EU envoy applauds Malawi’s Banda on safe motherhood: To open eye clinic in Mangochi
Malawi President Mrs Joyce Banda has received praise from the European Union Ambassador for Humanitarian Causes Tasha de Vasconcerous for her safe-motherhood campaign in the southern African country.
Soon after assuming power, Banda launched the Presidential Initiative for Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood, a project that will focus on improving the current poor maternal health.
Vasconcerous met President Banda in Brussels, Belgium and assured that the European Commission will continue assisting Malawi in reducing maternal mortality and improving safe motherhood.
“My role is to shine the light for those in need and I am glad to work with President Banda, she is a wonderful woman who is committed to humanitarian causes,” Malawi News Agency quoted the EU Ambassador.
When she launched the safemotherhood initiative, President Banda said, “mothers should not lose life in the process of giving life.”
She is discouraging child marriages and home births. She rightly argues that these are key reasons for the country’s challenges around maternal mortality and fistula.
President Banda has since launched a nationwide campaign to educate traditional leaders about the dangers of child marriage and early pregnancy. The same leaders should instead encourage parents to keep girls in school and persuade women to give birth at clinics.
The EU envoy, who is also a founder of Aide Mondiale Orphelins Reconfort (AMOR), a charity organisation focusing on Orphans, revealed that she will open an eye clinic in Mangochi, Malawi in November this year.
“We are all inspired by Madame Joyce Banda who has been a shining example in issues of poverty eradication, food sustainability and safe motherhood,” she said.
The Mozambican born Vasconcerous established AMOR in 2006 and has promised to engage in various charity activities in Malawi, saying she feels engaging great work in the country.
After meeting the EU Ambassador, President Banda was hosted to a state banquet by Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission at Berlaymount Building in Brussels, Belgium.—(Additional reporting by Henry Nyaka, Mana)
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