Updates

By: Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin; originally posted in The Huffington Post

My mother, Morenike Osotimehin, was a remarkable woman. A great entrepreneur, and an excellent wife to my father, who was a schoolteacher, she managed her own small business, sourcing fruits, and gave birth to eight children: four boys and four girls.

She was born in 1924, she was strong -- and she was an inspiration. Every day was a balancing act between work and the requirements of a big family. She understood that each one of us must live a productive life and contribute to society, and she insisted that we go to school, work hard and do our very best. But she also had a soft spot for those not doing so well. Apart from her own children, my mother regularly took in cousins and nephews who needed help. Sometimes there were as many as 15 of us in our home. Read more...

Every Mother Counts, an advocacy and mobilization campaign aiming to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction worldwide, invites the world to take part in their No Mothers Day campaign this Sunday, May 13th. No Mothers Day is a social issue campaign, being implemented to raise awareness about the hundreds of thousands of young girls and women who die each year during from causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth. The idea is to take a moment aside while many people in the world are celebrating their mothers to understand the issues surrounding maternal deaths around the world. As part of the campaign, the website encourages the world to “go silent” in an act of solidarity for the “missing mothers,” women who die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes around the world, and those who are vulnerable to high-risk pregnancies. Read more...

By: Christy Turlington Burns, mother, model, film-maker and founder of Every Mother Counts; Originally posted on the Dfid blog

I celebrated the 101st International Women's Day in the halls of the United Nations last week. I followed Twitter, and shared blogs and news stories that collectively called we women to action. When I take a step back, as I did last week, I'm reminded that the "women's rights are human rights" movement is still very much a process in many parts of the world. One thing that I have noticed through filming women around the world is that most of us girls and women are inspired by one another's stories.

Stories create hope. Everywhere I travel, I listen to stories that blow my mind with the courage, personal sacrifices and perseverance of so many women. Read more...

When ABC News launched their "Be the Change: Save a Life" series, they also partnered with the Acumen Fund and GOOD to launch a "Moms Matter" competition to raise attention to the hundreds of thousands of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth. They asked for submissions in the form of Tweets and print ads, guerrilla marketing campaigns and videos, essays, and a host of other creative ideas with one unifying purpose: to stand up as a global community and to say with one voice, "Enough is enough: moms matter." Read more...

By: Janna Oberdorf, Director of Communications and Outreach at Women Deliver

About a year ago, at the Women Deliver 2010 conference in Washington, DC, I watched Christy Turlington Burns’ directorial debut, “No Woman, No Cry.” In our huge conference hall, between intense conversations on funding streams and health strengthening solutions, this movie made an impact. It told the stories behind the stats, and it gave a face to the 358,000 women and girls who die during pregnancy and childbirth each year. Read more...

This Sunday, 3 April 2011, marks Mother's Day in the UK. In honor of the occasion, we're highlighting the UK's aid efforts, as set out in their Framework for Results, that will help at least two million women to deliver their babies safely with skilled midwives, nurses and doctors. Over the next four years this support will help to save the lives of at least 50,000 women during pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborns - helping more babies in the world's poorest countries grow up with the love and support of their mothers. Read more...