Unpacking from Rural Ontario

Living in a Cobourg, a small rural community east of Toronto, over the past year I have found out that the occurrence of development events is much less frequent then when I was living in the city. Looking into what is going on in Northumberland County and the Kawartha’s, I came across ReFrame the Peterborough International Film Festival. The festival which is in it’s fifth year, runs from January 23rd to the 25th in Peterborough, Ontario just an hour and a half drive east of Toronto. The Festival, formerly known as the Travelling World Community Film Festival shows “independently made films [that] don’t just cover international issues; they re-frame them. They tell stories that often get little or no media coverage but need to be seen and heard by all members of our community. They provoke thought and offer insight”.

The films highlight countries from all around the world and showcase a diverse range of humanitarian issues from child labour, war, mining and rape to stories of hope and accomplishment. My top choices (with descriptions from the ReFrame website) to see were:

 The Dancing Forest/ La forêt danse

Released:  2008 UK
Film Length: 76 minutes
Directors: Brice Lainé

It seems rare these days to hear good news from Africa, but this documentary about a grassroots community project celebrates one bright beacon of hope. Until recently the village of Baga in northern Togo was anything but that. Plagued with infertile soil, the declining peasant population was barely scratching out a living. CIDAP–the Centre International pour le Development Agro-Pastoral–was created by Seda, a local man schooled in new agricultural techniques. Initially reaching out to widows and divorced women–the most deprived in Nawdba society–he showed them how to increase crop yields, an education that has empowered subsequent generations of “Bakote” women, and which has proved so successful that more than a thousand locals come every year to learn more.This lyrical, beautifully photographed film mirrors CIDAP’s philosophy by listening first and last to the women and men who have participated in the program. It takes its name from a Nawdba harvest ritual that recognizes the forest as the home of their ancestors, a place of life to be preserved and respected.

Today the Hawk takes the Chick

Released:  2008 USA
Film Length: 72 minutes
Directors: Jane Gillooly

In the Lubombo region of Swaziland, where forty percent of the population is HIV positive and life expectancy has dropped to thirty-two years, elderly women called “gogos” (grandmothers) care for groups of young children on homesteads, most of them orphans, all of them poor. Recent migrations and deadly epidemics have broken down traditional family and social structures. One entire generation is missing. The gogos provide a social welfare system that works, though barely. Some people don’t eat every day, many are sick. This profoundly sad story, unfolding slowly and steadily through the sensitive direction of Jane Gillooly, forces us to ask: what will happen in the near future when the gogo is gone?

Road to Baleya

Released:  2008 Canada/Mali
Film Length: 50 minutes
Directors: Bay Weyman

This one-hour documentary by award-winning filmmaker Bay Weyman follows a group of Canadian musicians who journey to Mali, West Africa, to record local musicians. Equipped with a portable sound recording facility to make quality recordings available to the African musicians, they embark on a remarkable journey that takes them from the dusty streets of Bamako, the capital, to the remote villages of the rugged south-west hill country. In the process, the documentary examines issues of basic education, private sector development, communication and music as a catalyst for human rights, democracy and good governance.

So if you’re looking to take a trip outside of Toronto this month check out the Peterborough ReFrame festival, I know I will.

Top Posts of 2008

A recap seems to be the thing to do in the blogosphere, although I’m a few days too late.  I got my inspiration here: Blood and Milk and Global Health Report.  So, here are the top five most popular posts on my blog in its first year - its a surprising mix!

1. Ethiopian Nativity of Mary: Reporting back from a visit to one of Toronto’s Ethiopian Orthodox Churches after a big celebration.
2. Toronto Events This Week - Lead up to World Aids Day: It seems like Torontonians really wanted to get involved with WAD this year and lots of them came here for more info.
3. Photography for Development: Reporting back from two photography events in Toronto that focused on images for awareness and fundraising.
4. Where is the Global Health Movement?: In the second half of 2008, my posts became increasingly focused on global health and AIDS in particular.  A reflection.
5. On the Road to Modernity: Questioning charity and modernization as elements of development.

More popular than all these posts, however, has been the Toronto Development Events Page.

vacation

Stop back in January!

Where is the Global Health Movement?

I’ve been thinking about The Global Health Movement this week, after a chat on the topic with the team over at Change.org.  Is there such a thing, and where does it “live” online?

