In Liberia, two decades of on-again off-again civil war destroyed basic infrastructure like roads, public transportation, and health facilities. Most people live far below the poverty line and while the country is slowly improving since peace came in 2003, it has a long way to go before women get adequate health care.
Currently, Liberia has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world and more than a thousand women die every year in childbirth.
A new initiative by the Liberian Ministry of Health is emphasizing midwives as part of the solution to a lack of health care practitioners and to save mothers’ lives.
Glenna Gordon
Glenna Gordon is a professional photographer based in New York, USA. Since 2006, she has lived and worked in several African countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
I’ve taken photos in over a dozen African countries. My extensive experience working in Africa ensures a journalistic approach sensitive to context and nuance. My photographs are intimate descriptions of daily life, from the mundane to the exceptional, the political to the passionate. I hope to challenge preconceived notions of Africa through exploring the incredible breadth of stories that need to be told.
These and other photographs can be found on Glenna Gordon’s official website.
African Perspectives 