It must have been a sign of fate that I happened to be paging through the resort brochure the last night of my stay at the lovely Barefoot Cay and saw the two-page spread on Clinica Esperanza. Instantly I was taken by the story and by a stroke of luck the next morning, thirty minutes before my departure to the United States I found myself interviewing the very doctor who has dedicated the last several years of his life to helping build the clinic.
All photos credited to WaterAid and used with permission.
Can you imagine living a life without access to clean water or sanitation? Something as basic yet critical as clean water and access to a toilet is a luxury that many people around the world in developing nations simply don’t have.
“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho
Photo credit: Maternity Worldwide
The figures are startling. Every year around the world 287,000 women die in what should be the most joyous time of life: Having a baby. That means one woman dies every 2 minutes or 800 a day, during pregnancy and childbirth.
As a mother of two children who suffered two high-risk births, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be pregnant in a developing nation. It is not surprising that the majority of women (over 56% of the total) who die are in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of the world that is engulfed in extreme poverty. When you compare the mortality rates to women in the Western world, 99% of all deaths take place in the developing world.
In Ethiopia alone, one of the poorest countries in the world, 90% of women give birth at home and for every 100,000 women who give birth in the country, 676 women die from delivery and childbirth complications. Further accentuating the problem in the fact that Ethiopian women, who have little or no access to family planning or contraception, have on average 4.8 babies who survive. These numbers alone put women at high risk of dying and not living to see their babies grow up or raise the others.
As World AIDS Day rapidly approaches (December 1, 2012) it is time to think about the impact that AIDS has on children. Did you know that every single day 900 children are infected with HIV? Furthermore, 90% of child infections of HIV are passed on from mother to child.
Back in July I wrote a post titled “The End of AIDS: We can’t stop funding now”. The post was in response to my visit to our nation’s capital on behalf of my advocacy work with Results, a grassroots organization that works to end global poverty. During this visit, I had to opportunity to visit the Global Village at the XIX International AIDS Conference which was being held in the United States for the first time in many years. It was a symbolic event, clearly highlighting America’s leadership as one of the key funders and advocates in fighting AIDS.
This December 1 is World AIDS Day, a day in which the world brings attention to the devastating fact that this global epidemic still infects 2.7 million new people and claims 2 million lives each year. It is also estimated that nearly 30 million people have died from AIDS-related causes since the beginning of the epidemic (UNAID 2010 report).
Although “these are sobering numbers, this year World AIDS Day comes after a string of stunning scientific advances that has fundamentally altered the possibilities in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The end of the AIDS epidemic is within our grasp” (Results.org).
Today is World Pneumonia Day. Did you know that pneumonia is the biggest threat to children worldwide and that we have a vaccine available that can prevent it?
Were you aware that every 20 seconds a child dies from pneumonia, a largely preventable and treatable disease?
Here are some facts on pneumonia and the devastating impact this treatable disease has on child survival. (Source: Action: Global Health Advocacy Partnership):
“Pneumonia is the world’s leading killer of children under the age of 5, causing nearly 1.3 million child deaths each year. Developing countries, and particularly the poorest children within them, are the hardest hit, accounting for 99% of childhood deaths due to pneumonia.
We know how to prevent these deaths. In fact, investments in protecting, preventing, and treating children have led to significant gains in reducing under-five deaths. Although pneumonia kills nearly twice as many children each year than both HIV/AIDS and malaria combined, global funding for pneumonia is significantly lower than funding for HIV/AIDS and malaria control. This silent killer is still responsible for one out of every five child deaths, despite having the tools to prevent and treat it.”
Although much progress has been made towards fighting devastating diseases that has improved child mortality rates across the globe, we aren’t finished yet. The fact that a child is dying every 20 seconds from a vaccine-preventable death such as pneumonia is unexcusable and unacceptable.
We have the technology and the knowledge to save lives.
Now we need to convince the government to follow through on the promises and commitments made to fund and support programs such as GAVI (that provides vaccines to children in the developing world) and to Front Line Health Care Workers, who are often the only medical attention children will receive.
Learn more at www.action.org.
My kids and me advocating for Shot@Life last spring.
This post was written on behalf of my advocacy for RESULTS, Shot@Life and ONE. I am meeting with my Congressman next Monday and will be sure to remind him to support funding for Child Survival. With less than 1% of our budget spent on foreign aid, there is a lot to be done. However, I am confident we will make the right decisions and help save lives. No child shouldn’t be able to celebrate their fifth birthday because they are too poor.
This month, Shot@Life (a global campaign that provides life-saving vaccines to children in developing countries) has launched something spectacular: Blogust.
Every day throughout the month of August, Shot@Life will feature a post on why comments matter and how they build community and work to promote social good. An anonymous donor has generously agreed to donate $20 per comment. That $20 is enough money to provide four life-saving vaccines to one child and vaccinate him or her for life.
One in five children do not have access to life-saving vaccines. Shot@Life is working to change that number by reaching that fifth child.
Photo Credit: UN Foundation
Since the launch of Blogust, fellow Shot@Life Champions including myself have done everything possible to spread the word through social media and get more people to comment. So far, it has worked in unimaginable ways and has been an unbelievable success. Over the weekend, we reached our first 1,500 comments meaning 1,500 children who would otherwise not receive these life-saving vaccines will get them. We have raised $30,000 reaching the initial donation commitment from our donor and we are only on Day 5 of the campaign!!!
It was no coincidence that the RESULTS International Conference to end global poverty was held at the same time as the AIDS 2012 Conference. It was a huge event and opportunity for over 400 RESULTS Activists to learn about the latest breakthroughs in HIV/AIDS treatments and the impact this devastating disease has had on the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where it is rampant, having 22.9 million of the 34 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS.
This week’s Sunday Post theme by Jakesprinter is roads. I couldn’t help but think of this theme in both a literal and metaphorical way. As there was one road that I traveled on while hiking the Annapurna trail in Nepal, that changed my life forever and set me on my future path to where I am today.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
I want to give all my readers a huge thank you for all the wonderful, supportive comments I received after my post The Color of Guatemala was Freshly Pressed. I could not have been more humbled by the beautiful, encouraging comments I received from fellow readers and bloggers. It was a big pleasure to read each comment and I’m in the process of responding to each and every one. So thank you, everyone! You are why I keep blogging!
What could not be more ironic, however, is the timing of my Freshly Pressed post. I wrote it hurriedly last Friday morning as I was desperately trying to get in one last post done before I left to our nation’s capital to the Results International conference on ending global poverty.
Today I did something I never dreamed possible. As a representative of the world’s poorest of the poor, I lobbied on Capital Hill. If you asked me two years ago if I would ever find myself here as an advocate for global and human rights, I would have laughed it all away saying “you’re dreaming”. Yet, here I am. Today I did it. I gave a voice to the millions of voiceless people dying and suffering around the world.