Miss Malaika 2011, Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Partington has added her voice through a project to tackle and help in prevention of Maternal Mortality in Ghana.

Before she was crown the winner of Miss Malaika 2012, Gerry promised to create awareness about maternal mortality in Ghana. Owing to that promise, she organised a Fund Raising Fashion Show in September to raise funds to support and fight maternal mortality in Ghana.

The project afforded Gerry whose reign of the Malaika crown was characterised by widespread disagreements in the media and fans who witnessed the show to add her voice to the prevention of Maternal Mortality in the country.

According to statistics from the United Nations, each year more than 350,000 women in the developing world aged 15-49 die of pregnancy and childbirth related complications.

In Ghana 1 in 66 women have a chance of dying in childbirth. These deaths occur as a result of complications including severe bleeding, infections, hypertensive disorders and unsafe abortion.

The beauty queen took the project titled ‘Prevention of Maternal Mortality in Ghana’ to two Senior High Schools in Accra.

The first school, Gerry and her team visited was the Accra High school in Accra and continued to the West Africa Senior High School.

At each of the schools, Rejoice Nutakor, ADHD Manager of Ghana Health Service spoke extensively to the students about “Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: Sure way to preventing pregnancy related illness and deaths in Ghana”.

Students were educated on adolescent and health services and ways to stay safe since at that age, they discover their sexuality and get attracted to the opposite sex.

The use of the female condom was demonstrated to the students to climax the project. Gerry then distributed a customized exercise books, project outlines and youth magazine to the students.