First Lady Margaret Kenyatta runs to curb maternal, infant deaths

  First Lady Margaret Kenyatta during the London Marathon PHOTO: COURTESY

By Gatonye Gathura

London: Sunday evening, the First Family scored several firsts in London, with Mrs Margaret Kenyatta participating in one of the world’s elite athletics events and a sitting President on the sidelines to cheer her on.

Mrs Kenyatta could as well be very well be on her way into the World’s Guinness Book of Records. Hours before she took on the grueling 42 kilometre race, Mrs Kenyatta said her decision to take part in the marathon was “purely a search of joy for Kenyan mothers and children.”

The race started at 10.30 am local time when most of Kenyans were attending church and Mrs Kenyatta was   still running by the time most people here at home were starting to plan for supper.

“My name is Margaret Kenyatta. I am a mother to three lovely children and can say without hesitation that it is unbelievably moving to hold your healthy baby in your arms,” she said during a dinner hosted by the Standard Chartered Bank in London on Friday.

She added: “I will run because every mother should be able to hold her baby and take it home. I will run until we go Beyond Zero.”

Running for seven hours nonstop is no walk in the park, but neither is preventing about 113,500 infant and maternal deaths in a poor country such as Kenya.

“But it can be done,” Dr Nicholas Muraguri, director of the UN Global Plan Secretariat told the London gathering.

Mobile clinics

Already Mrs Kenyatta has raised funds for ten mobile clinics out of the targeted 47, with each county expected to get one. “Our target is to raise 3.6 million pounds to buy mobile clinics for all the 47 counties in Kenya.” Last month, she raised Sh100 million from the 21 kilometre First Lady’s Half Marathon held in Nairobi.

Among those who were cheering on Mrs Kenyatta yesterday were hundreds of Kenyans in the UK as well as her mother-in-law and former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta among other relatives.

As part of preparations for the London Marathon, Mrs Kenyatta is said to have covered about 300km in training, including 21km at once during the Nairobi First Lady’s Marathon which she completed in three hours and 40 minutes.

The preparations included a six-day training and an acclimatisation period in London.

Her Beyond Zero Campaign, which was launched last year, is now spelt out in a five-year 26-page strategy.

The strategy was prepared with technical assistance from the Ministry of Health and UN agencies. It was financed through the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and a local NGO called the Kenya Treatment Access Movement.

The Beyond Zero Campaign, writes James Macharia, cabinet secretary for Health in the forward to the First Lady’s strategic plan, has ambitious targets of reducing mother and child deaths.

Every day, says Macharia in the foreword, 15 mothers and over 290 children below five years of age die largely from preventable diseases, pregnancy, birth complications and HIV and Aids.  “This is unacceptable and we must remain committed to reversing this situation.”

In his presentation on Friday, Dr Muraguri said bold policy decisions accompanied by action can make a difference within a short time. The waiver of maternity fees in public hospitals last year, he demonstrated in a PowerPoint presentation, is already making a difference.

“The number of women giving birth at health facilities has gone up by 20 per cent.” In 2012, some 600,000 women delivered in health facilities, while in 2013 some 650,000 did so. An additional 100,000 are expected to give birth at a hospital this year. The target is to have one million mothers deliver at health facilities in the next five years.

Achieving this would be a record of sorts, despite Mrs Kenyatta being quoted in the local media yesterday saying she is not in the marathon for any records but purely to create awareness and raise funds towards  alleviating mother and child deaths in Kenya.