BUS tycoon Ann Gloag has said she is "honoured" to have the support of Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep for her charity to improve maternal health in Africa.
Streep will narrate a documentary produced by the Stagecoach co-founder's charity, the Freedom From Fistula Foundation.
The feature-length film, titled 'Shout Gladi Gladi', focuses on women's health in Africa with a particular emphasis on the debilitating condition which renders women and girls injured after childbirth.
The Freedom From Fistula Foundation works to eradicate fistula by improving access to good maternity care, as well as training doctors and midwives, and providing free medical care at their facilities in Sierra Leone, Kenya and Malawi.
Ms Gloag said, "We are truly honoured to have Meryl Streep support our film and our work.
"Her involvement will help shine a light on the ongoing, unnecessary suffering of millions of women and girls living with fistula today, as well as the enormous amount of work still needed to improve maternal healthcare across Africa.
"But the film is also about hope, as fistula can be cured in the majority of cases and can be prevented when good maternity care is available. Women and children need not die in childbirth and we all have the power to help."
Speaking about the documentary, Meryl Streep said, "This powerful film attests to the igniting power of one woman, Ann Gloag, to set in motion hundreds of helping hands, doctors, nurses, caregivers, family and friends, to resuscitate the health and status of victims of fistula, and to give them back their lives."
The film will also feature Melinda Gates and Wole Soyinka, the first African to be honoured with a Nobel Prize.
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