Category: Women’s Rights

Asia, Blog, Environment and Climate, Food Security, Nepal, Nepal, Nepal Reporting Trip, Philippines, Sustainability, Women, Women's Rights

2 Innovative Uses of PET Bottles in Low-Income Countries That Benefit Women

PET bottles, one of the most widely used materials in the world, are used to package foods and drinks from soda and juices to salad dressings and cooking oils. It is also completely recyclable. In the United States alone, 1.5 billion pounds of PET bottles are recycled annually.

Throughout my travels to low and middle-income countries I see PET bottles thrown haphazardly in fields and streams clogging waterways and dirtying sidewalks and walking paths. In countries such as Nepal (where I visited last year with Coca-Cola), there are concerted educational efforts by environmentally focused NGOs to change behaviors around discarding PET bottles. There are recycling centers in Nepal, but not enough to completely clean its streets and countryside. It seems to be a sisyphean battle to combat PET bottle waste, but there are some who are using the bottles in innovative ways.

Continue reading “2 Innovative Uses of PET Bottles in Low-Income Countries That Benefit Women”

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment
Blog, Maternal Health, newborn health, newborns, Poverty, Reproductive Health, Sustainability, Sustainable Development Goals, Women, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Midwives and The Right of Women to Give Birth the Way They Want

Image 20170210 8651 ier8xz

Lydia Mwanzia, Moi University

Giving birth is a significant life event that should aim for a healthy baby and mother. There are growing calls for women to give birth in their preferred birth positions. But this requires midwives to be trained in a way that enables them to respect the choices that women make. The Conversation Africa’s health editor Joy Wanja Muraya asked Lydia Mwanzia to explain why women have the right to make choices, and the important role played by midwives.

Continue reading “Midwives and The Right of Women to Give Birth the Way They Want”

Social Good Moms ContributorLeave a comment
Blog, Maternal Health, maternal morbidity, maternal mortality, Reproductive Health, Women, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Video: The Global Gag Rule Explained

More than likely you have heard about the Global Gag Rule also known as the Mexico City Policy this week. You can learn more about it in a previous post: Why the Global Gag Rule Will Increase Maternal Mortality. To get right to the point, however, Planned Parenthood released this video: What is the Global Gag Rule that explains it succinctly. Continue reading Video: The Global Gag Rule Explained

Social Good Moms ContributorLeave a comment
Blog, Family Planning, featured, Maternal Health, maternal morbidity, maternal mortality, Poverty, Women, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Why The Global Gag Rule Will Increase Maternal Mortality

Throughout my visits to clinics in Africa I have seen the work of Marie Stopes International in South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia as well as Zambia. They provide a full range of quality reproductive health services for women. I have always been impressed by the comprehensive care they provide. Now, their work will be hampered because of an imposed policy of the new administration.

dsc596f574b56e6a8e4c87beacd12caf096265_jpg_autocropped
Marie Stopes International health worker I met in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photo: Jennifer James

Yesterday morning President Trump signed an executive order to reinstate the Global Gag Rule, or Mexico City Policy, that prevents international NGOs that accept USAID (taxpayer) money from advocating for the legalization of abortions, provide abortions, mention the word, or even refer women to health practionioners that provide safe, legal abortions.

The Global Gag Rule was instated during the Reagan admininstration in 1984 and since then there has been a virtual seesaw effect between Republican and Democratic administrations regarding whether the Rule is reinstated or revoked. According to the WHO, 78,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions. Under Obama’s eight year administration, that number was reportedly decreased by more than half. Now, that President Trump has signed this executive order reinstating the Global Gag Rule, the fear among the global health community is that that number will rapidly skyrocket again.

Continue reading “Why The Global Gag Rule Will Increase Maternal Mortality”

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment
Blog, Maternal Health, Maternal Health in the US, maternal morbidity, maternal mortality, MaternalMonday, Reproductive Health, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

10 Organizations and Birth Centers That Save Black Mothers’ Lives #MaternalHealth (Updated)

Updated June 2020 Today as we celebrate and commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, here are seven organizations and birth centers that are helping save the lives of black women during pregnancy, childbirth and after childbirth. All maternal mortality and morbidity data in the United States report the same thing: black women die in disproportionately high numbers when compared to non-Hispanic white women. In fact, … Continue reading 10 Organizations and Birth Centers That Save Black Mothers’ Lives #MaternalHealth (Updated)

Jennifer James1 Comment
Blog, Reproductive Health, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Seeking Stories on Reproductive Health

World Pulse, a social network connecting women who work for change, is currently looking for stories on reproductive health and choices. World Pulse’s story prompt:  How do the laws in your country affect your reproductive health and choices? What are the most important victories, setbacks, and pressing issues you face? Do you have a story about legislation that affects you personally or someone you know? Or … Continue reading Seeking Stories on Reproductive Health

Jennifer James1 Comment
Blog, Empowerment, featured, Film Reviews, girls, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Why The Eagle Huntress Is An Empowering Film for Young Girls

The Eagle Huntress narrated by Daisy Ridley follows the wonderful story of a teenage girl named Aisholpan who becomes the first eagle huntress in Mongolia.

