Healthy Women Healthy Families
Protecting and restoring the health of women and children
2013 Mother’s Day Project card
The Healthy Women Healthy Families ministry supports health projects that care for women and children around the world, helping families escape a vicious cycle of poor health and poverty. Healthy Women Healthy Families assists church partners with prevention and care projects in countries where women often struggle to protect the health of their children and themselves.
Learn more about these issues
- A woman in Africa dies from cervical cancer every ten minutes. Learn more
- Complications of pregnancy or childbirth claim the life of one out of every 16 women. Learn more
- As many as 100,000 women each year suffer fistulas as a result of obstructed labor. Learn more
- More than 30 percent of children are malnourished, and two out of five are stunted in their growth. Learn more
- Malaria kills 3,000 children every day. Learn more
- 800,000 children die each year from diarrhea and dehydration.
Healthy Women Healthy Families helps church partners provide critically needed prevention and care services including prenatal care, cervical cancer screening, fistula surgery, nutrition, immunizations, health screening, primary care, health education and malaria prevention.
Mother's Day Project 2013
PC(USA)’s annual Mother’s Day Project, a popular mission activity co-sponsored by International Health and Development and Presbyterian Women, benefits Healthy Women Healthy Families. Information and resources for the 2013 Mother’s Day Project are provided here. Healthy Women Healthy Families is supported year-round through PC(USA) Account E052136. Gifts may be made by giving online or by sending a check to:
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700
Participate in Mother’s Day Project and download resources
Make plans now to participate in the Mother’s Day Project, the annual spring mission activity that supports the Healthy Women Healthy Families program. The Mother's Day Project supports life-changing activities with overseas partner churches of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The program is being expanded beyond the four African countries that have previously been supported to include a range of partners around the world. Your donations to Healthy Women Healthy Families through the Mother's Day Project will provide grants that not only provide medical care for needy women, but will also provide literacy, education and leadership training as well as support for community development projects.
Participating in the Mother’s Day Project is easy. Order Mother’s Day cards and promotional materials for your congregation or Presbyterian Women’s group from PC(USA)’s International Health & Development Office. Many of the project materials are available to download here. There is no cost for cards or promotional resources. Make the cards available at your church prior to Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 12), in exchange for donations to Healthy Women Healthy Families.
Last year, gifts made through the Mother’s Day Project purchased pediatric drugs, funded a malaria prevention program, and helped to expand a health education program for women and children. Other health services supported through the Mother’s Day Project and Healthy Women Healthy Families include nutritional programs, immunizations, cervical cancer screening, fistula surgery, and prenatal and primary care.
Presbyterians have generously supported the Mother’s Day Project since 2001.
Healthy Women Healthy Families may also be supported year-round with gifts to PC(USA) Account E052136.
download 2013 RESOURCES
Mother's Day Project 2013 Information Sheet
Mother's Day Project 2013 Bulletin Insert
Mother's Day Project 2013 Minute for Mission
Mother's Day Project 2013 Poster
Learn more about the countries where your gifts provide health services
A village resident sits with his possessions emptied from his house while the spraying is underway.
Successful malaria prevention program expanded in Malawi
“Indoor Residual Spraying,” a project in Malawi that reduces malaria by reducing mosquitoes in homes, is being expanded following a successful trial period funded by International Health & Development (IHD). The Nkhoma Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) project showed promising results and was well-received by local residents, according to PC(USA) mission co-worker Dr. Barbara Nagy, a pediatrician at Nkhoma Hospital. “From studies done at other sites in Malawi and neighboring countries we expect to see further reductions in malaria cases every year that spraying takes place,” Dr. Nagy reported. IHD has committed to fund the expansion of the IRS project to reach 13,500 homes in the Nkhoma area.
Indoor Residual Spraying reduces mosquito populations by applying insecticide to the interior walls of homes. Last year approximately half the dwellings in the Nkhoma Hospital area were sprayed, following an extensive community education program. “People in those communities were extremely grateful to receive this assistance and are looking forward to repeat spraying this year,” Dr. Nagy said. “As I am making the rounds on the pediatrics wards we are also telling families that spraying will soon be done and again the response is extremely enthusiastic.”
Malawi has one of the highest rates of malaria in the world. Young children suffer an average of 9.7 cases of malaria per year, and malaria is the most frequent cause of death among children under age five. The toll of malaria is readily apparent to Dr. Nagy. “Having survived many years with close to 200 severely ill children at a time in the pediatrics ward, most with malaria, I know we need relief from malaria. Many children’s lives are lost and many are left with permanent neurologic damage. I would love to pass a ‘malaria season’ at Nkhoma without running out of blood to transfuse a child, or IV fluids or malaria medication, without four children to a bed. All these things are now possible through indoor residual spraying.”
Spray operators walk to the next village.
International Health & Development is supporting the Indoor Residual Spraying project with funds from the NetWorkers Malaria Prevention Program. The NetWorkers Program is now part of PC(USA)’s Healthy Women Healthy Families initiative.
Indoor residual spraying is endorsed by the World Health Organization and by the President’s Malaria Initiative, a U.S.-sponsored program aimed at reducing malaria in 15 countries. Many homes in Malawi are built of locally-made bricks, which are more permanent structures and a safer environment for spraying than huts made of natural biodegradable materials. The Nkhoma IRS program treats only the permanent structures.
Download resources
Women and Children: Faces from Africa
The 2011 Healthy Women Healthy Families Mother’s Day card includes images of women and children in four African countries where International Health & Development assists the health programs of PC(USA) church partners: Malawi, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan. Each photo was taken at the site of a Presbyterian mission hospital or health project. The women and children depicted on the card are representative of so many others in those countries who struggle to build healthy lives for their families. The Healthy Women Healthy Families Mother’s Day Project helps support them in that effort.
You can download display copies of the photos from the Mother’s Day card, plus others, with captions that describe the health issues that Healthy Women Healthy Families addresses.
Healthy Women Healthy Families 2011
(Photos by Bob Ellis, Frank Dimmock, Dr. Sue Makin, Gail Bingham)
