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Dear Friends: Spring is here. And, with Mother's Day just around the corner, we're energized and optimistic that you will want to join in Mother's Day Every Day (MDED) actions! This email includes information and ideas to help build our movement among your friends and colleagues. First, we want to welcome to the MDED Advisory Committee, Dana Perino and Mike McCurry, two former White House press secretaries; and Mark Green, Managing Director, Malaria No More Policy Center, Former US Ambassador to Tanzania and US Congressman. Already they are enhancing our campaign with their passion and talents to reach ever more people through their diverse networks. Congratulations to MDED Advisor and CARE Maternal Health Advocate Christy Turlington Burns whose new film – No Woman, No Cry – is being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. In her gripping directorial debut, Christy shares the powerful stories of pregnant women in four parts of the world: a remote Maasai tribe in Tanzania, a slum of Bangladesh, a health clinic in Guatemala, and a prenatal clinic in the United States. For tickets, please click here. The MDED Campaign was heartened to see robust funding for maternal and child health in the President's budget for FY2011. MDED Advisors sent Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Kay Granger (R-TX), Chair and Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs a bipartisan letter in support of robust funding for these critical programs, calling investments in maternal and child health "among the most cost-effective, life-saving investments the U.S. can make." Please click here to read their letter. "Tell Congress to Invest in Women's Lives!" This is the message MDED Advisor Liya Kebede is urging people to send through the letter-writing campaign she launched on the Huffington Post this month. Already, over 3,000 people have sent letters pushing for the US to invest $1 billion in funding for maternal and child health programs. Please click here to join Liya's efforts. Also, learn more about Liya's work in this area in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Living Proof Project video where she and others explore how US-funded programs are saving mothers' lives in Ethiopia and around the world. Breaking news! Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will keynote CARE's annual conference and celebration, adding her voice to those who will gather in Washington, DC May 11-12 "to demand a world without poverty." Please click here to register. Fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg has designed a Mother's Day 2010 "Love is Life" white-on-white t-shirt to benefit the White Ribbon Alliance. Diane is hosting a cocktail reception with Georgina Chapman, Liya Kebede, and Christy Turlington Burns at the DVF studio in New York to launch the t-shirt and to preview No Woman, No Cry. Please click here to order your t-shirt. A recent study published in the health journal The Lancet in April 2010 projects a split-screen picture of welcome progress and sobering inequities. While the report's findings show maternal deaths have decreased globally, hundreds of thousands of woman still die from complications related to pregnancy and child birth. With only 23 countries currently on track to meet MDG 5, we must accelerate actions to ensure all women have access to lifesaving care. To see response to the Lancet study by CARE and WRA, please click here and here. Advocates are gearing up to hold G8 leaders accountable for Prime Minister Harper's pledge that this year's G8 Summit (June 25-27) will launch a major maternal and child health initiative. Please go to http://www.whiteribbonalliance.org/G8/ to read the PMNCH Call to Action for the G8 and to www.momsrule.org, starting May 1, to send a Mother's Day message to President Obama and PM Harper. Stay tuned! Once again Huffington Post is amplifying the voices of maternal health champions with its May 1-9 Countdown to Mother's Day, featuring op-eds by MDED advisors and friends. Thank you.
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