Love, Courtney Martin – Her email to Christy

Love, Courtney Martin – Her email to Christy

Courtney Martin is a writer, speaker, editor and all around powerhouse of a woman.  We saw her speak at TED Women a few years ago and were completely impressed with her. She had just written a book, Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists (Beacon Press, 2010) and was among the founding editors of a site/movement called Feministing.  That’s what she was speaking about at TED Woman - about the differences between her mother’s feminism and her own. Her advice was simple yet powerful:

• · Embrace the paradoxes
• · Act in the face of the overwhelming
• · Love people well 

We can’t think of any advice that drives closer to our own sentiments than that.

Courtney came to a screening of NO WOMAN, NO CRY at the Paley center the following spring and she wrote a great review.  We’ve stayed in touch as maternal health has become more and more on her radar, resulting in this recent trip to Rwanda and Malawi with the Aspen Institute.  She sent us an email describing that trip and we’re sharing it here:  

Dear Christy,

I'm just home from an incredible trip to Malawi and Rwanda, as I mentioned
in an earlier email to you. You mentioned that you'd like me to keep you
posted on what I experienced, so I wanted to drop a quick line to fill you
in.

In short, I accompanied a delegation associated with the Aspen Institute to
consult with President Joyce Banda on her new initiative focused on
maternal mortality and family planning. As you probably know, Banda is only
the second female president in Africa. She and Sirleaf are dear friends and
allies. Banda came into office in April after the former president passed away. She has only until May 2014 to make big change. Then she faces election, the prospects of which are still unclear.

This is all to say that there is a huge opportunity to change one of the
most deadly countries for women, but there isn't much time and Banda needs all the partners she can rustle up right now.

The initiative's approach is three-fold:

1) Work with the chiefs to change hearts and minds,

2) Train midwives and community health workers to make birth safer and increase access to family planning

3) Build "waiting homes" all over the country so rural women can get to a clinic before going into labor.

 I don't know what you're up to these days, personally or organizationally,
 but I would be more than happy to connect you to the folks at the Aspen
Institute who are convening people who care to ensure that this
special window of serious political will from a real grassroots-woman-turned-head-

of-state can be leveraged to save as many women and build as much infrastructure as possible.

Let me know! 

Love,

Courtney. 

Yes, indeed, we love Courtney.   

Want more evidence of how serious President Joyce Banda is to improve living conditions for her citizens? Check out Courtney's piece in the New York Times "Malawi's Leader Makes Safe Childbirth her Mission" and this article in Huffington Post on how Banda is auctioning off the presidential jet.