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Dear Friend,

For pregnant women in poor countries, joy and expectation are always mixed with fear. They know that giving birth is one of the most dangerous things they will ever do. Today, a thousand women in the villages and cities of the developing world will die needlessly from complications — preventable and treatable complications — of pregnancy and childbirth, and a thousand more tomorrow.

Over the last century we learned, for the first time in human history, how to make pregnancy and childbirth safe. And yet, all over Africa, Asia, and Latin America, women continue to die as if these transformative advances in knowledge and technology had never happened.

Imagine a classroom somewhere in Africa, filled with eager, chattering teenage girls. The statistics tell us that one of them will fall victim to this epidemic of maternal death. For too many of those schoolgirls, their reproductive years will be a minefield of unintended pregnancies and unattended deliveries; those who are lucky will make it out alive.

For the unlucky one, death may come in a tiny hut in a remote village, where there’s nothing to do when a new mother starts bleeding but watch her die. It may find her at a clinic, where no one has the skills to perform an emergency C-section. Or she may die in a city hospital, after arriving too late when unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion led to a life-threatening infection.

Each maternal death becomes the center of a wider circle of devastation and pain: a newborn who won’t survive without his mother, a daughter who must leave school to go to work or take care of younger siblings, a grieving husband getting by on half the family income, parents suffering an unspeakable loss, a community deprived of a young woman’s energy, creativity, and productivity.

Family Care International has been working for a quarter-century to build long-term, sustainable solutions to these age-old problems. We are in the slums of Mali, helping young people protect themselves from unintended pregnancy, HIV, and sexual violence. We are in mountain villages in Ecuador, making sure that indigenous women choose to give birth in modern clinics because they know they’ll receive respectful, high-quality care. We are on the edge of the Sahara in Burkina Faso, and in the Amazonian swamplands of Bolivia, to ensure that women can reach the emergency obstetric care that will save their lives. And on the global stage, FCI is one of the world’s leading voices for maternal and reproductive health, fighting to put women’s lives at the top of the policy agenda, and to make sure that governments follow through on their promises.

This work is urgently important, and we will keep at it until every woman can decide for herself whether and when to have children, until every woman who chooses to get pregnant has access to skilled care throughout her pregnancy and childbirth, until surviving pregnancy is not just a matter of good luck.

But we cannot do it alone: we need your support.

Even in the midst of the current global financial crisis, major foundations, governments, and other donors continue to support FCI’s programs. But cutbacks in their budgets mean that we need your help to fill critical funding gaps. Your contribution is essential to all of FCI’s vitally important work, now more than ever. Please give as generously as you possibly can.

Thank you, as always.

Warm wishes,

Ann M. Starrs
President