Empowering Women, Transforming Lives: A Global Celebration of Safe Motherhood

Every woman, no matter the lottery of her birth, should have a fair shot at attaining her full potential. Pregnancy and childbirth is one of the most common and transformational aspects of a woman's life and an integral part of most women's life journey. 

Sadly, in 2024, the global maternal mortality rate remains shockingly high. By the time you finish reading this article, one woman will die of pregnancy or childbirth somewhere around the world. This is not including the many more who survive but suffer devastating consequences such as obstetric fistula, debilitating pelvic pain and worsening mental and physical health.  

The World Health Organization states that in 2020 a mother died due to childbirth almost every two minutes -approximately 800 women every day -with almost 95% taking place in low and middle income countries. This is primarily due to preventable causes, primarily the lack of access to timely and safe maternal care. A recent study shows the maternal mortality rate on the rise in the United States, especially among mothers of color.

But these tragedies are preventable — and access to adequate, timely and compassionate healthcare is the first step in ensuring mothers can live to see their children grow up.

At the Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility, where I direct the Center’s Global Women’s Health Initiative, we work with a global community of advocates and front-line champions willing to put in the hard work needed to end unnecessary maternal deaths.

This work entails the convening of international partners in a community of practice to reflect on our experiences, map our assets and needs, and tap our collective wisdom to innovate practical solutions together — solutions that are applicable and impactful in the local context. Our approach is to work with communities, instead of for them.

At CGHSR we’ve created a learning community that gathers experts and advocates to find better solutions to prevent and treat obstetric fistula; partnered with women’s health leaders in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Botswana and Ghana to build capacity in women’s health, including work on our current mixed media simulation training project in safe c-section and our surgical tool innovation project. We are also raising awareness of maternal health inequities through storytelling by patients themselves in the form of a short film.  

We are fortunate to have incredible collaborators across our university, including the M Simulation Center, the Institute for Engineering and Medicine, Tech Comm, and many others across the schools of public health, medicine and nursing. 

We are also part of a network of global health education and advocacy organizations that provide larger platforms for implementation and scale up. This is work we believe in and know is necessary to ensure all mothers can live safe and healthy lives. When mothers do well, families and communities thrive. 

We’ll be sharing our collaborative work at a celebratory event in honor of International Women's Day on Thursday, March 14, from 5 — 7 pm at the Weisman Art Museum and you’re invited to join us as we celebrate safe motherhood. 

It will be a memorable and inspiring evening that promotes maternal health awareness and features the work of CGHSR and its partners to promote women’s health around the world. There will also be an official screening of our recently released mini-film on obstetric fistula with a special appearance from Alice Emasu, who is the founder and executive director of Terrewode Women’s Community Hospital in Uganda where the film is based. 

 We hope you can join us and look forward to your partnership to ensure every woman is able to live up to her full potential.

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What: Empowering Women, Transforming Lives: A Global Celebration of Safe Motherhood 

When: Thursday, March 14, 2024 | 5 — 7 pm CST

Where: Weisman Art Museum, 333 E River Pkwy, Minneapolis, MN, 55455 

Register for the event here