I think I’ve figured it out. There’s something in public health called the “prevention paradox”: measures of disease prevention that offer great benefits to populations at large (such as fluoridation of water sources, wearing seatbelts, lifestyle changes, smallpox vaccinations, etc) offer little benefit or personal incentive to individuals.

But research shows that health education geared toward individuals (counseling on reducing salt intake for hypertension, exercise for diabetes, etc) are less effective when geared only toward individuals and/or used in a short-term approach. People are motivated to act for immediate gain and substantial personal benefits, but “the medical motivation for health education is inherently weak. Their health next year is not likely to be much better if they accept our advice or if they reject it. Much more powerful as motivators for health education are the social rewards of enhanced self-esteem and social approval.” (Geoffrey Rose, Sick Individuals and Sick Populations.)

Physicians also prefer individualized health education because with population interventions (such as anti-smoking campaigns), their success rates are low and results take a long time to achieve.

The US is such an individual-centric society that people have no cultural reason to care about population health as a whole. Most Americans do not see that universal access to healthcare means that problems are detected and treated early (which is less costly), and that sometimes preventive medicine can encourage life-saving behavior change. That the person going into the ER for stomach pain because s/he does not have health insurance is costing the taxpayer literally thousands more dollars than s/he would if s/he’d gone to a primary care physician.

Nor do they understand the concept of herd immunity- if a large proportion of a population is immune to or vaccinated against a particular disease, the likelihood that one individual will get that disease is far less.

The focus on the individual and the apathy toward the well-being of communities and populations is by no means restricted to health alone. The same can be said about the current financial crisis. Individuals who borrowed more than they could pay back, and their unscrupulous lenders have created a global downward spiral of hundreds of economies, with the bottom billion hit the hardest.

I find it ironic and deeply saddening that 30 million more people have been pushed into starvation thus far due to the financial crisis while bankers are taking hefty bonuses and governments are bailing out businesses that were failing even before the crash (GM, Chrysler, etc…)

maybe it will get published... here's hoping! :)


Sir,

I find it inaccurate to call President Obama's decision to end the Global Gag Rule, an "order... ending the prohibition on sending aid to international organisations that provide abortion." (Brief Encounter, January 31st). Obama's decision does not change the fact that US tax-payers' dollars cannot be used to provide abortions overseas. The
legislation, first enacted by Ronald Reagan, rejected by Clinton and reinstated by Bush, prohibited US family planning assistance to organizations that use non-US funds to perform abortions (even in countries where it is legal), provide counseling and referrals for abortion, and lobby to liberalize abortion laws.

None of these restrictions would be permitted within the United States, where abortion is legal. Yet US ideologues had no qualms about denying poor women the right to decide when and if to carry out a pregnancy. Each year there are 19 million unsafe abortions, most of which could be prevented if poor women had access to voluntary family
planning including contraception, sex education, and the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In addition, women with fewer births are able to invest more in their children's nutrition and education-- resulting in healthier, more productive contributors to society.

Many of the organizations that lost their funding were unable to provide other life-saving services such as maternal and infant healthcare, poverty reduction, and HIV prevention. For example, the United Nations Population Fund lost its US contribution of $244 million over seven years, based on a spurious claim of collusion with the Chinese government in coerced sterilizations. This contributed to 74,000 deaths from unsafe abortion globally each year, even though Bush's own hand-picked State Department team visited China and found no evidence that UNFPA participated in such programs; and, indeed, that its programs were "a force for good." Obama's move to restore reproductive freedoms to women will surely reduce global demand for abortion and improve overall population health.



(PS- the picture of all the old white dudes is from bush's second day in office, when he signed the global gag rule back into its miserable existence.)

(Written for SAWNET, http://sawnet.org/books/reviews.php?Aids+Sutra)



Today there are approximately 3 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS, a number that masks the human faces behind a disease that has been reviled and misunderstood as the worst plague in human history. A disease often considered to afflict only those regarded as the dredges of society, AIDS has the potential both to expose the dark underbelly of society, and also to inspire triumphs of human compassion and perseverance.
AIDS Sutra, funded by the Gates Foundation, is a compilation of 16 vibrant essays about Indians living with HIV by some of South Asia’s most gifted authors, including Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Kiran Desai. Several of the essays are narrated directly from the authors’ home communities; others are the fruition of their travels to the vastly different regions of India.

