On World Population Day, we take a look at how the efforts of our team at The Pangea Network fit into this year’s theme: Family Planning, Empowering People, Developing Nations. Our goal is to educate and empower women to make positive changes within their families, communities and beyond.
Risks of Unintended Pregnancy
214 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe or effective family planning methods. Unintended pregnancy (pregnancy reported to have been unwanted or mistimed) carries potential risks for both mother and baby and may occur due to lack of access to information, services, or support.
Economic inefficiencies frequent areas with above-average unintended pregnancy rates, likely due to lack of resources. “{Unintended} pregnancies can negatively impact educational attainment for mothers. A 2010 paper from Boston University suggests that unplanned pregnancies and births can be detrimental to a woman’s economic status and income, and can reduce the probability of labor-force participation by as much as 25 percent.”
Personal/Family Benefits of Family Planning
It’s been confirmed that a woman’s access to family planning tools and services improves her education and employment chances, which in turn, improves income, family stability, mental health and happiness, as well as the well-being of her children. Planned pregnancies benefit not just the mother, but all members of the family. Having the ability to plan for family growth allows the mother to reenter the workforce, lightening the father’s burden of being the sole-supporter of a family’s household. And planned pregnancies of healthy mothers yield a greater likelihood of healthy children.
Economic/Societal Benefits of Family Planning
With family planning services made available to them, more women are able to participate in the workforce, increasing a woman’s earning power and shrinking the gender pay gap. “A recent recommendation by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) {states} that… closing the gender gap must be a central part of any strategy to create more sustainable economies and inclusive societies.”
Pangea’s Family Planning/Reproductive Training Efforts
The Pangea Network’s Reproductive Health Training gives our Kenyan cooperative women the knowledge to make family planning a real possibility. The information covered during the training courses provides information that these women would otherwise not have access to. By helping them better understand their own reproductive health, they’re given the tools they need to make smarter, healthier decisions. This information can then be passed down through generations and spread through communities, and paired with our Business Development, Financial Literacy & Personal Development trainings, these women are able to make dramatically impactful changes on personal, community and potentially global levels.
But we can’t bring these life-changing trainings to our Kenya women without your help. Your donation is more than educational services, it’s the ability to reshape a woman’s, a family’s, a community’s future. Help us help our Kenyan women, please Donate today.
