"As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world."
-- Virginia Woolf
As citizens of the 21st century, we're part of a global community that's been remarkably catalyzed by women.
• There is a direct correlation between increased female labor participation and the growth of an economy.
• For every dollar they earn, women invest approximately 80 cents of it back into their families.
• In South Africa, women together travel the equivalent of 16 round trips to the moon to collect water each day.
In the words of Mark Twain, "What would men be without women? Scarce, sir... mighty scarce."
And yet, of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide, 70 percent are women. Preventable maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases make up one of the largest shares of the global disease burden, and millions of women are pushed into poverty each year by catastrophic healthcare costs.
We created Watsi, a global funding platform for healthcare, because we were tired of old fashioned philanthropy. We were part of a generation that grew up on the Internet, and we had the paradoxical experience of being hyper-aware of global issues but unable to use the technology that surrounded us to actively participate in them.
Since we launched Watsi, more than 1,000 donors have funded low-cost, high-impact medical care for 100 women and girls in 12 countries.
Today, in honor of International Women's Day, we're excited to announce the launch of a new maternal health program to crowdfund safe deliveries for expectant mothers in Kenya. This new program will enable anyone, anywhere to directly fund critical maternal health care for women like Ruth, a 16-year-old mother-to-be from Kenya who is fundraising on Watsi right now through our partnership with Lwala Community Alliance.
Reproductive health issues are a leading cause of death among women 15-44 worldwide. Ninety-nine percent of all maternal deaths occur in the developing world, and 90 percent of those deaths are preventable. By connecting donors around the world to women in need of care, Watsi has the potential to activate a solution that's completely unprecedented.
Help us spread the health! You can directly fund a woman's maternal health care right now at Watsi.org.