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(San Francisco, CA)—Today, Children’s Defense Fund President (CDF) Marian Wright Edelman delivered the keynote address at the International Museum of Women’s (IMOW) Gala, A Global Celebration of Women. The event highlighted the Imagining Ourselves Motherhood campaign and was hosted in conjunction with the Global Women’s Action Network for Children (GWANC, an international initiative of CDF) to raise awareness and promote urgent action to enhance maternal, infant and child health globally.

Mrs. Edelman’s remarks focused on GWANC’s objectives and key initiatives, particularly its upcoming global advocacy efforts to raise awareness and mobilize support to address the millions of needless deaths each year of women, infants and children.

“I’m honored to be here today to raise awareness for the need to ensure every pregnant woman and her baby survive and thrive through pregnancy, birth, infancy and childhood,” said Marian Wright Edelman. “Across most of the industrialized world, a woman’s pregnancy commonly is a period of great joy, culminating in a cherished new life. Yet for millions of women and infants in low-income countries, pregnancy and delivery can be life threatening. I am heartened that the International Museum of Women and the Global Women’s Action Network for Children are collaborating on this human tragedy.”

IMOW’s current featured project, Imagining Ourselves, which is designed to increase the number of young women in leadership positions and to strengthen this first global generation of women, mirrors GWANC’s current initiative to help draw international, regional and national attention to the deaths each year of more than 14 million mothers, infants and children globally and the millions more who suffer—the vast majority of which is preventable. GWANC is committed to connecting existing organizations and other networks to work together to improve maternal, infant and child survival rates and overall health status and to enhance educational opportunities for girls.

The Global Women’s Action Network for Children (GWANC) is an international initiative formally launched in June 2006 at a Conference “Mobilizing for Action” held at the Dead Sea under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan. In 2007, GWANC will launch a global advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the millions of preventable deaths of women, infants and children around the globe.

For more information on GWANC, please visit: http://staging.childrensdefense.org/gwanc

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