In choosing to act, global community can end 'needless death, suffering'

Oct 20 2012

"Not long ago, in Jinja, Uganda, along the grassy, damp banks of the Nile, I sat with six fellows from Global Health Corps, the organization that I helped to found in 2008," Global Health Corps CEO Barbara Bush writes in the Huffington Post's "Global Motherhood" blog. "[O]n this afternoon, we had come to the river as countless others have done for centuries to tell stories," she writes, noting, "In African culture, storytelling is revered, and the storyteller is the one to impart not only lessons, but also inspiration." Bush relays the stories of two fellows as well as her own and continues, "That day on the Nile, as the stories came full circle, I realized that each of us had taken a different path to arrive at the same destination: instead of becoming trapped by powerless situations, each of us had chosen to act, to do something about the injustices we had seen."

"All of us from a wide array of backgrounds and continents ... were working together to ensure that every year, 500,000 women don't die needlessly from childbirth, and that, upon birth, every child has access to the health care she or he needs to live a full life," she writes, adding, "Partnering with non-profit and governmental organizations, we are committing our talents, skills, and passion to solving health care challenges." Noting that "[o]n July 9, in partnership with Johnson & Johnson, Global Health Corps welcomed [its] newest class of 90 fellows at Yale University," she concludes, "Because every day I see young leaders choosing to act, I'm optimistic that soon we won't see needless death and suffering from preventable illnesses anywhere on earth" (10/18).