...So what can you do?

        Every minute a women dies from a pregnancy-related complication, most of which are preventable. At least 200 million women want access to safe and effective family planning methods but for many women in the Global South this dream will not become a reality due to factors such as poverty, cultural or religious constraint or the absence of consistently funded local, national or international family planning assistance. 
        Family Planning is about providing the means for families to make conscious and rationale decisions about when, why and how they will start to have children based on their own beliefs and values.

The Better Planet Project at the University of Guelph is an initiative to "accelerate innovation to effect positive and powerful change in our world." In order to do this, The Better Planet Project focuses on four Elements of Success – food, environment, health and community.         The University of Guelph's Better Planet Project must provide support for family planning in order to truly create a better planet.


Family Planning directly impacts each of the Elements of Success. Here are a few examples:

Food and Family Planning:
- Improved food security and food democracy
- Decreased stress on fertile land 
- Decreased burden of hunger-related diseases

Community and Family Planning 
- Less pressure on social services
- Reduced prevalence of social stigma
- Improvement in family’s economic status 
- Increased time to participate in community   
   initiatives

Health and Family Planning 
- Reduced maternal mortality
- Reduced unwanted and high-risk pregnancies
- Prevents child deaths
- Increased family and community health
- Improved sexual health of youth

Environment and Family Planning 
- Reduced impact on resources
- Decreased loss of bio-diversity
- Limited expansion due to urbanization
- Reduced usage of greenhouse gasses

Family Planning should be the central focus of the Better Planet platform as it significantly impacts individuals, communities and our environment.

If you support the inclusion of universal Family Planning in University of Guelph's Better Planet Project please take the time to sign a this petition. Just follow this link: Family Planning Petition

*********************************************************************************************************************************
Family Planning, whether in the global North or South, is a multi-faceted approach to maternal health that should offer woman and their partners assistance with:

• Pre-conception counseling – planning when to have children and how large of a family to have (based on their own values and beliefs);

• Birth control – a variety of reliable birth control methods must be made available and accessible to women and their partners on a consistent basis;

• Infertility management;

• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) management – many of the techniques involved in family planning additionally provide protection against STIs, most importantly HIV/AIDS

• Sexuality education – provision of educational programs to support birth control use, prenatal and postnatal family health and all aspects of family planning.

Supporting access to family planning education and services

Recently, Planned Parenthood (a family planning organization in the US) faced a potential bar on their federal funding which provides access to birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, and much more. This new legislation could have a huge impact on the many women and families that rely on these services.

This spurred discussion on the provision of family planning education and resources and our role in advocating for these services not only for our country, but the countless other countries in need.

To read more about this issue, check out our article in The Ontarion:
Support education and funding for family planning: Its Condomsense

Planned Parenthood is also in Canada. Check out their Toronto website.