Melinda Gates

On Molly Melching and However Long the Night

2013-05-03T16:28:32-04:00

The first time I met Molly Melching, the founder of an organization called Tostan, we were driving through the countryside in Senegal on our way to Kolma Peulh, one of more than 1,000 villages in Senegal that no longer practice female genital cutting because of the innovative work Molly and Tostan have been doing with the locals for years.

Molly spent an hour telling me about her life and her approach, which is based on two things: deep, deep engagement with local communities, and the concept of basic human rights as the starting point for any intervention. Her personal story was inspiring. Her ideas were thoughtful. When we arrived in Koma Peulh, I saw everything she'd been telling me about with my own eyes, and it was incredible. With Molly's help, the community had created a new vocabulary for talking about the most important issues they face, and they were using it to make all sorts of improvements to their lives. I have not thought the same way about the work I do at the Gates Foundation since that day.

In Koma Peulh, I talked to the chief of the village. He said: "When we study, we start to believe. There is no more forcing, no more child marriage -- these things don't go with our true beliefs... We now have clear vision, whereas before we were nearsighted. Nearsightedness of the eyes is bad but not nearly as bad as nearsightedness of the heart... This program was like the rainy season to us; we were in the dry season and when knowledge comes it is like rain, everything grows and it's beautiful."

Empowered, mobilized communities don't just address one single issue, such as female genital cutting; they work steadily to recognize and then meet all their needs. In fact, in the book, there's a great quote from a Tostan board member saying "It may sound strange to say, but if Tostan is remembered in the history books only for the end of FGC, it will be a tragedy. If we were to get the support needed to take this model to thousands more communities, this is a model that can transform Africa."

You may not be able to travel to Senegal, but you can read the new book However Long the Night, by Aimee Molloy, which tells Molly's story and the story of the Senegalese communities where she works. Too often, the way we communicate about global health and development makes it seem as dry as the Senegalese desert. However, the Tostan story is about courage and ingenuity and power. Molloy captures all those human elements, which is fitting because the success of Tostan is due to the fact that Molly is sensitive to the human elements at work within communities like Koma Peulh.

However Long the Night reinforced my own belief that the best solution to disease and poverty is already present in developing communities around the world. The solution is the people who live in these communities, and their drive to make the future better than the past. Molly's story is also the story of so many brave and innovative people who are changing the world for themselves.

This post first appeared on the Impatient Optimists blog.

Bringing Every Good Thing to Our Daughters

2013-03-13T09:00:01-04:00

This post is part of the Global Mom Relay. Every time you share this blog, $5 will go to women and girls around the world. Scroll to the bottom to find out more.

Not too long ago, my daughter asked me to talk to her Model UN class. Call me a geek, but I love it that my kids learn about things like the Millennium Development Goals. When I was in school, the two biggest continents in the world rarely registered in the curriculum. My children know so much more than I knew, and I am sure they will do amazing things with the knowledge they're gaining now.

When I visited class, I asked the girls to imagine their future. Fun times with friends. Choosing a college. Maybe travelling. Deciding on a career. Building a family. Then I told them that if they lived in Niger, a West African country I visited last year, they'd be preparing to get married in the immediate future.

In Niger, 75 percent of girls marry before they turn 18. Niger is small and has the highest rate of child marriage in the world, but there are large countries (including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, and Tanzania, with a total of 1.5 billion people) where more than 40 percent of girls become brides.

My daughter and her classmates calculated the odds and realized that by random chance they were more likely to be a child bride in India than a high school graduate in the United States. When they figured this out they were eager to have a conversation about how to help less fortunate girls around the world.

That's why I'm excited to be supporting GirlUp for my leg of the Global Mom's Relay, and I'm also enthusiastic about the other campaigns that are part of the Relay, including Shot@Life, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action and Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. I've also included GirlUp on my Catapult page, a new crowdfunding site that helps fund projects that are improving the lives of women and girls around the world. GirlUp helps hundreds of thousands of girls in the United States build leadership skills by engaging them in important issues affecting their counterparts in poor countries around the world, issues like child marriage. The result of these campaigns is better, richer lives for girls everywhere through the nurturing of a common bond -- the desire to determine their own future.

