How do you get a message across in the crazy buzz of the city that never sleeps? Take over Times Square, of course.

Hundreds of moms and supporters came together in New York’s iconic Times Square yesterday to create a giant human mosaic with one simple message: Health Workers Save Lives. The huge image certainly caught the attention of passers-by, but the image was even more impressive from the sky. Brian, an employee working in one of the overlooking skyscrapers, thought the mosaic looked so impressive he invited all the press photographers to his office!

As these people gathered in Times Square, a new report unveiled that more than 350 million children never see a doctor, nurse, midwife or community health worker in their lives. It’s unthinkable that any woman could give birth alone, or have no one to turn to when her child is sick. But the reality is that millions of children die every year from the most basic illnesses like diarrhea.

Yesterday I went for lunch with Joan, a midwife from Sierra Leone –- she told me the most inspiring stories of saving lives. In a country with just one-tenth of the health workers it needs, Joan really is a hero. She saves lives every day, and now trains other women to do the same. She told us of her love for her job, her joy in seeing healthy babies being delivered, and her desire for her government to ensure that all mothers in her country are within reach of a midwife. Today, Joan had the opportunity to take her message much further — she addressed the media and huge crowds in Times Square today, calling on world leaders to commit to ensuring there is a health worker within reach of every African woman and child.

We know health workers are the answer to saving mothers and children’s lives –- but the world needs 3.5 million more. The message from Times Square to the UN General Assembly is clear. World leaders need to take note -– the health worker crisis is a tragedy we must end.

Photo credit: Colin Crowley/Save the Children

Yesterday I spent the day in Dadaab refugee camp, a camp in Kenya near the Somalia border. A camp which has swelled to the size of Bristol –- some 370,000 people. I was both inspired and heart broken by what I saw and heard.

Photo credit: Colin Crowley/Save the Children

Like 1400 to 2000 Somali refugees do every day, I started my day at a reception center for new arrivals. Many families have walked weeks to get here through terrible conditions and arrive exhausted, dehydrated and hungry.

The children are malnourished, often needing instant life saving help. Families are given basic rations and supplies to last them for three weeks.

Feet raw and bloodied

Refugees who’ve been in Dadaab for a longer period of time distribute clothes they’ve collected for the more desperate new arrivals.

Many children are arriving unaccompanied having made the long, exhausting journey on their own. Save the Children staff help make sure they’re safe and find relatives or other families who will look after them until they can be reunited with their own family.

One family I met described the long walk from Somalia they’d endured without food and water. They were exhausted when they arrived in Dadaab, their four children’s feet raw and bloodied, desperate for help. This is not unusual.

Attacked by bandits

We then went to visit recently arrived families on the edge of the camp, living in makeshift shelters in very basic conditions. What they call ‘the outskirts’.

We came across a family burying Hawa, a little two year old girl. She had died of diarrhea. Her family had walked for 15 days through the bush, they had been attacked by bandits, the women raped and all their possessions stolen.

Four of the men in their clan were still being held by the bandits. After surviving all this suffering Hawa tragically died a few days after arriving at the camp. No child should be born to die like this. No parent should have to see their child die from diarrhea.

Overwhelmed

At one of the three camp hospitals a nurse showed us the stabilization unit for severely malnourished children. The clinic has been overwhelmed with ill children, fighting for their lives.

When you see a child, painfully thin, on a drip and receiving emergency help it is heart breaking. The nurses and doctors saving these tiny lives are real heroes.

Save the Children lead in the camps on what is called child protection — identifying very vulnerable children who have seen their parents killed, been raped or are alone. We also run clubs where children can play – an important way of overcoming the trauma of their ordeal.

Innovative project

It was amazing, after seeing so much suffering, to again see children laugh and play. The contrast with Hawa and the clinic moved me to tears as the tragedy of so many hit home.

I finished the day seeing another inspiring and innovative project that provide fresh vegetables to all six to twelve month old children in the camp.

Rather than hand out food aid we give vouchers that can be exchanged with refugee market traders in the old part of the camp for fresh fruit and vegetables. This innovative project both reduces child malnutrition and helps refugees earn a living. A double benefit.