Siddharth Deb’s poignant account, “The Lost Generation of Manipur,” brings him to a remote corner of India bereft of employment opportunities and constantly on edge due to communal violence. Uncontrolled injecting drug use in the region puts young people of working age especially at risk for HIV infection.

Salman Rushdie’s piece on the politics and culture of the hijra (intersexed and/or transgender) community is a concise account of a population that defies society´s common [mis]perceptions around gender and HIV risk. Rushdie interviews a transgender AIDS activist named Laxmi, who lives in a constant duality of gender- going as a man by day and living with her parents, and transforming into a woman at night and on the weekends. Her advocacy on behalf of this distinct community in India has helped to distinguish hijras as a third gender- with different needs and challenges than men who have sex with men.

Other stories included in the book examine the lives of truck drivers, sex workers, and devadasis, women traditionally given to god, and nowadays women who choose or are forced into sex work as a means of income generation. In Sunil Gangopadhyay’s essay, “Return to Sonagacchi,” the author returns home to Kolkata to compose a compelling account of the lives of sex workers in Sonagachhi, narrating both the deprivation they face and also their power as an organized movement fighting for their rights as sex workers to safety, health services, education for their children, freedom from police persecution, and dignity.

Bill and Melinda Gates give the anthology’s introduction, and its insightful forward is written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen. Sen revolutionized the traditional economic paradigm by asserting that development is not simply about increasing per capita income, but rather “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” His examination of the economic effects of AIDS in India is nuanced in its consideration of both the beneficial impact of Indian pharmaceuticals in producing affordable antiretroviral drugs for much of the world, and the irony that income disparity in India prevents the majority of Indians living with HIV from accessing treatment, quality medical facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, and community support.

Sen argues that stigma is the primary fuel of the epidemic in India, where widespread ignorance pervades about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted. Among young Indians just reaching working age, knowledge how HIV is spread is dismally low at 25% of the population according to UNAIDS (20% comprehensive knowledge among women and 36% among men). Because many Indians still believe that HIV can be transmitted through touch, sharing food, or through aerosol transmission, Indians living with HIV face discrimination in schools and workplaces, ostracization, rejection from their families, and in many cases, violence and even death.

India’s uncomfortable and often times paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality is often at the root of ignorance and discrimination against HIV, with 87% of new infections in India occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse each year according to India’s National AIDS Control Organization. Despite an ancient culture rich in celebration of natural human sexuality, imperial-era taboos surrounding sex continue to create a stifling conservatism that limits access to scientific information about sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and the rights of women and sexual minorities.

In Amit Chaudhuri’s essay, “Healing,” he remarks that “The troubling ambiguity of sex through history— the fact that it bestows life and pleasure, and also, in a way that can’t be entirely explained by morality, confuses and shames— have converged in a new way upon this disease.” His interviews with Alka Desphpande, an AIDS researcher and physician in India’s first AIDS ward, reveal the challenges faced even by the medical community in becoming educated about HIV. Large numbers of Indian health care workers still believe that HIV is transmitted by touch, and widespread denial of treatment and discrimination against people living with HIV is common.

The first essay “Mister X Versus Hospital Y” by Nikita Lalwani tells the story of a Dr. Tokugha who is infected with HIV and becomes an important activist when his results are disclosed to his family (and bride-to-be’s family) before he himself is made aware of his status, just days before the wedding. His lawsuit against the hospital’s breach of his privacy sparked controversial debate and the release of his name in newspapers all across India. The court ruled against him, “decreeing that the hospital’s release of the information to the minister without his consent had ‘saved the life’ of Toku’s proposed fiancée. The essay forces us to consider the complexities behind forced disclosure of one’s HIV status. Not only was Dr. “Toku”’s right to self-disclose taken away from him, the judge tacked on a devastating addition to the ruling, that suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry. The laudable human rights organization, The Lawyers’ Collective, fought for years to restore this basic human right to people living with HIV, succeeding in 2002. Since then, Dr. Toku has become a prominent physician in the field, and goes above and beyond by arranging matches between people living with HIV.

