. If you are a man, cherish the women in your life. If you are a woman and lucky enough to live in circumstances that allow you to kick back and relax, do whatever makes you feel good – and yes, I know it is Monday, but what the heck! We deserve it 🙂

250 million girls live in poverty worldwide

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“together we can change our world”

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“together we can change our world”

When most people think Girl Guides they probably don’t think of progressive girls and young women who play a significant advocacy role in local and global issues?

Well,  think again everybody!

This is precisely what the 10 million members of the world’s largest  volunteer organisation for girls and young women do, with memberships across 145 countries including Australia.

As their Global Action Theme, girls worldwide say: “Together we can change our world”. This theme is based on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). An activity pack supports the curriculum and helps children and young women to learn about the MDG’s and, most importantly, to take action on the issues that affect them and their communities. [Read more…]

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the girl effect

On the 8 March 2011 we are celebrating the centennary of International Women’s Day – a good occasion to remind us of the plight of girls around the world.

Did you realise that currently:

  • women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, produce half the world’s food, and yet earn only 10 % of the world’s income and own less than 1% of the world’s property?
  • women make up 70% of the worlds 1.3 billion people who live in poverty?
  • women over the age of 15 in the least developed countries are twice as likely to be illiterate than men.

The solution? [Read more…]

“More than you’ll ever need … inside!”

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“More than you’ll ever need … inside!”

In keeping with our recent focus on consumption I was struck by the call of a Sri Lankan scientist to assist “rich countries to curb their climate-damaging consumption habits through a set of consumption goals  – in the same way the poor have ‘Millennium Development Goals’   (MDG’s) to get them out of poverty”.

What a brilliant idea!  His reasoning is obvious: 20% of the worlds richest people are responsible for 80% of consumption.

And of course, the always impressive team at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington responded to the call with a first draft: [Read more…]