Maternal and Child Health: Delivering a better life
Over half a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth every year - that's one death every minute. The child left behind is then 4 times more likely to die prematurely. Of these deaths, 99 per cent are in developing countries.
As global students we have the duty to lead a legacy of change and to influence the environment and political decisions that have permitted these vast inequities.
open letter: universal healthcare & the post 2015 development agenda
The lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth in Africa is 1 in 22, while it is 1 in 120 in Asia and 1 in 7,300 in developed countries. Shockingly this is not the complete picture; most deaths in rural areas are not recorded, with many women buried without trace. The tragedy is that the majority are preventable deaths.
Join us in signing this letter to call for universal healthcare to be a core component in the Post-2012 Development Agenda, hence progressing towards health equity in a sustainable way. The letter also points out universal healthcare will pave the way to achieving millennium development goals and help liberate countries’ reliance from donor countries.
David Cameron and his cabinet: stop taking breakfasts away from children
Did you know 1 in 3 children in Britain lives in poverty, in London, that’s 4 in 10! That is one of the highest rates in industrialised country: shocking in such a well resourced country. Increasing numbers of children rely on breakfast clubs held at their schools because their parents cannot afford to provide the meal at home. Many of these clubs are now under threat…
A breakfast club is a safe place where children can enjoy breakfast with teachers and classmates before school, but it serves a wider purpose just providing breakfast. A study has shown that breakfast clubs are associated with sustained improvement in academic performance! Unfortunately, budget cuts have led to increasing closures of breakfast clubs across the country despite best efforts from charity groups (and even teachers paying out of their own pockets); schools just simply cannot afford to sustain these clubs. Subsequently, children from this vulnerable group are stuck in a vicious cycle of low concentration, behaviour problems, and low attainment. This is a problem with a solution!
In March 2010, the Child Poverty Act came into force, which requires the Secretary of State to consider which groups of children in the UK are disproportionately affected by socio-economic disadvantage, and to consider the likely impact of government policy on children in these groups.
This gives legal force to the previous government’s commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and will compel successive governments to account for what they are doing to achieve that goal. Breakfast clubs are just the tip of the iceberg on how current policies are affective children in poverty. Sign the petition on change.org to speak up for this vulnerable group and to make changes happen for the better for these children.
Check out THE GIRL EFFECT.
The girl effect is about girls. And boys. And moms and dads and villages and towns and countries.
Girls living in poverty are uniquely capable of creating a better future. But when a girl reaches adolescence, she comes to a cross roads.
Follow the campaign at girleffect.org
Resources to help you integrate teaching on women's health in a global context into your university curriculums.
If you are interested in learning more, raising awareness and campaigning on maternal and child health issues such as preventing premature births, female genital mutilation, mother-to-child transmission of HIV, malnutrition and many other problems so many mothers and children face around the world, then please join the new maternal and child health National Working Group!
Contact firstname.lastname@example.org to get involved