From Patrick McCrummen, Senior Director, Corporate Citizenship
In my role in corporate citizenship at Johnson & Johnson, I have the great fortune to hear many powerful stories of people who, through their own struggles and self-empowerment, have emerged to eliminate those same barriers for others. Last week, I heard the story of Kakenya Ntaiya, a native of Kenya, who told of breaking through the cultural barriers in her community to become the first woman in her village to attend university. She went on to build the first school for girls in her village.
Kakenya’s inspiring story was one of several told as part of a panel session organized by the UN Populations Agency and held at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., one of the first events in a series of important global meetings on health and economic progress over the next two weeks. At these events, Johnson & Johnson will report on the status of the commitments we made last year in support of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) devoted to the health of women and children worldwide.
Last September, as part of the UN’s Every Woman, Every Child Campaign, we committed to help enhance the health of as many as 120 million women and children in need each year in developing countries by 2015. Through our many partners, we aim to bring a life-changing difference to people like Kakenya. Our programs that support the MDG’s provide health information over existing mobile phones for pregnant women and new moms through the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), will increase access to treatments and education for intestinal worms through our partnership with Children without Worms, and will scale up the research and development of new medicines to combat HIV and tuberculosis (TB) throughout the world. Additionally, through our Helping Babies Breathe partnership, we are working to prevent birth asphyxia, saving the lives of thousands of vulnerable newborn babies. This week, we’ll be announcing some new partnerships in global health as well.
I invite you to be inspired by the work of our partners and join the conversation during the events over the next week. Many of our leaders and partners in global health will be featured here. You can follow us on twitter @jnjstories and @jnjcomm, and check us out on Facebook. For more background information on our MDG commitments, please visit www.jnj.com/mdg2011.