Updates

By: Sharon D’Agostino, Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Contributions and Community Relations, Johnson & Johnson

My heart is different this Valentine’s Day, a day when many celebrate love. It has been touched by individuals transforming the world by caring for girls and women who, for many reasons, feel neglected and unloved. Writing Valentine notes over the past several days to people I love, my mind followed a path back to the work that my team and I are privileged to do at Johnson & Johnson, work with community-based partners dedicated to saving and improving the lives of women and children. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Early marriage, combined with high levels of illiteracy, poor health services and poverty, have pushed Yemen's maternal mortality rate to the highest in the Arab world – 1 in 91 women will die during pregnancy and childbirth in Yemen. In a country where a woman will give birth to an average of 5.5 children in her lifetime, access to family planning services, local midwives, and quality health centers is essential to combating the nutritional deficiencies, infection during delivery, and unintended pregnancies that many Yemeni women face. In an effort to expand family planning options and safe delivery services in the region, USAID has partnered with Pathfinder International through the Basic Health Services Program (BHS). Operating in 5 governorates in north and eastern Yemen, the BHS program aims to renovate health facilities, improve the supply of maternal health commodities and services, and involve local leaders in reproductive health education. Read more...

TIME Magazine has recently published a great article addressing the need to focus more development aid on girls and recognizing those who are empowering teen girls to give back to the global community. Nancy Gibbs, the author of the piece, highlights the sad fact that "the leading cause of death for girls 15 to 19 worldwide is not accident or violence or disease; it is complications from pregnancy. Girls under 15 are up to five times as likely to die while having children than are women in their 20s, and their babies are more likely to die as well." It's this tragedy that Women Deliver is working so hard to change. Read more...