This Sunday is Mother’s Day. But sadly, for many women around the world, the joy of motherhood is engulfed by tragedy.
Maternal mortality is a major preventable cause of death, and UNICEF and partners are using simple, low-cost interventions to save pregnant women’s lives. One of the most effective tools is a birthing kit. This Mother’s Day, you can honor a mother by giving an Inspired Gift of a Safe Birthing Kit, which helps safely deliver 50 babies. And through Sunday, every purchase you make of an Inspired Gift online will be matched dollar for dollar.

This Mother’s Day you have the opportunity to help mothers and mothers-to-be take the first step to protect their own health and the health of their babies. By purchasing a UNICEF HIV Test Kit Inspired Gift you will empower 65 mothers to get tested for their status and receive the lifesaving medication and support to stop the transmission of the HIV virus to their baby. We will send an eCard to your loved announcing your gift in their honor and 65 mothers in need will get the gift of health. To learn more about the UNICEF Inspired Gift HIV Test kit visit inspiredgifts.org.

UNICEF Inspired Gifts are actual lifesaving UNICEF products that are delivered to mothers and children. With your purchase of a UNICEF HIV Test Kit Inspired Gift you will be helping mothers like Ntsiuoa and Mathato in 150 countries around the world.

It happens to all of us one time or another–we forget–we don’t plan to or intend to yet we do. And if you forgot Mother’s Day this past Sunday, you might be more worried about facing Mom than about the state of your memory.

Here at UNICEF, everyday is Mother’s Day. Every day we are working to provide nutrition, clean water, immunizations and education to mothers and their children around the world. Children and moms in need get hungry every day, get thirsty every day and can fall sick any day. So while the officially–designated Mother’s Day is past, you can still tell mom how much you love her and appreciate her by buying a UNICEF Inspired Gifts.

UNICEF Next Generation Steering Committee member and co-founder of FEED, Lauren Bush, took her mom to tea at the New York flagship store of Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue yesterday. No intimate pre-Mother’s Day fete was this — but a well-attended celebration of fashion meeting philanthropy.

The event showcased the new FEED 1 Guatemala pouch and FEED 3 Guatemala tote bag, which are being sold nationwide exclusively by Lord & Taylor.

UNICEF President and CEO Caryl Stern co-hosted the party along with Lauren and Sharon Bush, Ellen and Maura Gustafson, Cara La Rosa and Augusta Gahan and Dolores Rice Gahan among others.

Funds raised through the purchase of the bags will support UNICEF nutrition programs in Guatemala.

	© UNICEF
	Ikashe feeds her son Mare therapeutic nut spread, also known as Plumpy’nut.

My name is Ikashe. I’m from southern Ethiopia and last week I traveled with my eleven month old son Mare to the local health center in Yirba. He is severely malnourished. We live in a very dry part of the country and many other mothers from this region bring their children to the center every week. My family lives off a small plot of land. I grow maize and root crops such as sweet potato. In 2008, we hardly grew anything. Since then, we’ve been depending on food aid to feed our family.

My son Mare was very underweight and I brought him to the health center for the first time last week. Mare weighed only 12 pounds and UNICEF supplied me with a weekly ration of Plumpy’nut for him to eat. This week is only our second visit but already his condition has improved a lot. After only seven days, Mare has already increased to 13 pounds after eating Plumpy’nut. You can see that he likes the food very much. His appetite has improved and he is eating well.

This week, the health workers weighed Mare’s arms and said that he is still malnourished. I was given another weekly supply of Plumpy’nut. But we are lucky. Mare has already started to recover and the doctors say that if there are no problems, he should return to normal in about one month’s time. I think that Mare and all the other children like Plumpy’nut because it tastes good. It’s sweet and tastes like peanut butter. It contains lots of energy and is full of proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals so that he can overcome his malnutrition.

If you would like to buy a Mother’s Day present that really makes a difference, and help other mothers like Ikashe to nourish their children, you can buy therapeutic nut spread, otherwise known as Plumpy’nut, from UNICEF’s full range of Inspired Gifts.

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, the FEED Guatemala Bags for UNICEF really are a bright idea!

Handmade by women artisans in Guatemala from traditional Ikat fabrics, the FEED Guatemala pouch and bag will be available for purchase exclusively at Lord & Taylor stores nationwide and online just in time for Mother’s Day. FEED bags are part of the FEED Projects co-founded by UNICEF Next Generation steering committee member Lauren Bush. The goal of the FEED Projects is to support partners like UNICEF who provide nutrition to children through the sale of FEED bags. Lack of nutrition is a serious problem in Guatemala with nearly 23% of children over three months and under five years of age suffering from malnutrition while almost one-half suffer from chronic malnutrition. After travelling to Guatemala with UNICEF, Lauren wanted to double her efforts for the nutrition programs there – hence, the FEED Guatemala bags.

Here’s how it works: for every FEED 1 pouch sold, FEED donates $3.50 to the U.S Fund for UNICEF to provide daily nutrition for a child in Guatemala. For every FEED 3 Guatemala bag sold, FEED donates $10.50 to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, to provide daily nutrition for 3 kids for a year. That’s a whole lot of numbers but it’s really simple – FEED 1 pouch will help 1 child and FEED 3 bag will help 3 children for not one day or one month but an entire year.