Press Release: Africa’s Future in African Hands Tour

Re: International tour of Mary Koroma a grassroots nurse-midwife from Sierra Leone, West Africa who is successfully combating the highest maternal mortality rate in the world

Theme: Africa’s Future in African Hands

Sponsor: All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) http://www.developmentforafrica.org

Dates: April-May 2012

Contact: Camilla Hippolyte
email: camilla@developmentforafrica.org
phone: (305) 331 8310

The All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) is honored to announce the world-wide tour of Nurse Mary Koroma, midwife and Director of AAPDEP in Sierra Leone. AAPDEP invites those with a passion for self-determination and community led development to bring the Africa’s Future in African Hands (AFIAH) tour to your city this spring.

The AFIAH tour focuses on the issue of infant and maternal health in Sierra Leone, Africa and the African Diaspora and will showcase the power of African people working together to develop African communities.

Nurse Mary will be travelling to the US from Sierra Leone, which has the world’s highest ratio of maternal mortality with 1 in 8 women at risk of dying during childbirth and one of the highest global rates of infant mortality with 123 of every 1000 babies not surviving to the age of one. However according to the AFIAH tour organizers, “despite the great

barriers to health care faced by Sierra Leone’s people, this is not a tour emphasizing charity and hopelessness”. Instead, Nurse Mary will be highlighting how African people in Sierra Leone, and beyond, have organized in their own interest to overcome this issue. Rather than waiting for charities or the government to implement band aid projects at their whim, the people of Sierra Leone, under the leadership of AAPDEP and Nurse Mary, have exhibited true self-determination by coming together to create their own programs to combat the deaths of mothers and babies in their community.

In the last year AAPDEP Sierra Leone has provided expectant mothers with skilled care through a number of grassroots projects. Nurse Mary has founded the AAPDEP-WIND Health and Birth Clinic, where over two hundred patients are treated each month. In addition, AAPDEP provides training and certification for traditional birth attendants, who are often relied on for care, despite limited training, by women who are unable to access costly and distant hospitals. Nurse Mary has also spearheaded powerful projects aimed at raising resources to sustain the clinic while also meeting the needs of the community, including four multi-acre vegetable farms, a community fishing project, a skills training center called the AAPDEP Vocational Institute, and a Nursery School.

Nurse Mary will be sharing her experience of community led development, where African people identify their own needs and work together to create solutions, a very different model to that of charity organizations that seek to capitalize on poverty. The AFIAH tour will also serve as a fundraiser for the expansion of the clinic.

There are a number of ways you can contribute your skills, time and resources to this work:

1. Support the building of the maternity clinic by making a donation at http://developmentforafrica.org/donate.shtml
2. Host an event and bring the Africa’s Future in African Hands Tour to your area this spring.
3. Work with AAPDEP to organize a fundraising drive within your school, work place or community.
4. Become an AAPDEP member and utilize your professional training for the benefit of all African people.
Learn more about AAPDEP’s work by visiting www.developmentforafrica.org. For additional information or to set up a tour date contact Camilla at camilla@developmentforafrica.org

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