Archive for 'family planning'
Babies don't get to choose where, when or how they come into the world. Giving mothers the chance to make those huge decisions could make all the difference in the world. I learned just how serious birth can be when I became a mother in 2003. Suddenly my ideal birth experience became quite the opposite while [...]
James is a brave man. Amongst the hubbub of hundreds of mothers and babies gossiping and laughing as they wait to see the family planning nurses, James' is the only male face. Fortunately he seems unfazed by the whole thing, intrigued rather than embarrassed. Like James, I’ve come to Twifu Hemang, in Ghana's Central Region, [...]
I travelled to Tanzania to see how Comic Relief and the British government are working together to change the lives of young girls. They co-fund projects through The Common Ground Initiative, which supports Diaspora organisations set up and run by people with strong African heritage. Children's Dignity Forum, in Musoma, Tanzania, is supported through this initiative by [...]
I was nervous and excited about this meeting. I dressed modestly and checked my headscarf as inside the small room were 15 local mullahs. They lived up to my image of elderly Islamic clerics, with long beards, turbans and serious countenances. Today, I was here to learn about Islamic attitudes and practices towards family planning. Afghanistan has one [...]
Population has become a dirty word. It is a word that many of my predecessors and counterparts have, some might say understandably, steered clear of for decades. That's because it is normally followed by words like 'control' and 'explosion'. It conjures images of forced euthanasia and sterilisation at one extreme or famine, poverty, disease and [...]
This month, the seven billionth human being will be born. It may be a baby boy or a baby girl, it will probably be born in the developing world, and chances are good that this baby's mother will suffer complications or even a severe birth injury like obstetric fistula. Up to 45,000 women do, every [...]
Later this year a baby will be born - probably on 31 October - and the birth will mark the moment when the world's population reaches seven billion. The birthday may be emblematic, but the demographic marker it symbolises is startlingly real - there are now twice as many people alive on earth as there were [...]
It was fantastic to have the opportunity to visit Manica province recently, and to see the hard work being undertaken by dedicated health workers in a number of different health centres. So, to help celebrate World AIDS 2010 I am posting a picture from this recent trip showing the waiting area in Sussundenga Health Centre, [...]
One early July day, I made my first flight to Africa, was delivered with my blue rucksack to a guest house on Ngong Road in Nairobi, and enjoyed my first encounter with a noisy Mynah bird, singing loudly outside my window. A long haul drive across the country in matatu minibuses took me to Mt Elgon [...]
