Campaign Success: Party Leaders Join Our Campaign For Mums

A massive thank you to everyone who supported our Maternal Health Campaign last month. It was a busy week between International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day as we seized the opportunity to make an impact for women worldwide. And it paid off. Thanks to your efforts, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Secretary of State Douglas Alexander all backed our campaign – and we’ve got it on video!
We made sure all our politicians got the message too – we made a short film of some famous faces explaining why the campaign is so important and showed it in the House of Commons.

The positive response was also a great example of what we can achieve in coalition with other organisations, as we worked closely with Save the Children, Oxfam, White Ribbon Alliance and Mumsnet to really maximise the pressure. But it doesn’t stop there. We can’t let this issue go away – every day should be Mother’s Day. The UK has been a world leader on maternal health for some time, and we want to ensure this continues. That’s why we’ll be delivering our giant mother’s day card made up of all your fantastic photos to the next government when they take office. We’ll make sure they’re held to account for the commitments they have made. So please keep sending in those photos of you and your mum, your children, a mum you admire or a mum-to-be.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this campaign – whether by sending an email or uploading a photo – every action makes a difference.

Advertisement

Action Of The Week: Every Day Should Be Mother’s Day

With Mother’s Day tomorrow I have emailed the party leaders about the Manifesto for Motherhood I promoted on the blog earlier on this week. However because I think this is an important campaign and there is a new video with famous faces explaining why every day should be mother’s day. See www.amnesty.org.uk/mums to send an email to party leaders and watch the film. Right I better go and get my mum something nice. And happy Mother’s Day to all mums out there.

Where Next For the ‘Stop Violence Against Women’ Campaign?

At the end of March the Stop Violence Against Women campaign comes to an end. However, this isn’t the end of the road for Amnesty campaigning on women’s human rights. The Demand Dignity Campaign has integrated this work into the three strandads of Corporate Accountability, ‘Slums’ and Forced Evictions, and Maternal Health. The Maternal Health theme is about preventing maternal deaths which are almost always preventable and kill one woman every minute. Amnesty International as part of a coalition of NGOs and professional associations have produced a Manifesto for Motherhood to increase political and financial support for maternal and child health in developing countries. This will be part of our campaigning at the forthcoming General Election and we are asking activists to send to card (by post or email) to the Party Leaders in time for Mother’s Day. For further information on the Maternal Health work and this action see www.amnesty.org.uk/dignity .