The bond I feel with the mothers I meet when I travel is what motivates me to do the work I do. I like to tell the story of the mother I met who said she uses contraceptives because she wants to "bring every good thing" to one child before she has another. We all want to bring every good thing to our children. My daughter and her friends want to have the power to choose a rewarding future for themselves. Girls in countries like Niger want the same thing. The only thing that's different is their ability to get what they want. We can honor our common humanity while minimizing the tragic differences between us by bringing girls together to seek empowerment as one.

Each time you share this Global Mom Relay piece on Facebook, Twitter, or Email, or donate $5 or more through clicking on the above graphic, a $5 donation (up to $8,000 per day) will be donated by Johnson & Johnson and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Girl Up. Join us by sharing it forward and unlock the potential for women and children around the globe. For more information, visit www.unfoundation.org/globalmomrelay. The United Nations Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, BabyCenter, The Huffington Post, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation created the Global Mom Relay, a first-of-its-kind virtual relay with a goal of improving the lives of women and children around the globe.

From Celebration to Action for Women and Girls

2013-03-08T13:00:44-05:00

On this International Women's Day, I am optimistic about the future for women and girls. One reason is that no matter where I go, I see them demanding information and opportunities that are key to improving the lives of their families and will ultimately contribute to the economic and social development of entire societies. I'm also optimistic because whenever I share their stories, people ask me, "What can I do to help?"

That's why I'm proud to announce the launch of my team page on Catapult.org, a crowdfunding platform dedicated to supporting women and girls, for this year's International Women's Day. I identified these three great projects from GirlUp, Breakthrough, and Jacaranda Health and hope you can join Catapult to help fund them. Our foundation will match every dollar donated to these projects. Together, we can help women and girls determine their own future, no matter where they're from.

Read the full article here on CNN Leading Women.

Positively Disrupting the Global Community

2013-03-06T15:43:33-05:00

Here at the Gates Foundation, we embrace risk.

We do so because testing big ideas is how we find solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems.

I know firsthand that taking these risks can sometimes stir up controversy.

Last year, in my TEDxChange talk, I argued that providing information about and access to contraceptives should not be controversial, because they empower women and girls to plan their families and offer their children a better future. My talk evoked strong reactions, but I believe it was a necessary disruption.

This idea -- disruption -- is often unwelcome. But some disruption can be a positive -- even vital -- catalyst for change. It can challenge old assumptions and uncover new possibilities.

That is why I am so thrilled about this year's TEDxChange theme of "positive disruption." Speakers from around the world will talk about how they and others have positively disrupted society, agriculture, technology, and communities in ways that make our world a better place.

I am looking forward to welcoming everyone to our global webcast on April 3 so that they can hear firsthand from our impressive lineup of speakers.

Our first speaker is Cathleen Kaveny, a legal scholar and theologian. Cathleen made a big impression on me when I attended a session she taught about the intersection of faith and family planning last year. She will offer her unique perspective on reconciling religious traditions and modern life.

Next up will be Halimatou Hima, an inspiring young woman I met last July in Niger while she was working at the country's United Nations offices. Her talk will focus on an issue close to my heart: the importance of investing in girls to positively disrupt the course of their lives.

Roger Thurow, a journalist and author, will follow with a talk about the role of people and technology in disrupting natural agricultural cycles and the importance of the 1980s Ethiopian famine in shaping his passion and interest in this space.

Julie Dixon of Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication will conclude with a talk that explores the permanent disruption of social media on the way people get involved in social causes and how this has the potential to gradually shift traditional models of donor engagement across the non-profit sector.

Alongside these inspiring speakers, we are also looking forward to a spoken-word performance from David Fasanya as well as a preview of the movie Revolutionary Optimists, including a brief conversation with some of the children featured in the film.

For the past three years, the Gates Foundation has collaborated with TEDx to bring you TEDxChange, and together we've tried to share ideas worth spreading in the areas of global health and development. One of my favorite things about the TEDxChange experience is the fascinating conversations it sparks around the world.

