On the 16th of November, my social justice group and I went to meet with an organization called Every Mother Counts which is a nonprofit organization that helps make childbirth and pregnancy safe for every mother. In the beginning, we wanted to go to an organization that helps women all over the world. We also wanted to make sure that the organization makes sure that women are safe and healthy, especially when they are pregnant. When we found Every Mother Counts, we realized that it was a great opportunity for us. We set up a meeting with a wonderful lady named Perrie Grace.
The walk to Every Mother Counts from LREI was seven minutes. We walked over at about 12:45 and got there in time for our meeting, which was at 1:00. We went upstairs and we saw their amazing work area. The founder of Every Mother Counts introduced herself and two other ladies. The two ladies’ names were Perrie Grace, who was the lady we talked to before, and a woman named Maddy Wasserman. Perrie and Maddy are both employees who help out at Every Mother Counts. The founder of Every Mother Counts is Christy Turlington-Burns. Christy, Maddy, and Perrie lead all of us into a small conference room and got settled in. I really liked Every Mother Count’s workspace. It was very neat and simple. I saw many different materials in their workspace that I found interesting. For example, maps that showed where they would have important events and much more. Everything around me seemed so sophisticated. I felt very nervous in the beginning because this was my very first field work. I also haven’t really experienced anything like this, but at the end, I realized what an amazing experience it was. We all sat at a large conference table and started our meeting.
We started off by talking about what we are learning at LREI and what the social justice project is. They seemed very interested in our work and then they told us about their work. They said that they were a nonprofit organization that helped mothers stay healthy. They also told us where they work, how they help raise awareness and more. We learned this after we discovered that Christy had complications when she was pregnant. That is what inspired her to help women that are pregnant with their health. We were very interested in their work. One question that we asked was how do you bring supplies to other countries and what supplies do you bring? They answered that question and I learned that they find health care professionals and help supply them with certain materials. They said that they send materials all over the world to areas that really need them. They send diapers and other materials and provide transportation to clinics.They also said that they don’t like to bring a whole lot of supplies because then it could hurt some businesses and they don’t want to do that. Instead, they prefer to send materials to areas which really need them. For example, many people in certain areas have to walk a great distance in order to get help with medical issues. That means if you are pregnant, you could walk up to over five miles just get help for your baby. My group and I found that very sad and complicated. We thought that it was awful and very disappointing how women who are in need of medical assistance and do not receive it. I definitely believed that it was completely unfair. I think that this piece of information really motivated us to focus on women actually getting health care and rights that they deserve. We learned a lot at Every Mother Counts and we are definitely keeping contact with Christy, Perrie, and Maddy. We learned a lot of other information, too, by watching videos, and asking questions such as, how do you feel about the Roe vs Wade case, what led you to work at Every Mother Counts, and much more. Overall, we learned a lot about how we can help even more with women’s reproductive rights.
On our way back from school, we thought that it was an amazing field work and that we are happy to continue to work with Every Mother Counts to make something great happen. We were all very excited and thought that our first field work went very well. On our way back we had many new ideas to help women’s reproductive rights. For example, Every Mother Counts told us a lot about different companies that relate to our topic and we were excited to check them out. We learned about natural tampon and condom companies, and an app that is able to track how long you walk and as you walk, it donates money to a specific company. After learning about the app, it gave us an idea to go on a walk with the school to help raise money for Every Mother Counts. All of these companies that they informed us about inspired us to do new things for our social justice project and teach in. We had so many ideas and thought that the interview with Every Mother Counts was a great experience. We arrived back at LREI at 2:00.
Here is a picture of our social justice group with Perrie (right) and Maddy (left). This photo was taken at Every Mother Counts’ workspace.
