Tackling Woman's Literacy and Maternal Death

ACP's Board of Directors recently resolved that helping Afghan women and mothers was one of the best ways to help Afghan children.  So, we have stepped up our efforts to get school supplies to literacy clinics in some of the poorest villages of the Hindu Kush.  Jawad has been a saint delivering these supplies that I get from all of you and have flown out to Bamyan. He refuses to take any money for all the driving and time--and he is not rich.  He is just one of many generous Afghans who will do anything for their people and friends.  I'm glad to be his friend.

Now here is something really horrible--Afghanistan has the second highest maternal death rate in the world.  I'm told that 1,700 Afghan women die for every 100,000 births.  (The number is about 12/100,000 in the US)  Many die from simple bleeding that could be stopped with a little know-how.  Many NGOs here have set up midwife training programs and birthing clinics.  We want to help pay for women from the poorest villages attend these clinics (from one-two years long) and then go back and save lives in their villages.  We also want to buy supplies for these far-flung clinics and also some solar electric systems for when new Afghans make their advent in the middle of the night.  We want thousands of additional Afghan chldren to be able to know their mothers.  We jsut received a sizeable anonymous grant (way to go, anonymous!) for woman's projects and I am trying to learn all i can about this subject from OB-Gyns here in country.  Meanwhile, Becky is working on her Masters Degree in International Public Health and is also researching the issue.

If you have any ideas for other ways we could help in these projects, let us know.