I hope you will join us on April 3 by watching the program at one of the 150 global satellite events, or following the livestream at TEDxChange.org.

I'm excited to see the positive disruption of our amazing TEDxChange community in action.

Reclaiming the 'Art and Science' of Teaching

2013-02-11T13:51:03-05:00

Recently, I've developed a new least favorite piece of jargon. We've rendered the phrase "the art and science of" almost meaningless by using it to describe nearly any endeavor.

But if we were more careful about language we'd see that "art and science" is a nuanced way to think about the unique properties of teaching, one of the most important endeavors in any society.

I recently sat down with a group of teachers for a roundtable discussion as part of a conference hosted by the foundation for educators, and they talked a lot about this art/science concept.

Talking with teachers at Denver's South High School. Photo: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The art of teaching is about getting your arms around something as dynamic as a classroom full of young students. They bring a constantly changing set of challenges from their lives at home into the classroom, and teachers have to understand them as individuals, earn their respect, and establish basic discipline -- all while engaging them in academic subject matter. Teachers have to spur their students' curiosity for months at a time so that they build a base of knowledge brick by brick, over time.

That's an art. Teachers flex and flow based on the kids in the classroom and the mood on each particular day, but at the end of the week they know the class has to master certain material.

The science of it is about exciting research that examines what tends to work best in the classroom and the rigorous methodology of constant improvement. This field of research is just getting started but the results so far can help point us in the right direction.

Teachers tell me they are hungry for deep and specific critiques about their own teaching, so they can improve in ways specific to them and their students. Our foundation is working with partners to help teachers get substantially more personalized feedback, especially from trusted, trained colleagues and even their own students.

One of the participants in my lunch session told me about how she thinks of her development as a teacher. She said, "We learn by seeing and doing, and we will stumble along the way." I loved that, because it beautifully describes how all human beings grow in every area of life. It's certainly true of students. They stumble, and great teachers pick them up over and over again so they can see, and do, and learn.

To pay proper respect to the art and science of teaching, our foundation is working hard on giving teachers options. They cannot excel with a prescribed, teach by numbers approach. But at the same time, teachers don't want to fly by the seat of their pants all the time. They want the best research about effective teaching, they want in-depth feedback, and they want dedicated time for collaboration and professional development. They also want the freedom to implement the lessons they learn in ways that work for them in their classrooms.

Our goal is to reclaim the cliché about "the art and science of teaching," so that it means something specific and helps us support teachers to do their best work

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My Hope for 2030: Building a Vision for Women and Girls

2013-02-04T14:49:16-05:00

In 2000, the United Nations took bold action to address critical global health and development challenges impacting the world's poorest populations. The results were the Millennium Development Goals. By thinking big and collectively holding ourselves accountable for results, the global community has come together to improve the health and well-being of millions of people.

During that time and particularly this past year, we have seen the importance of investing in women and girls and keeping them at the center of the global health and development agenda. Empowering women and girls - through health services, education, and economic opportunities - to reach their full potential is critical to achieving meaningful and sustainable change. Making these investments will dramatically affect the story we tell 15 years from now.

Today, global leaders are starting to think about what the next set of development goals should look like. The specific process of creating the goals will happen at the UN, but we all have a role to play in determining what the future holds. To help illustrate our collective potential, I thought it would be interesting to share different hopes and visions for women and girls by 2030.

For my part, I hope that in 2030, women and girls will have no limits on their aspirations for the future, no matter where they are born.

What's your hope for 2030? Share yours at www.myhope2030.com.

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Without Teachers, the Classroom Is Just a Room

2013-01-09T16:04:39-05:00

Years ago, when our foundation was getting started and Bill and I were starting to learn more about high school education, I had a conversation with a young teacher in Houston, Texas that transformed the way I look at the work we're doing.

He said that when he reflected about what it meant to be a good teacher, he realized that he had to live the values he was trying to instill in the students. (This reminded me of one of my favorite quotations from Gandhi -- that you should "be the change you wish to see in the world.") Then he said that once he reflected on what it meant to live good values, he stopped thinking just about being a better teacher and started thinking about being a better human being.

