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My grandfather had seven children, and they were poor — but not due to the size of their family. During the colonial era, he had no education or training. He couldn’t speak English and get into the proper employment pool. My parents have six children, almost the same as my grandfather. Yet my father got an education and rose out of poverty. The difference from father to son was education.
Our values are to protect human life and family. Faith is also very important. We cannot do without it, because we know that we are not God. There is always someone higher than us and in control of things. If you have that, then everything else is added on to it.
Mobilizing in Africa
Over the past six years, has the Gates Foundation responded to your concerns or shifted in their policies?Ekeocha: No, the Gates Foundation and similar groups have not responded. But they do know about our projects. They have branches in Nigeria and Ghana. Through the grapevine, we hear that they lament and complain about the work we do. Perhaps it’s undermining some of their work. But they have not responded to me directly and have never tried to reach out.
We have traveled to ten African countries to raise awareness. Definitely there is always room for more. We wish that mainstream media would cover these things, but they don’t. Thank goodness, we have social media where we are putting out information. Working with many African Bishops, I find sometimes they did not get specifics quick enough or have a full picture of what’s going on. Culture of Life Africa gets information to people who should know.
Before I started this group, we were moving in the dark. I have seen a lot of difference and change in that we have managed to get the word out. Now when the Gates go to Africa and throw a few million dollars in for this or that project, several leaders like me have more than critical thoughts about it. We have evidence and confidence to speak out.
Positive changes have happened since the Trump administration. President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which was amazing. Yet other countries have responded negatively. The Canadian government has given even more to sexual and reproductive rights which includes abortion. The British government funds one of the biggest abortion organizations in the world, Marie Stopes International. Australia has funded that group as well.
actually nothing new here.
When I worked in Zimbabwe 35 years ago, every village had a "pill lady" to give out birth control pills (which by the way increased malnutrition because the pill lowers the amount of breast milk).
but there was no clean water in the villages so kids continued to die of diarrhea.
But I must confess: We did give DepoProvera to our lactating moms to increase breast milk. So was this birth control (since breast feeding does stop ovulation, and in traditional Africa where we worked, vaginal intercourse was taboo during the period of breast feeding). So maybe we were guilty too.
But our idea was to space babies, consistant with African culture, not to stop babies from being born.
