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Mumbai Smiles celebrates World Population Day with “Antara” launch
11th July is celebrated as World Population day each year by the United Nations (UN) and its member countries to raise awareness among the public about various global population issues and how to curb them.
According to the UN, “225 million women around the world, who want to avoid pregnancy, are not able to use safe and effective family planning techniques methods, for reasons ranging from lack of access to information or services to lack of support from their partners or communities. Access to safe, voluntary family planning is a human right. It is also central to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and is a key factor in reducing poverty. Investments in making family planning available also yield economic and other gains that can propel development forward.”
With the theme of “Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations”, we at Mumbai Smiles, participated in an awareness rally with the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation or the BMC) to launch their new family planning program called “Antara” in Mumbai. This specific event that we were a part of was in the Bhandup area (northern section of Mumbai towards the end of Mumbai district) between their Bhandup ward office and Bhandup Maternity Home in which about a 100 women participated to raise awareness about the absolute need for family planning as well as about the “Antara” program. As Mr. Khandare, the Senior Deputy Health Officer of BMC put it in his address before the rally, “Antara is an injection-contraceptive which is highly effective, long term and reversible method of contraceptive, which is available along with other contraceptive methods and is highly recommendable.”
With the various health programs available with us from our various partners, including the BMC, we wish to reach out to as many underprivileged citizens as possible in our fight against poverty and hopefully one day, there will be no poverty in our beautiful city and that is our dream.
