Degree Name
MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management
First Advisor
Rachel Slocum
Second Advisor
Jeff Unsicker
Abstract
Every day families are left without mothers and children. Not only does this affect the family but it can have ramifications on the community. There is a link between the wellbeing of moms and that of their children, yet we lose thousands of women to maternal complications each year. Moreover, each day, thousands of children die before reaching their fifth birthday. The most tragic part is that most of these deaths are preventable. While these deaths have been halved in the last 15 years, there is still a lot of work to be done. There have been several initiatives which focus on reducing the under-five and maternal mortality rate, including those of the United Nations: first the Millennium Development Goals and now the Sustainable Development Goals.
RESULTS, an organization that fights poverty, teamed up with a diverse group of 12 organizations with the purpose of addressing two of the worst aspects of impoverishment: global maternal and under-five deaths. With the launch of the ‘Reach Every Mother and Child’ campaign, the coalition added to an international movement to end child and maternal mortality. Although the campaign has done a good job of increasing issue awareness and getting support for the bill it created, its choice in policy does not truly address the key causes of maternal and child mortality, poverty. This capstone paper will introduce and analyze the campaign, RESULTS’ strategy, and my contributions to the campaign. As an Organizing and Advocacy Intern for RESULTS, my duties included increasing awareness and securing co-sponsorship for the bill proposed by the campaign. In my efforts to fulfill these responsibilities, I created several pieces of media, wrote letters to members of Congress and had an outreach event. After evaluating my contributions and RESULTS’ campaigning, I will share insights I gleaned from my experience.
Disciplines
Family, Life Course, and Society | Maternal and Child Health | Politics and Social Change
Recommended Citation
Leslie, Laura E., "Organizing for Women and Children: Advocating for the ‘Reach Every Mother and Child’ Campaign" (2016). Capstone Collection. 2864.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/capstones/2864
Included in
Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Maternal and Child Health Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons