Last November, I traveled to Lusaka, Zambia in Africa to spend time with some of the families and a village there building houses with Habitat for Humanity. As I shared on my blog, this is something that has been on my heart for as long as I can remember. In fact, I’m convinced that if I had made this trek when I was twenty, I may not have ever come back. The people, the land, everything about the trip was amazing. Since then, I have also learned more about the social initiatives that the world is trying to accomplish in improving life for families all over the world.
A mother picking up an insecticide treated bed for her child.
Photo credit: Mom Bloggers for Social Good
In partnering with Mom Bloggers for Social Good, I wanted to share a bit of information behind the MDG movement. In 2000, world leaders adopted a series of ambitious goals–the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)–including commitments to cut poverty by half, get every child into school, and dramatically reduce child and maternal deaths by 2015. Here are some statistics:
- Each day an estimated 800 mothers and 18,000 young children die from largely preventable causes.
- In the time left to the MDG target we need to accelerate progress toward achieving MDG 4.
- More than 1 million babies die on their first and only day of life across the world, and 2.9 million in their first month.
- The newborn crisis is much bigger than we may think, with a staggering 1.2 million stillbirths occurring during childbirth
- More than half of these maternal and under-fives deaths take place in locations beset by a high risk of conflict and/or natural disasters.
- 40 million women give birth without any skilled help – that’s more than 100,000 women every day. Even more dramatically, 2 million women a year are entirely alone when giving birth.
- Investing in mothers works. Maternal deaths and child mortality in the most challenging countries of the world are being dramatically cut when efforts are made to improve services for mothers and children.
The good news is that we can stop this. Many of these deaths are preventable if the mother-to-be had a trained midwife to help them give birth safely. Newborn mortality rates can only be reduced through fairer distribution of essential health services and through universal healthcare access; this means making these more available to the poorest and most marginalised families, as well as to communities living in rural areas. 
Mother & Child in Lusaka, Zambia
Photo credit: Mom Bloggers for Social Good
What we want to see happen:
- Ensure that every mother, newborn and children under five has access to high quality health care:
- Invest much more in women and girls and ensure their protection;
- Build stronger institutions and stronger health systems that provide universal health coverage, and provide for the most vulnerable, as well as promote early action, social protection, disaster risk reduction.
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