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Educating girls have become one of the major development and public health focus across the globe. A new documentary called To Educate a Girl explores what it takes to educate girls in Nepal and Uganda.
Although the stories are within the global context, it is powerful enough to warrant discussions across the region. Why? Because even in countries reporting very high literacy rates, disparities do exist from country to country and even within particular countries. Additionally, higher education attainment does not translate to increased empowerment for young women.
A Joint UNAIDS/UNFPA/UNIFEM report found that although girls outperform boys throughout our education system, including at the university level, the rate of new HIV infection among girls 15 to 19 is five times higher among girls than boys in this age group. According to Sir George Alleyne, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean, this ‘remarkable paradox’ between higher education levels and higher rates of HIV prevalence is tied to young women’s inability to advocate for themselves despite their years of education.
“Possibly, the skills and knowledge women acquire in the formal education system are not sufficient to enable them to take control over other parts of their lives…it may come too late to prevent them from being the victim of unwanted or transactional sex as adolescents,” he says.
Among the multiple benefits of educating girls, UNESCO lists: increased family incomes, reduced fertility rates, and greater opportunities and life choices for women (including better chances to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS). The increasing HIV (and STI) rates suggests we need greater emphasis on what and how we educate young women, and not be satisfied to say that we are getting people through school.
For the full video, visit viewchange.org at http://www.viewchange.org/videos/to-educate-a-girl
Sources:
http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/women/report/chapter5.html
http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/en-press/press-kit_wome.shtm
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/jamaica_29872.html
Geneva, Switzerland – The International AIDS Society (IAS), in partnership with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the NIH-supported Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR), today announced the launch of a new round of the joint research grant programme, Creative and Novel Ideas in HIV Research (CNIHR).
The CNIHR programme supports projects intended to advance the scientific understanding of HIV by exploring new approaches to pressing scientific questions on such issues as the long-term survival of individuals with HIV infection, strategies to control viral reservoirs and research leading toward a cure for HIV/AIDS, and new approaches for the prevention of HIV transmission including treatment as prevention. “The NIH is delighted to continue this important international partnership, which is designed to promote innovative research and new ideas from early-stage investigators whose primary focus has previously been in fields of scientific inquiry other than HIV/AIDS,” Dr Jack Whitescarver, NIH Associate Director for AIDS Research and Director of the Office of AIDS Research, said. “The science of AIDS is making important strides, and we need to continue to generate innovative ideas and build multi-disciplinary collaborations. We must recruit and train tomorrow’s leading HIV researchers from across many areas of science, whose work will benefit not only HIV, but other fields of research as well.”
Given the limited resources available to pursue the rollout of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to all who need it, as well as the fact that in resource-limited settings, new infections continue to outstrip numbers of people on treatment by two to one, there is a strong need for continued investments to find new strategies to tackle the HIV epidemic. “In the current economic climate of treatment funding shortages and with a scale of unmet need that can only increase, the IAS is highly concerned by the long-term sustainability of antiretroviral therapy rollout,” Elly Katabira, IAS President, said. “Along with our partners, the IAS is committed to investing in finding better and more cost-effective options to curb the epidemic. One of the ways we can pursue this is through the CNIHR research grant programme.”
The first round of grants was announced in 2010. The joint programme awarded a total of US$3.4 million to fund the research projects of outstanding early-stage researchers. Each awardee is funded for up to two years with up to $150,000 (direct costs) per year plus applicable indirect costs .
“The truly international nature of this programme – it is open to candidates globally – enables it to select the best research projects from all over the world,” Prof Michael Saag , Director of CFAR at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, commented. “ The first 10 awardees come from a wide range of scientific disciplines and locations, including Australia, India, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.”
The first step of the competitive application process is now open on the CNIHR website ( www.cnihr.org) and will close on 17 October 2011. Applicants will be asked to complete a two-step process to assess the quality of their research projects. Awardees will be selected by mid-April 2012 and will be able to start their research projects in June 2012. The research projects will be supported in collaboration with a CFAR institution with expertise in each candidate’s area of proposed research.
“Through this programme, promising young researchers have access to CFAR’s solid expertise and infrastructure, which is extremely important for the success of their projects,” Prof King Holmes, Director of the CFAR at the University of Washington, said. Awardees will also have the chance to take part in a networking and training programme at the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), which will be held in Washington D.C. on 22-27 July 2012, where the results of the selection process will be announced.
This was the concluding thought from Dr. Denzil Douglas, after this weeks partner’s conference in support of the Caribbean Regional Public Health Agency. I saw it at the end of a press release on CARICOM’s website. To me, this phrase creates the set-up for a perfect Tweet. Yet, when I search CARICOM on Twitter, I come up blank. Try finding a video of recent Caribbean-related public health events on Youtube…there are none. CARICOM does not exits there either. The travesty continues when you visit their homepage. There are no links to social networking sites. For blue box with a F for Facebook; no little birds inviting you to follow them. Not even the option to “Add This” or “Share”.
There was another press release announcing today’s CARICOM conference focusing on increased youth involvement in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). Did you know it was going on?. I can’t help but think we are missing a large part of youth population just by how we go about communicating with them. Now, I’m the first to always admit that social media is not the end all be all and that the digital dividedoes exist. However, anecdotally, we know that young Caribbean people access the Internet extensively. It’s well known outside the western developed world that access to the internet is not always tied to a computer…and that in many parts of the world, people are more likely to use their mobile phones to access the internet. Therefore, it’s important to communicate in such a way that allows for quick upload of webpages and to easy browsing. Social media sites are among the most visited on mobile phones. So, why does CARICOM, the premiere agency for regional policy making communicate with it’s public via those channels?
One of the first things I learned in studying communication was that the only message is the message received. Therefore, if CARICOM continued to communicate through the same channels while it’s young population gravitates to something else, not only is there a disconnect; this represents to many missed opportunities. I still support traditional media. But, if we want young people to be engaged, we have to reach them where they hang out; where they exit. This is about expanding the public sphere, of which access to accurate and quality information is vital. So CARICOM, I challenge you to rewrite your own communication history along with that of Caribbean public health history. After all, these tools are not just important for delivering messages about what you are doing. They become vital in also delivering important disease prevention, risk reduction and disaster preparedness messages as well.
So, while we are rewriting Caribbean public health history, wouldn’t it do us good to keep up with technologies that impact health? What do you think is holding CARICOM back? Do they lack the expertise to put together a webpage with information on how to connect with the organization online? Is it a matter of human resources or finances? Should CARICOM have a dedicated social media strategist? Or, is this just a waste of time and money? Share your thoughts below.
The newly formed Caribbean Public Health Agency held it’s second partner’s meeting today at PAHO/WHO’s headquarters in Washington DC. According to a previous CARPHA press release, the meeting was
“to gain backing from the global community for this single, people-focused public health agency for the region.”
A Google News search found only one article with the search term “CARPHA”–about St. Kitts and Nevis officially signing documents to establish the agency, joining Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada and St. Lucia. So I’m hoping there will be more about this meeting in the coming days.
The meeting was attended by PAHO/WHO Director, Dr. Mirta Roses, and PAHO/WHO Deputy Director, Dr. Jon Andrus, Dr. Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and CARICOM Lead Head of Government for Health and Human Resources, Ambassador Lolita AppleWhauite, Secretary General (acting) of Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and other regional authorities.
Source: http://www.cuopm.com/newsitem_new.asp?articlenumber=2123&post200803=true
Source: http://www.carpha.org/press-releases.html
Picture: http://new.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5579&Itemid=1926&lang=en
Caribbean Health Communication Blog 