Did you know that 800 mothers die every day in pregnancy or childbirth? That's a pretty outrageous statistic given the current advances in healthcare. In Somalia, 1 in 16 mothers risk dying in childbirth – compared to just 1 in 4,600 in the UK.
But it's not difficult to prevent these deaths. 8 out of 10 lives could be saved if women could access basic healthcare and education.
Mothers are at the heart of society – when a mother dies in childbirth, it begins a cycle of death and poverty. When a mother dies, her child is ten times more likely to die too. Without a breadwinner, families are forced further into poverty. The surviving children are often taken out of school, sent out to work or married off at a young age. Young married girls who give birth before the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth.
Since 2011, the At Our Mothers' Feet campaign has been working to raise awareness about the problem of global maternal death amongst UK Muslim communities and inspire them to take action to share learning and to support Muslim NGOs to work on maternal health.
This is what we have achieved together so far:
Over 50 ulama' and leaders pledged their support for maternal health
30 events in seven cities raised awareness among 1000 people
14 Muslim charities committed to increased work on maternal health
To join in please download our toolkit here: http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/app/webroot/globalcitizen/AOMF-Campaign-Toolkit.pdf