Mary Anne Mercer

Mother's Day is celebrated in most countries around the world -- mothers everywhere are honored for their central role in maintaining happy families and healthy societies. But in poor countries, Mother's Day is too often a sad time. In 2008, a woman died every 90 seconds somewhere in the world...

What responsibility do we in the West have to atone for the suffering we have caused in faraway places? I can't get out of my mind Adam Nossiter's recent front page article in the New York Times, "For Congo Children, Food Today Means None Tomorrow." He interviews...

As someone who has spent a lot of time in other countries, I often wonder: how is Christmas different from the holidays (and holy days) of other cultures? In my professional life I am exposed to the celebrations of other lands, which are mostly religious ones. When I lived in...

When I heard about the seven billionth baby born somewhere in the world, I wondered if it might be Vishnu Maya's grandchild.

I met Vishnu Maya on my first week of public health work in Nepal. I had arrived in one of the many remote rural areas of the...

In a world where adequate food is produced to feed everyone -- why are so many people still starving to death? Can any of us imagine what it would be like to watch our small child starve slowly, over many weeks, to simply fade away, painfully, and miserably? Or perhaps...

Late one night last week (not all that late, but well after I was sleeping soundly) the phone rang -- louder, more insistent than usual, I thought in my groggy haze.

"Mom, did I wake you?"

"Umm...honey, you know I'm always asleep by eleven. So, yes, I was sound...