Your Voices to Washington DC

I have been recently granted with a Fellowship by the Center for Health and Gender Equity to go to the United States Congress in Washington DC to talk to legislators about building a model of comprehensive reproductive health for women around the world. I WOULD LOVE to take this terrific opportunity to bring your voices and the voices of the women who live in your communities, in your countries, to Washington DC with me.

Legislators know how to create policies, and they try to make them work, but they know very little about the needs of real people for whom they are developing these policies. All the organizations I am working with to advocate for women's health and women's rights are taking advantage of the wonderful political moment we have in the United States with President Obama to push further and create a healthier present and future for girls and women all over the world. We know that when girls and women are healthy, their communities are healthier too.

I know well the reproductive health concerns of women from my community and from other communities I have lived in, but I need your help to learn more about the women in your communities. We cannot create a model of global reproductive health for women if we do not include the voices of women from all over the world in the agenda. I need to know the main concerns of the women in your communities as well as their secondary concerns. My aim is to include men within this model of reproductive health because it is not enough to educate and empower women if they need the consent of their husbands in every decision making.

I am leaving May 2 to Washington DC, just ten days before I travel to Uganda and Kenya to work with women and reproductive health; the time couldn't be more appropriate.

I still have two weeks to read your comments, to take your voices and bring them with me to the Congress of the United States.

Blessings and gratitude
Araceli