Women's empowerment NGO AIDOS of Italy introduced their celebrity spokesperson in conjunction with their local Face to Face campaign called Safe Motherhood: A right for All Women. The well-known Italian actress Nancy Brilli, who has recovered from ovarian cancer and a difficult pregnancy, supported the Safe Motherhood campaign to allow all women to get the same medical assistance she had. While playing the leading role in the play The Blue Room at the Teatro Parioli in Rome, she authorized fundraising activities by AIDOS volunteers in the lobby and donated the proceeds from one performance to the organization (on the night of her son’s 2nd birthday!). Nancy has spoken about the campaign during television talk show appearances and other highly-publicized events she has attended. In addition, a 30-second commercial on the issues of safe motherhood will be shown preceding her most recent film.

AIDOS engaged the advertising company Bates Italia to help create the campaign, which aims to raise awareness among a broader base of people about the risk of childbirth in the third world, affirm the right of all women to a serene and safe motherhood and collect funds to support AIDOS’ Women’s Health Centers in Palestine, Jordan, Nepal, Venezuela, Argentina, Honduras and Afghanistan, as well as to set up new centers.

The campaign includes a TV commercial, in a cartoon format, that conveys the message, “In the Third World, every minute, a woman dies from child delivery or pregnancy-related complications.” It urges the viewers, “Help us stop this massacre!” The commercial will begin airing in January 2003. Safe Motherhood also includes a series of fact sheets to be distributed to journalists, politicians, opinion makers, and women’s organizations, along with four moving posters depicting women’s motherhood in different regions of the world. These posters have been published as advertisements in 25 daily newspapers and 50 weekly and monthly magazines.

Twenty-four journalists from the national and international press and radio and television stations participated in the press conference to launch the campaign, together with members of the Parliament, representatives of the Department for Development cooperation, representatives from other NGOs and associations and, of course AIDOS members and supporters. The press conference was broadcast on several radio stations, as well as on national television.