The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here. If you have a story you’d like to share with us, please submit it here.
Moving to another country can be a difficult challenge for anyone, but leaving behind one’s friends and familiar surroundings is particularly hard as a first-time mother affected by postnatal depression. When faced with this scenario in 2006, Carly Gardiner of the United Kingdom turned to Facebook to draw support from other mothers living around her new home.
Carly had moved from the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, to Yeovil, a small town in Somerset, England, located nearly eight hours to the south by car. After connecting with a few local mothers in the area, she began to overcome some of her feelings of loneliness and isolation of being in a new place. Eager to foster relationships with her new friends, Carly created a Facebook group to coordinate informal events with her fellow “Yeovil Mums and Mummies to Be.” The fledgling group originally had just six members, but quickly blossomed into a forum of advice and support for more than 227 women.
Today, the group holds a variety of events for mothers and their children in the Yeovil area, including weekly trivia gatherings, live chats, charity events, nights out for mothers and fun days for kids. The success of the original “Mums and Mummies to Be” group has resulted in the creation of two additional groups devoted to specific interest areas — one for diet and exercise, and another that hosts a baby-of-the-month contest.
With millions of mothers like Carly joining Facebook, we continue to be inspired by the ingenious and meaningful ways they foster real-life connections with the people around them
Sara, an intern on the communications team, is sending her mom a message on Facebook.
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