Today is World Health Day and the Guardian is asking its readers and Flickr users to take photos with a message on global health. Here’s our message:
Women are dying every day giving life – approximately 40 women every hour, a 34% decline from 1990 levels. Pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading cause of death and disability for young women. While the number is decreasing, 99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries. And in developing countries, 215 million women who want to avoid pregnancy do not use an effective method of contraception.
We believe one of the world’s biggest health challenges will be meeting Millennium Development Goal 5 – improving maternal health by cutting maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015 and guaranteeing universal access to reproductive health.
There are cost-effective solutions that can save girls and women’s lives, like family planning programs, access to skilled care before, during, and after childbirth, including emergency obstetric care, and safe abortion, when and where legal. To deliver these solutions, we need to prioritize young people, strengthen national health systems that deliver for women, and advance and protect human rights for girls and women. Women Deliver’s message is that maternal health is both a human right and a practical necessity for sustainable development.
Do you want to participate?
If you are on Flickr, you can submit your photo to the group: www.flickr.com/groups/guardianglobaldevelopment.
If you are not on Flickr, don't worry – you can email your photo to development@guardian.co.uk and they will add it to the Flickr group for you. Ideally, please add some information when you post or email your picture so we know who you are, where you're from and what your message means to you, although you're free to remain anonymous, of course. By posting your pictures in this group, or sending it to them in response to this request, you agree to let them use it on their site and potentially in the newspaper (though copyright remains with you at all times, and you will be credited).
What's your message?
Entry Comments
good post
While many people are still fighting over the issue of legalizing abortion, many people are ignoring the fact that there are so many deaths due to complications at birth that could have been prevented by abortion or contraception. Should we always let moral issues hold us back from the real change we could actually make?
If it were me, I would like to bring light to the poor living conditions in the slums of India. There is no availability of drinkable water, and the number of qualified doctors with affordable rates in the rural areas is truly appalling. More people should see that, and know that the globalisation of India’s wealthiest does not help the people in the rural areas.
If it were me, I would like to bring light to the poor living conditions in the slums of India. There is no availability of drinkable water, and the number of qualified doctors with affordable rates in the rural areas is truly appalling. More people should see that, and know that the globalization of India’s wealthiest does not help the people in the rural areas.