Welcome to the United Nations
The pandemic has given rise to digital technologies becoming central to our personal, family and professional lives, with all three often overlapping. The objective of this virtual discussion was to address its impact on family wellbeing.
The first part of our event focussed on the positive contributions for parents, mothers especially, with information and communication tools to help them become actors of maternal and child health.
- Presented by Barbara Schack, Vice-President, and Deograstias Katonyella, representative, Tanzania, SAHFA – Smart Access to Health For All’s JamboMama! app targets women living in remote areas without access to health services. By empowering pregnant women with timely information and connecting communities with health professionals, the app aims to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity. In Tanzania, the main lesson was the importance of working with communities – bottom-up: they know best what their challenges are, so they are best placed to design a solution.
- Alison Baum, Founder and CEO, Best Beginnings (UK), introduced the Baby Buddy app that supports Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development. With more than 300’000 users, it helps inform and empower both parents and professionals to ensure that every child has the best start in life.
The event’s 2nd part addressed the challenges that ‘connected parents’ face, especially under confinement as digital technologies invade their everyday lives.
- For Roberto Martinez, Director, Fundacion Mas Familia (Spain), telework is now here to stay. Its reality however is not as idealistic, with acceptability varying depending on material conditions, quality of internal communication, and attention to health and wellbeing – each of them the responsibility of employers. The advent of telework also comes with a shift in the way work should be measured and evaluated beyond working time.
- Arja Krauchenberg, project-coordinator, European Parents’ Association (EPA), described the many challenges that parents face in juggling their personal, professional, domestic and caring responsibilities with online home schooling and distance learning. These impact parents’ physical and mental health, which in-turn increases occurrences of violence within families. In ‘Life after the crisis’ parents need support and digital literacy on how to make the best use of these technologies to ensure the wellbeing of every family member.
- Michael Rich, medical doctor and ‘mediatrician’, founder and director, Center of Media and Child Health, Harvard University, began his presentation with hair-raising figures on the use of digital technologies by children of all ages. Social media now shapes their lives, and their heavy use comes at a price to their health, happiness and school results. ‘Is connectivity undermining our connectedness?’ he asked. His answer is to work with parents and children on using these technologies, as tools – not treats – in their lives.
All our speakers agreed: while the challenges must be recognized and addressed, ultimately, it is our collective responsibility to make digital technologies positively contribute to the wellbeing of families. Technology is only as good as how it is used.
About Make Mothers Matter
Make Mothers Matter believes in the power of mothers to make the world a better place, advocating for their recognition and support as changemakers. Created in 1947, MMM is an international NGO with no political or religious affiliations, transparently voicing the concerns of mothers at the highest level: the European Union, UNESCO and the United Nations (general consultative status).
The full program plus video recording of event & other resources are available on: https://makemothersmatter.org/harnessing-digital-technologies-for-family-wellbeing-our-collective-responsibility/