|
In 1987, UNFPA, in collaboration with the World Bank and WHO, advocated the "Safe Motherhood Initiative" at an international conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
Since then, the Safe Motherhood Initiative has been promoted involving peoples in many countries and regions.
This year marks the 20th year of the efforts, yet, over these two decades, there has been little improvement in the situation where more than half-a-million women lose their lives every year because of pregnancy and childbirth.
"Women Deliver: A Global Conference" will be held in London in October this year, to review the results of activities for the past 20 years, and to emphasize the need for greater investment and commitment from governments, NGOs and donors to save the lives of mothers and newborns globally as, "... mere survival is not good enough; women and their children must survive and thrive."
Under the theme of "Invest in women - it pays" topics to be covered include:
- Maternal health
- Sexual and reproductive health and rights
- HIV and AIDS
- Girls' education
- Gender equality
I look forward to the reports on the actual programs and lessons to be delivered at the conference, and we at JOICFP proudly play a part in this continuous movement of saving mother's lives.
In Japan
It is challenging to raise the awareness of the Japanese public to the global needs of mothers and infants.
To facilitate this, we organized a special Mother's Day event at the Landmark Tower in Yokohama this year, and celebrity mothers who often appear in TV and magazines attended the event as guests, and spoke about their experiences of being mothers and the pleasure of becoming mothers.
We proposed to the Japanese people that they would be happier by helping others become happier, and asked them to join us in this 'heart-warming international cooperation'.
JOICFP also created special T-shirts to promote the value of mothers.
These T-shirts were painted by Maya Maxx,
a painter who is popular among
Japanese young women,
and she extended her cooperation
on this T-shirt together with Club King Co., Ltd.
The shirt illustration conveys the message, "We were all born from mothers. Let's support all mothers in the world!"
Sumie Ishii
Executive Director, JOICFP |
