Our support for Emergency at Christmas

This year, for the festive season, the Mondadori Group has decided to support an important Emergency project: the Anabah maternity centre in Afghanistan.

This is the only specialised centre in a huge area that offers completely free gynaecological, obstetric and neonatal care and a prenatal pregnancy monitoring service to enable pathologies to be treated promptly. The Anabah maternity centre’s work is not limited to prevention and medical assistance: it is also a training unit recognised by the Ministries of Health and Education for the Afghan personnel – more than 40 people, all women – who work side by side with the centre’s international staff, receiving practical training.

More than 351,500 examinations were performed in 2019 and 56,329 children have beenborn at the Anabah maternity centre, which has become a reference point for maternity and neonatal care not only in Panjshir, but in the surrounding provinces too. The unit can currently accommodate around 650 births a month and is named after Valeria Solesin, the Emergency volunteer killed during the Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris on 13 November 2015.

«It was the end of 2001 when we decided to open a maternity centre in the beautiful but very closed Panjshir valley, one of the few areas in the country that the Taliban had never managed to conquer. Even so, conditions for women were no less easier. Many people told us we were crazy if we thought that a unit “run by women for women” could have a future up here in the mountains. I have to say that we ourselves had some doubts, on more than one occasion, but our meeting with these strong and resolute women, the enormous need and the credibility that our work give us in the local communities made us even more determined to move ahead with our ambitious project.» Rossella Miccio, president di Emergency

Find out more at “A quiet revolution” and how to support the project on the Emergency website.

Wishing you happy holidays from everyone #NoiDellaMondadori.