On 6th and 7th October, the 17th Global Festa was in held in Hibiya Park in Tokyo.

The objective of the festival is to increase public understanding and support for international cooperation, including ODA, and the activities of NGOs and citizens of Japan and the world.

This year, the festival focused on “Family and Earth” from a development perspective.

The event was co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, JICA, JBIC and JANIC, with support from various ministries and corporations.

Nearly 80,000 people came over the two days to see around 200 exhibitors from the government, embassies, NGOs, international organizations and other development partners.

Explaining the stages leading to safe motherhood

At its booth, JOICFP explained that one woman dies every minute due to pregnancy or childbirth related complications, accounting for 530,000 women per a year.

As a member of the White Ribbon Alliance (WRA), which promotes safe motherhood, JOICFP introduced various activities to promote understanding about safe motherhood in the public.

Taking a visual approach, JOICFP explained its activities, displaying home delivery kits, and photographs of training for traditional birth attendants in Afghanistan, and the reconditioned bicycle scheme.

JOICFP has provided reconditioned bicycles overseas, which are often used by health workers, midwives, and volunteers to deliver health information and services. These bicycles play an important role in helping save the lives of mother and children in developing countries.

In this way, the public could see that in order for safe motherhood to be effected, kits, training and transport for health workers were all part of a necessary chain.

JOICFP also took the opportunity to raise funds for safe motherhood activities by selling fair trade goods, such as coffee, as well as logo goods for White Ribbon.

A visitor tries on the weight of pregnancy
with a pregnancy simulator

JOICFP was also able to network with other development partners, gaining information on their latest activities.