Discrimination and national legislation intersect most brutally in India with the penal code provision 377 that makes homosexuality a criminal offense. Drafted in 1860 during British Rule, the anachronistic law fines and imprisons Indians caught in the act of sodomy and even oral sex for between ten years and a lifetime in jail. The law has served to drive homosexuality “underground” where men having unprotected sex with men cannot be reached for HIV awareness raising, sexual health services, STI screening, or recourse for police persecution and demanding of bribes.

One story included in the collection was strikingly disappointing— to the point of giving offense. Shobhaa De’s “When AIDS Came Home” reveals the author’s ignorant, discriminatory and classist lack of understanding of HIV and AIDS. Her account of how her driver becomes infected with HIV and gradually dies from AIDS is peppered with comments about her “repulsion” that he had spent so much time with her children, speculations about his involvement with sex workers and his sexuality, and self-congratulatory accolades when she provided occasional money for a doctor or medicine.

De’s piece examines her misconceptions about AIDS and vaguely suggests that she has seen the error in her was (perhaps simply because it would not be politically correct to admit otherwise), but still fails to include what lessons she has learned. Indeed, to conclude her story Shobhaa marvels that “Although they are such an intimate part of our lives, how little we really know about the people who work for us… it took Shankar’s death to see him as a human.” She concludes by lying to her children and telling them that the driver was infected through a blood transfusion because the reality that many men purchase sex is too shocking to bear.

By far the most thought-provoking inclusion in the anthology, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s “Hello, Darling,” diverges from the book’s overall focus on more “marginalized” populations of sex workers, drug users and truckers, to recount the life experiences with HIV of an upper-class homosexual film director whose pseudonym is given as “Murad.” Openly flamboyant, driven to success, and yet still slow to “come out” about his homosexuality, and later, HIV status, Murad escapes the confines of Bombay and moves to New York City. He is unable to move in the local film circuit and returns to Bombay years later, where he eventually succumbs to AIDS.

Shanghvi’s piece is particularly well-researched and deeply-felt; his account considers early chronicles of the impact of AIDS on art and artists in Edmund White’s “Esthetics and Loss,” and the strange phenomenon of how AIDS “got noticed,” as explained in Urvashi Vaid’s “Virtual Equality,” in which she observes “how the passing of an entire generation from AIDS helped give rise to the modern idea of homosexuality: thousands of men had to die, in fact, to have to be seen as alive in the first place.” Shanghvi’s inclusion was particularly important and contrasted sharply with De’s story. “Hello, Darling” should serve as a wake-up call to elites believing in their infallibility, since the risk behaviors that propel the spread of HIV in India are by no means limited to lower socioeconomic echelons of society.

Overall, the anthology is an important, moving, and transformative read. Each story is relatively brief and gives a taste of the authors’ diverse and prolific literary talents. Some tales, such as De’s, are clearly geared toward upper class Indians who are beginning to understand the complexities of the AIDS epidemic in India. Still others delve into economic, political and human rights aspects of the disease. Till now, literature and artistic works on AIDS in India have been limited and relatively unknown. AIDS Sutra gives voice to communities and individuals that have been destroyed, silenced, affected and transformed by AIDS in a jarring and yet deeply meaningful manner.

Help me support the International Youth Climate Movement with a contest that is happening on Facebook.



The Facebook For Good contest is offering 3,000 euros to the grand prize winner who is using the Facebook platform for the best submitted story for creating good.



