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Fifty Years after the Pill, More than 200 Million Women Still Lack Access to Contraception
NEW YORK—May 9th, which also falls on Mother’s Day in the United States this year, marks the 50th anniversary of the approval of oral contraceptive pills in the US. The Pill, as the contraceptive became widely known it…
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Sri Lankans Play Around with Gender Stereotypes
HILL COUNTRY, Sri Lanka — In mid-April as the sun moves directly overhead and the harvest comes to an end, Sri Lankans celebrate their New Year, one of the most important times in the cultural calendar. The occasion…
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Breaking the Silence about Maternal Death in Sierra Leone
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — When a mother dies in childbirth in Sierra Leone, the news spreads only in whispers: "The calabash broke." A woman, tradition says, is like a treasured calabash gourd, and her death,…
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Creating Good CARMMA for African Mothers
NEW YORK — Beginning today, all medical treatment and medicines for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five will be provided free of charge in all government health facilities in Sierra Leone,…
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Taking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Out of the Cultural Mosaic of Kenya
NAIROBI — When Lina Kilimo ran for the Kenya Parliament in 2002 on a platform of peace, development and ending female genital mutilation/cutting, her opponents claimed that as an uncircumcised woman, she was unfit to…
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De-Linking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam in North East Kenya
MADOGO (near Garissa), North East Province, Kenya — In the scorching heat of the midday sun, shaded by the horizontal branches of a dende tree, village elders and women leaders from five communities listened intently as…
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Development Challenges Facing Haiti in the Aftermath of the Earthquake
NEW YORK — When the subject of post-earthquake Haiti comes up, people often talk about getting back to normal. But for Haiti, where ‘normal’ was a series of crises, the goal must be to rebuild better. In a panel…
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American Idol’s David Cook Helps Brighten the Future for Adolescent Girls in Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Last month, David Cook, season seven winner of the popular television competition, American Idol, learned first-hand about the challenges faced by vulnerable adolescent girls in the slums of…
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Ending Harmful Practices through Community-led Social Change in Senegal
Many organizations are working to eliminate female genital mutilation/cutting in Africa. But the organization that has been most successful in this, Senegal’s Tostan, was not originally focused on this particular…
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