This teacher gave me a new reverence for what the bond between teacher and student is all about. There is a cliché about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The whole of education is greater than the sum of algebra, persuasive writing and reading comprehension -- even though basic arithmetic tells you that the sum of those parts is very large. That was the idea behind this video, which I just showed a group of hundreds of educators gathered together from 32 districts and states to learn from each other about designing high quality teacher development and evaluation systems.

As the video says, the focus of our education strategy in recent years has centered on helping teachers do their best work. We're working on this challenge from many angles and with many partners, including teachers themselves. We started with the most basic question: What does great teaching look like? We hoped that if we could help come up with an answer, we could share what we learned and help all teachers be their best. So we worked with 3,000 teachers from across the country who volunteered to be part of a big research project. We now have results from that work, which we called Measures of Effective Teaching (MET). It found that effective teaching can be measured using multiple measures that teachers can trust.

Now, we're focused on giving teachers the support they need to excel in the classroom. That support should come in many forms, including individualized professional development, cutting-edge educational technology and state-of-the-art lesson plans. One of the things I hear most often when I talk to teachers is that they're eager for more chances to work together, to learn from each other.

New teachers want regular access to colleagues with experience who can help them grow into the profession. Experienced teachers, likewise, want to become leaders in their schools by mentoring new teachers. I was recently talking to teachers in Denver, an innovative school district that is trying some new approaches. They told me one of the best changes is a new emphasis to work in groups. They said the spirit of the collaboration reminds them of why they became teachers in the first place.

Perhaps most importantly, teachers must have a voice in creating the future of teaching. They have a unique understanding of where their profession needs to go -- and what they need to do their best work for students. We have an obligation to benefit from their wisdom. That is why all the work we do at the foundation is in partnership with teachers.

Making the Most of Your Holiday Giving

2012-12-12T14:12:01-05:00

When we talk with people about the work our foundation does, one question frequently comes up.
"How can I help?"

That's getting easier and more fun with the exciting transformation happening in online giving.

This holiday season, we decided to list several of the charity initiatives that have sparked our interest. Each of these projects takes a different approach, but they have three things in common: they're innovative, committed to transparency and accountability, and they're getting good results.

Our list is by no means exhaustive. There are lots of other great charities, and we hope you'll also do some searching on your own for causes, organizations, or projects that speak to you. But here's a starting point:

Catapult, launched just two months ago, is a crowdfunding site that helps organizations raise funds for projects to advance gender equality. Once a project has reached its fundraising goal, 100 percent of the funds are sent to the organization. Catapult expects partners to update donors at least twice on how their money is being put to work -- 90 days and one year after funding has been received.

Since 2006, charity: water has raised more than 75 million to build thousands of freshwater wells, rainwater catchments, and BioSand filters in developing countries. One hundred percent of the funds they raise from the public go directly to water projects to help the 800 million people worldwide without access to clean water.

DonorsChoose.org was started in 2000 by a social studies teacher in the Bronx. Teachers from around the U.S. post classroom project requests on the site -- everything from crayons for a kindergarten art class to seeds for starting a vegetable garden. Donors can give any amount they want, and for a limited time, ever dollar donated to STEM projects on the site will be matched if you enter the code HOLIDAY at checkout.

Gifts that Give is a for-profit shopping website that contributes 20% of every merchandise sale to the charity of the purchaser's choice. Shoppers can choose from more than 1.2 million nonprofits and over 5,000 products.

This year, CARE partnered with Threadless, an online t-shirt design community, to raise money to improve the health and education of women and children in developing countries. More than 100 artists submitted designs for a CARE-themed t-shirt. In an online vote, "Mother is a Daughter is a Mother" by Israeli artist Shahaf Gurevich, was chosen as the winning design. With support from our foundation, 100 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of each shirt benefit CARE.

