Every two minutes a woman dies due to complications during childbirth.
Let that sink in for a moment.
At our 6 May meeting we were lucky to find out more about the incredible work of the Birthing Kit Foundation, which is addressing this shocking statistic, one birthing kit at a time.
Operations manager Adrian Harris has been involved with the foundation for more than a decade and gave us a sense of its history and impact, including the many thousands of lifesaving kits donated and packed by Rotarians.
Birthing kits include simple items designed to help women at home or with limited medical support to deliver their babies safely, with reduced exposure to disease and infection.
The foundation distributes the kits to remote regions of the developing world, where they have been proven to save the lives of mothers and their newborns. In some communities, these kits are more valuable than gold.
The foundation also trains midwives and birth attendants, who go on to share their newfound skills in their communities.
Thank you, Adrian, for informing and inspiring us in the lead up to our birthing kit packing day on 17 May.
You can find out more about the foundation here.