We are introduced to Aisholpan at a boarding school located in a small town miles from her nomadic home because schools are quite far from where she lives. It’s the last day of school for that week and Aisholpan is taken home by her father on his moped. Her family are nomads that live in a simple circular hut in the midst of a vast barren plain edged by beautiful, rocky mountains. Her family consists of Aisholpan’s younger sister and brother, her mother, and her father.

Her father is one of the few remaining eagle hunters in Mongolia. For centuries Mongolian men caught eaglets, raised them, and used them to hunt for food to support their families. Since Aisholpan was a little girl she loved watching her father put on the eagle hunters’ garb and go out in search of food from rabbits to foxes. In fact, it was one of her joys to help her father with his eagle. As she grew older her father allowed her to play with his eagle as he saw her keen interest in becoming a hunter.

Continue reading “Why The Eagle Huntress Is An Empowering Film for Young Girls”

Annlyel JamesLeave a comment
Blog, Book Reviews, Books, Charity, Economic Empowerment, Empowerment, Food Security, Haiti, nonprofits, Women, Women's Rights

Book Review: To Fool the Rain: Haiti’s Poor and Their Pathway to a Better Life

To Fool the Rain: Haiti's Poor and Their Pathway to a Better LifeTo Fool the Rain: Haiti’s Poor and Their Pathway to a Better Life by Steven Werlin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Helping families lift themselves out of poverty means helping them build income and wealth, but it is a social phenomenon as well,” wrote Steve Werlin, the author of To Fool the Rain: Haiti’s Poor and Their Pathway to a Better Life. “And one of the social change we try to effect involves working on the way members look at themselves.”

It is quite impressive how someone’s mind and attitude can alter and reset the course of one’s life. However, in order to eventually arrive at that mind reset some people require a substantive hand out, constant observation and follow-up; not simply a prescriptive hand up. When looking at the lowest income countries in the world like Haiti a vast array of NGOs work to alleviate some of its inherent problems with programs that address the root of poverty. Some provide work programs, educational programs, health care, or even microloan programs. But some of Haiti’s families are so extremely poor they cannot dream of qualifying for many of these programs because they have virtually nothing. In fact, they live in such cyclical poverty they cannot feed themselves on a daily basis, or even every other day. In Haiti’s deepest far reaches and unfathomable rural areas are families who live in abject poverty far away from roads and towns. They require the most cumulative social programs designed by worldwide NGOs that specialize in the nuances of poverty reduction and eradication.

In Haiti, for example, one of those social programs is called “Chemen lavi miyo (CLM)” in Creole or a Pathway to a Better Life that is run by Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance organization. Even as a microfinance enterprise Fonkoze realized that to reach the poorest Haitian families means to provide overarching programs that teach rural women who qualify for their CLM program financial and entrepreneurial skills as well as life and relationship skills.

Continue reading “Book Review: To Fool the Rain: Haiti’s Poor and Their Pathway to a Better Life”

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment
Asia, Blog, Economic Empowerment, Empowerment, featured, Nepal, Nepal, Nepal Reporting Trip, Women, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Nepali Women Increase Earning Potential Through Business Training #5by20

The energy and enthusiasm was palpable as we walked into a room full of eager women entrepreneurs role-playing the everyday dynamic between business owners and their customers. While the room was loaded with fun and laughter during this exercise, its importance was not lost on any of the women who had come to the campus of Coca-Cola Bottlers Nepal Limited’s (BNL) 5by20 training, an initiative to empower 10,000 women business owners across Nepal by 2020. Even though these women are already a part of Kathmandu’s bustling community of urban shop owners, they had come because they realized there are more business skills to learn, hone, and improve. And, as women in micro-enterprise the more skills they learn, the more they can earn for their households in a country where men overwhelmingly dominate the private sector.

SONY DSC
Pallavi Gautam, Senior Executive, Public Affairs and Communication (PAC) at Bottlers Nepal Limited conducts a 5by20 training on September 13 in Kathmandu.

Continue reading “Nepali Women Increase Earning Potential Through Business Training #5by20”

Jennifer James5 Comments
Asia, Blog, Clean Water and Sanitation, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

An Unexpected Question About Toilets: Day 1 in India With Mandy Moore

By Mandy Moore, PSI Ambassador

This morning for breakfast, I joined the PSI India team with their partners and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to learn that they are building toilets and developing a sanitation system in Bihar by turning the traditional nonprofit model on its head. PSI India has developed a social enterprise and is treating the open defecation problem like a business problem.

The idea is to make toilets convenient, affordable and attractive in a state where 80% of the population currently lives without them.