The title of my story is "Engaging Youth To Take Action To Address Climate Change" and here is the story;

I have spent the last year volunteering on an United Nations Development Programme youth climate change project. The job wasn’t easy to create a youth summary of the United Nations Human Development Report 2007/2008 but with the use of social networking which allowed me to contact people from all over the world to share their views on climate change a publication was created. I also have been using Facebook to distribute the publication online in English, French, and Spanish.

With my passion for new media I also created 7 videos which have been distributed online through sharing of those who also want to educate their peers.

I also had the chance to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia in December of 2007. Through the Facebook platform you can keep in touch with all of the other youth who are working on climate change in their own regions of the world.

I will be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference again this year in Poznan, Poland and have been using the Causes feature to help fundraise to attend since I do not have an income from volunteering on the United Nations Development Programme youth climate change project.

I share my interests in a better world with everyone of my contacts hoping that they will pass along the information to others.

Facebook has allowed a large network to create the social change I want to see in the world.

Take a look at my story and please vote for me.

If I was to actually win the Grand Prize I would be donating it back to support other youth delegates to attend future United Nations Climate Change negotiations and to further strengthen the international youth climate movement. The contest ends on December 15, 2008 at 11:59 pm (EST) so please help me support youth in keeping our governments accountable on reducing carbon emissions.

Facebook For Good Contest Deatails

Grand Prize

Each Grand Prize Winner can elect to either: i) accept 1,000 Euros or equivalent in local currency as of date of award, or ii) designate to award 3,000 Euros or equivalent in local currency to one recognized charity or non-profit organization operating in the winner’s country on his / her behalf.
1st Prize

Up to five (5) Finalists per country will each receive a Flip Ultra Camcorder from Flip Video, a pocket-sized camcorder with one-touch recording and 2x digital zoom.
Prize Eligibility

With great excitement I will be joining the Canadian delegation on the Ship for World Youth 21 program, which will include traveling to Japan and sailing to Vanuatu, Tonga, and New Zealand from January - March 2009. The Ship for World Youth program started almot fifty years ago in 1959 when the international youth exchange program of the Cabinet Office launched the "Japanese Youth Gooodwill Mission Program" with the purpose of broadening the global view of Japanese youth and to promote mutual understanding between Japanese and foreign youth as well as to cultivate the spirit of international cooperation and the competence to pratice it and to allow the participating youth with capability of showing leadership in various areas of international society.



The itinerary of the 21st Ship for World Youth program 2009 is as follows:

January 14th, 2009 - Arrival of the participants from overseas

January 15th − 22nd - Program for overseas participants in Japan

January 23rd - Departure from Yokohama Port (Japan)

February 2nd - Refuel, food and water supply in Vanuatu

February 5th − 7th - Port of call activities in Tonga (Nuku'alofa)

February 11th − 14th - Port of call activities in New Zealand (Auckland)

February 19th - 20th - Refuel, food and water supply in Vanuatu

March 5 - Return back to Tokyo (Japan)



Participating countries for SWY21 are:

Canada
Arab Republic of Egypt
Republic of the Fiji Islands
Japan
Republic of Mauritius
New Zealand
Kingdom of Norway
Republic of Peru
Kingdom of Tonga
United Arab Emirates
Republic of Vanuatu
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Republic of Yemen

In Decemeber I will be joining along with 30 other highly involved Canadian youth to form the Canadian Youth Delegation and attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which this year is the 14th Conference of Parties (COP-14). So far there have been some conference calls where those who are joining the delegation got to connect with delegate new and old and start the ball rolling on what we as young Canadians want to focus on during COP-14. This is a very important step in the process of having post-Kyoto reductions of carbon emissions which will be decided in Copenhagen during the December 2009 COP-15, and also that the current Canadian stance is to invest into tar sands development without looking at the effects that this is having on the environment. While I myself have yet to see any major turn in Canadian citizen views, there is hope with the upcoming federal election that voters will show just like recently in Australia that political parties who are not serious on taking action to reduce the impacts of climate change have no place to be the leaders of out societies.

There is something really important that I would like to share with you. Since 1998, the Canadian government has been sponsoring hundreds of young Canadians working overseas in the field of international development - a highly competitive field that is nearly impossible to break into.

