Melinda Gates Visits Niger Republic
She was writing her experience about poverty and Family planning in Niger; She wrote on her Facebook wall
When I asked Sadi if she told other women about the benefits of family planning, she smiled and said “The great thing about being a woman is that we gather a lot and we talk. We talk when we meet under a tree to pound our millet. We talk at feasts after a baby is born. We talk a lot…And that is where I talk to others about Depo Provera and how much easier it is to use than the pill. That you take it to give yourself and your children a break.” Here we are at the community well—their equivalent of chatting by the water cooler.
I’ve spent the past few days in West Africa, hearing firsthand from women about the challenges they face in planning their families.
This is Sadi Seyni and her family, from Tillaberi, Niger. Sadi is the mother of 5 girls and 1 boy. She had her first child at 19 and was pregnant 7 months later. She didn’t know about family planning until her third child and has been spacing her births ever since. When I asked her why family planning was important to her, she responded: “Because when you don’t do family planning, everybody in the family suffers…not only do you suffer with a baby on your back and another inside, but your husband takes on debts to cover the very basics, but even that debt won’t be enough. It’s complete suffering when you don’t do family planning and I have lived that…”
I’ll be carrying Sadi’s story with me to the Family Planning Summit this Wednesday as partners from around the globe gather to mobilize support for an additional 120 million women and girls to access modern contraceptives.
