Some images remain in my memory for a long time, and in conjunction with Mother's Day, some women will be recalled.

February 1988: In a village near Hanoi, Vietnam

Vietnam 18 years ago was so impoverished that we could never imagine it from the present conditions of the country. There were rarely houses that had electric lights, not to mention street lamps, even in the capital city Hanoi. People in Hanoi had to work four different jobs to fill their stomachs every day. Some were engaged in domestic piecework.

I visited a village in the suburbs of Hanoi. It was still cold in northern Vietnam in February, but there was no heating, as a matter of course. The soil in the farmland was brown after harvesting. Next to the farmland was a woman in thin clothes and in bare feet crouching to look at something in her hand. When I asked my escort what she was doing, she said that the woman had a thirst for letters and was reading whatever she found, not caring about what was written. She just wanted something to read. She might have been exhausted working hard from morning until late at night with household chores, raising children and farming. Yet, she had a zeal for reading.

It was well known that Vietnamese were enthusiastic about providing their children with education, but this mother also was eager to enhance her own ability. At the sight of this enthusiastic woman, I felt confident about the future development of this country, even though it suffered from extreme poverty at that time.

February 1997: A village at 300 km south from Hanoi

Ona visit to Vietnam nine years after my first,people had managed to escape from extreme poverty and were no longer worried about their meals for the day.

I visited an old woman living alone in a farmhouse. It was a half-collapsing house with two earthen-floored rooms. Her husband had died when he was young, and she had raised three sons who were already adults working in Hanoi. The first son was a doctor working in a state-run hospital, the second son was an elite government officer, and the youngest son was teaching at a state university. The way she talked about her sons, proudly puffing out her chest made her look like a different person from the image of a solitary, thin old woman. She did not feel lonely living alone, and she was proud of her sons who had become professionals. She had gone through hardships, but would like to live the same life if she were to have been reborn.

To my final question on what was her number one pleasure, she instantly replied, "My sons will be home with their families for the New Year holiday."

February 2006: A village in the Awasa district in southern Ethiopia

The young mother replied to our questions in an interview, with a happy smiling face, holding her baby born last year in her arms. The mother is 15 years old. As she has never been to school, she cannot read or write. Getting up around six in the morning, she fixes breakfast, takes care of domestic animals while taking care of the baby, and sends her husband to work. While he is at work, she tends the coffee trees and other cash crops around their house, in addition to household work and childcare. She sometimes visits markets nearby. The saddest thing is that her grandmother died, and the happiest thing is that her baby was born. The 15-year old mother looked carefree as she talked.

In many developing countries, however, young women die one after another because of pregnancies and childbirths when too young. Deliveries at young ages when women have not physically matured tend to take many hours and they go through a difficult labor. As a result, young women in Africa suffer from fistula, which often makes them ostracized from their communities and even families, and they live in misery for the rest of their lives. This Ethiopian mother who has overcome too early pregnancy and childbirth safely is a fortunate woman.

Mothers like this Masai woman in Tanzania are the ones
JOICFP wants to help be healthy and happy

There are infinite episodes of mothers who show affection toward their children. On the other hand, there are many mothers who lose their lives to deliver their children. One woman dies per minute in the world because of pregnancy or delivery. Many of these deaths occur in developing countries, and most of these kind of deaths can be avoided in Japan. When mothers die, many of their babies also die, or some are born, leaving fathers bewildered to have infants without mothers at the time of coming into this world.

On the occasion of Mother's Day, we give our thought to the mothers who have passed away in developing countries in the past year, and use this feeling of regret that we could not save their lives as a springboard to continue our work to save even one more life than the previous year. With this determination, we celebrate Mother's Day every year.

Sumie Ishii, Executive Director, JOICFP