Online chat to highlight maternal health issues
The UN Millennium Campaign and Women’s eNews will raise awareness of the number one killer of young women in developing countries, despite promises by world leaders to take urgent action to end this crisis. Join experts from Africa and Asia on March 25, 2009 to be part of the discussion.
The number one killer of young women in the developing world is not a disease whose cure eludes us, or a condition which the world lacks the resources to treat. It is pregnancy and childbirth.
Every year, 500,000 women die while trying to give life. That’s one every single minute.
The vast majority of these deaths are preventable. As part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of promises made in the year 2000 to eradicate extreme poverty, improve health, education and the environment and create a global partnership for development – 189 world leaders have pledged to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015. But maternal health has seen the least progress of all of the MDGs, and the Goal is unlikely to be achieved unless urgent action is taken now.
Amidst this global emergency, the UN Millennium Campaign has partnered with Women’s eNews, the online source of substantive information about issues of particular concern to women, to host a live online chat about maternal health.
Who: Annie Raja, General Secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women, and Dr. Jemima Dennis-Antwi, the International Confederation of Midwives' Regional Midwife Adviser for Anglophone Africa, will share firsthand experiences from the front lines of the fight against maternal mortality, in a live chat moderated by Kimberly Seals Allers, Editorial Director of Women's eNews' Black Maternal Health series. Seals Allers is also founder of Mochamanual.com.
When: March 25, 2009 at 10:00 am Eastern Standard Time
Where: Online. Visit www.endpoverty2015.org or www.womensenews.org to register in advance to log in to this event online.
Questions for the panelists can be emailed in advance to maternalmortalitydebate@gmail.com or typed in during the event.
Contact: Kara Alaimo
UN Millennium Campaign
(+1) 212-906-6399
The UN Millennium Campaign was established by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2002. The Campaign supports citizens’ efforts to hold their governments to account for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. For more information, visit www.endpoverty2015.org.