To learn more about any of these organizations and many more, you can also visit Charity Navigator and GreatNonprofits. Both of these organizations focus on helping people make great giving decisions -- Charity Navigator through professional ratings, and GreatNonprofits through socially sourced feedback and reviews. Increasing the amount and quality of information available to donors will ultimately make giving easier, more effective and rewarding.

As this handful of examples shows, there are many ways to make the world a better place.

We think people achieve the greatest impact (and have the most fun) finding an issue they're passionate about and getting involved in a way that lines up with their interests and skills.

This philosophy was passed down to us from our parents, who all supported local charities and participated in community projects when we were growing up.

At the Gates home, the work of the United Way was almost a daily topic of conversation. Our parents were fortunate enough to be able to give a little bit of money to these causes, but they also gave their enthusiasm, their ideas, their time, and their voices. For them, the non-financial contributions were the most rewarding and also the most effective.

When people ask, "How can I help?" our answer is, "Follow your passions."

When you find the cause that inspires you, and the way to get involved that engages your heart and your mind -- you will make a big difference in the world.

Catapulting Change for Girls and Women

2012-10-11T13:55:37-04:00

Lately, I have been reflecting on the ingenuity and commitment I witness in the women and girls I meet during my learning trips to the developing world.

That's because today, October 11, 2012, marks the first-ever United Nations International Day of the Girl. And it's about time.

When I travel to developing countries, I try to meet as many girls as possible. I am simultaneously inspired by their boundless potential and often frustrated by how much of that potential is locked up by inequity.

When I speak to people in developed countries, they often ask me, "How can I help?" Until today, there hasn't been one place where all of us who care deeply about the lives of women and girls can gather and give together. But now, on this inaugural Day of the Girl, there is.

Catapult is the first platform which allows anyone, anywhere to join with their friends and drive donations to great organizations working for girls and women. You can adopt a project, start a team, and witness the impact of your efforts. 100 percent of proceeds pass straight through to help women and girls.

It's been a gift for me to be able to visit the projects our foundation has helped to fund and meet the amazing girls and women working so hard for themselves and their families. Hearing from them about how their lives have changed for the better has been so rewarding. I'm excited that now everyone has the chance to experience this feeling.

Here are some of the stories from my travels that have touched me most. I hope you'll get involved and discover stories of your very own.

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From Farms to Family Planning: Investing in Women on World Contraception Day

2012-09-28T10:12:56-04:00

Today is World Contraception Day. I am celebrating by visiting a cassava farm in Tanzania.

It might seem like a strange way to observe the day, except for this fact: the women who do the majority of the labor on small family farms in developing countries are often the very same women who are asking for, but not getting access to, contraceptives. They put family planning and agricultural productivity in the same category: both are critical to raising healthy and productive families.

Their goal isn't to have access to a range of contraceptive methods. Nor is it to be experts on soil health. Their goal is to make sure their children can fulfill their potential, and they need both the power to determine whether and when to have children and the ability to grow enough food to nourish them.

I have spent most of the last year advocating for women in the world's poorest countries to have greater access to contraceptives. I co-hosted the London Summit on Family Planning this summer to help rally the world around the goal of giving 120 million additional women and girls access to contraceptives by 2020. I felt compelled to focus on this issue because as I travel and talk to women in developing countries, they tell me over and over again that they want and need to be empowered to plan their families so that they and their children can be healthier and so that their families and communities can be more successful.

For many reasons, this issue hasn't been a priority in development for years, and I decided that listening to women meant trying to put family planning back at the top of the global health agenda. World Contraception Day provides an opportunity for me to look back on what we've accomplished so far. Many donor countries, private companies and, most importantly, developing countries came forward at the Summit to make significant commitments to support women's access to family planning in the world's poorest countries. I also believe that by shining a light on the issue, we helped more women be heard.

World Contraception Day also reminds me to keep looking forward. How do we convert the commitments made at the Summit into tangible results for families? How do we keep women at the heart of the global health and development conversation? And how do we make it clear that contraceptives are part of a complex puzzle -- that they connect to other key development priorities like agriculture and child health?

