Malawi First Lady, H.E. PROFESSOR GERTRUDE MUTHARIKA - 6th Merck Africa Asia Luminary speech

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It gives me a great pleasure to share with you the key note speech H.E. PROFESSOR GERTRUDE MUTHARIKA, the First Lady of Malawi & Ambassador of Merck More Than a Mother who said, "I am pleased to be part of Merck Foundation annual conference today in Ghana , i congratulate Merck foundation and government of Ghana for these efforts to make this conference a huge success. I am very proud to launch officially Merck Foundation in my country in July this year and right after my meeting at Merck foundation First Ladies Initiatives – in March , I am also very proud to be appointed the Ambassador of Merck more than a Mother , to empower infertile women through access to information , education , change of mindset and economic empowerment. Ladies and gentlemen let me share with you the outcomes of our partnership in less than a year .

We have officially launched our long term partnership with Merck foundation with the support of my foundation“ Beautify Malawi“ and our ministries of health , information , education and gender who they are present here to discuss our partnership strategy and exchange information and experience to make a strong impact for our people and to build Cancer, Diabetes and fertility care capacity and define interventions to break the stigma of infertility , for the next five years.. As Merck more than a Mother Ambassador i have worked in collaboration with our ministries to sensitize our communities and rural areas to better understand infertility hence to break the stigma around infertile women and to empower them through access to information , education , health and change of mindset.

We have launched in partnership with ministry of information and ministry of gender , the Merck media Health Training in Malawi and the Media Recognition Awards to educate them how to be the voice of the voiceless, and to sensitize our communities to break the stigma of infertility . this was a very influential initiative and the media representatives have benefited very much from this training and became advocates and story tellers for those women stories with aim to empower them and encourage others. We have also launched the Merck more than a Mother Fashion awards to encourage the young African talents to advocate for breaking the stigma of infertility through their day to day fashion designs to be the voice for the voiceless. We have also launched in partnership with Ministry of Education , a children story to educate children the strong family values of love and respect from young ages. And to launch the Merck new important project „ Educating Linda“ to sponsor education of 20 best performing girls in their secondary schools every year. This is a very important initiative to empower our girls in education. We have also established a partnership between Merck Foundation and Ministry of Health to build healthcare capacity and train the future experts in Malawi. We are by providing doctors with Fertility specialists training to be the first fertility specialists in the country and this will be the best support for infertile women and couples . We have also enrolled , three doctors and five nurses to receive Merck foundation oncology fellowship and master degree in India and Egypt in different specialists , gynecology , surgical , pediatric , medical and pathology to be the first fully trained oncology team in my country and we will select more candidates to receive training in other oncology sub-specialties such as surgical , pediatric, medical and pathology to establish a skilled cancer care team in the country. This is a revolution of healthcare in Malawi.

I call on all our doctors who are with us today to stand up and next year they will be able to play their critical role in our communities . ladies and gentlemen, You are going to hear more about our achievements in the near future and in the next conference . Ladies and gentlemen , i will continue to work closely with Merck Foundation to create a culture shift to respect women whether they have children or not , they are all more than mothers, we will empower them through access to education , health and change of mindset. On behalf of People of Malawi , we welcome the long term partnership with Merck Foundation to build health care capacity and addrss our health challenges in the country.