Aparajita Gogoi: For Safe and Healthy childbirths

A happy, loving and caring motherhood is the right of every woman. A healthy mother gives birth to a healthy baby who leads us into a healthier future. A safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth can only lead the mother and the child into a happy and joyous life. This is the noble goal of White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRA) which was founded in 1999 to prevent needless deaths during pregnancy and childbirth. The White Ribbon Alliance has members in 151 countries and has established national alliances in 15 countries. The alliance in India has grown into a national alliance with a membership of over 1500 organizations and many individuals. Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), an NGO involved with improving the lives of girls and women in developing countries is the Secretariat of WRA India. Aparajita Gogoi who is the Executive Director at CEDPA, is the National Coordinator of WRA India. Guardian, UK, named her as one of the 100 most inspiring women on March 8^th 2011. The following is a summary of an interview with her.

Aparajita Gogoi joined the social sector in the early nineties. After learning about the issues that women face in India, she decided to look for opportunities in organizations that work for women’s empowerment. While working with an organization working to generate sustainable livelihood and do economic empowerment of women she came across a young woman who died in child birth due to haemorrhage. She realized that this was a completely preventable death and thus started her quest to know more about maternal health. She joined CEDPA in 2000 and stated coordinating the just born WRA India.

– Saumya Agarwal, Youth Leader India

An advocate of safe motherhood since 2000, Aparajita Gogoi believes that surviving childbirth is a fundamental right of every woman. She feels that it is unacceptable that a woman dies every 8 minutes in India due to pregnancy related issues. She has observed that most of the women who die due to pregnancy related causes in countries like India are poor women who have little political power, are frequently illiterate, and have very low status in their societies. Their voices are seldom heard. She henceforth believes that it is very important for people like us to add our voices, speak with and speak for these women, so that girls and women no more remain invisible when they are alive and uncounted when they die.

The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood is a grassroots movement that builds alliances, strengthens capacity, influences policies, harnesses resources and inspires action to save the lives of women and newborns around the world. WRA-India has created an extensive Alliance with diverse membership, but all of its members share WRAI’s mission of improving maternal health in India. The strategies followed by the alliance are to identify and share applicable knowledge and best practices, implement innovative campaigns through partnerships and networks, advocate for policy changes, disseminate messages and information through mass media, mobilize political figures and policy makers, mobilize celebrities and champions to expose the issue and to work at the community level using social mobilization models.

With rural communities in Jharkhand

According to Aparajita Gogoi over 80% of maternal deaths in India, as elsewhere in the world, are due to six causes: haemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labor, sepsis, complications arising due to unsafe abortion and pre-existing conditions such as anaemia and malaria all of which are treatable. She feels that most of these can be treated in a hospital that has emergency facilities and skilled personnel for obstetric care. Besides these, the underlying causes behind maternal mortality include low quality of health systems and socio-economic causes that obstruct and underplay the importance of healthcare for women. These issues overwhelm and worry her about where to begin. But she has learnt that a person can’t change the world but can always try and make a small difference. She suggests everyone to choose what they can do best and give it their best. Her approach to improve maternal health is through social mobilization which entails that purposeful actions reach, influence and involve all sectors of society. It recognizes that enduring change requires dialogue and partnerships among multiple stakeholders. It has mobilized its constituents through national and local level campaigns.

Dynamic and dedicated leadership along with a diverse cadre of members have enabled WRAI to be a strong forum for safe motherhood issues in India.

Aparajita asserts, “WRAI’s success would not have happened without the passion and commitment of alliance members and safe motherhood champions who shared a common vision of total inclusiveness, transparency, accountability, and collective decision making.”

She feels that maternal mortality is reducing in India and she is happy to contribute her drop in the ocean.

Aparajita has faced several challenges in advocating for safe motherhood. For instance, when WRA demands accountability, it becomes unpopular in certain sections of society. Also, very few people provide financial support for advocacy initiatives and those who do, do not understand the basic process of advocacy. She further feels that she needs to raise awareness on health rights of women and create conducive environment for women to demand their rights. Also, accountability at the level of family, community, health system and policy maker needs to be created. She further needs to address needs of vulnerable groups and address issues like age at marriage, delay pregnancy for adolescent girls etc. Her plan at WRAI for the next 3 years is to hold the policy makers and other stake holders accountable to the fulfillment of their commitment to reduce maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity. She further wants to mobilize action and support for operationalization and monitoring of quality maternal and new born care and to increase awareness for birth preparedness and complication readiness in India.

Such efforts give positive energy and a ray of hope to pregnant women, especially those of countries like India. Now the mother can say to the baby inside her womb, “Hey baby! The world is improving. Now we will be safe and healthy.” Let us take this opportunity to make April 11^th, which is India’s National Safe Motherhood Day more beautiful by raising awareness about maternal health and in general helping pregnant women and infants through small gestures in our day to day life.