I urge you to help answer these questions by joining the conversation around our special blog series (with Women Deliver) featuring youth perspectives on contraceptives. And while you're at it, learn more about our agriculture work here, and join the conversation about that, too. Because it's really one and the same conversation about better lives for people in the poorest countries.

Where's the Controversy in Saving Lives?

2012-07-06T17:37:16-04:00

As we get closer to the London Summit on Family Planning, people often ask me, "Why is family planning so important to you?" The simple answer is that it can mean everything to so many of the women and families I meet. It means the difference between being empowered and feeling powerless. It means the difference between celebrating a daughter's graduation and watching her drop out of school. It even means the difference between life and death.

Providing family planning information and services to millions of women and girls in the poorest countries in the world gives them the opportunity to determine their own futures, and the best future for their children.

As a woman and a mother, I can't imagine anything more important.

The women and girls I speak with, whether in India or Kenya, tell me they want to be able to plan for their families. They tell me they want what's best for themselves and their children. They want the right to participate freely and equally in society.

I'd love for you to watch this video and let me know what you think. And the next time someone asks you, "What does family planning mean?" hopefully you'll have no problem answering, "It can make all the difference for women and girls everywhere."

Do you believe every girl and woman should have the opportunity to determine her own future? Spread the word that contraception is not controversial. Take the pledge, share your own story, and ask your online communities to do the same!

This post was originally published on Impatient Optimists, the blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

My Uncontroversial Idea

2012-04-11T13:07:47-04:00

Last week, I gave a TEDxChange talk in Berlin, and the video is now ready for viewing here and at TED.com. My argument is simple:

1. Birth control is an uncontroversial idea (practiced by a billion people) that has unfortunately become controversial.

2. As a result, hundreds of millions of the poorest families in developing countries don't have access to contraceptives that can change their lives -- and their children's lives.

3. If we all start talking about how transformative birth control can be -- and how important it has been in our own lives -- we can help poor women and men empower themselves and spur large-scale economic development.

I loved getting ready for the talk over the past several months, reading up on the literature and talking to experts from several continents. It was a thrill to deliver it, finally, after so much preparation.

Now, I hope you will take over, by telling your story here. Or by sharing my talk with your friends.

On July 11 in London, our foundation and many partners are hosting something called the Family Planning Summit. I am optimistic that it will be an opportunity for the entire global community to rally together behind the uncontroversial idea that all women should be able to decide when to have a child. The more we talk about this idea with our networks, the more likely it is that we can get a global movement going that helps policymakers do the right thing.

TEDxChange: Looking Ahead to a Stellar Line-Up

2012-03-29T14:08:19-04:00

With only a few days to go, I’m eagerly anticipating TEDxChange: The Big Picture and putting the finishing touches on my talk. The TEDx speakers I have watched online this year have certainly set a high bar.

This close to an event, it’s always a little nerve-wracking. But there’s no greater honor than to take to the stage alongside a line-up of individuals from around the globe for whom I have such great respect. This year’s speakers are all unique in their talents and perspectives, but they also have much in common: a strong belief in our ability to change the world for good and some ideas about how we might do it.

First, we’ll hear from Jeff Chapin of IDEO. Jeff will challenge our assumptions on design and give us a flavor of his experience of seeking market-based solutions to the sanitation challenges of Cambodia.

We will then welcome a voice from our host nation, Germany -- Sven Giegold, member of the European Parliament. With a history of advocating for the green industry, Sven will talk about how the actions of individuals and communities can triumph against the odds.

For those left wondering about what became of Salim and Sikha, our Revolutionary Optimists, we’ll be hearing what they have been up to since 2010, before Theo Sowa takes the stage. As the Director of the African Women’s Development Fund, Theo meets many awe-inspiring women from across Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on stories from her youth, as well as her professional experience in refugee camps, remote farming communities and conference centers, she will raise important questions about what it means to be an African woman.

Next, we are privileged to hear from the talented Baaba Maal. Having used his voice to such powerful effect, inspiring music-lovers in his home country of Senegal and around the world, Baaba will perform live at Trafo.

After that stellar line-up, the time will come for me to share an idea that is very close to my heart and which I believe has the power to change our world.