Anger and pride

As we left for the Save the Children compound on the edge of camp I felt angry and sad that this could still happen in 2011. That families have to walk weeks, fleeing drought and war, facing terrible dangers to get help. Sometimes just to watch their children die.

But I also felt pride that the huge outpouring of support can and is making a difference and that children are alive because of that help.

In the coming weeks we will scale up our response in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to save lives. It is vital governments also act quicker and more generously. We can stop this becoming even worse if we act decisively now.

One of the best things about my role directing Save the Children’s child survival campaign is the chance to get out to the field and follow around real life health workers who are saving lives. Often with a sixth or maybe 10th grade education, these women and men agree to be trained to prevent disease and to treat childhood illnesses. And every day, they enjoy the satisfaction of the fact that their community is healthier, and children are enjoying a greater chance of surviving the risky first months and years of life.

Expanding access to the known and cost-effective tools that save lives like vaccines requires the presence of skilled health care workers. Ethiopia has made it a national priority to train health extension workers to provide immunizations, treatment for childhood infections, family planning and other basic health care interventions from health posts, and also by walking around the community. I love this video our team captured about Aster, a health worker in rural Ethiopia who not only talks the talk, she walks the walk. Without her work, I wonder what might happen to the hundred-plus children in the area around her health post.

Aster’s efforts remind us that vaccines and medicines require this human element to ensure delivery to the small children we need to protect from unnecessary illness. The GAVI Alliance and their partners team up to make sure that vaccines are more accessible through increasing both the supplies of vaccines and of health workers to immunize the children. It is a great partnership that is saving lives every day around the world.

Thanks GAVI and thanks Aster for going the distance.

-Mary Beth Powers, Save the Children

The acronym for the program is WALA, the Wellness and Agriculture for Life Advancement project, and the impacts of these investments were evident from the shining, beaming smiles of the children and women as they showed off all of their hard work. And it couldn’t be more apt — “wala” means “shine” in Chichewa!

The community built a contour trench along the hillside to keep top-soil runoff and mud slides from destroying their maize crops. Farmers trained in conservation agriculture, in conjunction with Save the Children, constructed a dam and more than 100 meters of canal to channel the water to fields of the most vulnerable households in the community. They also created systems for collecting water and built receiving boxes to help manage water supply.

Families were also being trained in nutrition, health and sanitation. Households were taught how to construct kitchens with dish racks, bath shelters, pit latrines and easy-to-build hand-washing stations to reduce the spread of disease and viruses. And seedlings for mango, guava, papaya, orange and tangerine trees help to sweeten the benefits of healthy eating.

Save the Children invited me to be a sort of Internet/YouTube ambassador for Advocacy Day in 2010, so I hopped a flight to DC armed with only a video camera and a whole bunch of curiosity and eagerness. I sat in on meetings, watched promo commercials, shook hands with countless people and learned more about what Save does around the world in two days than I ever could have learned by browsing their website. I was touched, immediately, by the passion and the drive I saw in so many people attending this event. I’ll admit I felt a tiny bit out of my element having done very little philanthropic work myself at that point, but I found myself fitting right in just by the incredible atmosphere and energy in the room.

By the time I was sent in my small group to go and speak with the senators (the main event), I felt so charged and informed that I had no problem speaking to these officials about the issues that Save stands for, even just as my young video-blogging self. It was an incredible experience, even in the meetings where I merely watched and came along for the moral support.

If you care at all about making a difference or have ever been proud or intrigued by the work that Save the Children does, Advocacy Day is a great place to start getting involved. There are dozens of helpful and wonderful people there who are ready and excited to educate newcomers on what Save is doing — so you’re all caught up and able to be part of the action right away. Attending Advocacy last year and meeting some of Save’s staff is what actually led me to going to Guatemala with them in the winter of 2010, so I am very thankful for my experience in DC. It opened doors that I may have never had the opportunity to go through otherwise. That trip to Guatemala has also made me even more excited to attend Advocacy Day again — not just as a caring newcomer this time, but as someone who’s actually seen the work they’re doing in the field.