This fabulous program (International Youth Internship Program) has offered critical opportunities for young professionals to get their foot in the door. Students/graduates are placed in diverse interships with development organizations overseas, while all costs of this invaluable experience are covered by CIDA, representing but a small portion of its overall budget. This was a way for the Canadian Government to invest in its young graduates/future leaders, allowing them much-needed, and hard to come by, practical experience.

Word has it that the current Government is planning to discontinue this International Youth Intership Program in 2009. This means that young graduates (like myself), pursuing work abroad in international development, will lose a crucial opportunity to get their feet in the door. Really, this represents a huge divestment by the Canadian Government from its future leaders.

You can read more about the program and the threat of potential termination in the Embassy Magazine article from August 20th "Future of CIDA Internship Program Up in the Air".

We really need to show that this program offers many things, all it takes at this point is just your signature. We have started an online petition that you can sign.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepIYIP/

THE INDEPENDENT Aug 31

For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated

Melting ice opens up North-west and North-east passages simultaneously.
Scientists warn Arctic icecap is entering a 'death spiral'

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
*Sunday, 31 August 2008*

Open water now stretches all the way round the Arctic, making it possible for the first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. New satellite images, taken only two days ago, show that melting ice last week opened up both the fabled North-west and North-east passages, in the most important geographical landmark to date
to signal the unexpectedly rapid progress of global warming.

Last night Professor Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the official US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), hailed the publication of the images – on an obscure website by scientists at the University of Bremen, Germany – as "a historic event", and said that it provided further evidence
that the Arctic icecap may now have entered a "death spiral". Some scientists predict that it could vanish altogether in summer within five years, a process that would, in itself, greatly accelerate.

But Sarah Palin, John McCain's new running mate, holds that the scientific consensus that global warming is melting Arctic ice is unreliable.

The opening of the passages – eagerly awaited by shipping companies who hope to cut thousands of miles off their routes by sailing round the north of Canada and Russia – is only the greatest of a host of ominous signs this month of a gathering crisis in the Arctic. Early last week the NSDIC warned that, over the next few weeks, the total extent of sea ice in the Arctic may shrink to below the record low reached last year – itself a massive 200,000 square miles less than the previous worst year, 2005.

Four weeks ago, tourists had to be evacuated from Baffin Island's Auyuittuq National Park because of flooding from thawing glaciers. Auyuittuq means "land that never melts".

Two weeks later, in an unprecedented sighting, nine stranded polar bears were seen off Alaska trying to swim 400 miles north to the retreating icecap edge. Ten days ago massive cracking was reported in the Petermann glacier in the far north of Greenland, an area apparently previously unaffected by global warming.

But it is the simultaneous opening – for the first time in at least 125,000 years – of the North-west passage around Canada and the North-east passage around Russia that promises to deliver much the greatest shock. Until recently both had been blocked by ice since the beginning of the last Ice
Age.

In 2005, the North-east passage opened, while the western one remained closed, and last year their positions were reversed. But the images,gathered by Nasa using microwave sensors that penetrate clouds, show that the North-west passage opened last weekend and that the last blockage on the north- eastern one – a tongue of ice stretching down to Russia across Siberia's Laptev Sea – dissolved a few days later.

"The passages are open," said Professor Serreze, though he cautioned that official bodies would be reluctant to confirm this for fear of lawsuits if ships encountered ice after being encouraged to enter them. "It's a historic event. We are going to see this more and more as the years go by."

Shipping companies are already getting ready to exploit the new routes. The Bremen-based Beluga Group says it will send the first ship through the North-east passage – cutting 4,000 nautical miles off the voyage from Germany to Japan – next year. And Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper,
last week announced that all foreign ships entering the North-west passage should report to his government – a move bound to be resisted by the US, which regards it as an international waterway.

But scientists say that such disputes will soon become irrelevant if the ice continues to melt at present rates, making it possible to sail right across the North Pole. They have long regarded the disappearance of the icecap as inevitable as global warming takes hold, though until recently it was not expected until around 2070.

