This is my first Mother’s Day without my mother, who passed away a few months ago. She died just a few weeks short of her 92nd birthday, having lived a long, happy and productive life. She was the matriarch of a large family of eight children, 18 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

No one is ever prepared or ready to lose their mother – even if she is in her 90s. But I feel so blessed that she was such a big part of my life for so long. She taught me many things – from the everyday (how to fold a queen-size sheet by myself) to the useful (how to make a good apple pie) to the very important (how to manage family finances and live within your means). But most of all she taught me what it means to be a mother – how to care for a baby, instill confidence in children and give youth the wings to fly when they are ready – all the time watching over them and helping out whenever they need it.

My first child was born when I was living and working in Somalia. My mother, 65 years old at the time, came to Africa to be with me for the birth. Although she had flown many times before, it didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous about going to a place she knew little about. She was. She described getting to JFK airport, checking in her over-packed bags filled with baby gifts and then going to the ladies room and throwing up. She said she felt better afterwards. Years later she told me she came to Somalia because if something unexpected happened during the birth, she didn’t want me to be so far away from family. That’s what mothers do. Regardless of their own fears, they love and care for their child in whatever ways they can.

What about children who grow up without a mother?

Because of my work at ChildFund, I think about this issue all the time. Every day, approximately 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And 99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries. The new baby and any older children at home are deprived of the mother they need to nurture them.

In the last 20 years, great strides have been made as maternal mortality rates worldwide dropped by almost 50 percent, reports WHO. But we still have a long way to go to help the remaining half of mothers whose lives are at risk simply because of their economic position.

If motherless children are lucky, they are raised by a loving grandmother. Certainly that happens in countries where AIDS has claimed many parents. Grandmothers often step in to fill that vital role. Other times, widowed fathers marry again, as it is not common, in my experience in developing countries, for men to raise children alone. In the worst-case scenario, we encounter “child-headed households” – children raising children. These children live in poverty that is hard for many to imagine.

Although we cannot ever replace the role of a mother, ChildFund’s programs can be a great help in ensuring children have good health, go to school and have the skills they need to face adulthood. But a unique part of ChildFund’s approach – matching an individual sponsor with an individual child – can bring an added benefit to a motherless child. Sponsorship reassures children that someone is watching over them from afar and is concerned for their well-being.

Isn’t that’s what their mothers would have wanted? I know my mother would have.

As the InterAction Forum 2013 winds down, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of World Bank Group, is making some great points. I’ll share a few quotes:

“The World Bank wants to get back to focusing on poverty.”

Kim says he plans to open doors “even wider” at the World Bank, adding that he’s “not giving up” on achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

As for post-2015, the World Bank has a goal of ending poverty as we know it by 2030 and plans to publish country-by-country results yearly.

“The opportunity right now to bring forces together to achieve impact has never been higher.”

“It is only civil society that can truly make a movement that can really transform society.”

Remarkable Change for Children: Sharing a video about ChildFund’s early childhood development programs (ECD) in Sri Lanka. Malnutrition, poor water quality, lack of sanitation and a shortage of schools are among the country’s problems. ChildFund, through its ECD programs, is working with communities to address those challenges; remarkable change is taking place.

newsweek:

Hillary Clinton: Helping Women Isn’t Just a ‘Nice’ Thing to Do

[ed: Hillary Clinton came by Women in the World this morning and rocked the theater with this historical, powerful speech. We’ve transcribed the full thing below. Sorry if this is a Dashboard monster.]

Thank you so much. What a wonderful occasion for me to be back here, the fourth Women in the World conference I’ve been privileged to attend, introduced by the founder, creator, and my friend, Tina Brown. When one thinks about this annual conference, it really is intended to—and I believe has— focus attention on the global challenges facing women, from equal rights and education to human slavery, literacy, the power of the media and technology to affect change in women’s futures, and so much else. And for that I thank Tina and the great team that she has worked with in order to produce this conference and the effects it has created. It’s been such an honor to work with all of you over the years. Though it’s hard to see from up here out into the audience, I did see some faces and I know that this is an occasion for so many friends and colleagues to come together and take stock for where we stand and what more needs to be done in advancing the great unfinished business of the 21st century: advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls.

Now this is unfinished around the world, where too many women are still treated at best as second-class citizens, at worst as some kind of subhuman species. Those of you who were there last night saw that remarkable film that interviewed men primarily in Pakistan, talking very honestly about their intention to continue to control the women in their lives and their reach. But the business is still unfinished here in the United States, we have come so far together but there’s still work to be done.

Now, I have always believed that women are not victims, we are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace – all we need is a fighting chance.

And that firm faith in the untapped potential of women at home and around the world has been at the heart of my work my entire life, from college to law school, from Arkansas to the White House to the Senate. And when I became Secretary of State, I was determined to weave this perspective even deeper into the fabric of American foreign policy.

But I knew to do that, I couldn’t just preach to the usual choir. We had to reach out. To men. To religious communities. To every partner we could find. We had to make the case to the whole world that creating opportunities for women and girls advances security and prosperity for everyone. So we relied on the empirical research that shows that when women participate in the economy, everyone benefits. When women participate in peace-making and peace-keeping, we are all safer and more secure. And when women participate in politics of their nations they can make a difference.

