Maternal Wellbeing, infant and child mental health, family Support, schools & communities, compassion & connection, and reliable protection. All 26 Rotary Action Groups work on these because it takes far more than a community to raise a healthy child.
Giving birth may be the most
dangerous part of a woman’s life. Her
heroism is often overlooked due to the human expectation that this is expected
of them. They should never have to experience
that risk alone. Or missing the most basic
needs for a healthy and safe birth bringing new life into this troubled hyper
complected and disruptive era.
As a young male, I’d always made up my purpose in life. But in witnessing my wife’s birthing of our
first child, my grounded purpose became real naturally.
When I started working to end
world hunger in 1979 approximately 42,000 infants were dying daily, from easily
preventable malnutrition and infections disease. A death rate nearly 10 times that of Hitler’s
Concentration Camps. As a biology teacher,
I had never heard about this hidden infant holocaust. I’d always learned in HS and college that
hunger was a result of an overcrowded world.
Too many people and not enough food. And I taught it to my Biology classes for two
years. Then I was told the truth. It was
confirmed in 1980 by a bi-partisan Presidential Commission on World
Hunger.
Humankind has always had the
capacity to feed the world sustainably.
It was never an issue of money, resources, or lack of solutions. It was simply a lack of “Political
Will”. In the early 70s I’d swore to my mother
I’d never get involved with politics. That changed overnight. And after doing a deep dive into the issue I quickly
learned it was connected to every other important issue. Peace, health, environment, economic systems,
and trying to change human thinking. That
took me from California to Washington DC to focus on creating political will
via the media. Their I was quickly
educated on the wisdom needed to address women’s health and other root causes
of high infant mortality, public and environmental health, education, female
empowerment, plus other basic human rights and needs like economic security, global
health security, with a focus on a healthy, sustainable environment. And all
national security issues, and our dysfunctional government systems (both national
and global). They needed to be unrigged
and transformed to prioritize nature, basic human rights, and global justice.
All of this led me to the final
frontier - that involves human cognition. How we think, what we think about, and
the nearly endless challenge of getting people to change their minds to meet
this global need. In the last half of
the second paragraph within the 1776 Declaration there is profound observation
of this insanity, “...all experience
hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed.” This is only something
healthy minds can do. Which leads to healthy
bodies, families spirit, communities, environment, government, and economic
systems.
Food scarcity was never the
issue. Only poverty, greed, and our mindless
waste of resources and lack of wisdom.
Over the past 4.5 decades many
things have improved. Now approximately
11,000 to 13.,000 infants still die daily - even with no wars, genocides (that
kill more people than wars), or natural disasters.
It should be obvious, but few
people who are not parents consider the fear of losing a child, the greatest
terror in the world. And the greatest horror is losing one...and/or the mother.
Simply due to a lack of “political will”.
Together, these two natural emotions have a greater impact on humanity,
than any war, revolution, pandemic, or natural disaster.
Maternal and child health reminds
us that the health of every family is connected to the health of every
community. A global health approach begins where people live—by ensuring that
every community and village has access to a well-equipped community health
clinic focused first on prevention, early detection, education, and rapid
response.
Such clinics can protect mothers
and newborns, improve nutrition and immunization, detect outbreaks before they
spread, strengthen mental health, family well-being, community unity, and connect
local needs to regional and global support as needed. Investing in community health is one of the
most practical and cost-effective ways to build healthier, safer, and more peaceful,
secure, resilient, and sustainable societies.
When every child has the
opportunity for a healthy start and every mother can receive timely care close
to home, the benefits extend far beyond one family to every corner of the globe.
They strengthen communities, nations, and ultimately our shared future.
Paul
Harris, the founder of Rotary International in 1905 offered humankind a
solution that clearly fits our meta-poly crisis era - "If Rotary is to
realize its proper destiny, it must be evolutionary at all times, REVOLUTIONARY
on occasion."-----Paul Harris
"Civilization
can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a
new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in
opposition to it. A new public opinion must be created privately and
unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by
organization, and by financial influences which are at its disposal. The
unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one which goes
from man to man and relies solely on the truth of thoughts and the hearer’s
receptiveness of new truth." – Albert Schweitzer
"It
is as if we are trapped in a death spiral with a map that only takes us in
circles. We persistently ignore the exit
signs because we insist on believing in the map we have in hand. You never
change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build
a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~Buckminster
Fuller
“In
order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the
problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That,
in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called.” ~
Buckminster Fuller
Unfortunately, evidence suggests
most people are NOT ready for
change! They are...
● Comfortable
and don't feel the need for change. Why change?
● Not
educated about the state of the world.
No need to change.
● Simply
don't care. Apathy and no empathy.
● Confident
in our modern worldview and that we are heading in the right direction.
Technology solves all.
● Insufficiently
capable of mentally understanding reality.
● Too
busy to be concerned about issues that they believe don't effect them.
● Distracted
and mesmerized by entertainment and consumer media.
● Unenergized
by the food or drugs they are putting into their bodies.
● In
deep denial about the future. Refuse to face it.
● Religious
belief that God has it all under control. Our involvement isn't needed.
Look for change makers and make
things happen.
"Silence, they say, is the
voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a
message, just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out &
resonate in every word & every deed. Yes, become who you are. There's no
sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you
are. You are your own comeuppance. You become your own message. You are the
message. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse " Leonard Peletier
“We do not need to change human nature. We
need to reveal it.”. George Monbiot,
Becoming Unstoppable Nov. 2017
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