To get more information about attending Advocacy Day on March 1, 2011, or to register for the event, go to Save the Children’s website.

-Kristina Horner

As one of the tag lines go, the idea is simple. Help one. Save many. Visit www.goodgoes.org and find out all the ways you can help get the good where it needs to go.

To help spread the word, 1GOAL Ambassador and musician Shakira issued a YouTube challenge last month asking people from all corners of the globe to record themselves doing the World Cup “Waka Waka – This Time for Africa” dance and show their support for universal education. Save the Children just posted their video, which highlights staff and friends dancing in the streets of Dakar, Senegal and rural Bangladesh. Take a look—and make sure to share the 1GOAL message with your family and friends.

Children and pregnant women are dying needlessly. Americans know it’s wrong to let these deaths continue when we know how to prevent them.

The tools to stop this are proven and often very low-cost. Using them, we could prevent an estimated two-thirds of 8.8 million annual child deaths and three-quarters of 343,000 maternal deaths.

Some poor countries have already made astounding progress — thanks to a combination of foreign aid, national will and sustainable strategies for getting basic health care to poor mothers and their children.

The most effective solutions are not high tech. Exclusive breastfeeding, micro-nutrients, antibiotics, anti-malarials, vaccines, oral-rehydration therapy and ready-to-eat foods could save millions of children each year. Skilled attendance at births, as well as basic prenatal and postnatal care could prevent most maternal deaths.

The countries with the highest number of child and maternal deaths also have the largest health care provider shortages, according to the new report, “State of the World’s Mothers 2010” from Save the Children. Yet, the report also shows that we can address this without having to confront the extreme challenge of producing large numbers of additional doctors to meet the estimated global shortfall of 4.3 million health care professionals.

You can read the full piece here.

My mom is a dynamic woman who is spending her retirement years traveling, golfing and herding my father. She always reminded me of Rosalind Russell at her ‘My Girl Friday’ best. She was a working mother when it wasn’t common, thanks in large part to the support of her own mom. Then when my Gran fell and broke her hip, mom left work to care for her. Now in her 70s, she still wears her leather pants as she hits the auctions looking for great deals. I think my mom rules!

I doubt I’m alone. We likely all think our moms are pretty special and we appreciate their sacrifices and their support. This Mother’s Day, there’s a way to not only honor your own mother (or a special woman in your life), but to also help moms around the world.

At www.momsrule.org, send an e-card to your mom, grandma, sister, friend and thank her for all her love, support and sacrifice. You can also upload a picture and include a short comment or story to the ‘Momsaic,’ an online photo mosaic comprised of pictures of mothers and caregivers from around the world.

To further honor your mom and moms across the globe, you can also send an email to Prime Minister Harper or President Obama, urging them to make a commitment towards long-term funding that will help improve the health of mothers and children in some of the world’s poorest countries. Each year, nearly 9 million children under age 5 die from preventable causes and more than 340,000 mothers die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. This doesn’t have to be the case.

I can’t wait to upload a picture of my mom and her leather pants. I will send her the e-card to thank her for being such a great mom. I know that she will be thrilled that in her name, an email will be sent to Prime Minister Harper about the maternal newborn and child health initiative.

Progress is being made to save these women and children, and when they survive, they contribute to a stronger, safer, more prosperous world. Our moms help us grow and learn to shape our own destinies. By honoring them, we can help moms around the world do the same for their own children.

-Cicely McWilliam, EVERY ONE Campaign Coordinator, Save the Children Canada

Find out more and RSVP by clicking the links below—and don’t forget to tell your family and friends to sign-up, too!

May 5-6
Save the Children
Advocacy Day 2010

May 11-12
CARE
2010 National Conference and Celebration

June 2-4
InterAction
Forum 2010: Moving at the Speed of Change

June 14-18
Global Health Council
Dateline 2010: Global Health Goals & Metrics

June 15
Bread for the World
Lobby Day 2010

June 20-22
RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund
Celebrating the Past, Shaping the Future: 30 Year of RESULTS

July 21-22
U.S. Global Leadership Coalition
2010 Washington Conference