“They say a woman is the heart beat of every nation. So this is not an issue for procrastination. We need act now and start some education on maternal mortality and all its complications.” These critical words make up the first few lines of GH-rap maestro, Asem’s new single promoting maternal and newborn survival in Ghana.
‘MamaYe’,the expertly arranged track by Asem is a theme song for the MamaYe Ghana campaign intended to draw people’s attention to the need to do more to promote maternal health and to remove the resign associated with maternal deaths in the country.
The multiple award winning artiste, who is also an ambassador of the MamaYe Ghana campaign is well known for producing development-oriented songs in the past as his song, ‘School Dey Bee’ won the World Bank sponsored Music for Development Award in 2010 at the Ghana Music Awards.
Asem, known in private life as Nana Wiafe Asante Mensah, has two albums to his credit with his recent album, ‘Solid Ground’, receiving rave reviews from entertainment critics. The ‘Bye Bye’ hit maker’s hard work continues to pay off as he has been nominated in 7 categories including the Album Of The Year, Song Writer Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year in the upcoming 2013 Ghana Music Awards
His groundbreaking first album, ‘Better Late Than Never’, brought a revolution into urban music in Ghana with the ever controversial ‘Give Me Blow’ .
Asem says his deep love for his mother and other female friends in his life is one of the reasons why he chose to be part of the MamaYe Campaign.
“Look, we can’t allow this to continue. Our mothers are very important to the socio economic development of the nation. In-fact, their impact on our lives domestically can’t be quantified in any way. That is why we need to act now to save more lives.”
He urged the youth to participate in activities such as blood donation exercises that are geared towards saving more lives especially that of pregnant mothers and their newborns.
“Sometime we ask ourselves ‘what we can do to help? Well you don’t need all the money in the world to help. You have blood flowing through you and every little pint counts,” he said.
Asem however stressed the need for the government to do more to improve maternal and neonatal healthcare delivery across the country but charged every individual, especially the men, to take responsibility for the women to ensure that as many more mothers as possible are saved.
“We cannot joke around with the issue anymore because as many as eight pregnant mothers die every day during childbirth in Ghana. At the rate we are going, if we don’t do anything about it, we might end up losing important human resources in the country. The time to act is now,” he stressed.
Asem performed the song during the launch of the MamaYe Ghana campaign at the Accra international Conference Centre on February 28, 2013, which was attended by the deputy Minister of Health, Mr. Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, Dr. Joyce Aryee, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo and Country Director of MamaYe Ghana, Prof. Richard Adanu.
He later joined the MamaYe Ghana maiden blood donation exercise at the Efua Sutherland Park on March 8, 2013 where encouraged volunteers to do well to donate blood periodically.
As he rightly puts it in the opening embers of the ‘MamaYe’ track: “We need to come together to save mother. And if you talk sey you no dey bother, tomorrow igo be your mother or your sister.”
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