Happy Mother's Day

It's every mother's human right to give her children health, safety and happiness, no matter where she is from.

Today mothers in the Congo face unimaginable hardships. Inadequate health care, violence and grinding poverty often stand in the way of future prospects and opportunities for their children. But there's hope. There are amazing community-based organizations affecting change everyday.

As you celebrate the moms in your life, please help us raise awareness and support for moms in eastern Congo and the local organizations that are working to improve their lives and communities.

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP:
1) SHARE THIS VIDEO via the Huff Post social share buttons to support moms in eastern Congo.

2) MAKE A DONATION in honor of the moms in your life today.

Together we can create an eastern Congo vibrant with the opportunities and future that every mother envisions for her child.
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Your contribution will benefit the following community-based organizations:

HEAL Africa: Provides Innovative Prenatal Care and Micro-Insurance programs to Congolese women to increase access to health care for birthing mothers and reduce maternal and infant deaths.

Laissez L'Afrique Vivre (L.A.V.): Provides vocational training, micro grants and safe housing to teenage mothers and vulnerable youth.

AFEM: Encourages the advancement of Congolese women and gender parity in all areas of public life by training and enabling rural women journalists.

 

 

 

Comments

[Mr Universe]

01:42 AM on 05/14/2012

If you're reading this your mother did a remarkable job bringing you into the world. But there are others who aren't reading this...they are the ones who need our help.

[averagezoe]

11:53 PM on 05/13/2012

If I could be sure that my donation would be used for birth control or sterilization, I might make one. To support the indiscriminate procreation in those countries is sheer insanity,

[Sally1952]

11:48 PM on 05/13/2012

Ben Affleck is one of the good guys.

[dlo2]

11:38 PM on 05/13/2012

There are hundreds of NGOs that often duplicate efforts in SSA. What is needed is country-led integration of NGOs that create sustainable action plans, not weeks or months of intervention but decades long community-oriented practice that empowers the people who are suffering as well as provide capacity from the top down. The people most in need are the rural people of SSA and those living in peri-urban squalor, often recent emigrees from the rural areas. But the access to healthcare, clean water, adequate micronutrients is most severely compromised in the sub-sistence farming populations living in rural areas and most susceptible to poverty causing infectious diseases rampant in these areas.

Integration of NGOs is a sine qua non for what Ben speaks about but jobs and access to credit/land reform so that landless and especially female adult populations are able to own land; rehabilitation and medications for those who suffer diseases like leprosy, schistosomiasis, tropical diseases and the epidemic burden of snakebites and trauma common to the rural populations...There is so much work to be done but country-led community based action is the key.

[MrsHughes]

09:18 PM on 05/13/2012

Distressed countries in need of medicine to cure a common cold must get some special attention.
If not now, when?
Thanks for the awareness Ben Afflick.
Your mother should be proud of you. ( See you in The White House some day.)

[great googly]

07:45 PM on 05/13/2012

wow he is cute

[redbud9]

07:29 PM on 05/13/2012

Personally I prefer to help the destitute, hungry, and impoverished mothers here in this country before I reach across the world.

Places like the Congo need more help than we could possibly give them. You have to change their culture, beliefs, government, economy, etc.

[Charles Sommers]

02:06 PM on 05/14/2012

Many of the poor in this country are rich beyond the wildest dreams of some in other countries. We should try to help the poor and starving in every country with no regard to national boundaries. There is no food shortage in the world, only a distribution and compassion problem.

[southerncaliforniaguy]

05:21 PM on 05/13/2012

Over 20,000 foster children in LA without Mothers who need help, without Mothers! I respect this and I also think if everyone volunteered locally and moved that movement outward it would be very successful around the world rather then jump from one Celebrity Project to the next because why I probably will end up sending some money today for this cause I strongly believe they are forgotten about within 2 to 3 years and the next project that is on the Celebrity radar comes up. Its up to us to work locally everywhere in this country where to many children are without mothers and fathers and take that out to the world.

[FeelinGroovy]

07:04 PM on 05/13/2012

Yes. Think globally, act locally...and globally if possible.