Many scientists now predict that the Arctic ocean will be ice-free in summer by 2030 – and a landmark study this year by Professor Wieslaw Maslowski at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, concluded that there will be no ice between mid-July and mid-September as early as 2013.

The tipping point, experts believe, was the record loss of ice last year, reaching a level not expected to occur until 2050. Sceptics then dismissed the unprecedented melting as a freak event, and it was indeed made worse by wind currents and other natural weather patterns.

Conditions were better this year – it has been cooler, particularly last winter – and for a while it looked as if the ice loss would not be so bad.

But this month the melting accelerated. Last week it shrank to below the 2005 level and the European Space Agency said: "A new record low could be reached in a matter of weeks."

Four weeks ago, a seven-year study at the University of Alberta reported that – besides shrinking in area – the thickness of the ice had dropped by half in just six years. It suggested that the region had "transitioned into a different climatic state where completely ice-free summers would soon
become normal".

The process feeds on itself. As white ice is replaced by sea, the dark surface absorbs more heat, warming the ocean and melting more ice.

FIONA MORROW

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

September 2, 2008 at 4:38 AM EDT

VANCOUVER — Environment Canada has terminated a funding contract to the B.C. chapter of the Sierra Club of Canada, causing the possible closing of a climate-change program initiative.

Pat Dolan, executive director of Environment Canada's outreach and biodiversity priorities division, telephoned the environmental non-profit group last week to say that the $100,000 funding contract, signed May 16, was terminated.

The grant had been approved through the EcoAction Community Funding program, a federal initiative created by the Chrétien government in 1995 and supported by subsequent administrations.

"I was informed that our application had been reviewed - after the signing of our contribution agreement - against the priorities of the program, that sometimes adjustments in priorities occur, and that as a result of that review our funding was terminated," said Jenn Hoffman, development director of Sierra Club B.C. "I was told that we are not the only organization being impacted."

The money had been targeted for the Sierra Club's new House Cooling initiative, in which groups of workers, neighbours or others gather in one member's house to discuss climate change and how they, as individuals or as a group, can reduce their carbon footprint.

Sierra Club B.C. supplies materials that give information about the practical steps people can take to reduce household greenhouse-gas emissions. At the end of the gathering, guests are invited to form their own Carbon Emission Reduction Club that will meet regularly so people can support each other in their greening efforts.

Sierra Club B.C. executive director Kathryn Molloy said she was outraged by the decision to cancel funding.

"I would like clarity as to why the program has been terminated," she said. "I was told this was the best proposal EcoAction had ever seen. This issue of climate change and empowering people to make decisions to reduce their own impact and to educate them on these issues - it has never been more salient.

"It has never been more prudent for the government to be supporting this kind of work and we've never had this level of interest. In my view, right before an election, this is voter suicide on their part."

Asked for a response, Environment Canada said in an e-mailed statement: "The department regularly reviews all of its grants and contribution funding projects to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are respected. The Department is informing project proponents on the results of the annual review. As per the terms of agreements, payments will be issued where money is owing for work already done. Any money freed up will be redirected to other programs and services to help protect our environment."

An Environment Canada spokesman did confirm that Environment Minister John Baird is sometimes involved personally in the application review process. He could not confirm which, if any, other organizations might be affected, nor which specific issues had caused Sierra Club's application to suddenly be deemed ineligible.

Special to The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080902.wbcgreen02/BNStory/National/

here are many companies who are trying to improve their image to look like they are more responsible in how they operate and the impact that they have on the environment. Here is a great resource on Greenwashing.

What is Greenwashing?
It’s Whitewashing, But With a Green Brush.

Everyone’s heard the expression “whitewashing” — it’s defined as “a coordinated attempt to hide unpleasant facts, especially in a political context.”

“Greenwashing” is the same premise, but in an environmental context.

It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.

A classic example might be an energy company that runs an advertising campaign touting a “green” technology they’re working on — but that “green” technology represents only a sliver of the company’s otherwise not-so-green business, or may be marketed on the heels of an oil spill or plant explosion.

