“Mummy, have there been any emergencies today?” is a common question in my household where my five-year old daughter is used to mum disappearing upstairs on the occasional weekend due to, for example, a natural disaster hitting a country.

Explaining what I do to Chloe isn’t easy. I tell her that I help people by writing stuff on a computer. This gets translated to her friends in amusing ways. One of her classmates’ parents recently texted me asking if I was a superhero, saying her daughter had heard that I “rescue people who are going to die”.

“Yes”, I responded, “I like to travel through space and time saving people in tights and cape (once the kids are in bed)”.

Certainly, having young children brings the professional issues I work on daily into personal perspective. The injustice of children dying from preventable diseases because they haven’t had the jabs that most of us take for granted in the UK is brought into startling clarity some nights when I have the energy to feel thankful for my (seemingly inexhaustible) healthy little ones.

And it seems that I am not alone. Mums up and down the land are raising their voices to make sure that world leaders use their 4 hours at the global vaccines summit to save 4 million lives.

Creative ways to spread the word

And they’re coming up with creative ways to spread the word and make some noise in the run up to the event.

Two mum bloggers, Sleep is for the weak, and Red Ted Art Blog, have launched a meme – basically an idea to pass on information – that “combines a healthy dollop of potentially world-changing charity action with a bit of a challenge and crafty fun.”

The idea? To get your child to do a self portrait of themselves now or in the future and to pass it on to eight other bloggers – more information here. So, we took up the challenge. I say we, but, more accurately, my 5-year-old daughter took up the challenge with gusto and here is the result:

Chloe’s drawing of herself when she’s ten. She focussed a lot on her teeth: “I might be missing a few teeth by then.”

Lots of other mums are also taking part.

Mums in Mozambique

Three mums are using their super powers in Mozambique this week to follow a vaccine from a cold store to a sweltering rural health centre in the country. Follow their journey here.

Who knew being a superhero, even if it’s just for five minutes, could be so easy?