[brainyintellect]

05:00 PM on 05/13/2012

A little tinge of xenophobia perhaps in some posters? All this statements on "what about America"? What about not being so self absorbed for once, and knowing that we are ALL humans on this planet, and that no citizenship bounds you from recognizing the pain of other human beings? Nationalist thinking to the point that even charity is conditioned, is nothing but extremism!

I commend and respect Mr. Affleck for being a human being and citizen of this planet I can be proud of! Your mother will be proud on this mother's day.

[claraluz]

07:00 PM on 05/13/2012

Perhaps xenophobia is at work in some comments, BUT... Agreed that we are ALL humans on this planet, so... why not look around right here at home first, see that there are children experiencing the same hunger, mothers experiencing the same despair as elsewhere? And, with that understanding, organize the relief drives and carry out the good works BOTH here and in the Congo? Why are mothers and children in our blighted inner cities, in rural isolated areas, in small towns devastated by unemployment and lack of medical care, the ones that are falling under the radar in increasing numbers as our social programs are being terminated, aren't they equally valuable and deserving as those in the Congo? Why not help both as much as possible??
Hunger hurts in any country!!

[brainyintellect]

07:45 PM on 05/13/2012

at claraluz, How about this: it doesn't matter whether its Congo or USA. It doesn't matter who comes first. If shared humanity is the only qualifier for addressing the need, then anyone, ANYWHERE in the world qualifies. "Home first" does not matter.

Now if my liberal ideal sounds too perfect, has it occured to you that the percentage of those in pain in Congo is more than the percentage of those in pain in the USA? And it is only human to triage one's efforts towards the most dire situation?

[eulailah]

04:34 PM on 05/13/2012

We cannot wait until these mothers are vilomah (parents whose child has died) until we notice their needs. Affleck is right to call our attention to ways we can help them be mothers with living children, whose health and future are assured because our care is not circumscribed by borders or nationalities.

[kapalabhati]

03:45 PM on 05/13/2012

Kudos!

[BlueZoo]

02:15 PM on 05/13/2012

Mr. Affleck, paraphrasing your second paragraph: "Today, mothers, particularly single mothers, in the United States face unimaginable hardships. Inadequate health care, violence and grinding poverty often stand in the way of future prospects and opportunities for their children." I hail your interest in helping these types of situations but I strongly feel that charity begins at home!

[claraluz]

06:46 PM on 05/13/2012

I have to agree with you, but with the clarification that charity should begin at home, but should also spread out, like a ripple in a pond, to countries like the Congo.

[FeelinGroovy]

06:55 PM on 05/13/2012

We all might want to put our charitable contributions to work in our communities as well as reaching out to our brothers and sisters around the world. Nationalism has no place in this discussion. Here is a man who is giving back to the world some of the good fortune he enjoys. There is no reason to criticize.

[BlueZoo]

07:14 PM on 05/13/2012

When I hear my local food bank begging for food for children, I tend to discount needs overseas and take care of my own! Sorry, I cannot agree with you here.

[mayacanogop]

02:00 PM on 05/13/2012

Hey Ben what is your politcle opinion on a 1 % Hollywood Elite $40.000 dollar plate? Inquiring minds want to know.

[kapalabhati]

03:46 PM on 05/13/2012

Hey, Maya, spell much? "Politicle?" Effingenius.
What exactly have you or your GnoTP done for women lately? Oh, right, notafreakingthing.

[Elle Bach]

09:12 PM on 05/13/2012

Good on you! People who turn everything into a political 'gotcha' make me sick. F&F.

[FeelinGroovy]

06:57 PM on 05/13/2012

This is a story about sharing. There is no mention of politics. You could post that question in the comments section of every story on HuffPo and it would make as much sense as it does here, which is to say none.

[wa-st-concerned]

01:54 PM on 05/13/2012

......and the starving children ( and adults....) in the US?

...the homeless? ...the unemployed? ....the sick without health care?

We forget our own country pretending to be altruistic in others.

Just think how much human kind would benefit from the money we spend on "defense" if we directed it to actual humans........

[FeelinGroovy]

07:00 PM on 05/13/2012

Helping others does not preclude helping at home.

I agree that money should be spent on the greater good and not wars. However, that is not related to this story.

We all need to help one another. The government and what it does with our money...another issue altogether.

[fiestyslug]

01:32 PM on 05/13/2012

Well done Mr Affleck.