But as strong a case as we’ve made, too many otherwise thoughtful people continue to see the fortunes of women and girls as somehow separate from society at large. They nod, they smile and then relegate these issues once again to the sidelines. I have seen it over and over again, I have been kidded about it I have been ribbed, I have been challenged in board rooms and official offices across the world.

But fighting to give women and girls a fighting chance isn’t a nice thing to-do. It isn’t some luxury that we get to when we have time on our hands to spend doing that . This is a core imperative for every human being and every society. If we do not complete a campaign for women’s rights and opportunities the world we want to live in the country we all love and cherish will not be what it should be.

It’s no coincidence that so many of the countries that threaten regional and global peace are the very places where women and girls are deprived of dignity and opportunity. Think of the young women from northern Mali to Afghanistan whose schools have been destroyed. Or the girls across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia who have been condemned to child marriage. Or the refugees of the conflicts from eastern Congo to Syria who endure rape and deprivation as a weapon of war.

It is no coincidence that so many of the countries where the rule of law and democracy are struggling to take root are the same places where women and girls cannot participate as full and equal citizens. Like in Egypt, where women stood on the front lines of the revolution but are now being denied their seats at the table and face a rising tide of sexual violence.

It is no coincidence that so many of the countries making the leap from poverty to prosperity are places now grappling with how to empower women. I think it is one of the unanswered questions of the rest of this century to whether countries, like China and India, can sustain their growth and emerge as true global economic powers. Much of that depends on what happens to women and girls.

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Voices of Children: Meet Arlete from ChildFund’s programs in Mozambique

I am 12 years old and I study at Macombe Secondary School. I live with my parents and my three brothers.

When I was in grade 5, I learnt that my continent is called Africa and it has many countries inside. Nowadays, almost every day, I hear on the radio that some of these countries are at war. When I watch TV, I realize that we children suffer most because of these wars.

I wish Africa was a very beautiful continent without wars. My dream is to see a happy African continent, where there is a lot of fun and where we can play freely.

Last week I traveled to Central Java, Indonesia, with ChildFund International’s Board to take a firsthand look at our programs. Yesterday, I posted about our visit to an Early Childhood Development center.

Our next stop in Indonesia took us to a posyandu, or village health services post. In this remote rural area and in the absence of medical facilities, the posyandu is set up in a community member’s house twice a month (opening times are announced at the village mosque the previous day) and provides health services to the local community. ChildFund provides training to community health volunteers. We focus on maternal and child health, pre- and post-natal care, breastfeeding and developmental stimulation for infants and young children. ChildFund also provides food supplements and medicine.

On this day, the posyandu is bustling with activity, providing birth registration, growth monitoring (height and weight), immunization, counseling and supplementary feeding for children. There’s also parenting education for mothers as well as hygiene training.

Clearly, there’s a malnutrition issue in this area, which was severely affected by the 2010 Merapi eruption. The entire village was evacuated and it took a year for the community to return to normal life. Water sources were polluted and all crops were completely destroyed by volcanic ash.

As I weigh Tegar, a 3-year-old boy, I note that he is smaller than he should be. The village midwife tracks his height and weight monthly; the chart shows he is below average. For cases like this, we routinely offer nutrition counseling on site and provide supplemental food. And we keep close check on the children who are underweight. If a child misses two appointments at the health post, we follow up with a home visit.

As we prepare to serve children a nutritious meal of rice, egg and vegetables, community volunteers first remind mothers and children to wash their hands. “Now we understand it is important to wash our hands before and after preparing food and eating,” Murjilah, a young mother, tells me.

As our group prepares to depart, menacing dark clouds move in. The weather can change quickly on the slopes of Merapi. And then the heavens open. We hit the winding roads again, surrounded by lush vegetation; this part of Java certainly gets its fair share of rain.

Our final stop for the day is to visit a sponsored child. Visiting a family dwelling always brings home the fact that ChildFund really does serve the most deprived people.

When we can go no farther on the road, we get out of the car and walk the rest of the way in the pouring rain to the house, which sits at the bottom of a steep path. As we enter the home, it is dark and damp. The father rushes to turn on the lights and greets us with a warm smile and a soft handshake. The floor is an uneven surface of stones and dirt. The living room has three chairs. A little girl, Sidi, emerges from the kitchen area. She has been sponsored for one year through ChildFund.

Once we get acquainted, she becomes talkative. “I dream of becoming a doctor to help my parents stay healthy,” she tells me confidently. Sidi is in school and doing well. She says she enjoys learning and being with her friends. She wants to make her parents proud.

We go through to the kitchen area, which consists of nothing more than an open fire pit and a rack on which to store plates and utensils. The mother starts a fire. She tells me the family will eat rice and vegetables for dinner, like every night.

A tiny bedroom sleeps five and I notice a ChildFund-provided mosquito net. Good to see the children have some protection against malaria.

An unusual family member lives in the next room. As I go through the door, a large cow, chomping grass, stares at me. I learn that the family received the cow as a gift through ChildFund’s Gifts of Love & Hope catalog. The cow is providing a steady source of milk and is making a real difference in Sidi’s family’s life.

Although conditions remain challenging for many families in Indonesia, I am happy to see children like Sidi moving forward with their education and their dreams.