Meeting the People
The Urban Health Initiative in India
The Urban Health Initiative helps women in slums get contraception.
I always look forward to visiting India for the opportunity to meet people who are benefiting from projects we’re supporting in key health areas, like family planning, polio eradication, and HIV/AIDS.
On my recent trip, I spoke with several women in one of Lucknow’s urban slums who told me how grateful they are to have a choice of contraceptives. That hasn’t always been the case and there are still many poor women who don’t know about or have access to contraceptives. Efforts like the foundation-supported Urban Health Initiative are designed to change that by educating more women about contraceptive choices and practices like spacing births further apart.
This is a top health priority for the foundation because it directly affects the health (and often the survival) of poor women and their babies. And it offers them something that all mothers desire and deserve—the opportunity to provide their children with a high-quality education and the best chance of success growing up.
