Healthy Women, Healthy Families

Be healthy. Be safe. Be cared for if we’re sick or hurt. Isn’t that what we want for ourselves and our children? Be healthy. Be safe. Be cared for if we’re sick or hurt. Grace, a woman in northern Malawi, wants those same things for her children and herself.

But in Grace’s village nutritious food is sometimes scarce, women and children are often sick with malaria, children may not be immunized against dangerous diseases, and women may not be screened for life-threatening cervical cancer.
Grace’s family, like most in her village is poor. Losing valuable work time, missing school and spending money for treatment of illnesses or injuries that could have been prevented means that Grace’s family is vulnerable to a life-long cycle of illness and poverty.

Healthy Women Healthy Families is a PC(USA) program that helps women like Grace and her family live healthier, more productive lives by providing the services they need to protect and restore their health.
Through our gifts to Healthy Women Healthy families, children are getting immunized, women are learning to grow and prepare nutritious foods, families are being protected from malaria, women are receiving prenatal care. These and other preventive and care services are being provided through the health programs of our Presbyterian partner churches in Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Southern Sudan.

Healthy Women Healthy Families is a year-round ministry to meet year-round needs. At this time of year an annual mission activity provides a special opportunity for us to support Healthy Women Healthy Families while we honor women in our lives at Mother’s Day. The Healthy Women Healthy Families Mother’s Day Project makes attractive Mother’s Day cards available in exchange for a donation.

The cards are available from PCMK's Social Justice Committee. Speak to Louise Crawford, or call the church office (914-666-7001) to get some cards. (Pay whatever you wish--all the money goes to the project!)

This is a simple but meaningful way to honor our mothers and help improve the lives of families in Africa like Grace’s.

--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor