African Women's Day

31 JULY 2009

Organizer: Regional Prevention of Maternal & Neonatal Mortality (RPMM) Network
Event dates: 31 July 2009

African Union has designated 31 July as African Women’s Day.

This is how the RPMM Network will be celebrating African Women’s Day, from Director, Angela Sawyer:

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

JULY 31,2009, was set aside by the Africa Union for "Celebrating African Women’s Day"! I am urging you to join us in our continuing efforts to advocate for quality Maternity services for our disadvantaged sisters who continue to die needlessly in underserved communities!!

Death and disability of women have profound public health, human rights, and socio-economic consequences for families, communities, and countries. The highest figures of these deaths are recorded in developing countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa where rates in some countries are as high as 2000 per 100,000 live births, compared to less than 10 per 100,000 in the developed world. Problems include poor quality of health services, poor accessibility and weak referral systems. In-order to achieve MDG 5, the importance of enabling environments to promote good health of women cannot be over-emphasized. Yet, until recently, there has been profound lethargy of political will to aggressively address maternal health!

The Regional Prevention of Maternal & Neonatal Mortality (RPMM) Network is a non- governmental organization (NGO), consisting a network of multidisciplinary and multi-sector teams of professionals, currently in 22 Sub-Saharan African countries , working to contribute to the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality in Africa, through capacity-building and advocacy. At our last regional review meeting in November 2008, it was agreed that the RPMM Network National Teams should consider celebrating the African Women’s Day, set aside for the 31 of July by the African Union.

The aim of celebrating the day is to draw attention to, and focus on addressing maternal and neonatal mortality in Africa. Our plan is to identify problems that need to be highlighted, first for that day and then follow up on the activities, to set targets on what we aim to achieve for the year, and beyond.

RPMM Network country examples of celebrating African Women's Day

Regional Headquarters

Advocating for Equitable resource allocation to improve access to quality maternity services.
Interview with BBC correspondent for broadcast on Network Africa. 31 July 2009

Ghana: Raising community awareness to engage in the provision of quality emergency obstetric care

GPMM intends to celebrate the day at Sunyani in collaboration with the Regional Health Administration. Activities for the day include: Training Session on EMONC for Midwives, Open forum on Maternal Mortality Prevention – The role of emergency obstetric care.
This will involve opinion leaders, health workers, religious groups, the media and groups that support women’s activities. Newsprint, radio and TV talk shows in local languages. Duration: 1 week.

Burkina Faso: Advocacy on strengthening the health system and blood donation campaign to save pregnant women’s lives

Activities include: announcement of the day in the newspapers, radio discussions, television interviews in 5 languages, talks, conferences, cultural displays and blood donations both in Ouagadougou and Bobo Diolasso. From 27th – 31st July 2009.

Benin: Fundraising for improving health facilities and blood donation to save lives of pregnant women and babies

Activities for the celebration will include: interactive radio programmes on maternal mortality in 5 languages from 15 June – 10 July. Meeting with the women of Dantokpa on blood donation to mark the day, interviews would be granted by the francophone coordinator and other leading members of Benin PMM on maternal mortality. 1000 envelopes have been printed and distribution targeted to directors of banks, religious leaders, directors of telecommunication networks and other professionals in the health sector. 15 June – 31 July 2009.

Malawi: Save one woman’s life

Activities to mark the day will include: drama performances, comedy, poems (ANC, Post natal) at the MPMM district.

Hope you will join us ! Best regards.

Angela Sawyer
Director
RPMM Network
Accra, Ghana