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November 2019, Mothers Matter: You are receiving this email as a subscriber to our mailing list. Thank you!
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GivingTuesday is a global movement for giving and volunteering, taking place each year after Black Friday. The “Opening day of the giving season,” it’s a time when charities, companies and individuals join together and rally for favourite causes. In the same way that retailers take part in Black Friday, the giving community comes together for GivingTuesday.​

NEW POTENTIAL PROJECTS FOR MATERCARE:

This GivingTuesday, MaterCare is raising $5,000 for travel costs and needs assessment of potential maternal health projects in Uganda and Rwanda. 

The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births per year. According to World Health Organization 2017 reports, the MMR in Rwanda is 184 to 387 deaths per 100,000 live births, Uganda's ratio has consistently been high at 278 to 523 deaths per 100,000 live births. These rates increase in rural areas without access to obstetrical care.

To put this in perspective, the Canadian ratio is 10 deaths per 100,000. ​

TOGETHER, we CAN save the lives of mothers and their children.

 2019 meeting in Rome to discuss potential projects

Get Involved Today

October 22 

On the Feast Day of Saint Pope John Paul II: We remember his devotion to motherhood

From CatholicRegister.org:

"A Kenyan hospital specializing in maternal care that was co-founded by a Canadian doctor is being credited as the first health care facility in the world to be named after St. John Paul II.

On April 27, within an hour of Pope John Paul II’s canonization, Dr. Robert Walley and Bishop Anthony Ireri Mukobo of the Apostolic Vicariate of Isiolo announced that a local hospital will be named St. John Paul II Maternity Hospital.

Walley is the executive director of MaterCare International, a Canadian organization of Catholic health care professionals caring for mothers, their newborns and unborn babies.

In 2005, he received an e-mail from Bishop Luigi Locati, the then-bishop of Isiolo, who invited Walley to visit him.

“He asked me to tell him what to do about maternal mortality and suffering mothers,” said Walley. “From the obstetrical point of view... most of the deaths occur during the last three months of pregnancy, during labour and delivery or a week afterwards.”

Walley was interested, but said he couldn’t visit the bishop at that time because he was heading for Rwanda. But Locati wouldn’t take no for an answer. Walley says the bishop replied almost immediately: “If you want to go to Rwanda, you have to go through Nairobi (Kenya).” Isiolo is just north of Nairobi.

Just around the time Walley and Locati started planning for the hospital, Pope John Paul II had died, and the pair thought the hospital would be “a marvelous memorial” to the late pontiff.

“He gave his life for motherhood. Mary was his champion,” said Walley of John Paul II. He describes the pontiff as a father figure.

When he found out John Paul II was “on the fast track” to sainthood, Walley said they held off on their renaming plans until the right time."

(source: https://www.catholicregister.org/item/18167-matercare-names-maternity-hospital-in-kenya-after-st-john-paul-ii)

MaterCare continues our mission to serve mothers and their children, and we are continually inspired by the words and wisdom given to us by this great Saint.

Happy feast day!

Photo (L to R): Dr. Robert Walley, Prof. Gian Luigi Gigli, Saint Pope John Paul II

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To all of our supporters, colleagues and friends...

THANK YOU!

We couldn't continue our work without you.

Love,
The MaterCare Team
 
United States residents, visit us at MaterCareUSA.org
Copyright © *2019 MaterCare International (MCI), All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
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Email: info@matercare.org

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