Thirty years ago, at the International Conference on Primary Health Care, a movement was born.  With principals outlined in the Alma Ata Declaration , the movement focused on achieving the goal of “health for all,” explicitly linking health with wealth and human rights.

Well, health for all certainly hasn’t materialized.  Most likely, steeper income gradients and other factors have led to quite the opposite.  If the goals haven’t been realized, where does that leave the movement itself?

As someone who has worked in global health and studied it, it seems to me that global health is a worldview above anything else.  It is an understanding that health is intrinsically linked with a host of other processes at play in the world: economic systems, human rights, politics, the environment…

Today, the global health movement that helped fuel the Alma Ata Declaration has been divided and subdivided into silos of different issues: the AIDS community, microbiologists, development workers, maternal health, children’s health, and others.  Each is a movement with the same essential goals of changing the structures that cause poor health and replacing them with structures that promote good health.  Or put differently, addressing the barriers and facilitators to health in a very broad sense.

For me, this post starts a new hunt for the online community that transcends the issue-based fragments of global health and brings them back together into one movement.

Toronto Events This Week: Lead Up to World AIDS Day

There is lots going on in Toronto this week, from a Fair Trade Holiday Shopping Festival to a Schools Without Borders music event to a Cafe Scientifique night on Gender Inequities in Health.  As well, in the lead up to World AIDS Day on December 1, there are a lot of AIDS-related events for you to check out (see Unpacking Development’s Toronto Events Calender for the details):

On Tuesday, November 25, speaker Jonathan Berger from the AIDS Law Project will give a talk on the South African Treatment Action Campaign’s legal challenge against the pharmaceutical industry’s drug pricing for antiretrovirals.  

On Wednesday, November 26, those with a bit of money to burn and a taste for glamour can head to the annual CANFAR fundraising gala, The Party, held at the ROM and raising money for AIDS research.

On Thursday, November 27, there will be a session on the impact of criminal law on people living with HIV/AIDS, which should be an lively discussion on the issue.  Oh, and there will be refreshments. 

On Friday, November 28, Stephen Lewis and Dr. Denis Mukwege will discuss sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Monday, December 1 (World AIDS Day) come and check out an event I’m helping to organize with CAPAIDS, a wine-and-cheese party, featuring art and music from a number of local performers.

As well, the Centre for International Health at the University of Toronto always has several events going on throughout the day, including an evening  of speeches, music and dance at Hart House Debates Room.

Recent Health and Technology Links

Here are some really interesting recent links on how people are tracking and tackling health issues through computer and cell-phone based technologies.  Some of them are better ideas than in practice, but I appreciate the potential!

Project Masiluleke

“Project Masiluleke is a path-breaking effort that harnesses the power of mobile technology to address one of the world’s gravest public health crises. This ambitious initiative will leverage the ubiquity of mobile devices in South Africa to help fight the country’s crippling HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics.” (Also featured in a BBC article here).

Morbus on Twitter

“I am a bot who listens to your health status reports. Think of TwitterVision and of WhoIsSick?, and imagine me as a vehicle for early detection of pandemics.” (Very cool idea, but doesn’t seem to have followed through).

Twittering and Microblogging for Public Health (slideshow)

“Twitter is a microblogging tool that is increasingly being used in area relevant to public health. Some of these include disaster management and response, health behavior change, and health information outreach. In addition, it is also being used by professionals and organizations for routine communications. This presentation will provide an overview and introduction to Twitter and its real and potential roles in public health.”

The Lancet: Mobile phones: exceptional tools for HIV/AIDS, Health, and Crisis Management

“Perhaps one of the most promising emerging health systems tools, which can build capacity around the HIV/AIDS response and filter into the global health response, lies increasingly in the palms of our hands.  Mobile telephones are reaching people in Africa’s cities, towns, villages, and countrysides more rapidly than anywhere else in the world.  The overlap with the global health-care crisis does not go unnoticed…”

Google Flu Trends

“We’ve found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.” Read more »

Who Is Sick?

“Who Is Sick was started in 2006 with a mission to provide current and local sickness information to the public - without the hassle of dealing with hospitals or doctors. With a strong belief in the power of people and a faith that user generated content can be extremely valuable, our team set out to create an entirely new system for tracking and monitoring sickness in your area and obtain sickness information.” (Again, cool idea but a bit limited).

