Vote Robin Lim as 2011 CNN Hero of the Year

Robin Lim, the midwife featured in the film Guerilla Midwife, shown on the International Day of the Midwife in Sarasota in 2010, has been chosen as a Top 10 CNN Hero of the Year Nominee. If she wins this honor, her non-profit organization Yayasan Bumi Sehat will receive $250,000. People can vote for Robin 10 times per day until December 7th. This money would help Robin save so many mothers and babies; her birthing sanctuaries offer free prenatal care, birthing services and medical aid to anyone who needs it, in areas of the world where postpartum hemorrhage, obstetric fistula, and lack of prenatal care claim far too many lives.

"Naturally I hope that being a CNN Hero will bring attention to the global need for better maternal and infant survival care," says Robin Lim. "Bumi Sehat has a huge responsibility keeping the two community health and childbirth clinics open. There is also the Bumi Youth Education Center, our scholarship program, village recycling and environmental stewardship.

"We do capacity building for Indonesian midwives from many islands and countries. Bumi provides free ambulance and emergency medical service, HIV/AIDs counseling and testing, pediatric care, free weekly special clinics to treat chronic illness. We have elderly and prenatal exercise programs. Bumi Sehat is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. In the first eight months of 2011 Bumi Sehat has helped 20,500 patients and delivered nearly 400 babies for free!"

Quite close to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, Bumi Sehat operates a clinic which also sponsors capacity building for youth education and environmental protection. "Bumi Sehat needs the CNN #1 award, and will put it to use doing culturally appropriate sustainable care. Imagine a world in which each child is born with an intact capacity to love and trust. This is the world midwives work day and night to build."

Click here to VOTE for Robin Lim. A vote for Robin Lim is a vote for gentle birth, for mother and child survival, for culturally sensitive natural community health care and disaster relief, for midwife-to-mother care that effectively saves lives.