Or a hotel chain that calls itself “green” because it allows guests to choose to sleep on the same sheets and reuse towels, but actually does very little to save water and energy where it counts — on its grounds, with its appliances and lighting, in its kitchens and with its vehicle fleet.

Or a bank that’s suddenly “green” because you can conduct your finances online, or a grocery store that’s “green” because they’ll take back your plastic grocery bags, or …

Take a look at the Greenwashing Index

Two degrees of separation between hope and despair



A young people's summary of the United Nations Human Development Report 2007/2008

The young people of the world have produced a Youth Booklet that includes drawings, poems and human stories on climate change and development, entirely made by and for young people!

The booklet has been developed by Peace Child International jointly with HDRO, and launched on Youth Day 2008.

The booklet is available for download and as an online draft version where you can watch the publication come together on Peace Child International's website.

Two Degrees of Separation Between Hope and Despair [5,483 KB]
Deux degrés de séparation entre espoir et désespoir [6,392 KB]
Dos grados separan la esperanza de la desesperación [6,776 KB]

So I finally arrived at the 4th World Youth Congress which is taking place in Quebec City, Quebec Canada on August 10th in the early hours of the morning. I had started my journey at 10am from the small town in England where I was living and took the public transit bus to the Stansted airport where I then took a National Express bus to the Heathrow airport. The traffice was slow due to the time of day and it would be a general summary of the over all trip to Canada but once I arrived at Heathrow things went smoothly checking in all the camera equipment that I would be using to bring the congress to youth who are interested but could not attend though the World Youth Congress YouTube Channel. The flight across the Atlantic was long but it allowed me to catch up on some applications and scholarships that I was getting close on the deadline to but I was glad to have finally arried back in Canada. The trip trough Canadian customs was quick and painless and I was soon on my third bus from the Montreal airport to the downtown bus station where I would cathc my final bus to Quebec City. When I finally arrived to Quebec City it was 1am Eastern and I was looking forward to getting rid of my luggage and getting to sleep in a bed but that was not to be the case. With things not being to organized I had arrived to Laval University with no where to check into a room, while I knew the othe Peace Child International staff who had flown two days prior were somewhere on campus without any contact information it would have to be a combination of sleeping on a chair and some times leaning on a table to get some sleep until 7am when I was hoping to finally made the end of my journey finished by checking into a room. I did get to see a former Peace Child intern, Annas who I had breakfast with him and his wife Claire which was a not to bad way to wrap up a very long journey to the congress. With all of my recent work on an UNDP Youth Climate Change Project will the emissions from my travel be worth me attending the congress? I will find out in the upcoming days.

Here is a very amazing story of someone who is making huge waves for African women with HIV-AIDS. Kristin Roe who has swam from my little province of Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick and then straight back again.

Read the whole story below.

Marathon swimmer touches shore in P.E.I. after finishing gruelling double-crossing

Jul 26, 2008

BORDEN-CARLETON, P.E.I. — After just under 15 hours of swimming in 19-degree water, a Nova Scotia woman completed a marathon swim Saturday that took her from Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick and back, all in less than a day.

Kristin Roe, 27, touched shore in P.E.I. Saturday evening after finishing a gruelling 30-kilometre double-crossing of the Northumberland Strait, the body of water between P.E.I. on the Maritime mainland.

"I'm really glad I finished, I'm really glad I'm on land," said Roe after her swim. "It was a long-haul."

Roe left P.E.I. just after 4 a.m. and was ahead of schedule before she was confronted with strong tides just off the coast of New Brunswick. She had to power through the tides in order to make it to shore around noon.

"I was feeling frustration throughout most of it," said Roe. "It wasn't really a great weather day, and I didn't swim as fast as I had hoped...I was swimming against the wind at the end of the first crossing."

Roe waded on shore in New Brunswick to eat and get a medical check-up before diving back in the water.

"The second crossing was better, but still really hard," she said. "I was so tired from the first, and I just did the best I could."

