Harnessing digital technologies for maternal health and parenting – A real bonus for family wellbeing?

Event Flyer

The pandemic has highlighted the critical role digital technologies are playing in family life.

This event will showcase transformational initiatives and good practices benefitting mothers and their children, focusing on the huge potential of maternal and child mobile health, specially in developing countries.

It will also address the challenges that ‘connected parents’ face under confinement, as digital technology invades their everyday lives.

Practical information

• 12 February 2021
  10:00 am New York Time / 16:00 pm Paris Time
• Virtual event – Please register here
  The event will also be broadcast live on our facebook page
  

Provisional program

Speakers Bios

Moderator: Valerie Bichelmeier, Vice-President, Make Mothers Matter

• Opening video: featuring testimonials from grassroots NGOs within the MMM network highlighting lasting impacts of the Covid-19 crisis and how they have creatively used digital technology to support mother and families (with Ceprodih in Uruguay, Mame Pentru Mame in Romania, L’Heure Joyeuse in Morocco, amongst others – from our MMM Voices Covid-19 video series)

Part I – Practical examples of mobile technologies to improve mother and child health

• Laetitia van Haren, Founder & Director, SAHFA – Smart Access to Health For All Inventor/promotor JamboMama!
  represented by
  Deograstias Katonyella, representative, Tanzania and beyond, & Barbara Schack, Vice-President, SAHFA – Smart Access to Health For All on JamboMama!, SAHFA’s mobile app: smartly connecting (pregnant) mothers to health care providers
• Alison Baum, Founder and CEO, Best Beginnings (UK), on The Baby Buddy app, a mobile App for parents that supports Early Childhood Development

Part II – Challenges faced by mothers / parents in relation to the use of digital technology

• Short video featuring Roberto Martinez, Director of Fundacion Mas Familia, an MMM member organisation based in Spain which promotes the reconciliation of personal, family and professional life, on the advent of telework and the challenges it poses (from an interview conducted in Summer 2020 as part of MMM Voices Covid-19 video series)
• Arja Krauchenberg, project-coordinator, European Parents’ Association (EPA), an MMM member association, on the challenges that families face with regards to online  homeschooling and telework
• Michael Rich, Founder and Director, Center of Media and Child Health, Harvard University on the impact of digital technology on children and how parents can be guided – See also his website ‘Mediatrics‘

Q&A

Background information

This event is organised on the margins of the 59th session of the UN Commission on Social Development, which will take place virtually 8-17 February 2021, with  ‘Socially just transition towards sustainable development: the role of digital technologies on social development and well-being of all’ as its priority theme. The full programme and list of side-events is available on the Commission’s website.

Additional background information is available on our event’s concept note

Please register here