When I grow up is a tale published by Doctors with Africa CUAMM on occasion of Mother’s Day, written by Guia Risari and drawn by Anna Godeassi. A story halfway between fantasy and reality that depicts children’s dreams. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is the question everyone has been asked once in their childhood. A question unveiling feelings of hope and high expectations that African mothers hardly ask to their children whose future is uncertain due to health conditions and preventable diseases. Every year, in sub-Saharan Africa 265 women die due to childbirth and 1,2 million children lose their lives in their first month of life. Behind those figures there are people, desires and destinies interrupted before time.

This tale is about these children and the dreams they had neither the time nor the means to make come true. In the background, CUAMM’s commitment and the dedication of its humanitarian workers who work around the clock to take care of the children, their health and dreams. From hospitals to health centres to the most remote villages reached by mobile health clinic, CUAMM’s doctors, nurses and midwives work with little means to ensure health services to those most in need and to support the learning of local personnel.

In over 70 years of field activities, we have learned that shaping a better future is possible by strengthening local healthcare systems and by creating concrete employment opportunities, as well as by training qualified healthcare workers willing to serve mothers and children, one dream at a time.