Do join us online to take a step back and look at The Big Picture (April 5^th / 5:30 p.m. CEST). I can’t wait to hear your reactions and responses.

A Winning Design for Maternal Health: Join the Threadless Challenge

2012-03-08T17:50:06-05:00

Everywhere I go, people ask me how they can help.

Fighting big issues like hunger and poverty, and working to save women's lives can be overwhelming. Where do you start?

What if we started by thinking about helping one woman give birth in a clean, safe health facility or ensuring access to contraception? What if one, meaningful action could get us closer to accomplishing these lifesaving goals?

It can.

Today is International Women's Day, a day to acknowledge and celebrate the women of the world; but, also, to recognize that we have a lot of work ahead of us to improve the health and lives of women, especially in the poorest countries. In partnership with Threadless and CARE, we're launching a T-shirt design challenge to inspire and engage us all to act on behalf of women in the developing world and to spread awareness of how important maternal health care is to the lives of women in the poorest communities. It's one way you can help.

You don't have to be a professional designer or artist. If you have an idea for an inspiring image or just a simple message, we want to see it.

Once the winning design is chosen, we'll sell the T-shirts online. 100 percent of the proceeds will go to CARE, one of our incredible partners working on the ground to save women's lives. The money will help to fund their maternal health work, to make pregnancy and childbirth safer for women.

I'm talking about helping women like Eliza. I'll never forget meeting Eliza at the Nassa Health Center in Tanzania. She was about to give birth to her fourth child and had walked six hours, after being in labor for two days, because there was no health care facility close to her home. Eliza was desperate to make sure her fourth baby would be born healthy.

I also remember sitting on the floor with about 40 pregnant women in Malawi, at the Dowa hospital. Why were they on the floor? These women arrive at Dowa Hospital up to four weeks before they are due to give birth because their villages are far away and transportation is lacking. They sit and wait so that they'll ensure they have access to care and do their best to avoid complications -- or even death -- from birthing at home.

Women around the world go to great lengths to make sure they have a healthy baby. They are willing to walk for miles or sit on the floor for weeks in a hospital, waiting.

So, will you join us? Will you design or purchase a T-shirt to make a difference in women's lives? The question now is not how can you help, but will you?

Will You Join Our Conversation on Women's and Children's Health?

2012-01-04T17:26:36-05:00

After an amazing amount of progress on women's and children's health in 2011, I'm starting off 2012 by heading to Bangladesh. I'll be learning even more about two of the biggest killers of children -- pneumonia and diarrhea. Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990. I'm excited to learn what they've done right and the challenges that remain.

While in Bangladesh, I'll be joining Nick Kristof in answering questions from readers about maternal and child health on his New York Times blog "On the Ground." Why these topics? I'll let Nick explain:

They're among the most important challenges we face. Women continue to die needlessly in childbirth, especially in Africa and South Asia, when we know exactly how to save their lives. And infant mortality -- especially neo-natal deaths -- remain a huge problem in many countries. As for empowering women, this isn't just about justice; it's also often the most cost-effective way to save lives and benefit entire societies. These are issues that Melinda and the Gates Foundation have thought long and hard about, and that I've tried to popularize in my column and on Twitter and my Facebook page (and, of course, in "Half the Sky").

As I reflect back on what I learned this year about the progress and the challenges in women's and children's health, I'm struck by the fact that we don't need to wait for the solutions. We have them. They're cheap. And they work. Things like life-saving vaccines, contraceptives, healthy practices for mothers and newborns and good nutrition.

This year I'm building on my 2011 New Year's resolution: I want to see cost-effective tools for saving lives in as many places as possible -- and I want to see social media help make that happen by continuing to foster conversation and dialogue among all of us who care so deeply about these issues.

Are you interested in helping women and children improve their lives, regardless of where they were born? If so, what questions do you have for us?

Please join me by tweeting your questions to me at @melindagates or to Nick at @nickkristof, posting them on my or Nick's Facebook pages, or by commenting on Nick's blog. I look forward to the conversation.