When communities lack basic sanitation, kids die (more than 450,000 did in India last year due to diarrheal disease), people get sick, and girls and women are at greater risk of rape and violence when they’re simply trying to find a private place outdoors to relieve themselves.

Continue reading “An Unexpected Question About Toilets: Day 1 in India With Mandy Moore”

Social Good Moms Contributor1 Comment
Blog, Maternal Health, Merck for Mothers, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Instagram Photo About U.S. Maternal Mortality You Don’t Want to Miss

Earlier this year I wrote about the important maternal mortality art work of Chicago-based artist and activist, Michelle Hartney and her plan to sew 1,200 hospital gowns for her performance art, MOTHER’S RIGHT —  one for every woman who died in the US during childbirth in 2013. Hartney will perform this piece on September 7th at the Daley Center in Chicago at Improving Birth’s “Liberate Labor” rally. … Continue reading Instagram Photo About U.S. Maternal Mortality You Don’t Want to Miss

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment
Blog, Maternal Health, Maternal Health in the US, maternal health summer series, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

Maternal Health Heroes: Interview With Christy Turlington Burns #MHHSS

We are excited to publish our fifth interview in our Maternal Health Heroes Summer Series with Christy Turlington Burns, Founder of Every Mother Counts. Throughout the summer we will speak with some of the most notable maternal health advocates in the world ahead of the Global Maternal Newborn Health Conference that will be held in Mexico City between October 18 – 21, 2015. Follow the conversation at #MHHSS.

C_TURLINGTON-14 Christy Turlington Burns is a mother, social entrepreneur, model, and founder of Every Mother Counts. As a result of her global advocacy work she was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2014, Glamour Magazine’s Woman of The Year in 2013, and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative Minds in 2013.  Christy is a member of the Harvard Medical School Global Health Council, an advisor to the Harvard School of Public Health Board of Dean’s Advisors and on the advisory Board of New York University’s Nursing School. She holds a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Studies and has studied Public Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. A four-time marathon finisher, Christy resides in New York City where she lives with her husband, filmmaker Edward Burns, and their two children.

Jennifer James: We are impressed that you are helping to spread the word about maternal health and mortality in the Unites States. When did it occur to you that there is a maternal health crisis in America?

Christy Turlington Burns: Soon after experiencing a childbirth complication following the delivery of my first child, I learned that hundreds of thousands of pregnancy and childbirth-related deaths occur around the world every year.  Yet, up to 98 percent of those deaths are preventable. Once I knew about these shocking statistics, I had to know why this was happening. This led me to make a documentary film, “No Woman, No Cry,” which examines the state of maternal health in four countries Tanzania, Guatemala, Bangladesh and the United States. While making the film, I learned that while 99% of these global deaths occur in developing countries, we lose three women per day in the U.S. too.

Continue reading “Maternal Health Heroes: Interview With Christy Turlington Burns #MHHSS”

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment
Blog, Fairtrade, Products With a Purpose, Women's Rights

What Fair Trade is Meant to Be

Did you know that almost half of the people in the world live in poverty, including almost a billion children? Those living in poverty lack access to a varying number of necessities such as shelter, food, water, and medical care. According to the World Food Programme, hunger is the leading cause of death in the world.

Poverty is a complex issue because the longer it exists, the more it grows. Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.25 a day. The countries that have its citizens living in extreme poverty have been in that state for several years, if not decades. However, it is important to note that in 1990, nearly half of the population in the developing regions lived on less than $1.25 a day. This rate dropped to 14 per cent in 2015, according to the United Nations. Poverty is an exponential problem that cannot be fixed on its own. One simple way that we can all help the issue of poverty in low-and middle-income countries in the long-term is by implementing fair trade.

Continue reading “What Fair Trade is Meant to Be”

Sarah Haney
Maternal Mortality - United States
Blog, Maternal Health, Maternal Health in the US, United States, Women, Women's Rights

Latest News on Maternal Health in the US

I have often focused on maternal health and mortality around the globe especially where the deaths rates are the largest, but there is much-needed sustained discussion about maternal mortality in the United States. I have detailed the problem in several previous posts here including:

Periodically I will share news and updates about what is happening in the maternal health space in the United States including the successes and failures to save more women’s lives as well as the key players who are making a difference.

Continue reading “Latest News on Maternal Health in the US”

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment
Africa, Asia, South America, Women and Girls, Women's Rights

International Day Against Sexual Violence in Conflict

Rape has always been used as a weapon of war and women and girls are typically the victims of these heinous crimes.

To bring more awareness to sexual violence during conflict the United Nations General Assembly created the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict that will be commemorated on June 19 each year.

“Rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict constitute grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law,” President of the 193-member Assembly, Sam Kutesa, declared as he greeted the resolution’s adoption. “Yet these depraved acts still occur and are used to terrorize and control civilian populations in conflict zones.”

Continue reading “International Day Against Sexual Violence in Conflict”

Jennifer JamesLeave a comment