Following her throughout the entire swim was a boat carrying her family, best friend, a paramedic and the boat captain.

Roe has three brothers who joined her from time to time in the water.

Her older brother, Christopher, brought along a surf board and paddled next to Roe to motivate her and keep her company.

"I was feeling pretty frustrated at the end of the first crossing, and I almost couldn't look at him because I started to cry when I saw him paddling next to me," said Roe. "I thought it was pretty amazing."

Roe, who now lives in Halifax, did the marathon to raise money for two Canadian aid organizations with a focus on Africa and helping women with HIV-AIDS.

The Hamilton, Ont., native estimates she's raised close to $30,000 toward her goal of $100,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Farmers Helping Farmers, an organization that assists women farmers in Kenya.

It's a cause that's close to Roe's heart. In 2006, she spent six months living in South Africa and while there she became the first Canadian to swim from Cape Town, South Africa to Robben Island, in a fundraiser for women living with HIV-AIDS.

"I think it's created a lot of awareness in the country, and I think it's benefiting women in Africa," said Roe of her swim. "These are very much grassroots projects for women affected by AIDS and women involved in the agriculture sector who are also affected by HIV-AIDS."

Learn more here.

I had just been trying to work out my travel plans for after the World Youth Congress to return back to Prince Edward Island and thought that I would share a great way to travel across the ever so large country of Canada and how to forget about flying since trains are the more sustainable way to travel. Currently if you become a member with the Sierra Youth Coalition or renew your membership you are able to use your membership card to receive a 40% discount on Via Rail ticket purchases. The process is very easy just visit the Sierra Youth Coalition website and click on the Become A Member tab.

After you make your $20 donation you will be able to use an emailed status of membership until your official Sierra Youth Coalition membership card arrives. All you then need to do is mention the discount code (11261) when booking your train ticket with VIA Rail and have proof of membership and your ID when you pick up your ticket.

Now you can still enjoy travel and exploring with having a smaller impact on the planet.

The following is an article from CBC News, this greatly saddens me to read this story and puts even more anger in me to know that as a Canadian tax payer that the citizens of Canada are funding this so called "expansion of democracy".

If this our country exporting democracy I wonder what the reaction of Canadian citizens would be if an outside country send an army to Canada to protect us and the same event would happen.

The death of children's lives no matter where they live is still not justified by any countries government.

Canadian troops kill 2 children after car nears convoy
Monday, July 28, 2008 |
CBC News

A two-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister have died after Canadian troops opened fire on a car they feared was about to attack their convoy in Afghanistan, the Canadian Forces said Monday.

A gunner in a light-armoured vehicle pulled the trigger on a 25-millimetre cannon after the driver of a car ignored repeated signals to keep a safe distance, officials said.

The incident happened around sunset Sunday when the car approached within 10 metres of the convoy, a Canadian military statement said.

Witnesses reported the little girl was struck in the head and her younger brother in the chest.

The children's grief-stricken mother was seen pacing the hallway at the local hospital, sobbing and shrieking that her children had been killed by foreigners for no reason. The father was treated for lacerations.

"We deeply regret this incident, and our thoughts are with the families and friends of the deceased during this difficult time," the Canadian military said in a statement.

"Our soldiers are trained to take all appropriate steps to minimize civilian casualties. However, they must take action to protect themselves when they believe they are being threatened."

The statement said the fourth and fifth occupants of the vehicle were not injured.

Afghan police and coalition forces will be investigating Sunday's incident.

Coalition forces run frequent advertising campaigns to warn locals to keep a safe distance from convoys and many locals are scared of getting close to military vehicles.

NATO commanders say they take all reasonable precautions and that militants, who regularly use civilian cars loaded with explosives in suicide missions, are to blame for endangering innocents.

Human Rights Watch estimates at least 300 Afghan civilians were mistakenly killed by coalition forces in 2007, with thousands dead since the mission's start six years ago.

Afghan and United Nations officials have urged international troops to take extra precautions to prevent civilian casualties.

(With files from the Associated Press )