At Our Mothers' Feet evaluation and reception

Since 2011, the At Our Mothers' Feet campaign has been working to raise awareness about the problem of global maternal death amongst UK Muslim communities and inspire them to take action to share learning and to support Muslim NGOs to work on maternal health.

This is what the campaign has achieved so far:

• Over 50 ulama' and leaders pledged their support for maternal health
• 30 events in seven cities raised awareness among 1000 people
• 14 Muslim charities committed to increased work on maternal health

At Our Mothers' Feet was the first campaign of its kind in the UK Muslim community bringing an issue like maternal health to the fore. Through the hard work of the project team and countless volunteers, the campaign has been able to reach thousands of people with our message that women do not need to die, and inspired hundreds of campaign actions. Mosques, schools, madrasahs, Imams, charities, media personalities and women's groups have all united under this one cause.

This afternoon the evaluation report of the At Our Mothers' Feet project, which I have written, was launched at a reception in the House of Commons co-hosted by Baroness Jenny Tonge (Chair of the UK Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health) and MADE in Europe.

Baroness Tonge opened the reception before Sarah Javaid, Executive Director of MADE in Europe, and Board Member, Saif Ahmad, spoke passionately about the project and its impact on the maternal health initiatives of Muslim NGOs.

The project had three target groups which were impacted in the following ways:

• Scholars (faith leaders) – direct discussion of issues based on research and case studies in order to explore how issues and approaches can be understood and communicated within an Islamic framework. Following this groundwork, support for public statements via mosques and media.
• UK Muslim community – presentations combining statistics and stories for personal impact with scholar statements for religious engagement. Once engagement with the issues has been gained, empowerment of the community as advocates and campaigners both nationally and internationally.
• UK-based Muslim NGOs – resources setting out how to engage the UK Muslim community through the above approach and resources setting out how to practically address development issues on the ground in developing countries within an Islamic framework. Engagement with campaigning and educative approaches within fundraising campaigns to create a more informed and more active donor base. 

In my evaluation report I suggest that At Our Mothers’ Feet has been a ‘milestone’ project which demonstrated the validity of its process for enabling discussion of development issues that have been considered taboo for the UK Muslim community in the past. Through this process they have also demonstrated that young Muslims can be engaged with development issues through use of social media and the empowerment of educative/campaigning approaches.

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The Sound of Reason and At Our Mothers' Feet - Mum Song.