Link between Beer and AIDS? More from the OHTN Conference, Day 2

On Friday at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network Conference, I saw this great movie filmed at the 2006 AIDS Conference in Toronto, about two little girls interviewing several participants about HIV and AIDS.  In Please Talk to Your Kids About AIDS, Vineeta (6) and Sevilla (4) interact with Stephen Lewis, a drag queen dressed as Queen Elizabeth, and a sex-toy sales woman, among others, asking questions such as “How does AIDS get into your body?” and drawing pictures of safe sex.  It’s available to download for free here if you’re interested in checking it out.

In an afternoon session, a student research team from Guelph made connections between AIDS and beer.  Specifically, they have been doing research with a group of women in Cambodia who work as “beer girls,” selling bottles of big-brand beer in Siem Reap’s beer tents.   According to one of their websites, BeerGirls.org,

“Beer promotion women (called locally, beer girls) exclusively sell one brand of beer in bars and restaurants. It is usual for them to have to sell one case of beer per night in return for a monthly salary averaging approx $US55 - about half the income needed to support their family. To supplement their income, about half accept propositions from tourists and local beer drinkers and exchange sex for money.”

This link between beer sales, transactional sex and HIV/AIDS is highlighted by the fact that 20percent of these women are seropositive for the virus.  If it makes you want to do something about it, at FairTradeBeer.com, they list the companies that are involved in these unfair relationships, including big names like Carlsberg, Heineken, INBEV (Becks, Labatts Ice, Stella Artois), Bavaria, Budweiser, Corona, Guinness, Johnny Walker and Jim Bean.

All T-Cells Are Not Created Equal: Day 1, Ontario HIV Treatment Network Conference

Today I was at the first day of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network’s 2008 Research Conference.  The organization is a big funder of AIDS research in Ontario and it was great to check out what people are doing to learn about the pandemic in my ‘hood.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how broad the approach is to the topic of HIV/AIDS.  I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but when oncologists get together, do they talk about arts-based models in cancer research while simultaneously talking about the cellular processes taking place inside healthy bodies and cancer patients?  One of the phrases that keeps getting repeated at this conference is “The AIDS Community”.  It’s not a misnomer…there is certainly an AIDS community, an amalgamation of researchers, activists, policy makers, and most importantly, people living with the virus.  But, is it a good or bad thing that there is such a thing?  What does it say about the disease in question?

Anyway, I attended a couple of great sessions.  Right after the excellent (but a little bit beyond me) keynote address by Kelly MacDonald, who spoke on the need to challenge assumptions within biomedical research to reach our goals of vaccines and cures, was an equally excellent (and more accessable) movie about health/wealth gradients.  I would highly recommend checking it out.

Toronto International Development Events Calender

So, after ages of not being able to figure out how to get an events calender up and running, I’ve finally figured it out!  You might notice the new tab called Toronto Events up above, where the calender is now hosted.

Mel and I update the calender each week with events happening around Toronto that relate to international development, including conferences, speakers, movie screenings, galas, fundraisers.  The events work to get Torontonians more involved with global issues, including global health, human rights, charity, community development, poverty, and microeconomic development, to name a few.

We’ll try to check out as many as we can get to and post about them here, and we encourage you go get out and get involved as well.  If you’re holding an event that fits, send us a message and we’ll post it here.

Let us know about what you think about the events that you attend: who came, what happened, what was their impact?

In theatres this Friday…TRIAGE: DR. JAMES ORBINSKI’S HUMANITARIAN DILEMMA

On the topic of international health rockstars (see previous post on Paul Farmer), I’m very excited to finally be heading to see Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma this Saturday.  I missed it at Hot Docs, and some other pre-screenings, but now that it’s coming to theatres I’m all set to go.  Some friends and I will head to the AMC on Saturday night (either the 6:45 or 9:15 show) if you’re interested in joining.

I think that the movie will echo some of the ideas that Orbinski wrote about in his recent book, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century, that I reviewed here.

Triage is in the AMC Theatre at Yonge and Dundas starting November 7.

Showtimes:
FRI: 2:05, 4:25, 6:45 & 9:15PM
SAT/SUN: 11:25AM, 2:05, 4:25, 6:45 & 9:15PM
MON-THURS: 2:05, 4:25, 6:45 & 9:15PM

From the press release: Dr. James Orbinski accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and was a field doctor during the Somali famine and the Rwandan genocide, among other catastrophes.  Having seen the best and worst of humanitarian assistance and of humanity itself, Orbinski embarks onhis most difficult mission to date — writinga deeply personal and controversial book that struggles to make sense of it all.