the 2h project

It’s an amazing feat, giving birth. Breakfast in bed seems a little tokenistic when it comes to saying “thanks Mum”.

Difficult to put into perspective really; on the one hand childbirth is so ‘everyday’ (like hundreds of babies born every minute right?), on the other it fits comfortably in the category marked ‘miraculous’.

Whatever your thoughts, you have to admit, our mums are pretty special (Think about it. Who else do you know that the first time you met you put through that kind of pain and anxiety?).

This week we’re celebrating joint special days; International Midwives Day on the 5th May and Mothers Day on the 12th. To honour both and acknowledge their important connection 2h is giving you the opportunity to go ‘public’ with your love for mum and support our Safe Arrivals project at the same time.

Go to the 2h Facebook page and in 30 words or less tell us ‘Why Mum is so Special’, upload a photo of you and your mum. Instead (or in addition) of buying flowers, or handkerchiefs, or Susan Boyle’s Greatest Hits, follow the donate link to sponsor one midwife’s full day’s training for just $35.00.

Then share the Gift of Life with Mum all over again!

Ever complained about waiting times in ‘Emergency’? Just 8 weeks ago 27 year old Chea Chet full term pregnant and in advanced labour was refused care at her local hospital in Cambodia. Then she was sent home on the back of a motor bike.

Fortunately for this young woman labour didn’t end in tragedy. But it very nearly did.

Half way home she was unable to continue the journey. By herself, on her own at the side of the road she delivered her third child – a baby girl.

For anyone living in a modern society with relative affluence and good access to public health it’s hard to imagine. So why did this young woman get turned away from a local health clinic?

In a nation like Cambodia the public purse is not as deep as our own. Hospitals and health clinics are poorly resourced (including the health care workers that staff them). A government run hospital needs to make ends meet somehow and so it becomes an improvised user pay system.

Put bluntly, if the pregnant woman couldn’t pay, she didn’t get the help she needed.

High rates of maternal and infant mortality are due to a variety of factors. The inability to pay for care is just one. Others include a lack of trust in the system, inaccessibility to centres of care, overreliance on traditional medicines and methods, little or no antenatal care, no emergency planning, poor diet and a myriad of complications in labour. Essentially, having a baby in a developing nation is a life threatening event.

You can help change that. This year we’re expanding the Safe Arrivals Birth Attendant training to include a further six Cambodian provinces (making 15 in total). Help support this year’s training and plan a Safe Arrivals fundraiser today.

In 2010 foreign correspondents for the New York Times Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published their compelling book ‘Half the Sky’. Half the Sky contains an array of extraordinary real life stories that uncover the barbaric abuses that women face on a daily basis. “It’s impossible to stand by and do nothing after reading Half the Sky” - George Clooney.

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“Honor killings, sexual slavery, and genital cutting may seem to Western readers to be tragic but inevitable in a world far, far away. In much the same way, slavery was once widely viewed by many decent Europeans and Americans as a regrettable but ineluctable feature of human life”.

We live at a time in history where ‘information’ is right at hand. Now Half the Sky inspires us to do something about what we know. Read the book, join the movement.

(Or if books aren't your thing, check out the documentary)

How about some thought on the issue. Maybe even some discussion. Is it ‘right’ when our teenage boys think there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with naked or half naked girls screen printed across their shirts?

One or two have recently shown up at our place. Our own kids have heard the drum but clearly the message hasn’t made it's way through to the friends.

It’d be easy to write these young fellas off as ‘disrespectful’ or ‘rude’. But the reality is they’re great kids from good families and terrific friends.

The response to the challenge went something like this; “What’s wrong with it?” “It’s a shirt right? It’s just fashion. I didn’t put her there”. (Without wanting to sound harsh) Yes you did. You chose the shirt, bought the shirt, slipped it over your head and walked out of the house and (until that point in time) you hadn’t given it a second thought.