ELLE campaign
A LETTER FROM SARAH BROWN TO ELLE READERS
I am writing to ask you to personally help me save the lives of 500,000 young women a year. These women are dying because – unlike you and me – they have no life choices. No choice about whether or not to get married (sometimes to more than one man); no choice about whether or not to have a baby and no choice about where to give birth.
Every minute, somewhere in the world, a woman dies during childbirth. Despite all the progress in the past 20 years, this statistic has not changed since the mid-1980s. These women are the world’s forgotten citizens, but there is something we can do to change that right now. We owe it to them to make 2008 a turning point.So, today, I would like to invite you to join ELLE in its partnership with the White Ribbon Alliance – an international coalition of organisations and individuals spanning nearly 100 countries. From work in communities to government-level lobbying, the alliance is committed to helping women know their rights, and to assisting them in pressing for education and change in their own countries.
I particularly want to ask ELLE readers to support this campaign because, unlike so many of the world’s young women,you know the value of choice. You have choice in your career, choice over whom to marry and choice about when to become pregnant. If you do decide to become a mother, you have choices about where and how to give birth, as well as access to skilled people who can help you if something goes wrong.
I have seen first-hand the difference that a £2 sterile delivery kit can make to doctors and midwives when it comes to saving lives. This year I visited India (the country ELLE will be supporting in the coming months), and witnessed how women can work together to share information, as well as to secure access to proper healthcare.
In its December issue, ELLE will run an online handbag auction to raise money for the White Ribbon Alliance. In the meantime, I’d like to thank you, the women of the world who have the most choices in life, for your compassion for those who have none.
Sarah Brown
SUPPORT SO FAR
Together with Aparajita Gogoi, the national coordinator of WRA India, we have compiled a list of the basic resources – things most of us take for granted – that will be of immediate benefit to midwives in India. With the help of some of ELLE’s generous friends, we have gathered together the following items, which we will be sending straight to India today.
- H&M: 200 UMBRELLAS
These will help protect the midwives from the fierce sun when they are travelling between towns and villages. - TOPSHOP: 100 FLIP-FLOPS
Midwives often have to walk long distances to attend patients, but many don’t have shoes. - MARKS & SPENCER:
100 DOUBLE BED SHEETS
Clean, durable bed sheets are in short supply. - DEBENHAMS: 100 BED SHEETS
Midwives will be able to take bed sheets to their patients, helping to provide a clean birthing environment.
To support the White Ribbon Alliance, or for further details, visit whiteribbonalliance.org.
