Paolo Patruno

Photographer/Filmmaker
  
Location: Bologna
Nationality: Italian
Biography: I am a freelance documentary photographer and filmmaker. I traveled throughout Africa over the past ten years, documenting global topics, including health care, education, human rights, gender issues, sustainable development. Since 2011 I’m... MORE
Public Story
BIRTH is a DREAM
Copyright Paolo Patruno 2024
Updated Sep 2016
Topics Multimedia, Photography

In 2011 I started my "BIRTH IS A DREAM" a documentary project which aims to document and raise awareness about maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Every year in Sub-Saharan Africa 200.000 mothers die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
A mother's death is a human tragedy, affecting families and communities. Her death endangers the lives of a surviving newborn and any other young children; a mother's death makes it harder for the family to obtain life's necessities and escape the crush of poverty. A great many of these deaths are preventable, when women have access to quality prevention, diagnostic, and treatment services.

" I started my project in Malawi, where the words for pregnancy in the local language"'pakati' and 'matenda'"translate into 'between life and death' and 'sick'.
That's where I met an English midwife, Rachel MacLeod, who practiced for nearly 14 years in Spain before moving to Malawi to work as a senior clinical midwife in the labor ward of the Bwaila Hospital, in the capital Lilongwe; she opened my eyes to the maternal health crisis in Africa.
 "

Since 2011 the project has been shot across Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Visit the "BIRTH IS A DREAM" website to view the stories I've documented: www.birthisadream.org

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BIRTH is a DREAM by Paolo Patruno
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